The Amish Christmas Cowboy Read online

  A cowboy for Christmas...

  or another year in the Amish Spinster Club?

  Nanny Sarah Kuhns has her hands full with kinder, her overbearing brothers and her big dreams. And it only gets worse when she takes on the care of an injured cowboy. For Amish traveling horseman Toby Christner, tight-knit Harmony Creek represents everything he’s run from. Until he heals, he can’t leave...but will falling for Sarah make him want to stay?

  Toby had seen Sarah offer a consoling hand to the kinder, but he hadn’t expected her to treat him with the same familiarity.

  “I know how difficult that is,” she said.

  Did she? Or, he wondered, was she referring to what made her eyes dim? He was curious what it was Sarah wanted to do when she seemed so content living in the new Amish community. The longing for roots among Plain folk gripped him, but he pushed it aside.

  “You’re like the kinder. If there’s something you don’t want to do, you need a goal to convince yourself to do it.”

  “What is this goal you’ve got in mind?”

  “If the doktor’s opinion says your ankle can handle the exertion, I’ll ask Mr. Summerhays to arrange for you to spend a day at his stables in Saratoga.” She grinned. “Enough of a challenge for you, cowboy?”

  His efforts to keep a wall between them had been futile. She was able to see within him to know what he’d prize.

  He was getting in too deep with her but, for once, he didn’t retreat. He was leaving as soon as he healed, so why not enjoy a challenge—and her sweet smile—until then?

  Jo Ann Brown has always loved stories with happily-ever-after endings. A former military officer, she is thrilled to have the chance to write stories about people falling in love. She is also a photographer and travels with her husband of more than thirty years to places where she can snap pictures. They have three children and live in Florida. Drop her a note at joannbrownbooks.com.

  Books by Jo Ann Brown

  Love Inspired

  Amish Spinster Club

  The Amish Suitor

  The Amish Christmas Cowboy

  Amish Hearts

  Amish Homecoming

  An Amish Match

  His Amish Sweetheart

  An Amish Reunion

  A Ready-Made Amish Family

  An Amish Proposal

  An Amish Arrangement

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  THE AMISH

  CHRISTMAS COWBOY

  Jo Ann Brown

  And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.

  —Acts 4:32

  For Melissa Endlich.

  Thank you for making me feel so welcome

  in the Love Inspired family.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from An Amish Holiday Wedding by Carrie Lighte

  Chapter One

  Harmony Creek Hollow, New York

  “Guess what, Sarah?”

  The last thing Sarah Kuhns wanted to do was play a guessing game with Natalie Summerhays, the oldest of the four kinder in the house where Sarah worked as the nanny. At ten, Natalie was poised partway between being a kind and standing on the precipice of becoming a teenager.

  “What?” Sarah asked as she wondered why anyone with small kinder would build a house with columns within a youngster’s reach from the bannister on the staircase curving above the elegant entry’s marble floors. She’d talked four-year-old Mia into letting Sarah pluck her off one fluted column. Ethan, who at five years old considered himself invulnerable, wasn’t willing to give up his attempt to touch the ceiling twenty feet above the floor.

  God, grant me patience, she prayed as she did often while watching the Summerhays kinder. Please let this be the last time I have to save these little ones from their antics. At least for today...

  Motioning with her hands, she called to Ethan again, “Komm, kind.”

  His head jerked around, and he grinned as the kinder often did when she spoke to them in Deitsch. For some reason, they found the words she used at home funny. She had no idea why.

  Ethan’s blond hair fell into his blue eyes, and he reached to push it aside. With a yelp, he began to slide down the column.

  Sarah leaned over the bannister, praying it wouldn’t collapse or her glasses wouldn’t slip off and crash to the floor. She caught the little boy’s shirt as he dropped past her. He shrieked, and she wrapped her fingers in the fabric. With a big jerk that resonated through her shoulders, she flipped him across the rail and into her arms. The motion knocked her from her feet, and she sat hard on a step.

  Her heart hammered against her ribs as she held the little boy close. He shook, and she cuddled him to her. Maybe he understood how he could have been hurt.

  Then she realized he was laughing! He thought the whole thing had been fun. When he squirmed to get out of her hold, she tightened it.

  She felt sorry for the four kinder who always were looking for ways to be noticed. Their parents were busy—Mr. Summerhays with his businesses and his racehorses and Mrs. Summerhays redoing her wardrobe and the house every two to three months—and they paid little attention to their kids. Even when one or more acted outrageously, the mischief seldom registered with their busy parents.

  Carrying Ethan down the stairs while leading Mia by the hand, Sarah said, “You told me you wouldn’t climb the columns again.”

  “We didn’t climb them,” Mia said with the aplomb of a four-year-old attorney arguing a legal loophole in a courtroom. “We got on them up there.”

