Sweet Blessings (Love Inspired)

by Jillian Hart

  If she were in his shoes, she could never speak of such a loss. And while she had so many questions, there were so many things she didn’t know about him and what had happened to him. How old had his son been? Had his marriage crumbled beneath the strain of a child’s death? What greater loss or hardship could there be in a marriage? She didn’t ask because he was in enough pain, so she waited, wondering what he would volunteer.

  “I had my duffel packed. You know that. I had made up my mind to leave. But this morning when I was walking back here, the snow started to melt. It was a strange thing, to see snow on the ground and flowers blooming up through it.”

  “If you’ve been in Montana as long as I have, it’s not so strange. Wait until it’s the middle of July. It’s weird to cancel a Fourth of July picnic because of a blizzard.”

  Her attempt at humor at least eased the depth of the lines dug around his severe mouth. “I got to thinking. You and your sisters are having some trouble, and I helped out some.”

  “Yes, and we’ll always be grateful to you.”

  “I haven’t made a difference to anyone in a long while.” He stared hard at a small puddle on the blacktop between them.

  She waited while the minutes ticked by and a dog started barking down the street and Heath struggled to find the right words. The dog barked on and on until someone called out, “Would you shut up!” and he did.

  Then there was only the hush of the wind between them.

  He took a ragged breath, betraying all that it cost him to explain. “I’m grateful to feel useful again. I’ve been wandering for so long—ever since the funeral. Once they were gone, I roamed from one town to the next because I had…nothing.”

  Once they were gone. Amy’s heart dropped, realizing he’d lost not only his son.

  “I can’t make any promises, but I need to stay for now.”

  She read the bleak truth in him. “Of course. Rachel and I both think you’re a godsend. I know you’re not a believer—”

  “I am, I’m just…lost.”

  “No, you’re never lost.”

  His throat worked. He stared up at the trees where cheerful leaves whispered and danced. The dog down the street started barking again.

  “There is one more thing. A favor you can do for me.” He withdrew his right hand from his jeans pocket and there, on his palm, was a nine-volt battery. “You have a son. Put this in your smoke detector. Do it the minute you walk through the door. Don’t put it off.”

  The battery was warm from his body heat. She stared at it, wondering how he knew that she’d taken the old one out last week because it had been beeping at 2:46 a.m. There hadn’t been a new one left in the junk drawer to put in its place.

  Oh. Realization washed over her with a new horror. He was already walking away, part of the shadows and hard to see through her tears.

  Chapter Ten

  Memories had followed him to sleep, rearing up in his nightmares until he woke for the fourth time in a cold sweat, shouting his son’s name. The rasping heave of his breathing sounded loud in the small bedroom where the curtains billowed at the open window, letting in the ghostly silvered light of a half moon.

  With the echoes of his son’s name dissipating like smoke, Heath flung off the sheet and raked his hand through his wet hair. The pure golden light of first dawn blasted against the undersides of the pull-down blinds that were wobbling in place over the open window. The sunshine bled through the billowing sheers and onto the foot of his bed.

  At least the night was over, he could be glad for that, even if he was awake at 4:55 a.m. He lay there for a while, listening to the cheerful birds and a train’s low keening whistle and the rumbling as it chugged along. The dog that had been barking yesterday let out a few yelps and fell silent.

  He gave the old blind a good yank and it only rolled halfway up. It annoyed him, but when he sat back on the edge of the bed, he could see the peaceful river valley. It shone so green and beautiful, a perfect carpet at the feet of the great mountains ringing the low lush valley. The breeze felt cool on his face, and it was almost as if he could forget.

  It was a world apart here. He could pretend that Portland didn’t exist. The way the enormous mountains marched like giants in all directions, it seemed as if nothing else could possibly be on the other side of their amazing rugged peaks. He wanted to believe that the quiet harmony of this place was a world apart from the more desperate one he’d been running from. He was so weary.

  So infinitely weary.

