A Warmth in Winter

by Lori Copeland

  A

  Warmth in Winter

  Heavenly Daze Book Three

  LORI COPELAND

  ANGELA HUNT

  © 2000 by Lori Copeland and Angela E. Hunt

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or any other— except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

  Published in association with Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

  Thomas Nelson, Inc., titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, organizations, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Copeland, Lori.

  A warmth in winter / Lori Copeland and Angela Hunt.

  p. cm.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8499-4306-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-59554-553-4 (mass market)

  1. Islands—Maine—Fiction. I. Hunt, Angela Elwell, 1957- II. Title.

  PS3553.O6336W37 2008

  813'.54—dc22

  2007047005

  Printed in the United States of America

  08 09 10 11 12 QW 5 4 3 2 1

  Two people can accomplish more than

  twice as much as one;

  they get a better return for their labor.

  —ECCLESIASTES 4:9

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Epilogue

  Birdie Wester’s Nutmeg Shortbread

  If You Want to Know More About . . .

  About the Authors

  Prologue

  Oh, distinctly I remember it was in a cold December, And every village member came a-knocking at my door—

  I will apologize to Edgar Allan Poe, of course, if I have occasion to see him on one of my excursions into the supernatural realm.

  Welcome back. I am Gavriel, captain of the angelic company guarding the small island of Heavenly Daze. I’m delighted, as always, that you could join us for yet another glimpse into the mysterious interactions of God and man.

  If you’re new to our little island, let me provide the history of this tiny settlement off the coast of Maine. Over two hundred years ago, a retired sea captain called Jacques de Cuvier begged the Father to guard the inhabitants of this place. In answer to Jacques’s sincere prayer, the Lord dispatched me and six others of the angelic host. Our mission is simple: We guard and serve those who live in the seven original buildings on the island of Heavenly Daze.

  As captain of the heavenly host here, I protect the church and minister to those who serve it—Winslow and Edith Wickam, the pastor and his wife. Since the lighthouse is a relatively modern building, I occasionally peek in from time to time on Salt Gribbon, our light keeper—but only at the Father’s command. Unlike the other angels, I rarely find it necessary to don mortal flesh. My brothers, however, live among the people, serving with quiet spirits and humble hearts.

  Since the adventures of this most recent November, things have been fairly calm on our island. Birdie Wester, proprietor of the local bakery, did cause a bit of a stir right after Thanksgiving—seems she was using her famous recipe for Nutmeg Shortbread and ran out of the predominant spice. Because the rush order was for the Ogunquit Women’s Circle, Bea Coughlin rose to her sister’s aid. Taking advantage of her position as postmistress, she used her morning mail run to gather canisters of nutmeg from every kitchen on the island. Birdie baked the shortbread, the Ogunquit women inhaled every last crumb, and the next Sunday Pastor Wickam’s sermon extolled the joy of sacrificing to meet a neighbor’s need.

  The Internet rumor about angels working miracles on the island still brings in letters by the sackful, but Bea and the Women’s Circle do their best to answer it all. They say truth is stranger than fiction, and in this case, what the ladies believe to be fiction is truer than they realize. Ah, well. The Father does have a sense of humor, you know.

  The days have begun to grow short; the leaves have disappeared from all but the evergreen trees. Soon the winter winds will howl and we’ll be blanketed in snow. Winters on Heavenly Daze are not easy.

  The other day I overheard Cleta Lansdown laughingly tell Pastor Wickam, “You know, the summer complaints are always saying that we live in God’s country. Though it may look like God’s country to them, I know he don’t spend his winters here!”

  Pastor Wickam, who has been yielded enough to speak for the Spirit on several occasions, smiled at his parishioner and truthfully answered, “Yes, he does, Cleta. He’s closer than we realize.”

  Ah, if only Winslow knew the full truth! For God is always near, and ministering angels are but a breath away. Even in the bleak December, when the wind howls and summer tourists are scarcer than buttons on a goose, we remain on this wind-swept island, ready and willing to do the Father’s will. For miracles, even in winter, can be found in unexpected places.

  Come join me for a very special December in Heavenly Daze.

  —Gavriel

  Chapter One

  On Saturday morning, Salt Gribbon looked across the expanse of his small home in the lighthouse and thanked God, not for the first time, that the busybody at the yard sale in Wells had insisted on selling the wooden table with its four matching chairs. At the time he’d groused plenty because he only had one bottom and therefore needed only one chair, but the woman wouldn’t budge. Even after she agreed to toss in the other three chairs without charge, he had half a mind to leave the excess furniture on the shore, until his Yankee thriftiness rebelled against such waste. So he’d turned the table upside down in his dory, lashed the chairs into position between the legs, and rowed the entire load back to the northernmost point of Heavenly Daze.

