Free Anna's Crossing: An Amish Beginnings Novel by Suzanne Woods Fisher

was missing a hand. When she saw the reddened scarred stump as he pounded the dough, her stomach twisted and turned again.
    The cook waved his stump in the air in the direction of the ship’s carpenter and laughed. “Fine handiwork of Bairn’s.” Then he calmly went back to kneading the dough.
    “Had t’be done,” Bairn said, matter-of-factly, still poking through the cupboards. “I only lopped it off because it had gone gangrene on you.”
    She slid another glance at the carpenter—Bairn. What kind of name was that for a man who had the courage to cut off a man’s gangrened hand? He was too tall to stand upright in the low-ceilinged cabin. And he appeared strong enough to lift her in one arm and Felix in the other. His face revealed nothing of what he was truly made of, whether good or evil, a man who kept himself closely guarded. And yet those eyes of his . . . there was something compelling to her about them. She couldn’t make herself look away.
    Bairn took a small knife from Cook’s work counter and sliced some ginger root. “Chew on this. ’Twill help.”
    When he handed her the ginger, their fingers met and thentheir eyes. The spicy scent tickled her nose and she caught a look of mirth flit through Bairn’s eyes. Here and then gone. Shyly, she lowered her chin and nibbled on the ginger root.
    Bairn reached behind Felix to pull a tin off a shelf. He opened the tin and offered cookies to Felix. “Take two, they’re small. Cook is a stingy man.”
    Cook snorted. “I was more generous before you lopped me hand off.”
    “If I hadn’t taken yer hand, you would’ve died fer sure.” He turned to Anna. “The ship’s carpenter often doubles as the ship’s surgeon.”
    “Same tools!” The cook made a slicing motion with his one hand, like he was chopping wood with an axe.
    Anna’s stomach rose and fell.
    “Aye, same tools,” Bairn said, “but I take more care with both wood and bones than he’d have you believe.”
    Mesmerized, Felix’s head bobbed from one direction to the other, listening to the cook’s sloppy English and then the carpenter’s crisp turn of phrase. Anna wasn’t sure how much Felix could understand of this conversation between the cook and the carpenter—he never seemed to pay attention during her English lessons—but the casual description of a gangrenous hand made her stomach twirl like it was being tightened in a vice.
    Chewing the ginger rapidly, Anna tried to get her mind off her nausea and took stock of the compact space of the tiny kitchen. Under the hot furnace rested a platform of bricks, no doubt to keep the heat from burning right through the wooden deck. Every inch of space was claimed, but used in clever ways. Cupboards had been customized to fit the narrow room, including a narrow corner cupboard. Spices werelined in rows of shelving with a wooden dowel to keep them in place. She doubted Cook would have to take more than a few steps to gather ingredients.
    “Anna, how does a cook manage with one hand?” Felix whispered in their dialect.
    Bairn must have figured out what was on Felix’s mind because he answered before Anna could ask. “Cook used t’be a seaman until the accident that took his hand. The sea is all he ken. Becoming a cook was the only job he could do with one hand. You’d be surprised at what a man can adapt to when he has no choice.” After Anna finished translating Bairn’s words to Felix, a grin slowly spread over the carpenter’s face. “But one hand or two, I am thinkin’ he would still serve us rotting slop.”
    Cook pointed a sharp knife at him. “Rotting slop, my eye.”
    Bairn turned to Anna. “The captain is waitin’ for the sextant t’do the noontime bearings. He’ll be bellowin’ soon if I do nae get to him. It’d be wise t’get below decks before the stroke of the bells fer a watch change.”
    Warmed and warned, Anna stood to leave. “Thank you for the ginger. Come, Felix.” His blue eyes, round as silver