“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Are you ready to get to work?”

  He was dressed in an old pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Just Naomi is fine,” she said. “Come on. I’ll show you the stable. And every day when you’re done, you come on inside and I’ll have something good for you to eat, okay?”

  “Really?” He looked at her in genuine surprise.

  “Yah, really,” she said. “I will pay you once a week in cash. I imagine you need a bit of money in your pocket, though, so I will pay you every day for the first week just to make sure you have what you need.”

  “That would be great,” he said with a relieved smile. “I’ve got to pay for gas to get here.”

  “Yah, I thought so,” she said with a nod. “And every day you’ll get something good we’ve baked.”

  “Thank you.” Trevor grinned. “That’s really nice of you.”

  She led him into the stable and showed him how to shovel out a stall, where to dump the soiled hay. He picked it up quickly, and he was a strong and energetic teenager, so the work wasn’t overly exerting for him.

  “You do this every day?” Trevor asked her.

  “Yah. The animals need to be cared for,” she replied.

  “My mom doesn’t think I’ll be able to keep up with this job,” he said. “She says it’s way harder than I think.”

  “It’s not easy work, but you get used to it,” Naomi replied. “Your mother doesn’t want you working here?”

  “My mother wants me in school,” he replied.

  She could understand that. Englishers needed that diploma, and she could imagine a mother behind this boy, urging him toward better choices. Maybe she could help with that.

  Naomi nodded slowly. “How well do you read?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Come on, now,” she said.

  “Not good,” he said, casting her an uncomfortable look.

  “Hard to study when you can’t read too well,” Naomi said.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “What if I helped you with your reading for half an hour after you finish work?” she asked. “Then you’d get paid, get something good to eat, and read with me for half an hour. Would that make your mother happier?”

  “It might,” he said.

  “Well, you tell her my offer, then,” Naomi said. “Whether you go back to school or not, you’ll need to be able to read to get by, and I’ve got some experience in tutoring boys your age, so I think I could manage to teach you something. Besides, I need the help around here, and if your mother isn’t supportive, I don’t think I’ll have you around for long.”

  “How come you’re doing all this?” Trevor asked.

  Naomi considered all the answers she could give, but being an Englisher boy, he wouldn’t understand many of them.

  “I’m a Christian,” she said. “And I care.”

  He just looked at her. His big blue eyes looked even younger in that moment. Just a blond-haired, overgrown kid. Her heart went out to him. Gott had brought this boy to her very doorstep, and He’d used Mose to do it. If this was the Englisher young man Gott had provided, then she’d do her very best by him.

  “Now you finish up in here,” Naomi said. “The fresh hay is over there. About three inches of loose hay on the floor of each stall is fine. When you’re done, you come on back to the house. I’ll pay you and have something nice for you to eat. You can take it with you if you need to get home.”

  “Thanks!” he said.

  Naomi left him in the stable, and she paused at the fence, looking at the horses in the pasture beyond. Gott had given them so much, and blessings were meant to be shared. Somehow, her heart would not be soothed until she’d done just that with the Englishers.

  It took Trevor three hours to finish the stable, and when he was done, Naomi had a thick roast beef sandwich and a bowl of soup waiting for him. She put a sticky bun into a plastic bag for him to eat on the way home.

  Trevor sank into the kitchen chair in front of the food, and Aaron stared at him, wide-eyed.

  “What’s your name?” Trevor asked.

  “Aaron,” the little boy replied. “Are you gonna do the men’s chores?”

  “The what?” Trevor looked over at Naomi.

  “He means the outside work—the stable,” she replied.

  “Oh.” Trevor nodded and took a big bite of the sandwich. “Yep.”

  There was something satisfying about watching young people eat, and when he’d finished up the sandwich, the soup, and two muffins that she’d placed within his reach when she saw how hungry he was, Naomi went to the tin container on the top of the cupboard where she kept her petty cash, and she pried it open.

  “That was three hours of work,” Naomi said. She quickly calculated what she owed him and took the bills out of the tin and passed them over. “If you ever want to make a little extra, I can always find more work around here. Just so you know.”

  “Thank you!” The boy shoved the bills into his pocket. “So...same time tomorrow, then?”

  “Yah. I’ll see you then.” Naomi smiled, and Trevor headed for the door.

  She watched as he started his car in the lowering light, and then backed out of the drive. Somehow, she was already feeling protective of this Englisher boy.

  “Is this a good idea?” Claire asked softly.

  Naomi turned. “It all just came together, Claire. My sister said we could afford to hire someone, the congresswoman came to us, of all people, with her idea about helping Englisher at-risk teens. And then Mose brought this boy to our very step. It just feels...ordained. Don’t you feel it?”

  “I’m not so sure, Naomi,” Claire said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure.”

  But Naomi did feel sure. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she had more than a job to do—she had someone to care for. Gott hadn’t given her a husband and family yet, but He had given her this Englisher boy for a few hours a day.

  And deep in her heart she felt certain that Gott was using her to make a difference.

