Santa's Seven-Day Baby Tutorial. Meg Maxwell

taken in the girl’s red light-up sneakers with bright orange laces. Orange was frowned upon in their community. Too flashy. Forget about the light-up part. But would Sadie take a guinea pig to have something from the English world? Maybe.

      Anna glanced around. No one in the vicinity. No buggies heading into town or coming back. It was possible no one had seen the car drive in. That was good. Otherwise, there would be questions. Sadie and her family could get in terrible trouble with the bishop if Sadie had indeed taken something that did not belong to her.

      The handsome FBI agent was watching her. She could almost feel him taking her stats, measuring her composure. Suspects had to crack under that pressure.

      “Follow me, please,” she said and led the way into the barn, which was bigger than the house. Three calves, on the mend and ready to be returned to their owners, were chewing at hay, and glanced at her as she entered with the agent. She set her basket lunch on a table near the door.

      The barn was silent. But she had a feeling her cousin was here.

      “Sadie?” she called. “Are you here?”

      “Ja, I am here,” a small voice answered as the girl stepped from behind a pen at the back of the barn. But Sadie didn’t come forward and stood very straight.

      “Sadie, this is Colt Asher. He’s an FBI agent and—”

      Sadie burst into tears. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to take the furry little thing. Well, I did, because I did take him, but I didn’t mean to. He was all alone in the cage on the sidewalk. I thought someone abandoned him. I watched him for ten minutes and he kept twitching his nose at me as though he was trying to say ‘Take me home, Sadie.’ So I picked up his cage and put it into the buggy when no one was looking and brought him here.”

      “Here?” Anna repeated, moving closer, aware that the agent was staying back. “As in our village or here as in my barn?”

      Sadie bit her lip, then moved to the right and pushed aside a hay bale. A small metal cage with a black-and-white guinea pig was on the floor. The rodent, nibbling a lettuce leaf, looked at them and twitched his nose.

      Sadie looked down at her feet. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

      “Sadie,” Anna said, “even if you thought he was abandoned on the sidewalk, you should have asked permission to take him—from the pet-shop owners, from your parents.”

      Sadie hung her head. “I know, cousin. I’m sorry. I’ll wait with the FBI agent so you can get my mamm and daed and tell them what I did.”

      Anna kneeled down in front of her niece and took her hands. “Sadie Miller, I will do no such thing. But I want you to promise that you will never, ever take something that does not belong to you. I am trusting you. And holding you to your word.”

      Sadie looked up at Anna and then threw her arms around her. “I promise, cousin. I promise with all my heart.” She turned to Colt Asher. “Will you take me to jail now?”

      Colt approached Sadie and also kneeled down in front of her. “Nope.”

      Sadie tilted her head. “What is nope?”

      “It’s a nice English way of saying no,” Anna explained.

      “Oh,” Sadie said. “Nope,” she repeated, trying out the word. “Nope. Nope, I won’t ever take anything that doesn’t belong to me.”

      The agent smiled. “You promised and that’s good enough for me. But I do have to bring Sparkles back to his rightful owner. He’s a little girl’s Christmas present.”

      “Sparkles?” Sadie wiped her tears away and smiled. “That’s a good name.”

      “So is Sadie,” he said, standing up. He turned to Anna. “And your name is Cousin?”

      Anna smiled. “No. It’s Anna. Anna Miller. The word for cousin is a bit difficult to pronounce in Pennsylvania Dutch, so Sadie has always called me cousin. Our community is English-speaking, but we always use certain Pennsylvania-Dutch words. The language evolved from German settlers to colonial Pennsylvania, and Amish communities across the country use it. For Mother and Father—Mamm and Daed—for example. Gut for good. Ja for yes.” Why was she rambling? Because the man was so close and so good-looking and green-eyed that her stomach was fluttering. When was the last time a man’s presence had made her feel anything? Maybe never.

      Sadie handed over Sparkles’s cage to the agent. “He sure is cute.”

      “Ja,” Colt said, and both Sadie and Anna burst into grins. “He is. Looks like you took care of him.”

      “I’m really sorry,” Sadie said again, then threw her arms around Anna for a few seconds and fled.

      The agent watched her run off, then turned back to Anna. “Sometimes, all’s well that ends well.”

      Anna smiled. “Shakespeare. I recently read that play.”

      The sunlight streaming in the open doors of the barn lit the agent’s lush dark hair and his forearms, which were strong and muscular. She could stare at him all day. There was a slight cleft in his chin. “So you’re Sadie’s cousin but you’re not Amish?” he asked.

      “I am Amish.”

      He looked confused, and she realized she was in her barn clothes instead of the usual long dress and head covering. “These are my daed’s old overalls. I wear them when I’m caring for the calves or painting furniture that our community makes to sell at market in Grass Creek.”

      “Ah, now I understand. My line of work doesn’t bring me into contact with the Amish so I don’t know all that much about your culture. I suppose I’m just used to seeing Amish women in long dresses and bonnets.”

      For a moment, they stared at each other. Anna couldn’t take her eyes off the man, and granted, she had earned the unfortunate nickname of Fanciful Anna, but he seemed unable to look away from her, as well. While wearing coveralls and a baseball cap and smelling like the barn? She almost laughed. Fanciful Anna, indeed.

      “Agent Asher, I’m sorry that your time was taken up by this. And I appreciate your kindness to my cousin. I think she was overcome with desire to have something from the English world. Not that I’m excusing her behavior. But I do try to understand Sadie so that I can better guide her.”

      “Colt,” he said. “Well, the moment I return Sparkles, I’m on vacation, so no worries about my time.”

      “Vacation,” she repeated, hearing the wistfulness in her own voice. “Are you going somewhere special?”

      “I haven’t decided. I have two weeks off, so the first ten days or so I plan to spend somewhere amazing, like Rome or Machu Picchu or a Hawaiian island.”

      She sighed. “I would love to eat pasta in Rome.” She imagined herself tossing coins in the Trevi Fountain. Seeing the Colosseum with her own eyes.

      He smiled. “Vacation coming up?”

      She shook her head. “The Amish don’t vacation. It’s not our way to spend money on such things. Sunday is our day of rest and that’s plenty.” She turned to the acres of farmland, which always made her feel connected to the world. Usually. “I’ve never been beyond Grass Creek...well, except for the hospital in Houston. I’ve read about all the places you’ve mentioned, though. Must be hard to come back home from such special destinations.”

      “Well, wherever I go, I am actually looking forward to returning to Texas since I’ll be spending a few days visiting with my twin brother and his family. I was adopted as a baby and just discovered he existed a few months ago. I’m still grappling with it a bit, to be honest.”

      Anna gasped. “I have a cousin I didn’t know existed until a few months ago. She was shunned before I was born and she fled the community. She was only seventeen.”

      “Shunned?” Colt said. “What did she do?”

      Anna