Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial. Meg Maxwell

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