Amish Christmas Secrets
With a flick of the reins, he turned Bessie onto the main road. The temperature had dropped, and although the rain had eased, the damp air was chilling. Ezra grabbed a blanket off the back seat and wrapped it around Rosie’s slender shoulders.
“I am not cold,” she insisted, yet her shivering body revealed the truth. He did not mention her pale skin or the fatigue that even the darkness could not hide.
Under other circumstances, he would have lit the lanterns at the sides and rear of the buggy, but tonight, caution was important in case they needed to hide in the underbrush again.
Someone wanted to do Rosie harm.
Do not get involved, Ezra’s voice of reason warned. The advice came too late. Whether he liked it or not, he was already involved.
Rosie and Ezra traveled in silence as the buggy meandered along the narrow mountain road. The closer they drew to her house, the more concerned she became about facing her father and anticipated his caustic words and demeaning gaze. If not for Joseph, she would run immediately upstairs and hole up in her room. But her child was the only spark of joy in her life, and she would not reduce the limited time she had with him. If only she did not have to work and could be with him throughout the day. Her father had recently demanded payment from her to cover the cost of food and shelter, which had left Rosie with no choice but to take employment in town.
“Thank you,” she said to Ezra as her parents’ home came into view. “You were very kind to bring me home.”
“I will fix your bike and return it to you. I have much to do tonight, but day after tomorrow, it should be ready.”
“Danke.”
“I must return to town in the morning, so I will drive you to work.”
His offer bought tears to her eyes. She glanced away, thankful for the darkness so he could not see her reaction.
“I do not want to take advantage of your thoughtfulness,” she said, her voice filled with emotion that even she recognized.
“It is no trouble. What time do you start work?”
“At seven. It is too early, yah?”
“I will be at your house by six fifteen.”
“I will be ready.” She started to climb down and then hesitated. “The man who came after me has brown hair with a patch of white at his temple. He thinks I have something that belongs to him.”
She hopped to the ground and ran toward her house. The front door opened and her datt stepped onto the porch.
“You are late,” he grumbled.
“An older patient named Mr. Calhoun was in pain and needed help.” She lowered her eyes and hurried past him. Before stepping inside, she paused and gazed back at the roadway.
Ezra glanced over his shoulder. Even from this distance, she could see the smile that played over his full lips.
Her father scowled. “Why does Ezra Stoltz bring you home?”
“I fell from my bike. He was good enough to help me.”
“He is not someone with whom I want you to associate.”
Her heart sank. Why was anything she ever wanted to do forbidden by her father?
“You remember what happened to his parents.”
Their buggy shop had been robbed and his mother and father had been murdered during the break-in, but their tragic deaths had nothing to do with Ezra.
Rosie’s father scowled even more. “Ezra was drinking at a bar in town that day instead of helping his father in his shop.”
Which probably saved Ezra’s life. He might have been killed, along with his parents, if he had been home. Not that she was willing to voice her objection to her father. Some battles were not worth fighting.
“He has not courted or taken a wife,” her father continued. “Nor has he joined the church. This is not a man with whom I wish my daughter to associate.”
Her heart ached at her father’s bigotry. Did he not see the plank in his own eye?
“I am not looking for a husband, Datt.” Her voice was firm.
“Joseph needs a father.”
Rosie could not argue. Her son needed a father, but that did not mean she needed a husband.
She stepped into the kitchen, smelling the homemade bread and hearty beef stew her mother had served for the evening meal. Her mouth watered and she realized she had been busy helping patients all day and had failed to take either her lunch or her evening break.
Food could wait. She quickly washed her hands at the sink and then hurried to where her son sat playing on the floor. She raised Joseph into her arms and smothered him with kisses until he giggled and nuzzled her neck. He was eight months old with a happy disposition and a laugh that drove away any thought of her problems.
Rosie’s heart soared. Nothing mattered except her child.
“Ach, what has happened?” Her mother’s eyes were wide as she pointed to the scrapes and scratches on Rosie’s face and hands.
“I fell from my bike.”
