scolded.
The dog paid her no mind. The mutt’s tail wagged happily as Nick rumpled her ears. He said, “That’s a good girl. Now down.”
The dog dropped to all fours, then sat quietly by his side. He nodded once to Miriam and entered the house. The dog stayed outside.
His cousin Amber sat at the kitchen table. “Hi, Nick. Thanks for coming. We do need your help.”
Ada Kauffman sat across from her. A large woven basket sat on the table between them. The room was bathed in soft light from two kerosene lanterns hanging from hooks on the ceiling. The Amish religion forbade the use of electricity in the home.
He glanced at the three women facing him. Ada Kauffman was Amish, from the top of her white prayer bonnet on her gray hair to the tips of her bare toes poking out from beneath her plain, dark blue dress. Her daughter, Miriam, had never joined the church, choosing to leave before she was baptized. Tonight, she wore simple dark slacks and a green blouse that matched her eyes. Her arms were crossed over her chest. If looks could shrivel a man, he’d be two feet tall in about a second.
His cousin Amber wore jeans, sneakers and a blue
T-shirt beneath a white lab coat. She served the Amish and non-Amish people of Hope Springs, Ohio, as a nurse midwife. Exactly what was she doing here? If Miriam’s trim figure was anything to go by she didn’t require the services of a midwife.
Amber wasn’t normally the cloak-and-dagger type. He was intensely curious as to why she had insisted he come in person before she’d tell him the nature of the call.
He said, “Okay, I’m here. What’s so sensitive that I had to come instead of sending one of my perfectly competent deputies? Make it snappy, Amber. I’m leaving in a few hours for a much-needed, week-long fishing trip, and I’ve got a lot to do.”
“This is why we called you.” Amber gestured toward the basket. He took a step closer and saw a baby swaddled in the folds of a blue quilt.
“You called me here to see a new baby? Congratulations to whomever.”
“Exactly,” Miriam said.
He looked at her closely. “What am I missing?”
Amber said, “It’s more about what we are missing.”
“And that is?” he demanded. Somebody had better start making sense.
Ada said, “A mother to go with this baby.”
He shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”
Miriam rolled her eyes. “I’m not surprised.”
Her mother scowled at her, but said, “Someone left this baby on my porch.”
“Someone abandoned this infant? When? Did you see who it was?” He pulled his notebook and pen from his pocket and started laying out an investigation in his mind. So much for starting his vacation on time.
“About three hours ago,” Miriam answered.
Was she serious? “And you didn’t think to call my office until thirty minutes ago?”
Miriam didn’t answer. She sat in a chair beside his cousin. Amber said, “Miriam called me first. We’ve been discussing what to do.”
“There is nothing to discuss. What you do is call your local law enforcement and report an abandoned child. We could have had a search for the parents started hours ago. Amber, what were you thinking? I need to get my crime scene people here. We need to dust for prints, collect evidence.”
Miriam said, “No one has committed a crime.”
He glared at her. “I beg to differ.”
Her chin came up. She never was one to back down. He’d missed their arguments as much as he’d missed the good times they shared. If only they could go back to the way it had been before.
For a second, he thought he saw a softening in her eyes. Was she thinking about those golden summer days, too? Her gaze slid away from him before he could be sure. She said, “According to the Ohio Safe Haven Law, if a baby under one month of age is left at a fire station, with a law enforcement officer or with a health care worker, there can be no prosecution of the parents who left the child.”
He didn’t like having the law quoted to him. “This baby wasn’t left with Amber or at a hospital. It was left with you.”
“I’m a nurse.”
She really enjoyed one-upping him. He had to admire her spunk. “But this isn’t a hospital, it’s a farmhouse. I still have to report this to the child welfare people. They will take charge of the baby.”
“That’s why we wanted to talk to you and not to one of your deputies.” Amber had that wheedling tone in her voice. The one that had gotten him in trouble any number of times when they were kids.
Ada smiled brightly. “Would you like some coffee, Sheriff? A friend brought us cinnamon rolls yesterday. Perhaps you would enjoy a bite.” She shuffled across the kitchen and began getting out plates.
The baby started to fuss. One tiny fist waved defiantly through the air. Miriam stood and lifted the child out of the basket. She sat down in the rocker beside the table. Holding and patting the baby, she ignored him.
He exhaled the frustration building inside him. The Amish dealt with things in their own fashion and in their own time. He knew that. Miriam might not have been baptized into the faith, but she had been raised in it. Intimidation wasn’t going to work on her or her mother.
He crouched in front of Miriam and took hold of the infant’s waving fist. The baby grasped his finger and held on tight. It was a cute little thing with round cheeks and pale blond hair. He smiled. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
Miriam wouldn’t meet his gaze. “A girl.”
He looked at Amber. “Is she healthy? I mean, is she okay?”
“Perfectly okay,” Amber assured him.
“How old do you think she is?”
“From the look of her umbilical cord, a day at the most.”
He looked around the room. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Miriam finally met his gaze. Perhaps it was a trick of the lamplight, but he didn’t see anger in their depths. She said, “I saw an Amish buggy driving away.”
He wasn’t expecting that. To the Amish, faith and family was the core around which everything was based. An abandoned Amish child was almost unheard of. It had never happened in his county.
“She’s coming back for her child,” Ada stated firmly.
Miriam stayed silent. She didn’t take her eyes off the baby’s face.
Amber laid a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “The baby needs to be here when she does.”
He rose to his feet and held up his hands. “Wait a minute. There are
