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“Anna, I don’t know,” Onkel Eli said, rubbing his beard. “We don’t know this Englisher.”
She was taking this job whether overprotective Eli liked it or not. But she could see genuine concern in the man’s eyes. “Onkel, Colt Asher is an FBI agent in Houston. I will be safe with him.”
Colt took his badge from his pocket and showed the Millers, then put it away.
“I think Anna should take the job,” her aenti said. “This is her opportunity to have her rumspringa. To experience life in the English world. Either she will return to us and commit to the Ordnung and be baptized in the faith. Or she will not.”
Her onkel frowned again, but nodded. He extended a hand toward Colt, and Colt shook it.
“The job starts immediately,” Colt said. “Or at least I hope it can. I barely survived fifteen minutes on my own. I think I could handle one baby okay. But two? Nope.”
“Nope,” Sadie repeated with a grin.
One quickly raised eyebrow from her mother let Sadie know that nope was not to be added to her vocabulary.
“It’s very nice of you to take on the bopplis for your sister,” Kate said.
Colt tilted his head, and Sadie said, “Boppli is Amish for baby.”
“Boppli,” Colt repeated, smiling at Sadie. He looked at Eli and Kate. “Well, I may not be much of a boppli-sitter, but I’d do anything for my sister.”
Anna glanced at her aenti and could tell the woman liked that response. Both Millers seemed more comfortable by the second with the idea of Anna riding off in a car with a stranger to take a weeklong job.
Except the strain on her aunt’s face told Anna that Kate knew her niece might not return. That was the very purpose of this rumspringa. To finally know where she belonged. Here? Where she’d been born and raised and lived and worked? Or in the English world, a place and culture she’d only truly experienced in books and magazines?
“Let’s help Anna pack quickly,” Kate said to Sadie. “We should get her ready to go before the little ones awaken.”
Sadie put her hand in Anna’s, and the three headed into the house.
What Colt Asher and her onkel were talking about outside, Anna could only guess. Furniture. The village. Anna’s farm. She would have to make arrangements for the three calves to be moved to their owners; they were ready to be returned anyway.
Anna led the way upstairs to her bedroom. She pulled her suitcase from the closet and set it on her bed, flipping open the top. For a moment Anna just stared at it, the empty suitcase lying open, her entire life about to change.
“Are you sure, Anna?” Kate asked.
Anna nodded. “I’m sure.” She looked in her closet. She had many dresses, several inherited from her mamm. Her father’s two overalls. She had no idea what to pack. Three dresses would do for the week. She moved to her bureau for her undergarments and head coverings and pajama gowns. Would she wear these things while in the English world, though? She had no other clothes.
The suitcase packed in less than a minute, Anna turned to Kate. “Thank for always supporting me, Kate.” She hugged her. “You’ve been wonderful to me.”
Kate hugged her back tightly. “I want you to be happy.” Then she whispered, “I want you to know where you belong.”
Me, too, Anna thought.
“I’ll send you postcards, Sadie,” Anna told her cousin, kneeling down in front of her.
“Oh gut! Danki,” Sadie said. “I’ll miss you so much, Cousin Anna.” The little girl wrapped her arms around her. “You’re so brave.”
For a brave woman, she sure was shaking inside. But she’d never been so excited in her life.
* * *
Anna barely knew Colt Asher, but she was pretty sure she detected relief on his handsome face as she got inside his car. He closed the passenger door, then rounded the vehicle. In the rearview mirror, she saw three sets of worried eyes looking at the car. She’d said her goodbyes and it wasn’t like the Amish to stand around.
Were the Millers nervous that Anna was leaving? Or that she might not return? Both, most likely. And concerned for little Sadie, who adored her “different” cousin. No matter what happened at the end of the rumspringa, Anna would need to take care with the girl.
Colt opened his door and got inside, and once again she could feel him taking her in the way law enforcement officers did. The pale shapeless blue dress with long sleeves and a hem to almost her ankles, the white bonnet, her flat brown boots with laces. She could almost see the notes in his head. No jewelry. No makeup. Looking straight ahead, ready to go. And she was ready.