“You have a bad cut to your forehead. Sit.” She pointed to the kitchen table. “I saved a bowl of stew. You are hungry, yah?”
Holding Joseph in her left arm, Rosie slipped onto the bench at the table, bowed her head and offered a prayer of thanks for her safe return home before she eagerly lifted a heaping spoonful of stew to her mouth.
“After you eat and prepare Joseph for bed, then you will tell me what made you late coming home from work.”
Her mother had a keen sixth sense. Rosie would be careful not to reveal what really had happened lest Mamm worry too much.
“The uneven pavement on the road caused me to fall, Mamm. I was not hurt.”
“For this, I am glad, but the cut needs doctoring.”
Her mother retrieved a first-aid kit from a kitchen cabinet and dampened a cloth that she wiped over Rosie’s forehead. After cleaning the area, she applied ointment and covered the cut with a bandage.
“The town is decorated for Christmas, yah?” her mother asked as she returned the kit to the cabinet.
“Candy canes and snowmen hang from the streetlights.” Rosie smiled. “Joseph would enjoy seeing the hanging lights and evergreen wreaths.”
Although after what had happened today, Rosie did not want Joseph anywhere near town. She glanced at the end of the table, noting an envelope that had surely come in the mail.
In hopes of further distracting her mother from what had happened tonight, Rosie asked, “You received a Christmas card today?”
“From your cousin, Alice. She said baby Becca is growing and big sister Diane is almost as tall as their kitchen table.”
“Diane is a sweet girl. I am glad you cared for her when Alice was on bed rest before Becca was born.”
Mamm offered a weak smile. “She filled a void when you were gone.”
The pain in her mother’s eyes tore at Rosie’s heart. She dropped her spoon into the bowl and scooted back from the table. Mamm rarely talked about that time when Rosie was held captive, for which she was grateful. Perhaps her mother’s worry about Rosie arriving home late tonight had loosened her tongue.
“I will wash the dishes after I put Joseph to bed.”
“No need to hurry, Rosie. There is only your bowl. I will have it washed and back in the cabinet before you return.”
Rosie climbed the stairs with Joseph in her arms. She changed his diaper and dressed him in a fresh sleeper before they cuddled in the rocker. She crooned a lullaby as he nestled in her arms, her heart bursting with love for this sweet child.
His eyes drifted closed, but she continued to hold him, taking comfort from his precious closeness. His tiny hand clutched her finger, signaling their connection. Both of them had been through so much.
She thought back to Joseph’s birth as she labored alone in the dark and damp root cellar. She had prayed her child would be born healthy and without complication. Gott had heard and answered her prayer. Somehow she had given birth to sweet Joseph, and for his first month of life, she had kept him warm and fed and secure in spite of their dire circumstances. Finally, they had been rescued and returned home.
The look on her father’s face when he first saw them circled through her mind—it was one of relief, then shock when he noticed the baby in her arms. If not for her mother’s heartfelt cries of joy and her warm embrace, Rosie might have run away again. The truth was she had no place to go and no one to give her and her son shelter.
She kissed Joseph’s sweet cheek, laid him in his crib and covered him with a blanket.
Locking the door to the room they shared, she untucked the bottom edge of the quilt on her bed. Carefully, she worked her fingers along the stitched covering, and sighed when she felt the small toy and the money she had hidden there, both of which her father would not have approved. William had purchased the toy for their baby a few days after they learned Rosie was pregnant. She had secreted it away, knowing her father would not approve of anything William had given her.
Relieved that her secret hiding spot had not been discovered, Rosie slipped out of her torn dress and into her nightgown, but she was unwilling to go back downstairs. She did not have the energy to face her datt’s questioning gaze or the concern she had seen earlier in her mother’s eyes. Plus, she did not want to talk about her foolish mistake of falling for an Englisch man, which had caused her mother so much pain.
Rosie crawled into her narrow bed and extinguished the lamp. For these last seven months, since she and Joseph had been found, Rosie thought she had been safe, but the car tonight had run her off the road. The man demanded information Will had stolen.
