An Amish Country Christmas Read online

  Oh, but she was tempted to make these brothers draw straws to decide who would drive her around Cedar Creek first. Wasn’t it a fine, fun feeling to be the object of their compliments while they believed she had somehow baked fresh brownies for them in the past fifteen minutes? But after a lifetime of doing everything, sharing everything with Martha, Mary couldn’t leave her twin out in the cold—or out in the barn working, either. Martha was more athletic and outspoken while Mary preferred to spend her time baking or embroidering, yet most folks couldn’t tell them apart . . . and she suspected any fellow who might want to ask one of them out hesitated, wondering if he would ever have time alone with the sister of his choice.

  But the Kanagy boys each had a vehicle . . . a perfect way to provide some privacy while they all had a good time.

  Get ready to ride! Mary tapped out with her thumbs. Then she dropped her phone into her coat pocket and turned toward the front counter, where the brothers were collecting their receipts from James. Her heart played hopscotch when Bram turned to flash her a wink as he took another mocha brownie from the plate. She had to admit Martha was right: traditional Nate was more her sister’s type, while Mary had taken an instant shine to wavy-haired Bram in his rakish fedora and black leather jacket. Here was a fellow still enjoying his rumspringa, who wanted to help her make the most of her running-around years, as well. Seemed the least she could do was to show him a good time before he had to head for home.

  “Why don’t both of you hitch up?” Mary suggested. “I know where to find those lights you want, Bram. All of us can have a real gut time while you’re here in Willow Ridge.”

  “Glad I took your suggestion and got the harness with the sleigh bells, James,” Nate remarked as he grinned at her. “Clyde’s going to step lively for sure and for certain, with that extra jingle and a girl riding along.”

  “We’ll see about that,” Mary replied. Did she sound too brazen, suggesting she would keep both Kanagy boys company? She gave James a pointed look when he seemed ready to say something about her twin sister.

  The carriage maker took the last brownie and raised it in salute. “Stop by any time with treats,” he said. “And wish your family a merry Christmas for me.”

  “I’ll do that.” Mary slipped on her bonnet, grabbed the container, and preceded the brothers out the wide back door Bram was holding open for her. “Give my best to your parents and sister, too.”

  The brisk winter air invigorated her as she watched Nate and Bram guide their new rigs from the shop and then hitch them to the horses waiting at the rail. The snow sparkled with sun diamonds and chickadees chirped in the evergreens. Had there ever been a shinier December day? A finer chance to get acquainted with these out-of-town fellows who wanted to spend their time with her? Their choice of horses said a lot about them, too, and this seemed a safe topic of conversation that wouldn’t give away her surprise.

  Mary approached slowly as Nate fastened a glossy black harness to his Clydesdale. What would Martha say? She’s the one who knows horses. “This fellow must stand at least, um—eighteen hands,” she remarked as she stroked the majestic horse’s neck. “And such a docile boy, too. Gut thing, considering the size of those hooves!”

  “Nineteen hands,” Nate remarked approvingly. He buckled the band that was covered with brass sleigh bells. “Jah, Clyde’s my first Clydesdale, and I’m sold on the breed now. Got him when that big brewery in St. Louis retired some of their show stock. Guess he’s been on some television commercials.”

  Mary’s eyes widened. It wasn’t every day that Plain folks acquired draft horses with such a pedigree. She turned toward Bram then, who was murmuring to the glossy bay he’d hitched to his courting buggy. Its black mane and tale shimmered when the horse shifted in place, showing its readiness to be out on the road. “Used to be a race horse, did he?” she asked. “Felix has some mighty fine lines.”

  “He does, at that,” Bram replied. “Found him at one of the auctions I was working over by Kansas City. But I have to give Nate the credit for training him to haul buggies.”

  Mary blinked. “You’re that Kanagy?” she blurted as she gazed at Nate. “I know lots of men who won’t let anybody else break their draft horses.”

  Nate’s cheeks colored, and he seemed tongue-tied. Mary sensed she shouldn’t slight his younger brother by giving him all the attention, however. “And you work at auctions, Bram?”

  He bowed slightly, tipping his fedora. “I’ll have you know I’m a licensed auctioneer, Martha. Hopin’ to have my own sale barn and business someday. And since I’m such a natural at sellin’ folks on things, you can’t help but ride in my rig now, ain’t so?”