“Not your first time in a car,” he remarked, noting that she’d buckled her seat belt. “I hope that’s not a ridiculous comment. I have to admit I don’t know all that much about the Amish and your practices.”
“I’ve been in a car before. Only a few times. When my daed had his accident, my mamm used the community telephone to call 911 for an ambulance. We rode with him to the hospital in Houston. I did the same when Mamm fell ill. I took taxis back and forth to visit. At first she fought the cancer with chemotherapy, but after a while, there was no hope and she came home.” All of it seemed so long ago now.
He started up the long dirt drive to the service road. “I’m sorry. I lost my parents when I was twenty-two. My sister was twenty and in college. For a while it was just the two of us, but then she married and had the little scamps asleep in the back seat. So our family has grown again.”
She smiled. “And it’s grown even more since you discovered you have a twin brother you never knew existed until just a few months ago. Looks like I’ll be getting to know him, too.”
“Jake Morrow. He’s a rancher in Blue Gulch. He married a woman—the cook at the Full Circle—who recently had a baby, so he’s become a father.”
“All the boppli give the two of you a nice common ground,” Anna said. “Even if you’re as different as night and day, you’re both giving kinder bottles.”
He nodded. “That’s true. I hadn’t even thought of that. We’ll be on the same wavelength right now, for sure.”
Would she be on their wavelength?—that was the question. She hoped so. So far, she and the Englisher talked very easily. “Was your boss relieved to have Sparkles back?”
He laughed. “He was so grateful he added another week to my vacation.” But Colt wasn’t sure he wanted to be away from the field for too long. Work was his life.
“What my aunt said was true—it’s very gut of you to spend your vacation caring for your nephews.”
“Well, to be honest I was steamrollered into it. But I really would do anything for my sister. And I don’t think I could last more than a few days on a beach, diving into waves or sightseeing around a city. The twins will keep me occupied. I need to work and be busy.”
“Very Amish,” she said with a smile.
He turned to grin at her, and his smile lit up his entire face. “We should get along fine, then.”
He was so good-looking, so close, so...hot, as the magazines put it, that she had to turn away to collect herself. As they passed through Grass Creek, Anna glanced out the window, noting how the women were dressed. All differently, but in modern clothes. English clothes. Jeans. Skirts. Pants. Brightly colored sweaters. She glanced down at her shapeless blue dress. “I guess when we arrive, everyone will immediately know I’m Amish.”
He glanced at her. “You are Amish.”
“Yes, but I just realized I’d like to start off this rumspringa as the person I feel like inside. And this dress and these boots and the head covering...they’re all familiar and comforting in a way, I suppose, but they don’t make me feel like...” She trailed off and looked down.
“Like?” he prompted.
“Like myself. I’m not entirely sure who that is, though. I have no idea what ‘my style’ would be.”
“Ah. I understand. Well, how about this—my sister stays over my place sometimes and has a bunch of stuff at my condo. You’re welcome to borrow some clothes and whatever else you want.”
Once assured that his sister wouldn’t mind, Anna accepted the offer. Which meant going to Colt’s condo. She’d been in an elevator before, at the hospital. But she’d never gone thirty-two flights up in the sky. She smiled, happy goose bumps popping up on her arms. Everything about working for this man for the next week would be new and incredibly exciting.
As Colt drove past the exit for Grass Creek, Anna’s heartbeat felt like it was going faster than his car. She couldn’t wait to see where he lived, the tall buildings and crowds and the city lit up at night.
“This is it, up ahead,” he said, and she stared up at the huge glass building. He pulled into a garage attached and drove up and around several floors, then parked in a reserved spot. He opened her door and she got out, surrounded by parked cars. Not a buggy in sight.
Colt got the stroller from the trunk and pulled it around to the back passenger-side door, rousing a groggy baby into the stroller. He was gentle, soothing, and said, “Hey, little buddy, we’re at my place,” then settled the boppli—Anna wasn’t sure who was who just yet—into the stroller. The baby was fully awake now, the strange surroundings holding his attention. Colt wheeled the stroller to the other side and repeated his actions with his twin, who started to cry.
Anna got out of the car. “I’ll take him,” she said, scooping up the little one from the car seat. She held him against her chest, gently rocking him, and he quieted.