  Now three of his four chairs were occupied, one by his own weathered behind, and the others by the slender rear ends of his grandchildren, seven-year-old Bobby and six-year-old Brittany. The children, tousle-headed and heavy-eyed with sleep, were munching on molasses cookies, one of their favorite breakfasts.

  “Grandfather,” Brittany said, breaking one of the cookies with a deft snap, “don’t you have Froot Loops? We always had Froot Loops for breakfast when we lived with Daddy.”

  “We never had Froot Loops.” Bobby cast his sister a reproving look. “Sometimes we had cold pizza, but most times we had nothing.”

  Biting his tongue, Salt scratched his beard and watched his granddaughter. The little
girl had a tendency to embroider the truth, especially when the subject had to do with her father, Salt’s only son.

  Holding her pinkie finger aloft—how’d she learn to do that?—Brittany dunked the end of her cookie into her glass of milk. “I like these cookies better than anything we had at Daddy’s ’partment. The pizza was always cold. And we never had milk, only soda pop.”

  Salt’s heart squeezed so tight he could barely draw breath to speak, but he forced words out: “The Good Book teaches us to be grateful for whatever we have. So eat up and get dressed, kids. We have work to do today.”

  Actually, he had work to do, but he believed young ones should keep themselves busy as well. These two stood in a particular need of structure and discipline. Their father had done almost nothing to teach his children. He’d led a life of waste and drunkenness, leaving these kids to grow up on a diet of television, table scraps, and neglect.

  Bobby reached for another cookie at the same moment Brittany extended her hand. Both sets of fingers met on the edges of the last one on the plate.

  Bobby spoke first. “I want it.”

  “It’s mine!”

  “But I grabbed it before you did.”

  “Did not!”

  “Did too!”

  In the ensuing tug of war, their tiny hands knocked over Bobby’s glass. As the milk spread over the varnished tabletop, both children dropped the cookie and averted their eyes until Salt stood to reach for a dishcloth. After tossing it into the worst of the puddle, he crossed his arms and stood at the end of the table, waiting.

  Two pairs of guilty eyes eventually lifted to meet his.

  “You see what happens when you mess around?” he asked, hoping they’d attribute the gruffness in his voice to anger instead of heartbreak. “You waste good milk that you need. You’re both too scrawny, and now I’ll have to go into town to get more to replace what you spilt.”

  He lifted his arm, intending to reach for the dishcloth, and winced inwardly when he saw the boy flinch.

  What sort of monster had his son been? “Finish your cookies.” He lowered his gaze lest they see the shimmer of wetness in his eyes. “Then go pick a book out of the stack. I want you both to read a good bit today.”

  Without taking another bite, both children slipped silently from the table and moved toward the small TV stand by the fireplace. Bobby plucked Curious George from the pile of books on a shelf under the TV; Brittany picked up Betsy-Tacy and Tib. Moving like quiet little robots, they sat cross-legged in the vinyl beanbag chairs and opened their books.

  Salt shook his head as he wiped up the spilled milk. ’Twas unnatural, the way they responded to rebuke. Though the bruises had faded from their young bodies, the scars on their hearts would take longer to heal.

  By the time Salt had washed the dishes, changed out of the long-handled underwear that served as his pajamas, and pulled the quilts over the mattress on his rope bed, the children had finished their reading. Still they sat in the beanbag chairs, apparently waiting permission to move.

  “All right, then.” Salt sank to the edge of the bed as he regarded them. “You’ve done a good job of obeyin’ and readin’. Now I must ask you to do a good job of something else.”

  The children watched him, their eyes wide.

  Salt pointed toward the lighthouse door. “Alst I ask is that you don’t go outside while I’m gone. Stay here in the house. If anybody tries to come inside, you scoot under this bed and lay as quiet as statues until the stranger leaves.” He looked from Brittany to Bobby. “Understand?”

  As one, the children nodded.

  “All right, then.” Salt pressed his hands to his knees, then stood. He hated leaving them alone—he thought the loneliness would remind them too much of the place where they’d lived with their dad. They’d been alone in that filthy apartment when Salt found them, as they’d been left alone countless other days and nights while their father went out drinking.

  “Grandfather?”

  Salt looked to the girl. “Ayuh?”

  Her voice trembled. “Will you bring us some more cookies?”

  He would have brought her the world if she’d asked for it.

  But what he said was, “If Miss Birdie has molasses cookies, I’ll bring ’em.”

  Chapter Two

  Bobby waited until the sound of the grandfather’s heavy steps faded into the howling of the wind, then he ran to the door and cracked it. The grandfather’s long, dark figure was moving steadily down the graveled path, walking toward the town where they’d been told they must never, ever go.

  He closed the door, fastened the latch, then turned to his sister and grinned. “He’s gone.”

