Sweet Blessings (Love Inspired) (10 page)

“If a wild-eyed woman comes bursting through the door, don't call Frank. It's my sister Paige. She's used to being in charge. I'm warning you before she shows up so you're prepared.”

The pot clanked on the burner. “Why do I need to be prepared?”

“Because you look at me, Rachel and Jodi funny.”

“What do you mean by funny?”

“Like you're wondering how fast you can make it to the door.”

“You mean, in case of a fire?”

Amy swiped the wet bangs plastered to her face. He was going to joke, was he? She couldn't believe it. “Are you denying it?”

“Yep.” Clangs came from deep inside the shadowed kitchen. He'd turned on only the small light over the sink, and the rip of the refrigerator door opening had her wondering what he was fixing.

“Hot tea is fine. Maybe I should—”

“Stay.” His command was firm.

If she wasn't still so shaky, she'd give him a piece of her mind. Amy Marie McKaslin did not take orders from any man.

Not ever again.

The diner phone rang. Her sisters knew she was here. She'd promised to call right away and report in, but she had yet to do it. She knew Paige would be rushing here, driving as fast as the storm would allow. So that left Rachel at home with Westin wondering what had happened. Talking to her sister sure sounded like a good idea. She'd feel a lot better just to hear Rachel's voice.

But Heath beat her to the phone, turning his strong back toward her and cradling the receiver against his ear. His deep baritone rumbled low and
the storm blowing inside made it impossible to hear his words.

What she needed to do was to get up and start cleaning up. The damage was ugly, but it could be made right so they could open tomorrow. That wasn't what had hit her so hard.

It was the shock of seeing the destruction. It was as if the past had come back around. Seeing the black reflective shards on the carpet made her remember, when she didn't want to ever think about that time in her life again.

Heath ambled toward her, as shadowed as the night surrounding him, and stood just shy of the fall of light through the door. He made a fine picture standing there like something out of a movie. Wet dark hair was plastered to his scalp, his face was damp, his jacket clung to his linebacker's shoulders and his worn black jeans were snug against his long lean legs.

He swiped his fingers through his hair. “That was the deputy. The store owner told him where the spare key was hidden and said to help ourselves.”

“That would be John through and through. He's one of the good guys.”

“The way you say that makes it sound like we're far and few.”

“I didn't know you were one of the good guys.” Her throat ached and she looked away. She'd meant to tease, but it had backfired on her. She'd long ago
given up trying to figure out which were the genuine men and which were the ones in sheep's clothing. She hardly knew Heath…did she even know his last name? Rachel had given him paperwork to fill out, not that Amy had had time to look.

He said nothing more. His waterlogged boots squished as he left. Amy rubbed her face, but that didn't help the pain building behind her forehead or the fact she had a long night ahead of her. What she ought to do is start cleaning up the glass. Get it out of the way so she could board up the windows.

It felt better to have a plan and it gave her something else to think about besides the man in the kitchen rescuing a cup from the microwave. She could see him at work at the counter—stirring something into the steaming cup, reaching up to search through the cupboard, standing at attention like a soldier as he contemplated his choices.

“I love any kind of tea,” she told him, pushing off the booth's bench seat and finding out her legs were steady again. She hadn't taken two steps when Heath shouldered through the doors with one of the huge latte mugs in hand.

“Where do you think you're going? Sit down and drink this. No, it's not tea.”

He meant business, she could see that. His gaze pinned hers with a no-nonsense look. His jaw drew tight. He looked about as easy to push over as a heavyweight boxing champion. “It's hot chocolate?”

“With everything on it but a cherry, because I couldn't find any in the pantry.”

“I can't believe you did this.” She hardly looked at the rich cocoa heaped with whipped cream and dribbled with chocolate. “I thought you were nuking some tea water.”

“No, this is better.” He fumbled, self-conscious, as he slid the brimming cup before her.

“I'll say. Thank you.”

“It's what my mom always made me when I was down and out.” And my wife, he didn't add. There was a lot he didn't add. “I told Frank I'd come over and help him. We'll get a couple of pieces of plywood in place, and that'll keep out the rain and any skunks or creatures looking to get out of the rain.”

“I'm perfectly capable of helping, too. This is my family's diner. I ought to—”

“No. The hot chocolate will warm you up. You've got a heavy load to carry, being a single mom. And I—” His chest hitched and he didn't want to care. He didn't. So he said nothing more and backed away toward the door, feeling the night and the endless road calling to him.