“A pro. Exactly what I need.”
She smiled. “You’re pretty good yourself, Colt.”
“The novelty hasn’t worn off,” he said.
Novelty? She supposed that as a single man, an FBI agent living in a big city, he wasn’t exactly surrounded by babies. But taking care of others, seeing to their needs, whether a baby or an adult, wasn’t something that wore off. She wanted to ask him what he meant, but now the other baby was fussing.
“Noah may be a little jealous,” Colt said, glancing at the baby in her arms.
Anna smiled. “I’ll bet you’re right. And so you must be Nathaniel,” she said to the little one she carried. “Let’s put you in the stroller next to your twin.”
Noah still fussed, so Anna picked him up and rocked him in her arms, letting him stretch a bit. He calmed down, but the moment she tried to put him back in the stroller, he let out a wail. “Okay, little one. My arms, it is.”
Colt pushed the stroller with a satisfied Nathaniel, who was biting on his little chew toy.
A couple emerged from an elevator with a little boy, and as the boy ran full speed ahead right toward them, the mother called out, “Don’t crash into the nice family!”
Anna froze and she could feel Colt do the same beside her. She recovered first, smiling at the boy who darted past. The couple apologized for their speed demon and moved on.
Colt continued pushing the stroller toward the elevator bank, his entire demeanor...changed. Now he seemed tense. Unsettled. Because of the woman’s comment? Because she’d mistaken them for a family? Even in her Amish clothing, her white bonnet, Anna had seemed believable to the woman as the wife of this gorgeous Englisher in his black leather jacket.
Though, with a baby in her arms, and Colt pushing another in the double stroller, they did look like a family. Despite Colt’s discomfort, Anna felt a secret thrill at the notion that they were a family. This ridiculously sexy Englisher, her husband. She smiled, the idea so exciting and preposterous that she laughed.
“What did I miss?” he asked, eyeing her as they reached the elevators.
“That woman took us for a family. Can you imagine, an Amish woman, albeit on rumspringa, as wife of an FBI agent in Houston?” She couldn’t even wonder what that life would be like. When she was little she’d asked her mother if English wives did the same things as Amish wives—the cooking and cleaning and raising of kinder, and if they had glamorous jobs or not so glamorous jobs, how they managed everything. Her mother had told her that in the English world, it took a community to help out just the same as in their world. No one could do it all alone.
“This FBI agent can’t imagine having any wife,” Colt said, pushing the button for the elevator.
Her smile faded and she stared at him. He looked dead serious. “You don’t plan to marry?”
He shook his head. “I’m fine on my own. I live for my work. In January, I’ll be heading up a task force to take down an organized crime ring that’s been building in Houston. Getting those thugs off the street and behind bars—that’ll take everything I’ve got. If I had a wife or children, my attention would be split.”
She gaped at him. “Split? But your heart would belong to your family completely.” Wouldn’t it? Jobs were important, of course. Money was necessary to live. But family was the most important thing in this life. Family came first.
The silver elevator doors opened and Colt pushed the stroller inside. Anna stepped next to him, Noah playing with the string of her bonnet.
“I would hope so,” he said, running a finger across Noah’s big cheek. “But since my heart belongs to my job, I’m sticking with that.”
Unsettled, Anna shifted Noah in her arms and pressed her own cheek to his head. She wanted her own family so badly. “Not badly enough that you’ll say yes to a gut man who loves you,” her aenti Kate had said more than once. “Not badly enough that you’ll commit to being Amish and spending your life as a wife and mother in our village.”
She’d even said no to her best friend, Caleb. Handsome. Kind. Loyal. They’d grown up together, but even when she was a girl she didn’t dream of marrying Caleb Yoder. She dreamed of what was up the road beyond her sights. She dreamed of hiding in Grass Creek so that the buggies would leave without her. And last year, when Caleb had said he’d waited long enough and had given her an ultimatum, agree to be his wife or he would ask someone else, Anna’s heart had broken in two as she’d sobbed that she was sorry but she couldn’t marry him.
“If you can’t marry Caleb, your best friend, who can you marry?” her onkel Eli had asked as he’d dropped off a crib for her to paint. “Who will ever be the right man if not him?”
