Caleb Wittmer glanced up from the fence he was mending. Something had caught his eye—a bright blue against the snow-covered fields that stretched in every direction. There it was again, to the north and west, coming along the dirt road.
He stepped closer to the fence. His horse moved with him, nudged his hand.
“Hold on, Stormy.” Caleb squinted his eyes and peered toward the northwest, and then he knew what he was seeing—he just couldn’t make sense of it. Why would a woman be walking on a cold December morning with no coat on?
Goose bumps peppered the skin at the back of his neck. As he watched, the woman wandered to the right of the road and then back to the left.
Something wasn’t right.
He murmured for the gelding to stay, climbed the fence and strode toward her. He’d covered only half of the distance when he noticed that she was wearing Amish clothing, though not their traditional style or color. She was a stranger, then, from a different community. But what was she doing out in the cold with no coat? More disturbing than that, she wore no covering on her head. All Amish women covered their hair when outside—Swiss, Old Order, New Order. It was one of the many things they had in common. The coverings might be styled differently, but always a woman’s head was covered.
He was within thirty feet when he noticed that her long hair was a golden brown, wavy and thick, and unbraided.
At twenty feet he could see the confused look on her face and that she was holding a book.
At ten feet she tumbled to the ground.
Caleb broke into a sprint, covering the last distance in seconds. The mysterious woman was lying in the snow, her eyes closed. Dark brown lashes brushed against skin that still held a slight tan from winter. Freckles dotted the tops of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. A small book had fallen out of her hands. Her hair was splayed around her head like a cloak she’d thrown on the ground, and a pale blue scarf was wrapped around her neck—but no coat.
Where was the woman’s coat?
He shook her gently, but there was no response.
Looking up, he saw Stormy waiting for him at the property line. He’d never be able to take her that way, unless he was willing to dump her over the fence. He couldn’t begin to guess why she had fainted, but throwing her over barbed wire and onto the ground wouldn’t be helpful.
No, he’d have to go the long way, by the road.
Caleb shook her shoulders one more time, but still there was no response. He clutched her hand. Her fingers were like slivers of ice. How long had she been outside? Why was she wandering down their road?
Scooping her up, he turned toward the house.
She weighed little more than a large sack of feed, which he’d been lifting since he was a teenager. Carrying her was not a problem, but now his heart was racing and his breath came out in quick gasps. What if he was too late? What if she was dying?
He strode toward his parents’ house, pulling her body closer to his, willing his heat to warm her, whispering for Gotte’s help.
Stormy kept pace on his side of the fence.
The farmhouse seemed to taunt him, as it receded in the distance, but, of course, that was impossible. It was only that he was scared now, worried that he should have seen her sooner, that he might be too late.
Snow began to fall in earnest, but he barely noticed. Tucking his chin to keep the snow out of his eyes, he increased his pace.
* * *
“She just collapsed?” His mother had taken the sight of him carrying a nearly frozen woman into their home in stride. She’d told him to place her on the couch as she’d grabbed a blanket.
“Ya. She teetered back and forth across the road and then fell into the snow as I was watching.”
“No idea who she is?”
“Obviously she’s not from here.”
Ida nodded. Her dress was of a bright blue fabric, while their community still wore only muted blues and greens, blacks and browns. They were a conservative Amish community, a mixture of Swiss and Pennsylvania Dutch, which was why they lived in the southwestern part of Indiana. They weren’t a tourist destination like Shipshewana. And unlike some more liberal Amish