  Mary blushed and stepped forward so he could help her up into his new buggy. “That’s not to say your brother’s to be left out in the cold, though,” she teased. “Let’s all of us head down this road for a quick tour of Cedar Creek. I think you’ll like what you see.”

  Nate laughed good-naturedly as he sprang into the seat of his sleigh. “Sounds better than heading to Aunt Beulah Mae’s. No need for her and Uncle Abe to know we’ve arrived just yet, or they’ll be wanting us to spend the rest of the day there.”

  “Abe and Beulah Mae Nissley?” she asked. “I bake for Mrs. Nissley’s Kitchen—cookies and bars, mostly, while Beulah Mae keeps up with the pies and running her restaurant. She’s closed for a few days over Christmas—”

  “With nothin’ better to do than entertain her two nephews from Willow Ridge,” Bram said as he clapped the reins lightly on Felix’s back. “I’m for goin’ wherever you can think of, Martha. Plenty of time to park our butts in Beulah Mae’s kitchen, ain’t so, Nate?”

  “You’ve got that right, little brother. Here we go!”

  Grinning with her secret plan—hoping she didn’t blow it—Mary gestured for Bram to turn right. Was it too soon to dream of spending more time in this rig beside her handsome driver? Sure, there were a good many miles and several hours’ travel between Cedar Creek and Willow Ridge, but that matter of geography didn’t seem to bother these Kanagy brothers. And she couldn’t wait until Martha—and the rest of her family at home—heard whom she and her sister had latched onto. Since there was no other traffic on the road, Nate pulled his sleigh into the lane beside Bram’s buggy to keep up with the conversation.

  “Seems like a nice place, Cedar Creek,” Bram said as he looked around. “Well-kept farms hereabouts, and lots of folks seem to have businesses, as well.”

  “Those are Matt Lambright’s sheep,” she replied, pointing toward the pasture they were passing. “His dat runs the mercantile, and his aunt Abby runs her sewing shop upstairs. And farther down this hill, Rudy Ropp has a dairy farm. One of his boys runs a machine repair business while the other son’s gotten into raising cage-free chickens—”

  “And what does your dat do, Martha?” Nate called over.

  Mary leaned forward, tickled that he was beside them rather than behind. “Dat and my brother Owen are carpenters—”

  “You’re that Coblentz?” Bram exclaimed. “Why, everybody knows Amos Coblentz as one of the finest master carpenters in northern Missouri. He’s built stables and barns for a lot of breeders, Amish and English alike.” He turned toward his brother then. “Didn’t Amos put up the bishop’s big barn?”

  “Jah, even though we’ve got the Brenneman boys’ carpentry shop right there in Willow Ridge. Guess we’d best behave ourselves with his daughter,” Nate added playfully. Then he sat taller, gazing intently ahead of them as they started down the first hill.

  When Bram, too, leaned forward to stare, Mary could barely contain her laughter. Sure enough, her sister was standing at the roadside, waving wildly at them as she chomped her gum. With her bonnet off, Martha’s auburn hair shone in the sunshine, beneath her kapp. It was time to come clean, and Mary was glad that both of these boys were in high spirits, more likely to laugh at the little trick she and her twin had pulled than get angry.

  “Your eyes aren’t fooling you,
” Mary said as Bram slowed the buggy at the end of their lane. “This is Martha, the one you met in the mercantile—”

  “Jah! I didn’t want to leave Mary out of the fun I thought the four of us might have, so I called her from the store,” Martha explained with a hearty laugh. “We do everything together, you see.”

  Mary scampered down from the buggy and slung her arm around Martha’s shoulders. “So that explains the miracle of the warm brownies, ain’t so? Martha’s finished her choring now, so if you boys still want some company while you break in your new rigs, we’d be happy to help out.”

  Nate and Bram had pulled their sleigh and buggy to the shoulder of the road and fastened their reins. The brothers hopped down to assess the situation, both of them studying eyes . . . noses . . . hair . . . lips. Any details they could find that would set the twins apart. Mary noticed that her sister had stopped chewing her gum, to confound the boys even more.