Those words had gotten inside her and scared her like nothing had. She couldn’t say yes to anyone until she knew what life was like outside their village. If she was meant to be Amish. If she was meant to be English. If she was meant to be an Englisher’s wife, as she believed deep in her heart.
Maybe not this dashing, 007-type Englisher, who hunted mobsters and vacationed in Macchu Pichu.
Definitely not this Englisher. Who wasn’t looking for a wife anyway.
Maybe she would meet her soul mate while in Blue Gulch, and she would know, instantly, that he was the one, that she was meant to be in the English world.
But how could she feel more attraction for any man than she felt for Colt Asher without spontaneously combusting? When she looked at Colt, she felt what she never had when she’d looked at Caleb, who was very good-looking. Who’d sat with her to look up at the stars. Who’d brought her wildflowers. But who didn’t really wonder what was beyond their village. He was an Amish man with a wonderful sense of humor and a sparkle in his dark eyes, but he was content. Anna had never been. For the past year, when she ran into Caleb, he would be polite, but unusually reserved, and make an excuse to walk the other way. He was seriously dating someone now, but still hadn’t proposed to her, a fact that made her feel guilty. She wouldn’t flatter herself to think he was waiting for her. But part of her did wonder if he was waiting to see what happened, if she would leave and return disappointed, the way her mother had when she’d taken her own rumspringa at age sixteen.
Would Anna want to go home at the end of her time away? She really had no idea. How many times had her aenti and onkel told her she was romanticizing the English world and that a week out there would show her how wonderful and simple life was at home?
You’ll know soon enough, she told herself as the elevator doors opened. But so far, every moment of this rumspringa felt like Christmas morning.
And in moments she would be inside Colt Asher’s home. A whole new world.
Chapter Four
The elevator opened and they emerged into a vestibule. Colt opened a door leading into a pale gray hallway with lovely artwork on the walls. They passed seven doors on both sides, and finally at the end of the hall, Colt stopped to open number 32-8.
Inside his condo, Anna didn’t know where to look first—the view of the city out the wall of windows, or the large living room with the stone fireplace, the dark brown leather couches and gorgeous rug and artifacts on the tables and paintings on the walls. On the side of the couch was a big playpen with a few toys inside. Above a couch was a gorgeous framed painting of a world map.
“The guest room is in there,” Colt said, pointing to an open door. “In the closet and dresser, you’ll find my sister’s things. Help yourself.”
“Okay on your own with the twins?” she asked.
“I can handle ten minutes,” he said, taking off his leather jacket. “Maybe fifteen.”
She laughed, but then realized he was serious. Hmm, perhaps I’ll spend this week showing your uncle how to care for kinder so that he’ll be able to handle a half hour. Or even a whole day. What do you say? she silently asked adorable Noah as she set him down in the playpen. Colt put his brother beside him, and the two began shaking their brightly colored little toys.
Without his jacket, she could once again see the muscles at work beneath Colt’s shirt, how the shirt disappeared into the waistband of his dark gray pants. There were fit Amish men, their muscles honed by construction work, but Anna had never seen anyone as sexy as Colt Asher.
He was staring at her—and she realized it was because she was staring at him. Eek, she thought, dragging her gaze away from his amazing body.
“Well, I’ll be quick then,” she said and disappeared into the room he’d indicated. She was grateful to have a moment alone, to collect herself. She was acting like the love-starved, romance-starved and, yes, let’s just put it out there, sex-starved woman she was. Oh, God, did Colt Asher know she was a virgin? He must know. But then again, he’d said he didn’t know much about Amish culture.
Sex before marriage was against their faith. Once, she and Caleb had come very close, and to be honest, she very likely would have had sex with him but he’d called a halt to things. “If I’m not the one for you, Anna, then don’t give yourself to me. I don’t want to cause you trouble down the road.”
She’d cried at that. That was how much he’d cared about her. But the supposed trouble down the road would only matter in the Amish world, if she chose to marry an Amish man. She didn’t tell Caleb that English men didn’t expect their wives to be virgins. At least they didn’t in the books she’d read. Women had boyfriends and lovers and varying levels of experience. Apparently, it all depended on the woman and how she felt about such matters. An English woman could have a different lover every day or a serious boyfriend or wait until marriage. Anna liked that. She would do what felt right to her. That was all she could go on.