A tall, brown-haired woman with Amy's big blue eyes and nearly the same delicate structure to her face climbed out of the storm, crunching across glass on heavy, tooled riding boots. “What is wrong with people? I leave for a week and this place falls apart. Who are you?”

“The cook.” He slipped past her, figuring this had to be the oldest sister everyone had talked about.

Paige McKaslin gave him one measuring glance, seemed to find him below par and dismissed him with an efficient shake of her head. “Amy? What's going on here? I know our insurance isn't going to cover this.”

Heath left the sisters alone and took refuge in the endless night. The rain was calming, but the storm had tossed broken tree branches into the road. The big round headlight of the oncoming train seemed to hover eerily in the dark gleaming night.

He rescued his duffel; everything inside had to be sopping wet. He hefted the strap and water gushed out from the bottom of the bag. He tossed it under the eaves at the apartment door and a motion caught his attention in the shadowed window.

Amy moved away, her arms wrapped around her middle.

He understood without knowing why that she'd seen the bag. She knew that he'd packed and would leave her high and dry without a cook, just as she'd feared he would. Her disappointment rolled like fog misting up from a river. It shamed him, but there were worse things.

She didn't wake at night, locked in a nightmare without end and hearing the cries of her child dying, the way he did.

He prayed to God she never would.

A
my sat in her car, shivering in the chilly dampness. Paige's black SUV blended with the dark world, the taillights floating pinpoints of light as smokelike fog rose from the sodden earth like thousands of souls to heaven.

Amy had felt much better after Heath's cup of cocoa. The rich velvety brew had melted the shock from her system and warmed her up enough for her synapses to start firing again. She'd helped Heath and Frank hold and nail the sheets of plywood, while Paige swept up the glass, and, with a wet vac, dried up most of the rain damage.

Except for the two booths nearest the door, every table was fine. They'd be open for breakfast bright and early at 6:00 a.m. as usual, which, according to her battered sports watch, was two hours and five minutes away. She could snatch a little sleep—it
wouldn't be much, but some was better than none. It sounded like a good idea, but the dark windows above the diner kept drawing her attention.

She remembered how hard Heath had worked alongside Frank, competently driving nails with a hammer as if he'd been a carpenter somewhere along the line. She could picture it, him in a hard hat, a T-shirt and jeans, thick heavy boots and a carpenter's belt at his hips. His face, neck and arms were sun-browned, as if he'd worked outside in his last job.

So, what was he doing working as a cook? He'd make so much more as a union tradesman. And why was his bag packed and dropped, as if he'd been on his way out for good without so much as a goodbye, just as she'd pegged him for.

Yeah, she could pick 'em. The only type of man she seemed to attract was the kind that left. Commitment-shy, free-and-easy, or simply wanting an entanglement-free life. That's why she'd given up hoping she'd ever find a good man to marry. She had a son, she had a mortgage payment and she had responsibilities to her sisters that went beyond part ownership of the restaurant.

Responsibility was a concept few men grasped—maybe it was just the effect of testosterone on the brain. Whatever it was, she'd found out it was easier and safer to keep every single one of them at a reasonable distance. Tonight had been illuminating for
very good reasons—every time she began to weaken God had a way of reminding her.

Deeply grateful, she shivered in the cool blow of the defroster, waiting for the engine to warm up. If she closed her eyes, she could still see it. The smashed window crisscrossed with fractures like a giant spider's web. The dresser's mounted mirror in the little bedroom she'd rented in an older neighborhood in Seattle's university district. The tiny window in the front door. The windshield of her car. Glass shards cutting her bare feet as she hurried to sweep them up. From her favorite little juice glasses with the daisies on them. From a beer bottle thrown against the kitchen wall.

It was important to remember. Never to forget. She already had what she needed. Her son. Her family. There was no need to look for more. She had enough. More than she thought she deserved, and that made her grateful.

As for Heath—the image remained of his shadow moving across the darker background of the storm, rescuing his duffel bag from the wet ground and taking it back upstairs. Had he changed his mind about leaving? Or was he merely getting his pack out of the rain?

It was probably the latter. Men left. It's what they did. He'd taken one look at her son and leaped to the wrong conclusion, thinking that she was on the hunt for a husband. Isn't that what a working single mom wanted? A man to foot the bills so she wouldn't have to?