  “Holy Moses,” Nate murmured. “Not a shade of difference between them.”

  “Double trouble,” Bram agreed, but then he laughed. “I think we’re up for it, though, Nate. Still beats spendin’ the rest of this fine day with the aunt and uncle—”

  “Beulah Mae and Preacher Abe,” Mary remarked to her sister.

  “No! Well, see there?” Martha replied with a jovial shrug. “You don’t know a stranger when you go from one Plain town to the next. Bound to find folks you’ve met before, and plenty you’re kin to.”

  “Whether you want to be or not,” Mary added.

  All four of them laughed loudly, and as Martha grinned at her, Mary felt that this might be the start of something wonderful—a Christmas with something extra to celebrate, if things went the way she was hoping.

  “See, the plan was to pick up our new vehicles and then head to Nissleys’ for the night,” Nate explained. “Then we’re to start home tomorrow morning, so we’ll arrive in plenty of time for the Christmas Eve program at the schoolhouse—”

  “We’ll be going to that, too, but here in Cedar Creek,” Martha said. “Jacob and Joanna are reciting their Christmas poems. They’re ten, so—”

  “Another set of twins in your family?” Bram asked, his eyes widening.

  “Jah, but you won’t have any trouble telling those two apart.” Martha was already caught up in the easy way the four of them were talking and laughing. But if the Kanagy boys were supposed to return home tomorrow, in time to have a traditional Christmas with their family—and this after spending an endless evening with their bossy, gossipy aunt and her stern old husband, the preacher—it sounded as though their fun had a mighty short time frame. Unless . . .

  “You know, Christmas Day is our birthday,” Mary said, eyeing her sister purposefully. “Wouldn’t it be the nicest way for us to turn eighteen—”

  “Jah! With you fellows here to celebrate!” Martha went on in a rising voice. “And if you don’t want to stay at Preacher Abe’s, listening to Beulah Mae’s gossip and what-all—”

  “—why, we’ve got a spare bedroom at our place!” Mary continued in a breathless rush. “We’ll be going to the schoolhouse program on Christmas Eve, of course, and then spending a quiet day at home on Christmas, like always—”

  “—but come Second Christmas, just think of the places we can go! The fun we can have,” Martha declared. “And you boys would be keeping the Old Ways, following the traditions, except you’d be in our home instead of yours. What do you say?”

  “And it better be yes!” Mary’s cheeks tingled with more than the winter’s cold. How had they dared to concoct such a bold plan without asking Mamma first?

  The Kanagy brothers looked at each other, clearly excited by their idea. “Like you said, Bram, we’ll be in double trouble if we go along with the twins’ ideas,” Nate murmured. “Mamm and Dat won’t be one bit happy if we don’t show up when we’re supposed to.”

  “But we’ll be in all the right places at the right times. Even Uncle Abe can’t argue with that,” Bram reasoned as he fought a grin. “And we’ll be with the Amos Coblentz family, rather than runnin’ the roads unaccounted for. But if you’d rather be a stick in the mud—”

  “Don’t go calling me names, Bram. I might already be a member of the church, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped laughing or looking at pretty girls. I say we do it.”

  “Gut. I’m in, too.” Bram flashed them a feisty smile and then focused on his brother again. “And since you’re the older, more responsible son, you get to tell the aunt and uncle about our new plan.”

  Martha grinned, gazing up at the brother in the broad-brimmed hat. “If it makes it any easier, Nate, you can tell them Mary and I tempted you into this. Preacher Abe has said in church that cell phones—ours, namely—can be instruments of the Devil, so we’ve got a reputation to maintain. We have not joined the church yet, after all.”

  “It’s not like we’re bad apples,” Mary added matter-of-factly. “We just want to try all manner of things before we have to confess them.”

  Bram bowed to her, gesturing toward his buggy. “Can’t argue with that, can I? I’m here to help with whatever you’d like to try, missy. Lead the way.”

  “Let’s get Bram those Christmas lights and then find some lunch,” Nate suggested as he offered his arm to Martha. “We’d best not make our Christmas plans on empty stomachs, ain’t so?”