She took a look around the guest room, which was nicely decorated. A bed with a blue-and-white quilt with stars embroidered. A bureau with a mirror, which she also recognized from her village’s marketplace in Grass Creek. She opened a drawer. T-shirts and sweaters.
She pulled out a soft cropped-to-the-waist V-necked red sweater and held it up against her in the mirror. There was a thin cotton camisole and she took that, too, then looked in the closet for pants. There was a black jersey wrap dress, a pair of black pants and two pairs of jeans. Luckily, neither was the “skinny” kind that she couldn’t imagine being able to breath in.
She took off her dress and put on the camisole, then the sweater, soft and fuzzy against her arms. She put on a pair of jeans, which did not fit like her daed’s overalls. They weren’t too tight but they certainly weren’t baggy. Or modest. She zipped up the zipper, something that was forbidden on Amish clothing, and snapped the snap.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror.
Her mouth dropped open.
She looked...like the women she saw in Grass Creek. She looked like an Englisher! The sweater and jeans showed off every curve she didn’t really know she had. The Amish didn’t have mirrors, which were viewed as promoting vanity, and so Anna only caught her reflection in shop windows in Grass Creek, or in mirrors in the stores she’d explore if there was time on market days. But she’d never seen herself in clothing like this. Clothing that made her feel...sexy.
She took her long hair out of the bun and let it fall.
There was a pair of heels and a pair of sneakers in the closet. Anna took off her boots and tried on both pairs. They fit! Anna kept on the comfortable navy blue sneakers, then once again stood before the mirror. As she stared at herself, a shadow crept where her joy had been.
“I don’t know this person,” she whispered to her reflection. She bit her lip and turned away. She started to take off the sweater and find something more...Amish. Even a big, button-down shirt would do, but then Anna looked in the mirror again. For the next week, you are this new person. And sometimes it’s not going to feel comfortable. Or familiar. That’s okay. That’s how you discover what does feel right. That’s how you discover who you really are.
And if after the week it doesn’t feel right? You put back on your high-necked dress that goes down to your ankles. You braid your hair and cover your head. And you go home.
She took a deep breath and stepped out, her suitcase now full of his sister’s belongings and her own Amish things. Colt was kneeling by the playpen, watching his nephews play. “I think that was just fifteen minutes.”
He turned toward her and stood up, staring, his mouth slightly open. “Anna. You’re...breathtaking.” He glanced down for a moment as though he hadn’t meant to say that.
She beamed, so happy, so excited that she didn’t even feel herself blush. “I feel like a completely different person.”
Dressed this way, she was a person who wanted to rush over to the man who’d just called her breathtaking and kiss him. She had no doubt that one kiss from Colt Asher would rock her entire world and make her knees truly weak, the way she’d read about in books.
He walked toward her and for a moment she wondered if he was going to reach for her and look deeply into her eyes and kiss her. Did that happen in real life? She was sure it did. Was he about to—
He pulled his phone from his pocket and held it up. “My sister also texted the schedule for the babies,” he said. “Just in case. So dinnertime is right now. Both boys are on solid foods—jarred baby food.”
So much for the hot kiss. The weak knees. Colt Asher was not looking to marry, but she was sure he had relationships. Sex. He would likely not lay a finger on her, though. If she wanted a hot English affair with the FBI agent, she would have to make the first move.
Not that she was ready for that. It was one thing to fantasize. It was another to do it. And she had no idea what she could handle emotionally. Could she have an affair with Colt Asher when it would lead to nothing? Perhaps that was the point of a weeklong, scorching-hot English affair. Wild sex. Then it was over.
Except then what? She wasn’t necessarily going home after. Or staying in the English world. She didn’t know where she belonged. Until then, she should take care with herself. And her heart. And her body.
It was good that the Englisher was talking about baby food and schedules.
“Do you have groceries?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“I thought maybe you were one of those bachelors who didn’t cook.”
“I have a limited range, but I can certainly open a jar of baby food. And make an omelet and a steak. And pasta. Is there anything else anyway?”