Her stomach tightened. For her child’s sake, she needed to find out what Will had done. When Joseph was older, he would want to know the truth about his father.
Her eyes had not fooled her today. The man with the streak of white hair was the same man she had seen at Will’s trailer.
The man had killed the father of her child.
Now he was coming after her.
THREE
Ezra woke with a start the next morning and blinked, trying to distance himself from the dreams that had circled through his mind. He had tossed and turned all night as visions of a young Amish woman with golden hair and blue eyes disturbed his usually placid slumber. What was it about Rosie Glick that put him in such a state of flux?
With a heavy sigh, he rose from the bed, feeling confused and frustrated by the way his mind continued to focus on her troubled gaze that tugged at his heart. He poured cold water from the pitcher into the ceramic basin and washed with a vengeance as if to cleanse himself of any residual influence she might have on his life.
His father had called Ezra a dreamer who allowed thoughts of what could be to interfere with the reality of the present moment. Since his father’s death, Ezra worked to remain in the present, which did not include a pretty woman with a troubled past.
With two hours of chores awaiting him, he hurried to the barn and was soon joined by his brothers, fifteen-year-old Aaron and eight-year-old David. Working rapidly, the three of them milked the cows, then fed and watered the livestock.
Inside the house, his two eldest sisters, Susan, seventeen, and Belinda, three years her junior, prepared breakfast. When the chores were finished and after washing at the pump, Ezra climbed the porch steps and pushed open the kitchen door, breathing in the rich aroma of fresh brewed coffee and homemade biscuits hot from the oven.
Susan turned from the wood-burning stove and greeted him with a smile as he wiped his boots on the rug and hung his hat on the wall peg.
His oldest sister cared for the four younger siblings, for which Ezra was grateful. Susan was pragmatic and task-oriented, not a dreamer like her older brother.
Seven-year-old Mary, blonde and blue-eyed, had gathered eggs from the henhouse earlier and now brought the cool milk and butter inside from the bucket, where they had remained overnight. Aaron and David followed her into the kitchen.
At one time before his parents’ deaths, Ezra had thought of ways to get out of work. Now he focused on the farm and what needed to be done. The responsibility to feed and care for his siblings had fallen hard on his shoulders. If he had been less of a dreamer and more attentive to his parents, they might still be alive.
His five siblings gathered at the table and followed Ezra’s lead as he bowed his head to pray. The others were oblivious to the struggle that plagued him. His own inciting role in his parents’ deaths weighed him down like a giant millstone, as the Bible said, so that he had trouble offering thanks. At least his youngest brothers and sisters had been at school that day and away from the house. Perhaps that fact was the blessing on which he needed to focus.
Aaron had been working in the fields, and Susan had been at a quilting. If only their mother had gone with her.
He raised his head and reached for his fork, needing to redirect his thoughts. “Tell me, David, what you are learning at school?”
The boy looked pensive as he spread apple butter on a biscuit. “We learn our sums.”
“And you mind the teacher?”
“Yah. Why would I not?”
Thankfully, David had not followed in Ezra’s footsteps.
“You are going to town again today?” Susan asked.
He nodded. “I must take the buggy to the blacksmith. Something is wrong with the springs.”
“If you opened Datt’s buggy shop we could check the springs ourselves,” Aaron said. “It has been a year and four months, Ezra.”
“Someday, Aaron, but not now.”
“There are buggies in the shop near ready for sale,” his brother persisted. “You helped Datt. You could finish the projects he began.”
Aaron gave Ezra more credit than he deserved. “Perhaps after Christmas and into the New Year.”
His brother shook his head. “In January, we will be cutting ice for the icehouse. Come February, you will have another excuse.”
“Whether we open the shop this winter or not, I am still going to town.” He turned to Susan. “Is there something you need?”
“Susan would like to go with you.” David smiled impishly and reached for another biscuit.
“Davey, eat your breakfast and mind your mouth,” Susan admonished. “It should be filled with food and not words that make no sense.”
Evidently, Ezra was not the only one aware of Susan’s interest in John Keim, the blacksmith’s son.
