Leave It to Chance

by Sherri Sand

  Braden was in his room not doing his homework. A casual after-dinner inquiry about school assignments for him and Emory had triggered a Mt. St. Helens’–sized eruption from her son. More ugly words. Fortunately the majority of the blast had been contained to his room after he slammed his door. Rumblings continued to filter through the thin floor, the most frequent one being the shouted, “I hate you, Mom.”

  Emory and Trevor had gone to bed quietly. Actually Trevor had asked to sleep with Emory. Sierra couldn’t bring herself to say no, even on a school night.

  Alone in the stillness, she reached for her cell on the kitchen table and made the call she’d been avoiding.

  “Hi, hon. How’s Braden?” Elise’s warm voice answered.

  “Elise, I, um, I sold Chance.”

  “Oh, hon, you are having it rough, aren’t you?”

  Her nose stung, but Sierra laughed and wiped her eyes. “How come you always love me, even when no one else does?”

  Elise’s voice grew gentle. “How could I not? You’re a precious child of the King.”

  Sierra slumped down in the kitchen chair. “How can you trust Him so easily? I mean, I prayed and went to church, Elise, and He still let Braden get hurt.”

  “You can’t please Him into doing something you want. He’s not conditional like that. But He always has your good in mind.”

  “I don’t buy that.”

  “That’s because you can’t see through the Creator’s eyes. Your good and His good may seem very different, but His good is always better. His good is about eternity, not just the here and now.”

  Sierra snorted. “I don’t think I’m wild about His rules.”

  “Sweetie, I say this with all the love in my heart. If you and God disagree on something, He’s not the one who’s wrong.”

  “If you weren’t my best friend, I don’t think I’d like you very much right now.” Sierra teased her.

  Elise gave a dramatic sigh. “I know. It’s up to best friends to say the hard stuff.” Her voice turned serious. “Sierra, we either trust God with what we don’t understand, or we do our best to plow our own path, but it will always take us farther from Him and what’s best for us.”

  Sierra laid her head on the table. “How can you know that?”

  Elise’s words were simple. “Because I know Him.”

  There was a rumble of a pickup pulling into the driveway. She hissed into the phone. “I think Ross is here.”

  “No!”

  There was a rap-rap at the door. “What do I do?”

  “Answer the door, silly.”

  “No! I’m in my pajamas, and we’re not really speaking right now.”

  “Pajamas at eight o’clock, girl? Well, you can’t leave him out there. Are you sure it’s him?”

  Sierra crept to the kitchen window and peeked out. Ross’s truck was parked behind her van. She crouched beneath the counter and whispered, “It’s him.”

  “Well, let him in.”

  “I’m not going to let him in. Maybe he’ll go—”

  “Mom, Ross is here.” Sierra craned to look up into her daughter’s face. Ross stood right behind her. He rubbed the back of his neck and stared everywhere in the kitchen but at her crouched on the peach vinyl.

  “I gotta go.” She shut the phone and stared up at Ross and her daughter. Wonderful.

  Laughter played around his lips. “Maybe this isn’t such a good time.”

  Sierra stood and straightened her pajamas, running a hand through her hair. “Now is fine.”

  Ross rubbed the top of Emory’s head. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

  Her daughter gave him a grin that Sierra hadn’t seen in days. “No prob.” Her eyes skittered away from her mom’s and she ran back up the stairs.

  Sierra looked at the counter next to him. “About not answering the door, I’m not really dressed for company, and—”

  There was a smile in his voice. “I deserved it. I was a jerk for talking to you the way I did. If it matters at all, I understand why you’re selling Chance.”

  She looked away. “Thanks.” She needed to get him out of there. She was still mad at him for not wanting her to sell Chance, wasn’t she? And why did he have to look so darn appealing?

  He drew a hand down his face. That was when she noticed the drawn features that had hidden behind his smile. “The bank called today, and I have checks bouncing all over town.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I can’t figure it out.” He leaned back against the counter. “If you didn’t double any payments, I should have had enough in there to cover everything.”