  “TV time,” Brittany sang out, reaching to turn on the set. The small television received only one channel and all its pictures came in black and white, but Bobby didn’t mind. Watching the tiny ghostly images on the screen was something to do, at least. The grandfather didn’t want them to watch too much TV, but what else could they do in this place?

  At first he’d been excited at the thought of living in a lighthouse, but after the first day it became obvious that the lighthouse hadn’t been built with children in mind. The steep iron staircase circling the tall tower was hard to climb, and wide open spaces separated each step. Though the grandfather climbed the stairs easily, Bobby couldn’t help but look at the gap between the stairsteps and notice the long way down. What if he slipped and somehow fell forward between the steps? He was a lot smaller than the grandfather, so he would slip through quick as a flash. There’d be nothing to stop him, either, except the cold stone floor.

  The grandfather had warned them not to play on the stairs—not that Bobby wanted to. But it would have been nice to have some place to play.

  The grandfather’s home had no toys. The circular room had a sink, a stove, and a tiny refrigerator facing a wooden table and chairs. A doorway between the fridge and the fireplace and woodstove led to the unheated bathroom, where the toilet seat always felt like ice. On the day he first showed them around, the grandfather had seemed particularly proud of the fact that he had an indoor toilet.

  “I remember the day they dug the water and sewer lines,” he told them as he flipped a switch and flooded the tiny bathroom with light. “Electricity and running water— don’t ever take them for granted, kids.”

  Bobby couldn’t imagine a house without electricity and water. After all, every apartment they’d shared with their dad had those things. They didn’t always have a lot of furniture or food in the kitchen, but Bobby thought everybody had water and light switches. He thought everybody had roaches and rats, too, until the grandfather took them to his house.

  Their dad had one thing the grandfather didn’t—cable TV. He and Brittany spent hours sitting in front of the set, watching television families with daddies and mommies who went to work, tucked the kids in at night, and slept in the same bed. Those families did a lot of sitting in the living room and talking. Though Daddy never talked much, Bobby figured other daddies did.

  He learned his ABCs from watching Sesame Street, while Reading Rainbow taught him about the beauty of books. His daddy never took him to the library, but when they moved into their last apartment, he’d found a set of old blue books on a shelf in the corner of the living room. When TV got boring, he pored over the books, looking at pictures and sounding out new words.

  Slowly, over time, Bobby realized something important— he and Brittany and Daddy weren’t like the television families. They had no mommy who went to work, and no butler or nanny or grandfather to pop in and tell stories. Nobody in their house ever sat in the living room telling jokes. Daddy was the only grown-up in the house, and he usually slept in the daytime and went out at night after Bobby and Brittany had fallen asleep on the couch. Some mornings Daddy came home with money; sometimes he came home broke. Sometimes he came home stinky, with stains on his shirt, and sometimes he didn’t come home until the next afternoon, when he’d stumble in with a few dollars and a bag o
f groceries.

  When Daddy came home with the smell of beer on him, Bobby would help him to bed, then he’d reach under the sink and pull out a rusty can of Lysol he’d found there. From a TV commercial he knew what Lysol did—it cleaned, killed germs, and disinfected, whatever that meant. Bobby had discovered that no matter what else it did, the stuff was great at making stinky things smell better. To help his dad, Bobby cleaned and made sandwiches (when he could find bread and peanut butter) and took out the trash.

  After watching Andy Griffith reruns, Bobby realized there was a word for his daddy’s condition: drunk. When Otis got drunk, Andy and Barney let him sleep it off, and sometimes they laughed about it. Bobby tried to let Daddy sleep it off, too, but he never laughed when Daddy came home that way. Daddy got mean when he drank, and Bobby and Brittany had learned it was better to stay out of his way.

  But Daddy wasn’t always drunk. Sometimes he managed to clean up real nice. Once or twice a month he would take a shower, comb his hair, and put on a clean shirt and pants. Sometimes he’d read the paper and put big red circles around boxes, then tuck the paper under his arm and practice smiling in the bathroom mirror. On these days, he always pulled Bobby aside before going out the door. “I’m leaving you in charge, Bobby-my-man,” he’d say, his blue eyes gleaming. “You take care of your sister and behave yourself. Keep your fingers crossed for me.”

  When Daddy had gone, Bobby and Brittany would sit in front of the TV with their fingers and legs and toes crossed though they weren’t quite sure what sort of wish they were supposed to make.

  And then, three months ago, on a cool day in September, Daddy had gone out in a clean shirt and left them alone. As Sesame Street was ending, someone knocked on the door. Thinking Daddy had forgotten his keys again, Bobby sprang up.

  The man standing in the hall was a Stranger. He was tall like Daddy, and thin, with gray hair and a short gray beard and a gray jacket. Bobby had never seen the man before, but something in his blue eyes seemed familiar.