  Sarah resisted rolling her eyes as she put Ethan on his feet. The youngsters nitpicked everything. In the nine months since she’d taken the job as nanny, she’d learned to be specific when setting parameters for them. Apparently, she hadn’t been specific enough.

  How her friends in the Harmony Creek Spinsters’ Club would laugh when she told them about this! They were getting together that evening to attend the second annual Berry-fest Dinner to benefit the local volunteer fire department. She wondered if her friends had guessed that she told them less than a quarter of the “adventures” her charges got into each day. She tried to head the kinder off before they were hurt, but didn’t want to hover over them. Being overprotective wasn’t gut for anyone. She knew that too well.

  “Sarah!” Natalie stamped her foot. “Did you hear me?”

  “Just a minute.” Frowning at the younger kinder, she ordered, “No more getting on the columns anywhere.”

  “From floor to ceiling?” asked Ethan.

  “And everywhere in between. No getting on the columns. Understood?”

  Ethan and Mia glanced at each other, then nodded.

  “Sarah!” Natalie crossed her arms over her bright
red T-shirt. “Sarah, are you listening?”

  Watching the two little ones skipping across the fancy rug that cost more than the farm where she lived with her two brothers, Sarah sighed. She faced the impatient ten-year-old who’d inherited her mamm’s glistening black hair and gray eyes. Someday, Natalie would be a beauty like her mamm, but with her lips compressed, she looked like the kind she was.

  “I’m listening.” Sarah smoothed her black apron that had gotten bunched against her dark green dress when she’d kept Ethan from falling. For a moment, she wondered what Alexander, the fourth Summerhays youngster, was up to. She would check once she listened to Natalie. Checking her kapp was in place, she asked, “What’s up, Natalie?”

  “Did someone order a cowboy?”

  Stunned, she stared at the girl. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “Because there are cowboys on the porch.”

  She struggled not to frown. The kinder had played plenty of pranks on her when she first began working for Mr. and Mrs. Summerhays. Childish practical jokes like a whoopee cushion beneath her and spiders in her glass. She’d laughed along with them, until they’d stopped. Or she’d thought they had.

  When she’d been offered the job, she’d seen it as a gift from God. It provided her with an open window into Englisch lives, allowing her to learn what she’d need to know if she decided to move away from the Harmony Creek settlement. Her stomach clenched. She didn’t want to leave her brothers or the wunderbaar friends she’d made since they moved to northern New York last year, but being baptized meant surrendering her dream of helping others.

  That dream had been born the day she went to visit her daed in the hospital after a serious barn accident. He’d lost his right arm, and she guessed he might have given up if it hadn’t been for the nurses and physical therapists who’d believed in him. Watching them, she’d decided she wanted to learn to do such work, but that would be impossible if she became a full member of the Amish church. However, a job like a volunteer EMT might be allowed.

  “Natalie,” she began.

  “There are cowboys out there!” insisted the girl. “If you don’t believe me, look for yourself.”

  Sarah took a quick glance at the top of the wide door to make sure someone hadn’t rigged a bucket of water on it. The fancy door was hinged in the middle, and she kept a close eye on the other side...just in case. The August heat battered her like an open oven door.

  “See?” demanded Natalie.

  Lowering her gaze from the door’s top, Sarah gasped when she saw who stood on the wide porch.

  A cowboy!

  A real live cowboy!

  She stared in disbelief at his wide-brimmed straw hat that looked as if it’d been plucked out of one of her brother Menno’s Zane Grey novels. Though the day was warm, he wore a long-sleeved light green shirt and denims. His black Western boots had scuffed toes. Sun-streaked brown hair fell forward into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, bluer than a cloudless summer sky.

  “Ma’am, is this Ian Summerhays’s place?” asked another cowboy, who tipped his black hat as he came up the steps. He was older, old enough to be her daed, and his slow drawl came, she guessed, right out of the heart of Texas.

  “Ja... Yes, it is.” She couldn’t pull her gaze from the younger man, who gaped at her in outright astonishment.

  Hadn’t he seen a plain woman before? If he hadn’t, he should still have known it wasn’t polite to stare.

  Then, realizing she was doing the same, she cut her eyes to the older man and asked, “Are you looking for Mr. Summerhays?”

  “Is he around?”

  “He’s in his office.” She didn’t add how rare that was. He spent most days at the stables in Saratoga, about an hour’s drive south.

  “Can you let him know we’ve got a delivery for him?” The older man gestured toward a large truck with a massive horse trailer behind it.

  South Texas Stables was written on the side of the trailer in fading red letters. Through the narrow windows, motions revealed animals were inside. She was relieved to hear the sound of an air-conditioning unit coming on, knowing the animals would be more comfortable than she was in her bed on a hot summer night when the air was still.

  “Of course.” She turned to Natalie. “Please go and let your daed know there’s a delivery.”

  The little girl glanced at the men on the porch and, for a moment, Sarah thought she would protest.