  “Are you sure? I mean I know you can’t … you know, see numbers well.”

  His lips twitched. “I see them, just in the wrong order.” He glanced toward the window and crossed his arms. “I know roughly what my jobs will run me, so I keep enough funds in my account to cover them.” His gaze drifted back to her. “I have all the statements, everything from the bank, and every packing list I could find that the guys had laying around.”

  He rested his hands on the counter and looked at her. “Do you think you could help me? I can hire someone else if you don’t think you’re up for it. It’s just you already have a handle on the bills.”

  Why not? It wasn’t like the day could get worse. A son upstairs who hated her at the moment and a landscaper who couldn’t date her, but still needed her help. She waved her arm in a grand arc toward the dinette. “Sure, bring ’em in. I can add a leaf to the kitchen table.”

  He narrowed his eyes in a perplexed way and started to open his mouth, then shook his head with a slight grin. “Are you okay?”

  At that moment Braden must have switched stations and raised the volume, because the walls started thrumming with a heavy beat.

  He tilted his head to look at the ceiling. “Aren’t your kids in bed?”

  “Yep. My mom escaped to a nursing home tonight.”

  He gave her another odd look.

  “To visit a friend, but she may see if they have any rooms available.”

  “I can come back if this isn’t a good time.”

  “No, no. This is great, if you don’t mind a little rebel pounding of the floor above us. It’ll help me keep the adding machine in sync.” She snapped her fingers in unison to the heavy music. “Just bring everything in and set it there and we’ll crank ’er out.”

  He gave a slight chuckle. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Nope, just another facet of my lovely self coming out.” Elise would be either proud or mortified.

  Braden chose that moment to pound on the floor and scream. “I hate you, Mom! I want my horse!”

  Ross nodded slowly, understanding in the heat of his gaze. “Do you want me to talk to him?”

  Promises like so many flecks of amber burned in his eyes. He straightened from the counter and she saw him as a dad, a man not afraid to be the heavy hand.

  But he’d already made it clear that friendship was all he had to offer, hadn’t he? “No, thanks. You want to bring everything in?” She risked one quick glance.

  He leaned toward her. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

  She knew her smile was brittle, felt it in the way it cracked into her cheeks. “We wouldn’t want to confuse things again, would we?”

  His face turned somber and his eyes slid from hers. A heartbeat, then, “Okay, I’ll go get the paperwork.”

  Two hours later, they’d covered it all.

  He leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh. “It just doesn’t make sense. I haven’t spent this much money. I know I haven’t.”

  She set her pencil down on the spreadsheet they’d created. He wiped both hands down his face. “The guys don’t get everything turned in, but they’re not usually that bad.” He narrowed his eyes and stared down at the floor to his right, the words more for himself. “If Alex Cranwell doesn’t pay for all the extras he’s pushed on me, I’m going to take a huge hit, but not this much.”

  The thump of an angr
y boy demanding to be noticed sounded on each of the twenty-two stairs. Braden stomped into the kitchen and jerked the refrigerator door open. “I’m hungry.”

  Sierra looked him. “It’s bedtime, Braden. Grab a banana and head back up, please.”

  Her son grabbed the half-gallon of milk and reached into the cupboard for the Cheerios.

  “No breakfast cereal,” Sierra said, keeping her voice level. “If you want something, take a banana.”

  The ping of Cheerios hitting the bottom of the bowl filled the kitchen. Braden opened the milk and would have poured it if it hadn’t been suddenly removed from his hand.

  Ross held the milk and stated in a mild voice. “Would you like a banana, or would you like some help back to your room?”

  The defiant look slipped. A boy gaped up at his idol with hurt in his eyes. Ross must have seen it too because he laid a hand on Braden’s shoulder. “Braden, I—”

  The shrug and scathing look dislodged Ross’s hand. Braden whipped around and ran up the stairs. His door slammed, and the blare of hard rock music rained through the ceiling like dripping acid.

  Ross put the milk away and gave her an uncertain smile. “That went well.”

