Read The Dawn of Christmas for Free Online Page A

goods store.”
    “I’ve been to that store with Mammi.”
    His head spun. He’d never been so befuddled, but did she use the word
Mammi
? “You have Amish family?”
    She hesitated. “Sort of.” She stood. “I need to get something. Stay very still.”
    “You’re leaving me?”
    “I may hurt you if you close your eyes, but I’m not leaving.” Then she disappeared.
    She
sort of
had Amish family? Did that mean some of her family was once Amish but no longer?
    She returned with a saddle, which she put near his shoulder. When she sat, she propped her elbow on it and leaned her head on her hand. “I’m just getting comfortable. I imagine, with the holiday, ambulance services are very busy. One might not show up for a while.”
    Pain shot through him, and he moaned despite his resolve. His breath came in short, catching spurts. “Sorry. My left leg hurts.”
    “Try not to think about it.”
    He glanced up at her, studying her features. “Great plan.”
    She chuckled. “Got a better one?”
    “No.”
    “Since we’re strangers, how about if we play twenty questions?”
    He took short breaths. “I already asked one. You didn’t answer.”
    She propped her knuckles over her mouth, watching him. “The question game is a good one—short, back and forth, only discussing things each of us is interested in. But before I began my ride tonight, I was careful so no one could connect me to my relatives in Apple Ridge, and if I answer you, I would place in your hands the power to change my life. I won’t give that to anyone.”
    That was a telling statement. Did she mean it? “Not anyone? Ever? Not even the man you love?”
    “Especially not him.”
    Despite his pain, an eerie sensation swept over him. “I’m not really awake, am I?”
    She leaned close, peering into his eyes. “Levi?”
    The warmth of her hand against his cheek seemed real, but he had to be dreaming. Catching a glimpse of her heart was like seeing into his own—filled with distrust and determination to steer life onto the safest path possible. Maybe this was God’s way of talking to him. He was convinced the world was too big for this kind of coincidence. For him to be thrown from his horse, land on his back in the middle of nowhere, then be found by a woman whose thinking was so close to his own?
    This was no coincidence.
    Well, real or dream, he needed her to tell him more. “After what you’re doing for me, do you think I’d betray your confidence?”
    “Probably not, unless it profited you in some way, through money, pleasure, or maybe just ego.”
    He closed his eyes, trying to block out the pain. “I think you’ve got me beat.”
    “How so?”
    “I thought
I
was distrusting of the opposite gender. You’re way beyond distrust and square in the middle of intolerance. Why?”
    She started to pull her hand away. He reached for it and then howled in pain from the movement. “If we wrestle, I’ll lose.”
    She held his hand and eased it to his chest. “Then let’s not. I’d hate to have to live with the guilt of having beat up someone I was trying to help.”
    “I appreciate that.”
    “Do you have someone special, Levi?”
    “Do this often, do you? Find broken men sprawled in a dark field and ask them out? I’m in no mood for a date, but thanks.”
    She laughed, and the sound echoed against the night, easing his concern that she wasn’t real.
    He drummed his fingers on his chest, feeling more clearheaded.Except for his leg, his pain was subsiding. “Much to my family’s horror, I’m seeing no one.”
    “Boy, do I understand that. I didn’t think parents were as hard on guys about that.”
    “You haven’t met my brother. He’s the worst.”
    “Okay, twenty questions, but past loves are off-limits.”
    She must have been in love at least once. He’d like to ask her about it, to understand what it felt like, what the big pull to find someone was really about.
    He drew a sharp breath as pain throbbed through his leg and