  Natalie grinned. “I told you there were cowboys out here.”

  “You did.” Bending, Sarah said, “Mrs. Beebe said she was going to have a treat for you this afternoon.” The cook knew the youngsters were always ready for a snack. “You can check with her if it’s ready after you let your daed know someone wants to talk with him.”

  “Okay, I get it. You want to talk to the cowboy by yourself. Don’t let him sweep you onto his horse and ride off with you into the sunset.” She giggled before running inside.

  Sarah hoped neither man had heard the girl. Those hopes were dashed when she aimed a furtive look in the younger man’s direction and saw his frown. His light brown brows were lowered like storm clouds over his bright blue eyes. Intense emotion filled them, but she didn’t know why he was distressed.

  After Natalie had rushed away to her daed’s office in the left wing of the house, Sarah looked at the men, unsure what to say next. She wished Mrs. Summerhays were there, but the kinder’s mamm was in Europe, buying items in antiques shops in Paris and Rome and Vienna to create her new vision for the house. Should Sarah ask the two men in? No, three men. Another guy with a cowboy hat walked around the trailer. Leaning against it, the dark-haired man lit a cigarette, startling her. Mr. Summerhays didn’t like anyone smoking near the house or stables.

  Her face must have revealed that, because the older man snapped an order at the third cowboy. With a grimace, he dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the toe of his boot.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” said the older man. “Ned forgets his manners sometimes.” He aimed a frown at the man by the trailer.

  Wanting to put an end to the uncomfortable conversation, Sarah asked, “Was Mr. Summerhays expecting you?”

  “We’re a day early, but I warned him we might be. By the way, I’m J.J. Rafferty, and that talkative guy there—” he pointed at the younger man who hadn’t said a word “—is Toby Christner. Toby, show the lady that you can talk.”

  “Nice to meet you,” the handsome cowboy said. His baritone voice would have been pleasant on the ear if he’d put inflection in it.

  “I’m Sarah Kuhns,” she answered.

  J.J. nodded toward her, then looked past her.

  Sarah turned to see Natalie standing behind her. “Did you talk to your daed?”

  The girl nodded. “He’ll be out in a few minutes. He’s finishing a call.”

  “We’ll catch up on a few things,” J.J. said, “while we’re waiting.” He walked toward the truck, motioning for Ned to follow him.

  The dark-haired man winked at her before going with J.J.

  Toby remained where he was. So did his frown. What was bothering him? Was he upset Mr. Summerhays hadn’t dropped everything to greet them when they arrived? If they’d done business with her boss, they should have known how busy he was. So busy he seldom came home before ten, long after the kinder were tucked into bed. He was gone at dawn to the stables in Saratoga or to New York City, where he did something there with the stock market.

  Sarah wished she could think of something to say to the tall man who didn’t seem in a hurry to join the others. She’d gotten comfortable talking with Englischers since she started working as a nanny. Something about the man’s posture told her engaging him in small talk would be futile. She was curious how many horses were being delivered to the stables, but held her tongue.

  J.J. and Ned returned to the porch after a few minutes. If they’d c
ome to the house she shared with her two brothers deep in the hollow with Harmony Creek at its center, she’d know what to do. She would have brought them into the kitchen and asked them to sit at the table while she served iced tea and chilled pie.

  Should she do the same here? She couldn’t invite them into the kitchen. Mrs. Summerhays had her guests brought to the room she called the library, though there weren’t any books in it. Sarah wished the housekeeper were here, but it was Mrs. Hancock’s day off. Mrs. Beebe, the cook, had her hands full with getting meals ready while the kitchen was being renovated...again. It was the third time in two years Mrs. Summerhays had decided it needed a complete updating.

  Knowing she must not leave the men standing on the porch in the heat, she said, “Please komm inside where you can wait for Mr. Summerhays.”

  Toby cleared his throat. “I can—”

  “Come along, both of you,” said J.J. “I don’t want to unload the horses until Summerhays checks them to make sure they meet his satisfaction. We had a tough enough time getting the bay into the trailer the first time. He’ll be more resolute not to go in again.”

  “But—”

  “No sense standing out in the heat. Any chance you might have something cool to drink, young lady?”

  “I’m sure there’s something. I can check.”

  “Much obliged.” J.J. motioned for her to go ahead of him, then followed her into the large entry along with Toby and Ned. As J.J. took his hat off, he gave a low whistle. “Mighty fine spread here.”

  She hadn’t heard anyone talk like him before but guessed he was complimenting the house. She had a lot to learn about Englischers. Finding out about Englisch ways was going to be a bigger task than she’d guessed.

  “I’ll find out what’s on ice in the kitchen.” She shouldn’t leave them in the entry, but she wasn’t sure where to take them. Mrs. Beebe would know what to do, because the cook had been working at the house since the family moved in.

  “Whatever you’ve got will be great,” J.J. said.