The Amish Widower's Twins. Jo Ann Brown

the rusty screen slam in his wake.

      How could he have spoken so foolishly? He couldn’t blame it on his lack of sleep, because he’d guarded his words before. Maybe the sight of Leanna in his new home had torn down the walls he’d built around his battered heart the night he’d agree to marry Freda. Had seeing Leanna in his kitchen been enough to evoke the dreams he’d decimated when he stood before the Leit and vowed to be Freda’s husband?

      If so, he had to make sure it didn’t happen again. He’d hurt her too much to risk doing so again. He must keep the boundaries in place between them.

      Always.

      * * *

      Leanna flinched at the sound of a door closing upstairs a few minutes later. Gabriel must have come back in the front door so he could avoid her. Offering to help him until Juanita graduated from school had been a mistake.

      A big mistake.

      She had to find someone else to take her place. She shouldn’t be here, because being around Gabriel brought too many futile hopes to life. He’d made his choice, and she had to accept that.

      Her working at his house wasn’t about her and about Gabriel. If it had been, she never would have volunteered to help him. The bopplin needed her to be there to feed them and change them and play with them.

       And you need them.

      The thought should have startled her, but it didn’t. How often had she imagined having a family of her own? More than once, she’d thought about how much fun it would be to have twins so she could watch them grow up and grow close to each other as she and Annie had.

      Harley and Heidi wouldn’t be hers, but she could spend time with them in the years to come because they’d be part of the small community along Harmony Creek.

      “How about something to eat?” she asked the little girl she held.

      Heidi answered with nonsense sounds and grinned, dancing in Leanna’s arms.

      Seeing two high chairs set beside boxes waiting for someone to open them, she set the boppli on the blanket beside her brother. Leanna had moved one chair before she noticed Heidi crawling at a remarkable speed and intent toward the front room. Scooping up the kind, she put her in the high chair.

      “You’re a cute little monkey looking for trouble, ain’t so?” Leanna made a silly face at the tiny girl.

      “Be careful,” replied a voice even deeper than Gabriel’s. “Your face might freeze that way, and it’d be a shame.”

      Her eyes widened when she saw a dark-haired man standing in the doorway. He was taller than Gabriel, and his prominent nose would have dwarfed a face with gentler planes. Hints of red glistened in his hair when sunlight rippled across it.

      “Gute mariye?” She hadn’t intended to make the greeting a question, but she wasn’t sure who the man was.

      As if she’d asked that question, he said, “You must be Leanna. I’m Michael, the smarter twin.”

      Leanna smiled in spite of herself. She’d never met Gabriel’s twin, and she was surprised how different the two men looked. Not just their coloring, but how Michael smiled easily while Gabriel remained somber even when she made a joke.

      Gabriel used to laugh and smile. A lot. In fact, it had been his grin that first caught her eye during a Sunday evening gathering. He’d been on the opposite side of the barn, but when the enticing rumble of his laugh caught her ear, she had turned toward him. Her eyes had been captured by his dark brown ones, and a sensation she’d never known rushed through her like a rising wind before a thunderstorm. It was filled with warmth and anticipation and a hint of possible danger.

      At the time, she’d been delighted by the instant connection between them. That had been before she’d come to understand the hint of danger was real and aimed at her heart.

      “It’s nice to meet you,” she replied when Michael got the other high chair.

      She set Harley in it and bent to tie a bib around the boppli’s neck.

      “I hear you’re a twin, too,” Michael said as he leaned a shoulder against a cabinet.

       “Ja.”

      “Are you the older or younger twin?”

      “I’m sure I knew at one time or another. There are only five minutes between when we were born, so it doesn’t matter.”

      Michael chuckled. “I guess twin girls aren’t as competitive as male twins are. Gabriel never has let me forget he’s almost an hour older than me. Of course, I tell him God gave him a head start because He knew Gabriel would need it to keep up with me.”

      Leanna laughed. As she motioned for Michael to help himself to a cup of kaffi while she cooked him and the bopplin some breakfast, she told him Gabriel was catching a quick nap.

      “Gut,” Michael replied. “He’s a danger to himself and to everyone else if he tries to work when he can’t keep his eyes open.”

      “Aren’t the bopplin sleeping through the night?”

      “Don’t ask me. I wouldn’t hear them if they came into my room and shrieked in my ears. Once I’m asleep, I don’t hear anything.” He opened the refrigerator and shifted the bottles before pulling out a pitcher of cows’ milch. Pouring some into his cup, he grinned at her. “Sometimes, it’s great to be oblivious.”

      She handed each of the bopplin a hard cookie to chew on, then went to the stove to crack some eggs into a fresh pan. She listened as Michael talked about the project the two brothers would be working on, and though it was a simple job, he sounded excited about doing it, especially the interior carpentry. He made jokes that had her laughing, though she tried to keep the sound low so she didn’t wake Gabriel. She set a handful of fried-egg pieces on the trays of the two high chairs. She wasn’t sure if the kinder would eat them, but the food would keep them entertained while she worked. When she put a plate with fried eggs and toast in front of Michael before returning to the stove to get bacon, he sat and dug in with the fervor of a man who hadn’t eaten in a year.

      “Slow down,” she cautioned.

      “Why? It’s delicious.”

      “You two must not be very gut cooks, because I’m not. My sisters are the skilled cooks in our house.”

      He tapped his plate with his fork before scooping up another piece of egg, “If your sisters are better cooks than this, point me to them. I’ll propose today.”

      She laughed. “One is going to be married this fall, and the other is fourteen and still in school.”

      “I’ll wait if her cooking is better than this.” He gave her a wink, then reached for the strawberry jam to lather it on his toast.

      Leanna walked to the stove. Gabriel’s brother was charming.

      As Gabriel used to be.

      That thought sent a chilling wave of sorrow over her. She’d lost any chance to win Gabriel’s heart, but it seemed Gabriel had lost himself since the last time she’d spoken to him in Lancaster County.

      She couldn’t think of anything sadder.