  Chapter Three

  Bram watched Mary wrap a double length of Christmas lights so it lined the buggy’s dashboard and then followed the outline of the rig all the way around the back and to the front again. Martha was beside her, securing the strand with pieces of black duct tape. Watching the girls work so closely, completing each other’s sentences, made him smile wider than he had in months. All thoughts of inviting Hannah Brenneman to ride in this new buggy, maybe courting her in the New Year, dissipated like the vapor of his breath: with Mary Coblentz, it had been love at first bite of that coffee brownie . . . not to mention the way her sparkly blue eyes had sucked him in, hook, line, and sinker. Oh, but they were in for some fun these next few days! And after all the auctions he’d been working of late, keeping company with this fine, feisty redhead was an unanticipated Christmas gift to himself.

  “Okay, hook them up!” she said as she handed him the end of the strand.

  Bram reached beneath the buggy seat, to the car battery that supplied power for the headlights and taillights, and plugged the cord into the outlet James had wired to it. When the girls clapped their hands at the flashing of the multi-colored bulbs, his heart thumped like a rock band’s drums. “Now that’ll be quite a sight, come evening,” he remarked happily. “Denki for gettin’ them on so they’re spaced evenly. Looks way better than I could have done.”

  “Jah, your backside’ll be flashing all night long, all over the countryside now, little brother,” Nate said as he circled the buggy to admire the lights. “But now that we’ve had our dinner and decked your rig, we’d best be getting over to the Nissleys’. You know how the aunt will be calling over home, asking where we might be, if we wait much longer.”

  “Like Mamm would have an answer for that,” Bram teased. But he handed Mary up into the buggy and hopped in on the other side. “No need to get Mamm or the aunt stirred up, though, considering the new plans we’ll be breakin’ to them soon. Geddap, Felix. Let’s go, fella.”

  He unplugged the lights to save them for this evening and then grinned at Mary. “I’ll understand if you and your sister need to get home to supper tonight, but if you’d stay with us, it would make the meal go quicker—or at least seem to. If you work in Mrs. Nissley’s Kitchen, you know what I mean.”

  “What with all of her kids married off and moved to other places, Beulah Mae’s gut at yacking the ears off anybody who’ll listen,” she replied with a shy grin. “Let’s see how it goes, shall we?”

  Let’s see how it goes. Bram had all sorts of visions, all manner of ideas about how he would like it to go tonight . . . especially if he could pry the twins apart.
Double dating was all right for an ice breaker, but when it came time for sampling Mary’s delicious-looking lips, he wanted her all to himself. And judging by Nate’s expression, he was guessing his brother felt the same way about Martha.

  Had there ever been a prettier day? On both sides of the road, the snow-covered pastures sparkled and tall evergreens and cedars swayed in the breeze. When they came within sight of his uncle’s orchard, Bram slowed down. Rows and rows of apple trees covered the hillside, with their lower branches supported by stout wooden braces. “Can’t say I’ve ever come in from this direction,” he remarked. “Uncle Abe’s orchard looks to be doing well.”

  “What with his preaching duties taking up so much time, he hires a bunch of us young folks to do his picking in the fall,” Mary replied. “Does so much business, he’s gone from a roadside stand to a building with sale tables. Sells the honey from his bees and lets local folks bring in their pumpkins, squash, and what-not to sell there, too.”

  “Gee, Felix.” As the horse turned to enter the long lane, Bram took in the old white house with its fieldstone foundation. Smoke curled out of the chimney and the horses in the barnyard came to the fence to watch them approach, their ears pricked forward.

  “Why am I not surprised to see Uncle Abe out here, like he’s waitin’ for us?” Bram remarked. “Stayin’ out of the aunt’s way while she’s cookin’, no doubt.”

  Mary’s soft laughter and pink cheeks teased at him. How her eyes sparkled with anticipation . . . promises and secrets to share with him later.

  “Seems you boys picked up a lot more than new rigs today,” Uncle Abe remarked as he came through the barnyard gate. As he held his broad-brimmed hat in a gust of wind, his beard rippled over his dark blue barn coat. “Not sure who’s driving Mary and who’s with Martha, but then, life’s got its little mysteries, ain’t so? How are you, girls?”

  “We’re gut, denki,” Mary replied as she daintily stepped down.

  “Jah, mighty glad your nephews came into town,” Martha added. “Merry Christmas to you, Preacher Abe.”