A Handful of Heaven
A Handful of Heaven
Jillian Hart
Responsibility was nothing new to Paige McKaslin.She had raised her siblings and her son. And though duty was her guiding force, even in matters of the heart, she never stopped counting her blessings — her faith and her wonderful family. Then the McKaslin diner, her livelihood and heritage, burned to the ground….Paige was suddenly free to discover herself… and a blossoming relationship with rancher Evan Thornton. This intriguing man asked her out on her first date in eighteen years, totally disrupting her routine. Now love was an exciting possibility that made her rethink her orderly life. Could it be that God still had some surprises for her?
JILLIAN HART
makes her home in Washington State, where she has lived most of her life. When Jillian is not hard at work on her next story, she loves to read, go to lunch with her friends and spend quiet evenings with her family.
A Handful of Heaven
Jillian Hart
When I am afraid, I will trust in You.
—Psalms 56:3
Dear Reader,
Thank you for choosing A Handful of Heaven. I hope you enjoyed reading Paige and Evan’s story as much as I did writing it. Paige and Evan were both heartbroken from their marriages and they found it easier, each in their own way, to live without love. Better to be safe than to be hurt like that ever again. I wrote this story because I wanted to remind others that it’s never too late for wonderful blessings to come into a person’s life. True love can be just around the corner. As hard as it is to trust again, it is worth the risk to live with a whole and loving heart.
Wishing you peace and love,
Contents
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
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
Epilogue
Chapter One
“Hey, Mom!” The diner’s back door slammed shut with an icy gust of wind. Heavy boots tromped across the clean kitchen floor. “I took the garbage out. The bathrooms are spotless. I even cleaned the milkshake machine.”
Paige McKaslin turned from the prep table to take one look at her seventeen-year-old son who was giving her “The Eye,” as she called it, the one meant to charm her. He’d been using it effectively since he was fifteen months old. Alex was tall, blond and athletic and rangy. One day he would fill out those wide shoulders of his, but in the meantime he was eating as though he had two hollow legs. “You just had supper. Do you need two chocolate doughnuts?”
“You don’t wanna stunt my growth, Ma!” He pretended to be shocked but those baby blues of his were twinkling. “Can I go? The movie starts at eight and Beth doesn’t like to miss the previews.”
One thing a mother didn’t want her teenage boy to have—aside from the keys to her car—was a girlfriend. Especially a girl who did not belong to their church or any church in the county. “You behave, and remember what I told you.”
“Yeah, I know, I’ll be a gentleman. As if!” He rolled his eyes, his grin widening because he’d achieved victory. “I’m outta here.”
“Drive safely. It’s icy out there.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I passed my driver’s test, remember?”
As if she could forget. Letting go was hard but necessary. She bit her lip. Alex was a good driver even if he was young and inexperienced. “Don’t forget to call me at the diner the second you get home—before your curfew.”
“Mom, I know the drill. See ya!” He pounded out of sight, whistling. The back door slammed shut and he was gone.
Off to any kind of danger.
Paige bussed the eight plates from the Corey family’s party.
She’d thought nothing could be more worrying than having a toddler. Alex had been such an active little tyke, and fast. She’d been a wreck trying to stay one step ahead of him, worrying what he would try to choke on next. Or electrocute himself with next. Or fall off of and break open his skull next. How she’d worried!
Little had she imagined all those years ago that her sweet little boy was going to turn into a teenager and do something even more dangerous than try to stick pennies in electrical sockets. He would drive. She dealt with that the way she always dealt with anxiety—she just tried hard not to think about it.
“I had that same look of sheer panic,” Evan Thornton commented as she shot down the aisle. “It was right after each of my boys got their licenses. I don’t think I’ve calmed down yet, and they’re both in college now.”
“No, of course you’re not calm because they are probably out there driving around somewhere.”
Evan chuckled, and the fine laugh lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled handsomely. “Exactly. It’s hard not to be overprotective. You get sort of fond of ’em.”