  As for Amy McKaslin, she knew the unspeakable truth. The look on her face after he’d given her the battery, when realization hit, said it all. He’d watched her realize the horrible truth he could not say. She should have hated him, but no, not Amy. She was a mom—it was his guess that little Westin was her very world. She’d understood.

  But no one could truly comprehend the grief and guilt until they’d walked this path.

  He wished no other parent ever had to.

  He’d tried to work for a while, tried to put all his sorrow and rage and desperation to good use. He’d worked long hard hours in the ER and he’d made a difference, but there was still death and loss, illness and injury. People still died.

  The last straw had been working alongside the pediatric specialist for an hour trying to save a seven-month-old girl. The infant had been symptom-free after a car accident, for she’d been safely buckled in her infant car seat and had then presented that afternoon with shocky symptoms. Heath heard the baby’s cry, realized something was wrong, had chewed out the admittance nurse and ordered the young mother and her baby into the nearest available trauma room.

  He put in a call to the peds surgeon, but it was too late. Massive internal bleeding. He’d done everything, even prayed to a God he knew good and well didn’t protect innocent children.

  He’d broken down afterward. No procedure had been spared, and they had all worked so hard for the little red-haired girl and her silently crying mother. Even the mother comforted him, he’d taken it so hard.

  He’d sat in the corner and the grief he’d been holding back flooded him like a tidal wave crashing to shore and there had been no recovering. It had been six weeks since the fire. Five and a half weeks since the funeral. All because he’d been too busy, too tired, too forgetful to buy a three-dollar battery.

  He’d never be all right again—never. There would be no peace, no forgiveness, no anything. He didn’t want there to be. He didn’t deserve it. He’d failed the two people who mattered more to him than anything. He didn’t deserve the right to anything.

  But now, after all these months, he was soul-weary. Tired of wandering. He was a man who liked roots, who missed the bonds of family and friends and colleagues and patients. He deserved the harsh sting of loneliness. Not that he’d ever settle down or try to live a normal life, but it sure felt nice to think about resting here for a while. He could help out the McKaslin sisters, salute the deputy when they crossed paths, breathe in the serenity of this place and just exist without a past, without a future.

  After he shaved and showered, he popped a cup of water into the microwave for instant coffee, then heard a car pull to a stop in the back lot. Curious, he ambled around to the living room, where the old blinds snapped up with an echoing twang and down below was a spotless forest-green SUV.

  It wasn’t more lowlifes looking for trouble, just the oldest sister. The serious one. With dark glasses shading her eyes, her brown hair tight in a ponytail, she walked soundlessly across the parking lot. She carried a bunch of ledgers in one arm. Remembering Amy and Rachel’s discussion about keeping the books for Paige almost made him smile.

  Yeah, they looked like a real nice family. It wasn’t a bad thing, helping them out.

  It was early, but he stirred up the coffee and slurped it down as he maneuvered the steps. Paige had left the back door wide open, guarded only by the unlocked screen.

  He didn’t want to startle her, so he knocked before he opened up. “Hello?”<
br />
  “Oh, hi. Heath, isn’t it?” Paige had the look of a woman who had too much to do in too little time. She was taller than Amy and Rachel, and not as vibrant. There was a quiet steel in her he immediately respected. She ran a good restaurant and, as far as he could tell, she managed the extended family, too. “Come on in, although you’re early. I just put some coffee on…oh, that isn’t that old stale instant stuff? It’s got to be years and years old.”

  “You don’t rent the apartment often?”

  “No, it got to be too much to deal with. One kind of trouble after another, and to tell you the truth, I have as much of that as I can handle right now.” She smiled to soften her words and gave a self-conscious shrug. “You might as well sit down and enjoy some coffee. I’ve got some baked goods still out in my Jeep.”

  “I can get ’em for you if you want.”

  “Wow, that would be great.” Relief and appreciation lit her eyes that looked so tired. “I didn’t lock it.”

  Working here might require more involvement on a personal level than he was used to, but he liked feeling useful. He almost recognized the man he used to be.

