An Amish Christmas Baby by Leigh Bale

Author:Leigh Bale
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2023-08-15T22:38:42+00:00

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Eve sorted through the last of the box—some ladles, three tea towels, a box of matches and a pair of gloves. The rest would be useful, and she pulled out a list her aunt had given her and wrote the items down. They had to keep track of the donations so they would know what else was needed.

But Wollie needed more than household items—he needed to come home to his Amish roots. Just before Wollie jumped the fence, he’d come to help her daet with the corn, and she’d been too talkative as a teenager when she’d been doing all the regular adolescent questioning of the Amish ways. When she learned that he’d left the Amish life, she’d been stunned. He seemed so...normal. She’d determined then that she’d never flirt with that line—she’d be good. She’d stay Amish, and have the Amish family she’d always dreamed of.

Her baby shifted and stretched inside her. This far along, there wasn’t any room for proper kicks anymore, and she paused her work and put a hand over the spot where the baby was pushing. She could feel something pointy—an elbow?

A wagon came clattering along the road, and she heard the driver’s jovial voice as he reined in the horses. Eve looked out the window as Noah headed over to the wagon that was piled high with firewood.

“Hello, Elmer!” Noah called. “Cold enough for you?”

“Yah—it’s plenty cold,” the other voice replied, and when they were close enough, their voices lowered and she could no longer make out what they were saying.

Eve hadn’t decided on a family for the baby yet. There were families that would accept another child, but simply being willing to feed and shelter an unwanted baby wasn’t what she was hoping for. This baby should be wanted—by someone.

Thomas and Patience seemed like an ideal choice, even though she wasn’t ready to admit that to Noah. They wanted this child desperately. And that had made her feel almost competitive with the woman who longed for her baby. It stoked an instinct inside her to fight the woman back. And she knew it wasn’t rational. It was maternal instinct—an instinct that she’d have to tamp down. She’d meet this couple eventually, she knew, but she’d been putting it off because she didn’t know how she’d feel to look at the woman who might be mamm to this baby. She’d rather imagine the baby’s adoptive mamm like a faceless doll—an idea rather than a real woman who would be everything that Eve could not.

She looked out the window again, watching as the men unloaded wood from the back of that wagon, carrying it over to the firepit and stacking the wood neatly beside it. Noah was taller, broader, and he carried himself with the latent strength of a man accustomed to physical labor. He was distractingly handsome—something that seemed almost silly to be noticing in her present condition—and he might be uncle to this baby.

Adoption was no longer just an idea...she’d be handing her child over to very real people.

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