  Sierra dropped her head into her hands. The tears came, slowly at first, filling the wells and then running down the bridge of her nose and onto her notes. She had mastered the art of a silent torrent.

  She was losing her son. A chair creaked and a warm hand rested on her shoulder, then slid down to rub circles over her back. Slow circles of comfort. Sierra cried harder. The chair skidded closer and he tugged her into his arms and pressed her head to his chest. The rich smell of loam mixed with the sweet scent of hard work filled her nostrils. His embrace was more than comfort, it pledged character and stability. Tantalizing but elusive elements in her experience with men. That unreliable organ palpitating in her chest told her Ross’s convictions were weakening again.

  She ducked out of his arms, her hair catching against his watch with a tug. Sierra kept her face lowered as she stood and headed for the sink to snag a dishtowel. She wiped the tears and blew her nose into the towel.

  She sneaked a look over the fringe of the towel. The tenderness on his face made her tears well up again. “You better go. I have to go talk to Braden.”

  “Sierra—”

  “Could you lock the door on your way out?” She ran up the stairs, her mind hollering coward as she passed Braden’s door. When the front door closed quietly, she slipped down to her room and crawled under the covers. She didn’t move until morning light crept over the window sash and inched across the floor.

  Sid was waiting when they walked through the front door. Trevor settled in his usual spot under Sid’s protective arm. “Hello, there, young fella.”

  “Morning. I’ll get oatmeal and eggs going.” Sierra patted Sid’s arm on her way to the kitchen. Soon a small bowl’s worth of oatmeal bubbled in a saucepan as she pulled the eggs from the fridge.

  Sierra hollered toward the living room. “Oatmeal’s ready, Sid.”

  A few minutes later he hobbled in and settled himself at the table.

  She set the salt and pepper in front of him along with the small bowl of brown sugar.

  The doorbell rang just then. Their eyes met and Sierra raced to the front door and opened it in time to see a man hustle back inside his white delivery truck and raise dust on his race back down the driveway. A small package sat on the front porch. She snatched it up like it was a newborn abandoned to the elements and took it to the kitchen table. She grabbed a pair of scissors from the drawer and sat down at the table to cut the box open.

  A wad of newspapers stuck to the packing tape and she peeled them down to the bundle wrapped in paper towels and plastic. The plastic was quickly discarded and the paper towels unrolled on the Formica table to reveal the honeysuckle, withered and dry.

  Sid eyed it doubtfully. “I guess you could put it in some water.”

  Sierra shook her head and stuck it in her water glass. “It’d take a miracle.”

  Sid gave her one of his wily grins. “God’s in the business of them. He brought Lazarus back from the dead.”

  Sierra turned away from the table to crack his eggs into the skillet. She wasn’t in the mood for any more sermonizing. She scrambled them with a spatula and glanced at the older man. “What?”

  Sid had that look in his eye.

  The speculative gleam turned to a grin. “Tell you what, you pray and ask God to give that plant life.”

  “Then what?”

  He picked up one of the wadded Kansas news pages and smoothed it out next to his bowl of oatmeal. “Then it’d be a miracle.”

  She snorted.

  He eyed her, spoon halfway to his mouth, a drop of milk clinging to its underside. “Then you couldn’t deny Him.”

  “I don’t deny Him, Sid.”

  “You deny that He cares.”

  “True.”

  A piece of oatmeal clinging to the corner of his mouth, he chewed then swallowed. “You wouldn’t be able to deny the sovereign love of Almighty God.”

  She opened her mouth, but could think of no rebuttal.

  “So are you gonna do it?”

  Sierra didn’t want to ask God to give the plant life. She’d feel silly and hypocritical. She wanted to say no, but he looked so eager, like he’d stumbled onto the very thing to make a believer out of her again. She smiled. She could humor the old gentleman. Maybe he’d learn something from the experiment. She sure wasn’t going to.

  “Yes, Sid, I’ll ask God to give the plant life.”

  “Every day.”