“Bishop Hochstetler’s wife has need of a schoolteacher next year since Katie Gingrich and Benny Trotter are courting,” Belinda explained, sounding older than her years. “She says they will surely be married by the time school starts again.”
Knowing his sister’s long held desire to teach, Ezra forced back a smile. “Have you forgotten your sums, Belinda? You are fourteen.”
“I soon will be fifteen and sixteen the following year. I would make a good teacher.”
“I believe you would.”
“The bishop’s wife will search to find someone within the community,” Belinda insisted. “A teaching job would provide income. This would be a gut thing.”
“Yah, bringing money into the house would be gut, yet you are needed here. When your sixteenth year approaches, we can discuss this again.”
Her enthusiasm faltered. “Susan cares for the family.”
Ezra nodded. “Susan is getting older. She must think of her own future.”
“Not long ago, you said she is to think of the family first and her future second.”
Ezra had said exactly that, but since then, his heart had mellowed. Perhaps he was yearning for his own freedom. He pushed aside the thought. Regrettably, he had turned his back on his family once. He would not make that mistake again.
He ruffled David’s hair with one hand and squeezed Mary’s chubby cheek with the other, wishing the twinkle would return to her pretty eyes. She was too young to grieve so long.
Ezra pushed back from the table. “Breakfast was gut. Thank you, Susan and Belinda.”
He smiled at his youngest sister, hoping to bring a smile to her lips. “And danke, Mary, for gathering the eggs. You, too, are a help to your sisters.”
Mary nodded but refused to smile, bringing sadness to his heart. If only he could change the past.
With a heavy sigh, he stepped to the door, grabbed his hat and then glanced back at Susan. “Shall I tell John Keim you have a lovely voice and might accept a ride to the next youth singing?”
Her cheeks pinkened. “Tell him I send my greetings.”
Ezra hurried to the barn and harnessed Bessie to the buggy. He would visit the blacksmith and talk to the blacksmith’s son to determine if John had the makings of a good husband for his sister. Ezra was not ready to lose Susan’s help, but he would not stand in her way to have a family of her own.
He thought of Rosie, trying to raise her son. From what Ezra knew about her father, Rosie was not receiving the support she needed. All the more reason for Ezra to help her in whatever way he could.
The road to the Glick farm angled downhill. Bessie’s gait was sprightly, and both he and the mare enjoyed the brisk morning trot. Ezra would give Rosie a ride to work today. Tonight, if he got home early enough, he would fix her bike and deliver it to her home tomorrow.
He did not want her on the road alone until he asked questions in town about the big man in the white sedan. Ezra had not seen him before, although these days he did not go to town often. Earlier, before his parents’ deaths, he had run with some of the Englischers. He remembered most of the people, but not the older man with the splash of white hair.
He did remember Will MacIntosh, but he would not mention his name to Rosie. She had been swayed by Will’s handsome looks and lavish spending. Ezra had been caught in the deception of the world as well and had yearned for material possessions and the money to buy them.
He did not blame Rosie for leaving the Amish way for a time, but he did blame Will for taking advantage of her innocence.
Rosie woke before dawn and prepared to leave her house earlier than usual. She worried Ezra would forget his offer to give her a ride. If so, she would be forced to walk to town.
“You should stay home,” her mother insisted.
“I am scheduled to work. Plus, it is payday. I must get my check.”
“And what will they say about the cuts and scrapes to your face and hands?”
“I will tell them I fell from my bike just as I told you.”
“Your father could take you in the buggy,” her mother suggested.
Rosie shook her head. Datt would not agree to making the trip to town just so his daughter—a daughter he still had trouble accepting back into the family—could pick up her paycheck at an Englisch nursing home. Much as her father wanted Rosie to contribute to the financial needs of the family, he also struggled with her recent decision to seek employment in town.
“Another Englischer will catch her eye,” her father had grumbled to her mother, and Rosie had overheard.
Forgiveness was the Amish way. Unfortunately, his daughter’s mistakes were too hard to forgive.
