Read A Simple Amish Christmas for Free Online

Trouble was he hadn’t figured out exactly how to approach today’s visit.
    Then she stepped out of Jacob’s room, and all of the cold from the December wind suddenly left his limbs.
    Annie was wearing plain clothes—possibly the same blue dress as the night before, but with a black apron covering it. A white prayer kapp covered her chestnut curls, which had beencorralled into a proper bun. She looked far more lovely than a young girl should.
    Seeing her standing in the bedroom doorway quickened his pulse, confused him in a way he didn’t understand.
    “Adam. Samuel, gut to see you again. David, welcome.” Her voice was like a warm spring breeze caressing his skin, though she remained on the far side of the room.
    “ Danki , Annie. It’s been a long time.” David stood at the door, holding his hat and smiling like a fool.
    Samuel had the oddest desire to smack the kid on the back of the head. “Come in out of the doorway, David. We need to shut out the wind or Jacob will have to battle a cold as well as his injuries.”
    Samuel heard the harsh tone in his voice and winced, but he couldn’t stop himself from lecturing.
    “ Ya. I’m letting in all of December’s bluster.” David laughed as he pulled the door closed. “Confused me seeing Annie there, all grown up and prettier than the winter birds singing in the fields.”
    “David, you haven’t changed a bit—still writing poetry in your spare time.” Annie moved to the stove and began heating water as she set out five mugs. “Would you like tea or kaffi ? It looked like a bitter wind as I saw you walking across from the barn.”
    “Tea sounds great to me,” Adam said.
    Samuel and David agreed.
    “How’s Dat ?” Adam asked, peering toward his father’s room.
    “He’s fine. You can go and see for yourself. He’s been sleeping for the last twenty minutes or so.”
    “I’m awake now,” Jacob called from his room.
    Adam grinned and moved toward the bedroom door. “Better come with me, David. He’ll have instructions for you since you’ll be picking up most of the work around here.”
    “I’ll be back for that tea, Annie.”
    David grinned at her again as he trudged across the room, and Samuel once more felt a twinge of irritation with the lad.
    He’d never spent much time with the younger Hostetler boys since he was out of school by the time they were in, but he certainly had no reason to feel such agitation with David. Not to mention that the boy was doing a fine thing by offering to come out and help while Jacob was unable to work.
    Unless he was doing it in order to be close to Annie.
    As he stepped toward the kitchen area, Samuel wondered where that thought had come from. He’d barely had time to examine it when Annie turned from the stove and looked at him quizzically.
    “Something on your mind, Samuel?”
    He stepped back and bumped into the cabinet holding Rebekah’s dishes, causing them to rattle.
    Annie merely raised a delicate eyebrow and waited.
    “Why would you say that?” he asked gruffly.
    “You seem unusually quiet, that’s all.”
    “Man has a right to be quiet, doesn’t he?”
    “Sure.”
    When she didn’t add anything else, he twirled his hat in his hands and tried to remember why he had stopped by again today. After all, the day was wasting, and he had a barn wall badly in need of repair.
    “Something important in your medical kit?” Annie asked as she placed tea bags in each mug, then added hot water.
    Watching her move gracefully around the room distracted him. When had she changed from a girl to a woman?
    “What?” Samuel sat, pulled his cup toward him, gulped the tea, which hadn’t yet steeped, and grimaced when the weak brew scalded his throat. Frowning at the mug, he tried to remember what she had asked.
    “The black bag you set by the door. I was wondering if there was something in it you meant to bring for my father.”
    There was an outright sparkle in her eyes now, and if Samuel didn’t know