  She agreed. “Yes, every day.”

  Satisfied, he nodded, took another bite, and motioned toward the stove. “Don’t forget my eggs.”

  The discussion was over when Ross plowed through Sid’s back door. “Sierra, can you come over? I have my crew bosses’ ledgers that we can compare the bills to.”

  In answer, Sierra lifted the spatula dripping half-cooked eggs.

  Ross sighed, then grabbed another plate out of the cupboard and plopped onto the kitchen chair across from Sid. “Is this going to take long?” He stared at the middle of the table where the dead honeysuckle sat in Sid’s water glass. “Nice flower. Like how you’re sprucing up the place.”

  She saw the sly look he slid over to Sid.

  Sierra dumped a heap of runny eggs on his plate and slapped a bowl of oatmeal next to them. She crossed her arms with the dripping spatula hovering near his head. “I’m ready to go,” she said.

  He laughed and Sid joined him. Ross stood, pried the spatula from her grip, and guided her into his chair. “Methinks the lady needs a break.”

  Sid laughed harder. “You always were a swift one. Got that from your mother.”

  Ross scraped the raw eggs back into the skillet and with little effort served up eggs for them. Sid chased his last egg around his plate with a corner of his jellied toast. “Leorna called again last night.” He darted a glance toward Ross “Said she’s found a couple of places that wouldn’t need much upkeep.”

  “To buy? You’re looking for a house already? What about the ponies?” Ross pointed a hand toward the barn.

  “Now, don’t get fired up on me, son.” Sid might have thought anger drove Ross’s words, but Sierra saw the bewilderment in his expression.

  “Sid, those ponies are your life. How can you abandon them?” Abandon me? Sierra heard in the echo.

  Chapter 24

  “That was not right, Sid.” Sierra let the sentence hang and waited for him to bite.

  “What does that mean?” The scowl had simmered into an outright glower in the minutes since Ross had excused himself on the pretext of getting the office ready for her.

  “You took the coward’s way to tell Ross you’re moving.” She set the leftover orange juice in the fridge. “And mumbling into your plate isn’t going to make anyone feel sorry for you, except maybe yourself.” She cleared the dishes from the table and patted his
shoulder on the way to the sink. “I know this is as hard on you as it is him, but he deserves an honest conversation with you, not some off-handed comments about a house you’re buying.”

  He stuffed the last of the toast in his mouth, his words rounded by the food. “Has anyone told you you’re the bossiest little thing?”

  “You and Ross could probably write a book on it.”

  “You pray for that plant yet?”

  He just couldn’t let her have the last word. Sierra grinned at his cantankerous expression. “Yes, Sid, I prayed.” Not that her prayer felt like it went any farther than the ceiling. But hey, if it made him feel better.

  He harrumphed. “Well, good.”

  Sierra glanced over at the brown twig she’d moved to the windowsill and prayed again. She couldn’t help herself.

  An hour later, Sierra checked the last ledger entry against its match on the statement. “We’re still missing half the paperwork, Ross. Mostly for Grainger’s.”

  Ross ran a hand through his hair, adding more rumpled furrows. “I don’t get it.” His hand stilled, tufts of hair sticking up between his fingers. His voice held a hint of wonder. “Could you add up all the bills that are checked off? Just the ones we show packing lists for?”

  Sierra eyed the mound and pulled the adding machine closer. “You want to read them to—never mind. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay, Sierra.” His chocolate brown eyes were firm and flowed with melt-in-your-mouth kindness. “You don’t have to tiptoe around my dyslexia.”

  She pried her gaze away and got busy flipping pages and working up steam on the adding machine. She gave him a total.

  He frowned and rubbed his brow, slowly turning to look at her. “That’s the amount I had budgeted up to this point. Could you call Grainger’s this morning and have them fax all the copies of the packing lists they have for us that cover their statement?”

  “Sure.” Sierra fingered a paper clip, trying to decide how to approach Ross without setting off an earthquake. He made as if to rise, but the softest brush of her fingers to his arm stilled him.