  The morning light felt gentle, and already the air was beginning to warm. He lifted the back hatch of the SUV and was instantly assaulted by the wave of cinnamon and sweetness and doughnut goodness. The delicious aroma distracted him, so he didn’t notice her until it was almost too late.

  Amy McKaslin in a pair of navy shorts and a matching T-shirt, her hair drawn back, speed-walking along the alley. She looked for a moment as though she regretted that she’d been spotted. As if resigned, she diverted from the alley and cut between the lilacs to the parking lot. She was breathing heavily and sweat glistened on her brow.

  “You caught me. I’m trying to keep to a work-out program, but it’s impossible with my schedule. I haven’t walked for about three weeks and I’m ready to keel over.”

  “I could save you with a cinnamon roll.”

  “No, then I’d have to walk even more.”

  Heath hadn’t thought he would be glad to see her, but he was. She’d breached the distance he kept everyone at, and he wasn’t bothered by it. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one. “Are you working this morning?”

  “Nope. I gotta get back to my little boy. It’s almost time for him to get up. I’ve got Mrs. Nash, she’s next door, keeping an eye on him for me. Ooh, huckleberry coffeecake. That’s absolutely incredible. You should sneak a piece before the customers start arriving, because it goes fast. I’ve gotta get going. Bye!”

  She was hurrying away from him, he could see it. What had happened stood between them. He wanted to ask her if she’d taken his advice and changed the battery in her smoke detector, but he couldn’t say the words. If he asked, then it would be too close to talking about what happened, and he just couldn’t say the words.

  So he watched her hurry off, her long tanned legs stretching and bunching, her muscles rippling, her ponytail flickering back in her wake. Swept by sunlight, she disappeared around the shadows from the tall maples at the block’s end. The same dog started barking until someone yelled at it to stop.

  It was five-thirty; a train rolled through clanging and clattering and tooting so loudly he swore the earth beneath his feet rumbled. There was a comforting rhythm to a day starting out here, at the diner. He set the baked goods on the counter, put a big square of huckleberry coffeecake on a plate, grabbed a fork and headed for the coffee station.

  Paige had already poured her cup, so he did his own and took the closest booth by the windows. He set down his food and saw the teenager on a motorcycle coming to an idling stop at the curb out front. He tossed a half dozen rolled newspapers onto the front mat and drove off with the rough rumbling sound of a small motorcycle in need of a muffler.

  Heath hopped outside, noticing the handle on the door could use some tightening. Then he gathered up the papers, set all but one on the top of the counter by the till and unwound the rubber band from the last roll. The crisp newsprint splashed across the front page was about the upcoming Founder’s Day jubilee.

  Sipping his coffee, he began reading the local news. As he read, he recognized several of the names in the articles or in the letters to the editor section. It was odd to live in a place and feel a part of it again.

  The deputy dropped by a few minutes early, and Jodi came rushing in behind him, out of breath. Mr. Brisbane rolled to a stop at the curb in his grass-green classic pickup.

  It was time to go to work.

  Heath knew the exact moment when she walked in the diner. It was as if a warm summer’s dawn had touched the dark places in his soul.

  He finished dressing the sandwiches for table four and didn’t even need to turn around. He could feel the radiance of her, becoming more brilliant as she moved closer. The screen door slapping shut, her sneakers squeaking on the freshly cleaned tile and the thump of her purse landing on the corner shelf were all clues.

  Clues he didn’t need. His heart turned toward her the way a flower does toward the light, and he knew, would have known even if he had been rendered deaf and blind, that she was coming to stand beside him.

  “Hey, I’m ready to go. A few minutes late—”

  Paige scowled from the other side of the order-up window. “A few minutes? I’m docking your pay.”

  “Ha! I was trying to make those calls from home while I finished up some laundry. You know, the calls to the glass-replacement people?”

  “Sorry. I’m still docking you.” A ghost of a smile was the only hint that Paige was teasing.

  Amy, however, was not as deadpan. “Okay, then I’ll just go back home and let you take over for Heath.”