She grabbed her black cape from the peg near the door, and after kissing Joseph, she hurried outside. Her father stood in the door of the barn and peered questioningly at her as she walked briskly toward the road.
Brave though she wanted to be, her heart pounded rapidly in her chest. If Ezra did not soon appear, she would have to make the trip on foot and would need to be on guard as she traveled along the roadway. Thankfully, the sound of horses’ hooves alerted her to an approaching buggy. Her heart lurched. Not from fear but from a sense of thankfulness as she spied Bessie rounding the bend. Good to his word, Ezra had come to fetch her this morning.
Rosie stood at the edge of the pavement and waved as his buggy approached.
“Have you been waiting long?” he asked as he pulled the buggy to a stop.
“I just came from my house. Your timing is perfect.”
Ezra reached for her hand and helped her into the seat next to him. The warmth from his body drove away the chill of the morning air.
“Your cape is not thick enough for such a cold day,” he said.
Just as before, he reached for the blanket and wrapped it around her.
“Thank you, Ezra, for the blanket and for the ride, although I hate to take you from your farm.”
“I need to be at the blacksmith’s today and do some other errands in town. So you have not taken me from what I had already planned to do.”
Rosie had half hoped he was making a special trip to see her, but that thought would be prideful and would play into the comments her father sometimes muttered about her haughty heart. Datt did not realize being locked in a root cellar had left her anything but proud.
“You did not see the man again?” Ezra flicked the reins and hurried his mare along the road. The sun was rising, and the morning light cast a surreal glow over the mountain.
“I pray I do not see him again,” Rosie stated as she tucked the blanket around her waist.
“I will inquire about him in town.”
“It is not your worry, Ezra. Please do not add this burden to your daily tasks. I am sure he left the area last night when we saw him drive past.”
Ezra glanced at her for a long moment before he turned his gaze back to the road. “As focused as he seemed to be to do you harm, Rosie, I do not think he will disappear so easily. Perhaps there is something you are not telling me.”
He glanced at her again and asked, “Are there secrets you must hide?”
Her cheeks burned, but she held his gaze. “You need not burden yourself with my mistakes, Ezra. You have your own past with which to struggle.”
His brow furrowed and his lips drew tight. He glanced back at the road, making her believe the rumors she had heard about Ezra were true. For a period of time, he had forsaken the Amish way and had gotten caught up in the allure of the Englisch.
It was something they had in common.
Still she did not want to discuss her own past with a man who had only yesterday acknowledged her for the first time since she had returned home.
“Let’s talk of something other than the past,” she suggested with a defiant shake of her head.
“Two months ago, I applied for the job at the nursing home,” she shared, needing a neutral topic to fill the silence.
Ezra kept his gaze on the road as she chatted. He did not speak for far too long, as if lost in his own thoughts. Thankfully, his interest seemed to pique when she started to discuss Mr. Calhoun, the delightful older gentleman with whom she had formed a special bond at the nursing home.
“Last night his rheumatoid arthritis was causing him undue pain,” Rosie said. “He asked for medication but none was given. Finally, I went to Nan Smith, the new night nurse. She promised to straighten out the confusion. Mr. Calhoun does not have a family, but he is such a kind man and appreciates anything I do for him.”
“I am sure you brighten his day with your pretty smile.”
Her pulse quickened, and she wondered if she had heard Ezra correctly. No one had ever said she had a pretty smile. She did not need compliments or flattery, yet hearing Ezra’s comment and seeing the sincerity in his gaze brought a smile to her lips.
“You are generous with your words, especially for an Amish man.”
“Amish men speak the truth, Rosie.”
Her heart fluttered with the speed of a hummingbird drawing nectar from a blossom. In an effort to calm the rapid rhythm, she focused on Mr. Calhoun and their special relationship.
“Hopefully, the night nurse cleared up the pain-medicine problem so he got the rest he needed,” she said, as they entered town.
The Christmas decorations added a festive charm to the morning, and in spite of everything that had happened, Rosie’s spirits lifted. Ezra turned onto a side street and pulled Bessie to a stop in front of the nursing home.