If she had a nickel for every time someone advised her to start dating so she didn't have to work so hard, she'd be able to buy her own four-star restaurant on the Seattle waterfront, like she'd always dreamed of.

The last thing she wanted or needed was another man to tell her what was wrong with her, to take over her life and destroy it and run off with every last cent she owned. Whether Heath was that sort of man or not, it didn't make one bit of difference. She wasn't interested.

But maybe he didn't understand that. The way he'd avoided looking at her after he returned from the hardware store with Frank had said it all. The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. She'd do better to take a deep breath, chill out and forget it. Let him leave. She'd get up in… She glanced at the clock, okay, less than two hours' time and man the grill. It was no big deal.

Then why was she so angry?

Because it was easier to feel anger than to face the truth, to pull up the memory of Heath standing at the grill after Westin had talked to him. She'd somehow seen inside him at that moment, to where his heart was as dark as the center of a black hole, a place that allowed no light, nothing but an endlessly collapsing void. What could cause that kind of pain?

She saw the flicker of a movement at the window. It had to be him. She imagined him gazing, not at her but in the opposite direction. Looking east where the
road led. Did he regret staying long enough to help her and her sisters out—again?

A lot of men wouldn't have bothered to get involved at all. But he had. He'd chosen to stay when he could have walked away. Was he up there alone in the utter darkness without the benefit of a single light on, wishing he'd made another choice? Making plans to leave with the dawn?

She didn't know why, but if he left that way, she would have regrets. There would always be the feeling that she'd left something undone.

For all his good deeds to her, she'd done nothing in return. Everything within her felt at war. She didn't want to get close to any man—and yet there was something in Heath that tugged at her as if a line ran from his soul to hers. Why else could she feel his pain? See the infinite void within his heart?

She ought to go home, and yet she knew if she did Heath would be gone by morning and she would never know—what, she wasn't sure. She knew she already cared about Heath too much. More than was safe. More than was sensible for a woman with her luck. And yet, she would never rest easy if he were gone come sunrise.
Show me what to do, Lord. Please, I need your guidance.

Then again, maybe He'd given her enough already. She was exhausted and thinking in circles. She had a son to get home to.

“Car trouble?”

Amy recognized Heath's voice even as adrenaline jetted into her bloodstream and her hand was curling around the strap of her purse to use it as a weapon. He'd scared ten years off her life.

She shoved open the door. “Would you stop doing that?”

“Want to hit the hood lock for me, and I'll take a look.” He flicked on a flashlight, the small beam reflected with eye-stinging brightness in the thick fog. “What's the problem?”

“In order for the car to go, the driver has to put it into gear.”

“You mean you've been sitting here on purpose? It's almost four in the morning and it's starting to freeze. The roads are already dangerous enough.”

“I never thanked you for the hot chocolate.”

“That can't be why you're sitting out here alone in the dark. Even in a town like this, it can't be entirely safe.” The mist turned into translucent flakes as the water froze in midair, shrouding him with a strange dark light. It made Amy remember how he'd seemed in the kitchen after Westin had left.

“Maybe I'd better drive you,” he offered.

“I'm not afraid of a little ice on the road. Goodness, I learned to drive in the winter.”

That polite shield again. Heath took in Amy's picture-perfect smile—not too wide, not too bright but just enough. There was nothing appreciably different about her, she was still wearing her thin jacket,
and at least it had dried hanging above the heat duct in the restaurant. Her hair was still yanked unevenly back in a quick ponytail that was beginning to sag. Her flannel pajamas were very eye-catching.

“Isn't that Saturn?”

“As you may have noticed, my little boy is into astronomy. He got me these for Christmas this year. Wasn't that thoughtful? They are the softest jammies I've ever had.”

They sure looked soft, quality combed flannel bottoms fell to the tops of her sneakers, and he was shocked that he noticed the way her slim ankle showed, just a bit. She was wearing knitted cable socks that would have made anyone else's ankles look less than slender and shapely.

Not that he ought to be noticing Amy's ankles—or any woman's.

He rubbed his left hand, where the ring hadn't been ever since he'd tossed it off the bridge after leaving the hospital. When he'd almost gone in the water with the ring.

Lord knew he hadn't had the courage then. He'd been naive enough still to believe that there would be hope somewhere, someday. Hope for what, he couldn't have said. Maybe it seemed impossible that something so sudden and horrific could be real.

He'd been in too much shock to realize that traumatic things happened all the time. Bad things happening to other people is what had made him, if not
well off, then doing better than most. A new car, a nice house, a boat for Sunday afternoons on the lake.