  Heath’s head was spinning; he was trying to make sense of the growing brightness within him. The luster he felt came from her, from Amy, there was no doubt about it. She made some comment to her sister, something that he couldn’t follow, his brain couldn’t seem to focus on that. But he was aware of her moving away, gliding like a pianist’s scale—one note flowed into the next, trilling away like music and rolling back again.

  The women were talking, familiar and companionable with one another. Families were like that. He’d been close to his sister, teasing her gently just to see her smile. Family ties, they were a fine thing.

  And while he’d missed the late-night long-distance calls and the quick e-mails sent when his parents or his sister had had time enough, it wasn’t the loneliness that made him keenly aware of Amy standing beside him, making him tingle like electrical feeders siphoning up from the ground in a lightning storm.

  No, this wasn’t about the long stretch of loneliness or the need for a soft place to rest, just for a moment. This stirring within him was powerful enough to rock his soul.

  He couldn’t force his gaze away from her. Exhaustion marked her. She didn’t look as if she’d caught up on much missed sleep last night. The bruises beneath her eyes were a dark purple. He remembered her comment from yesterday, how getting little sleep was not out of the ordinary for her.

  As she wet and soaped her hands in the sink, he wondered what kept her awake at night. The past? Her responsibilities?

  “My car is making this horrible noise and you know there goes another six hundred dollars.” Amy rinsed, grabbed a paper towel and dried, still talking to her oldest sister, still unaware that he was watching her and pretending not to.

  Car trouble? He had noticed the clutch felt a little soft when he’d driven it, but there was no noise. He didn’t need to see the worry on Amy’s face or how modestly she lived to know a car repair bill would be a hardship.

  “Didn’t you just get the last thing paid off?”

  “Yeah, the transmission.” Amy wadded up the paper towel and tossed it into the trash.

  He heaped fries on the plates, laid down the orange sections for garnish and slipped the last orders of his shift on the hand-off window. Paige, always efficient, circled around to serve the sandwiches.

  “I guess it�
�s your turn to go home.” Amy busily tied on her flowered apron and began hauling out bowls, measuring cups and spoons. “Before you go, can I make you something to eat?”

  He saw the big round blue of her eyes watching him, innocently unaware that he felt. “No, I’d better get out of here.”

  She had no idea how true that was. It was as if he’d stepped on a land mine and he knew if he so much as breathed wrong, the charge would go off.

  “Okay. Are you working the late shift tonight?”

  “No. I told Paige I’d best be here late, so none of the women are here alone. Considering what happened. But she said she’d be fine.”

  “That’s decent of you.”

  That’s me, he wanted to say, decent to the core. But it wasn’t true. If he were decent, then he wouldn’t allow any feelings for her into his heart. He had no right, not to anything. Not to a future or happiness or the chance to love again. He’d failed to keep his loved ones safe.

  He’d failed them.

  Amy knew, and she didn’t treat him with hate or accusation. When he’d handed her the battery yesterday, her face had crumpled with sadness. She was a compassionate woman, she gave people the benefit of the doubt. Wild birds weren’t scared of her, and she was like spring come to his frozen tundra heart.

  “What kind of noise is your car making?” He couldn’t believe he’d said it.

  Neither could she because she looked up from pouring teriyaki marinade into a big bowl and she studied at him with wonder. “Well, why am I surprised? Let me guess. You’ve been a mechanic, too.”

  “Not a journeyman or anything, but I worked at one of those quick lube places. I did brakes, tune-ups and radiators.”

  “What do you know about carburetors?”

  “They can be expensive to replace.”

  “Great. That’s just what I know about them, too.” Amy capped the bulky industrial-sized bottle of marinade and gazed across the distance between them, a few feet, and yet it felt as wide as the Pacific Ocean.

  She unwrapped fresh chicken filets and slipped them into the bowl, covered them well with the marinade, clipped on the top and left them in the refrigerator beside a bowl with the exact same thing in it. It was good to keep her hands busy so she wouldn’t be tempted to take Heath up on his generous offer.