  * * *

  “She should have asked the bishop and the elders if they knew of any local boys who’d be willing help at her place before hiring on an Englisher,” Aunt Linda said that evening, shaking her head. “I mean, technically, she can hire whoever she wants, but you’d think that for her business, having Amish help would just make sense.”

  “She’s been looking,” Mose replied, his words catching a little. “But it’s my fault.”

  “Yah, I dare say it is!” Linda replied. “Naomi doesn’t need more encouragement there, Mose. And you of all people know how important it is to protect our ways. Left to her own devices, Naomi would be virtually Mennonite within a year if no one told her no to something!”

  “Your aunt is right there,” Abram agreed.

  They all sat around the dinner table, the plates already cleared away, with a pot of tea sitting on a knitted pot holder in the center of the table.

  “In Indiana,” Abram went on, “there was a family who wanted to help a homeless Englisher. They gave him a job, they gave him clothes, food off their table, and friendship, too. But the Englisher was an addict and his problems were bigger than they could help him with. He ended up robbing them to pay for his drug addiction, and he thumped one of their sons on the head on the way out. The boy got a brain injury and to this day, one side of his body doesn’t work quite as well as it used to.”

  Mose stared at his uncle in silence. It was a horrifying story, and he didn’t quite trust himself to words.

  “The moral isn’t that we shouldn’t help,” Linda said softly. “The moral is that we can’t pretend we have answers that we don’t. We’re only people. Some interventions need to be left to Gott above.”

  “Yah,” Mose said finally.

  “Maybe warn Naomi about that,” Abram said. “Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

  She hadn’t yet, and he was getting the gnawing worry that he’d just done something very silly and made things worse for Naomi instead of better. He wasn’t even sure right now how it had all come about. It just tumbled into place.

  That night Mose slept poorly, and the next morning, he drove two groups on various tours, and was set to drive a third group of Englishers that afternoon on their tour of Amish Country. This time, it was an employee group doing some sort of team-building exercise. They worked at the local grocery store, and Mose even recognized a couple of the women as regular cashiers. He didn’t let on that he recognized them, though. He just gave them a nod, made sure they were all safely seated, and then flicked the reins.

  Mose wasn’t quite feeling like himself. He was normally a lot more cautious in his ways. He thought twice, even three times, and then acted once. He was at the meeting when the bishop and elders decided against helping the at-risk Englisher youth! What on earth had he been thinking in bringing Trevor to Naomi’s bed-and-breakfast? The teen wasn’t part of the political program, but he certainly was an example of an Englisher teen in need of some guidance. And maybe he understood what Naomi was feeling, after all, because seeing that barely grown teenager trying to act bigger and tougher than he really was had tugged at his heart, too.

  “You mean they caught him more than once?”

  The conversation behind Mose grabbed his attention and he began to listen in.

  “Oh, they caught him three times! In fact, Vern didn’t want to press charges the first time they caught him. They said he was just stealing food and Vern thought he came from a poor home. Never should have felt sorry for him. Then the second time, he was stealing gift cards—which is stupid because you have to activate them. So he just got a handful of plastic. So Vern didn’t call the cops again. But this last time, he had enough, and called them in.”

  “When was that?”

  “A couple of months ago,” someone else said. “We know him on sight now. I’ll point him out to you if I see him when we’re working together. But you have to actually see him leave the front doors of the store without paying in order to call the cops. There are technicalities involved.”

  “So he’s not poor, then?” someone asked.

  “Even I’m poor!” one woman retorted. “I make minimum wage! I’m a single mom and I walk to work every day because I can’t afford a car. You don’t see me stealing anything. I pay for it honestly, and my daughter gets three square meals a day. That’s no excuse.”

  Workplace stories. He knew what that was like.

  They passed through the now familiar route, and then turned in at the Draschel Bed and Breakfast. Mose couldn’t help a little thrill of anticipation at the thought of seeing Naomi again. Maybe he’d finally get a chance to talk to her some more.

  As he reined in, Mose saw Trevor’s car parked to the side. His passengers hopped down, chatting among themselves, commenting on the beautiful scenery around them.

  The house side door opened, and Claire appeared in the doorway with a smile on her face. Trevor came out of the stable then, and one of the young women glanced in his direction, then froze. She elbowed the girl next to her.

  “That’s him!” she hissed. “That’s the kid who keeps shoplifting!”

  “Is it?” Another turned and looked, then nodded excitedly. “That is him. What’s he doing out here?”

  “Does he live out here? Why does he end up in town, then, stealing from our store? You’d think he could find someone else to rob out here...”

  Mose’s heart sank. No...not Trevor. He was the habitual shoplifter at the grocery store? Mose had brought a thief right to Naomi’s door?

  The employees whispered, looked over their shoulders in Trevor’s direction, and headed toward the side door of the house, deep in conversation. Trevor’s expression turned panicked, and he disappeared back into the stable.

  Naomi came out of the house with a plateful of cookies in one hand, and when she saw his face, she sobered.

  “Mose?” she said. “What’s the matter?”

  “We n-n-need to t-t-talk,” he said.

  Naomi put the cookies on the seat of his wagon, and he caught her hand and tugged her farther from the house and stable. This conversation needed to stay private, and they stopped behind an apple tree, the yellowing foliage shielding them from view.

