Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial. Meg Maxwell

and set up with foam pads and crawling areas and toys, when their parents were screaming distance away, was a piece of cake.

      But Cathy was asking him to babysit two seven-month-olds for an entire week.

      It was almost funny.

      “Pleeeease,” Cathy begged.

      “Please. God, please,” his brother-in-law added.

      Colt’s stomach twisted. He glanced at Noah on the left side of the stroller. The very cute tyke was chewing some kind of cloth-like book with pictures of monkeys. Nathaniel, equally adorable on the right, was picking up what looked like Cheerios from the tray table and examining them. He flung one and giggled.

      Cathy stepped in front of the stroller, blocking them and their criminal ways. “It’s just seven days, Colt. You’ll still have a solid week left of your vacation to recuperate.”

      Just seven days. Just seven days?

      “Merry Christmas?” his sister said, pleading with her eyes. He had a mental montage of all the times his sister had been there for him from the time they were little. She and her husband needed a break, he had the time and so that was that.

      “Merry Christmas,” Colt said on a sigh.

      The relief on his brother-in-law’s face almost made Colt smile. Chris dropped the suitcase and tote on the floor near the stroller and gave his shoulder a good rotation.

      “We left the car seats in the lobby with the doorman,” Cathy said. “And everything else you need is in there,” she added, pointing to the bags. “Plus their schedule and all the pertinent information. They’re fed, changed and ready for a nap, so at least your vacation will start sort of restfully.” She spent a good five minutes going over what to do in an emergency, which was also detailed in a list in the tote bag. Finally, she threw her arms around him. “I owe you,” she added, then she and Chris booked out before Colt could even say “bon voyage.”

      “Well, guys,” Colt said to the twins, one still chewing his book, one now alternating between eating his Cheerios and throwing them. “It’s just the three of us. For a week.”

      He could handle this. He was thirty-two years old. He was an FBI agent with ten years’ experience under his belt. He’d taken down ruthless criminals. He’d found a missing guinea pig in record time. He could take care of two cute babies, his own nephews, for a week.

      Noah, older by one and a half minutes, started fussing, his face crumbling into a combination of discomfort and rage. Uh-oh. He flung his little book and started wiggling his arms. Colt unbuckled his harness and took him out of the stroller, praying the tyke would smell like his usual baby shampoo and baby lotion, and not like a baby who needed to be changed.

      He hoisted Noah in his arms and the baby squeezed his chin. “Good grip, kid,” he said, trying to sound soothing, the way his brother-in-law always did. He bounced Noah a bit and the baby seemed to like that. He visited his nephews once a month or so, dropping by with little gifts, but never stayed very long. He really had no idea how to take care of a baby, let alone two, but he could follow directions.

      He carefully kneeled down with Noah in one arm to open the tote bag. He saw bottles and formula and diapers and ointment and pacifiers and teething toys and little stuffed animals. In the suitcase was clothing and blankets. He found the schedule, which was a mile long. Lots of baby lingo. This wasn’t going to be easy.

      He pulled out his phone and called his sister. “Cathy, I’ve got the schedule in my hand. Are you sure I can do this?”

      “Absolutely,” his sister said with conviction. “Don’t worry, Colt. If you’re confused, just remember that they’ll tell you what they need.”

      “Um, Cathy? They don’t talk.”

      “Yes, but they cry. And if they cry, they’re either hungry, need changing, are tired, want their lovies, want their pacifiers or want to be picked up. Or they want to crawl.”

      “And how do I know what cry means what?” Colt asked, eyeing the baby in his arms. Noah was now examining Colt’s ear, giving the lobe little tugs.

      “Trial and error. In a few hours, you’ll just know. Oooh, Colt, we’re at the ship! ’Bye now!”

      Noah’s fascination with his uncle’s ear stopped suddenly. He began fussing and wiggling. His face crumpled. Then the wailing started. Man, that was a loud sound from such a tiny child. A sniff in the direction of the baby’s padded bottom told Colt he didn’t need changing. His sister had said they were fed right before they’d left home. He tried bouncing him a little, but that made the little guy fuss harder. He was stretching out his little arms. Should he set him down to crawl? On the hardwood floor?

      Suddenly, an earsplitting shriek came from the stroller. Nathaniel was holding up his arms, his little face angry.

      Well, he couldn’t pick up Nathaniel with Noah in his arms. He put Noah back in the stroller and reclined the seat, then handed Noah a pacifier. The baby immediately settled down, his big blue eyes getting droopy. Success! Except that his brother’s cries were going to keep him from his nap. Colt quickly took Nathaniel out of the stroller, bounced him against his chest for a few minutes until the baby quieted, then settled him back in the stroller, reclined the seat, popped a pacifier in his mouth and his eyes began drifting shut, too. He remembered from a visit to his sister’s house that the boys liked falling asleep to their lullaby player, so he poked around the tote until he found it and hung it on the stroller, Brahms’s Lullaby playing softy.

      The knots were back in Colt’s shoulders. He’d handled this okay, but what about when they woke up and both needed changing. Feeding. Burping. And all that other baby stuff. How would he know what to do and when? He could hire a nanny, a baby nurse, to help out for the week. He sat down at his desk in front of his laptop and typed “nanny services” into the search engine and a bunch popped up. After calling several he learned that no one had anyone available on such short notice and especially so close to Christmas. One service had a trainee available with no experience, but that was Colt himself, so little good that would do.

      He was going to need help. Suddenly, the Amish woman’s pretty face popped into his mind again. Hadn’t she said she loved babies? Hadn’t she been helping to take care of infant triplets for the past two months? Add to that the way she’d been so kind to her little cousin when that could have turned out very differently for the girl. And the way Anna had listened to him talk about his life, as though it was the most exciting thing she’d ever heard, though it probably was.

      The way she dreamed of experiencing life outside her village. Perhaps being his nanny could be her...what had she called it? Rumspringa. She’d get to live as an “Englisher.” He’d get a homespun nanny.

      He grabbed his phone and then realized he didn’t have a telephone number for her, and he was pretty sure the Amish didn’t have telephones in their homes. Which meant a drive back to the Amish village.

      Now he just had to manage to get Noah and Nathaniel in their car seats without waking them up. The odds were not in his favor.

       Chapter Three

      Just over two hours after her conversation with Colt Asher, Anna still could not stop thinking about him—his handsome face, the thick, silky dark hair, his green eyes, the slight cleft in his chin and how tall and fit he was. She and her aenti, onkel and young cousin were in the barn, Kate and Sadie wrapping the painted furniture that Anna and Eli were loading into the pony wagon parked outside. Thinking of the FBI agent in his condo in the sky made the chore of lugging furniture much more enjoyable.

      As Anna and her onkel carried the bureau, a black SUV came down the long dirt drive into their village.

      Colt was back. Goose bumps rose on every bit of her body at the idea of seeing him again.

      But why was he here? Was there a problem with the guinea pig? Had he