But time had shown him one thing. His losses were real, death was final and his grief and guilt were never going to end. Every day since, he'd regretted not jumping off the bridge when he'd had the chance.

Although he wasn't much of a churchgoer, not any more, he was still a believer. And his faith taught that it was against God's law for a man to take his own life…in the end, as much as he'd wanted it, Heath had not been able to choose his own death.

Not that he had chosen to live either. He'd stopped being alive in every way that mattered long ago. What he wanted was oblivion—to keep from remembering, from feeling, to hide from the guilt that rose up like a tsunami. How could he have oblivion if everywhere he went, children made him remember? It wasn't Amy's fault that she was lucky enough to be a mom, that her little boy was alive and well, that he'd picked out pajamas for his mom with a planet design and he was as cute a little boy as Heath had ever seen.

And looking at Amy's son led Heath down the only obvious path. If Christian had lived, what would he have been interested in? Planes? Or trucks? Football or baseball? Would he color with those big chunky crayons made for little kids or would he prefer to finger paint? Would his big brown eyes have sparkled with joy over pancakes and sausages? Would he carry around a stuffed toy everywhere he went?

The tsunami overtook him, obliterating him. Heath took the hit and tried not to let it show. He didn't trust his voice, so he didn't say anything. It was better just to let it pass. It always did…eventually.

“Look at you.” There was sympathy in her dulcet voice and her grip settled around his wrist, but it felt distant as if she were touching him through yards of Jell-O.

“What are you doing up at this hour to notice that I'm freezing to death in my car?”

He didn't answer. The air he breathed in scorched the linings of his nose and sinuses and stung deep in his chest. Maybe he could be like the fog, freeze up and just let the pain slide right off his soul.

“You did so much for us tonight.” She left the engine idling as she stood and, shivering, searched him as if trying to figure out what was going on inside his skull.

It was private, not her business. He watched the ice particles in the air fall like the tiniest specks of snow and cling to her hair and eyelashes and melt against the softest creamiest skin he'd ever seen on a woman. Her soul shone in her eyes, and as she studied him, he felt as if the deepest part of him had been revealed. Without words. Without communication of any kind.

Sadness shadowed her eyes. “Let me take you upstairs.”

“What about your boy?”

“He's asleep in his bed, and he'll be fine for a few hours more. After Rachel came over to look through the books with Paige, we got to talking. Suddenly it was midnight and so she made up a bed on the air mattress. She does it all the time, which worked out fine tonight, since the tavern called to let me know they'd called the cops and it was providential she was there to stay with Westin.”

“That's pretty amazing. Frank told me he'd been called by someone hearing threats.” Heath felt as cold as the outside air. “Not a lot of folks would get involved like that.”

“We're a small community. I send the tavern a lot of business, you know, tourists looking for cocktails or a cold beer after a hot day in the car. We don't have a liquor license, so I send customers over. They do the same. It works out. I guess it's a small-town thing. Now, will you go upstairs before we both freeze? Or will I have to carry you up?”

“You've got to be kidding. I bet you've got a steel core, Amy McKaslin, but there's no way you can carry me up the stairs. I'll drive you home.”

“I don't need a chauffeur.”

“Humor me. I won't get a wink of sleep unless I know you're home safe.”

“I'll call—wait, you don't have a phone.” Amy shook her head, scattering the tiny wisps of golden silk that had escaped her disheveled ponytail. She
looked like a waif in her too-big coat and her flannel pants. “I'll be all right.”

“You never know that for sure. You can take all the precautions you want, but sometimes it doesn't matter. So, do me this favor, okay?”

“Driving me home isn't a favor.”

She didn't understand. He didn't need any “should-have”s that resulted in more tragedy. He prodded her around the hood of the frosty sedan. The blacktop and then the concrete sidewalk beneath his feet were slick. “Is this my imagination, or is it snowing?”

“It's snowing.”

“It's May.”

“Welcome to Montana.”

At least Amy's nearness gave him something else to think about. She smelled faintly of hot chocolate and shampoo and of the spring snow caught in her hair. A small blanket of faint freckles lay across her nose and cheeks, but that wasn't what made her cute. What drew him and held him was the quiet lock of her gaze on his. Although she said nothing, he sensed it. She'd seen the duffel bag, of course. She knew what he intended to do. She ought to be angry, but she wasn't.