  “What’s going on?” Naomi asked quietly.

  “Th-the Englisher b-b-boy—” He cleared his throat. “He’s...”

  It took a couple of minutes to push past the words that kept getting stuck on repeat in his mouth, but he was finally able to tell her what he’d heard.

  “And you’re sure it’s Trevor?” She frowned.

  “Yah. They saw him,” he replied.

  “Oh, my...” she sighed.

  “I c-c-can tell him to leave,” he said.

  “No!” Naomi’s eyes flashed. “Are you really suggesting I tell that child that he’s fired?”

  “Yah!” he replied. “He’s n-n-not a ch-ch-child, either.”

  “Not a child?” She shook her head. “I watched him eat like there was no filling him up! He’s still growing, Mose. I doubt he even shaves yet! He’s hungry, he’s eager to prove himself and work hard, and you should have seen how proud he was when I checked his work last night. I’m going to help him with his reading, too.”

  “Naomi...”

  “He needs help, Mose,” she said. “And if he’s made mistakes, then he needs a fresh start, too. What if he was your nephew? Would you have more sympathy for him then? We shouldn’t be seeing our children and other people’s children differently. There are all just children!”

  “He’s old enough to drive,” Mose said, pushing past his stutter.

  “Maybe so.” She shrugged. “But he’s not fully grown yet, and he still needs guidance, support and encouragement.”

  This woman was infuriatingly stubborn! Was she really going to argue to keep a known thief working on her property?

  “What if he has bad friends?” he asked, the words halting but coming out, at least.

  “I don’t know.” But she didn’t look worried.

  “It’s not s-s-safe!” he said.

  “I’m in no danger!” she retorted. “What is he going to do, thump me over the head and take my pots and pans? And get his friends to help him do it?”

  A thump over the head was indeed a possibility, if Abram’s story was accurate. And thumps to the head could be more disastrous than people often thought. And yes, he could very well bring friends to rob her home. Who knew how desperate people might get?

  “Mose, I have something else I wanted to ask you—something I need to know.”

  Mose paused, waiting.

  “You’re going to find a wife soon, and I should think more seriously about getting married, too,” she said. “But I’m thirty-three and still single, and I can’t help but wonder if there’s something about me—” Her cheeks flamed. “I mean... Mose, why did Klaus run from me?”

  Klaus—logical, methodical man that he was—hadn’t handled any of this well. If he’d changed his mind, he owed Naomi an explanation, either alone or with the matchmaker present. But he owed her that much.

  “He—” Mose wondered how much to say, and the words came out haltingly. “He thought you were too strong for him. He imagined a different kind of marriage.”

  “Too strong...” He could see the hurt in her eyes. “Too mouthy, right? Too opinionated? Too laughing? Too happy?”

  Mose caught her hand. “He wasn’t right for you!”

  “I see that.” She dropped her gaze. “I’m not pining after him. This isn’t really about Klaus. It’s about...me. Whatever it is that keeps me alone.” She sucked in a breath. “Okay, well, that’s good to know, right?” She lifted her gaze to meet his, and he could see new resolve in her eyes. “If I’m ever going to get married, I might need to tone myself down somewhat...if that’s even possible.”

  Mose hated that look in her eyes—the acceptance, the giving up. She was wild and free and smart, and—terrifying, yes, for a lot of men. But she was also a woman and capable of being hurt, and he hated to see the wounds under the surface. He didn’t want her to change!

  He had so many things he wished he could say, but even if he could say them without the stutter, he wouldn’t know how to put it all together.

  She wasn’t the problem; the world that couldn’t handle her was!

  “No,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Mose—” She shrugged, and her chin trembled the tiniest bit. She was such a beautiful, incredible, intimidating woman. The Klauses of the world ran in fear. Mose wasn’t afraid of her, however, even though he knew he needed a different kind of wife. But there was a man out there who would match her—and he’d be blessed indeed.

  Mose stood over her, and her face was tipped up to meet his bewildered gaze. It was then he suddenly realized how close they were to each other, and her green eyes widened and her lips parted. She thought she was the problem, and that fact nearly broke his heart. For one rushing moment, all he could think about were her pink lips and the argument that was still whirling through his head, not quite coming together. He couldn’t get the words out to do justice to his thoughts, though, so he did the last thing he could think of, and he slid his hand behind her neck, burying his fingers into her warm curls. He’d never kissed a woman before, and he had no idea how it was done. He wasn’t even thinking about the logistics of kissing her, just of satisfying that overpowering longing inside of him to soothe the pain for her, and lowered his lips over hers.

  That impetuous kiss was such a wild relief that it was like every thought seeped out of his mind, and all he could think about was the softness of her lips. He lowered his hands to her waist, and he felt her fingers tentatively touch the center of his chest. He wanted to pull her against him and never let her go, but he didn’t dare... That would be too far. His hands on her waist, her hands on his chest, and their lips were the only parts of them that touched, but it was like the entire world swirled around them in that moment, and he wasn’t even sure which direction was up.