She heard what he didn’t say. There was no stronger love than a parent’s love. “Lord knows why.” She balanced the plate-filled dishpan on her hip. “Would you like a refill on your fries?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Are you kidding? I’ll be right back. Looks like you need more cola, too.” She flashed him a smile on her way by.
Evan had been frequenting the diner most evenings. Bless her regular customers who gave this tough job its saving grace. She did like making a difference, even if it was only cooking or serving a meal that they weren’t in the mood to fix for themselves.
On the way down the aisle, she stopped to leave the bill with a couple who looked as if they had wandered in off the interstate. They still had that road-weary look to them. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Oh, no thanks.” The woman, who was about Paige’s age, tried to manage a weak smile, but failed. Sadness lingered in her dark eyes. “I suppose we ought to be heading on.”
“Will you be traveling far? I have a friend who owns a nice little bed and breakfast in Bozeman. It’s the most restful place and reasonably priced. If you’re staying in the area, I could give her a call for you. No pressure, I just thought I’d try to help.” Paige slipped their bill on the edge of the table.
“Sounds like just what I need, but we have a funeral we’re expected at in Fargo in the morning. The airlines were full, and so we’re driving straight through.” Tears rushed to the surface.
Paige whipped a pack of tissues from her apron pocket and slipped it onto the table. “I’m so sorry.”
“Th-thank you.” The woman covered her face, her grief overtaking her.
Her husband shrugged his shoulders. “We’re going through a tough time.”
“I know how that is. Let me know if you need anything.”
Not wanting to intrude, Paige backed away, the memory of her own losses made fresh by the woman’s grief. The day her parents had died had been the day after her sixteenth birthday, and it was as if the sun had gone out.
Time had healed the wound, but nothing had ever been the same again. She was thirty-eight, on the edge of turning thirty-nine—eek! But time had a strange elasticity to it, snapping her back over two decades to that pivotal loss.
Maybe there’s something I can do to make the woman’s journey easier. In the relative calm of the late evening diner, Paige bustled into the back, where the evening shift cook was sitting at the prep table bent over the day’s newspaper.
Dave looked up, his expression guilty. “I thought I got everything done I needed to. But here you come looking like I’m in trouble. What’d I forget to do?”
“Nothing that I’ve found. I can come up with something if you’d like.”
“Are you kidding? I just got set down. It was a heavy Friday rush. I’m about done. I’ve been standing in front of that grill for twenty years and every night just seems longer.”
Sometimes Paige forgot how much time had passed, not only for Dave but for her, as well. She’d been in this place for so long that the decades had begun to blur. She still saw Dave as the restless wanderer just back from Vietnam. He’d come in for an early-Saturday lunch and stayed on as one of the best short-order cooks they’d ever had.
In a blink, she saw not the past but the present, and the man with liberal shocks of gray tinting his long ponytail, looking the worse for wear. “Go on, get home. And don’t forget to take some of the leftover cinnamon rolls with you. They’ll be a nice treat for breakfast tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t complainin’, you know. I don’t mind stayin’ in case you get a late rush.”
“I’ll handle it. Now go, before I take hold of the back of your chair and drag you out of here.” Paige turned to snag one of the cardboard to-go boxes. A few quick folds and she had two of them assembled and ready.
“Well, if you insist.” Dave’s chair grated against the tile floor as he stood.
“I do.” She split apart a half dozen of the last rack of cinnamon rolls—why they hadn’t moved this morning was beyond her. Yesterday the whole six dozen she’d been regularly buying had disappeared before the breakfast rush was over. She popped the sticky iced treats into the waiting boxes and added a few of the frosted cookies, too—those hadn’t moved, either—then snapped the lids shut.
“Here. Go. Hurry, before a bunch of teenagers break down the door and take over the back booth.” She slid one box on the table in his direction.
“Only if you promise to call me if you get slammed.”
“Deal. Now beat it.” She pounded through the doorway and into the dining room where the grieving woman and her husband were just gathering up their things to leave.
It took only a few moments to fill two extra large take-out cups with steaming coffee, stick them in a cardboard cup holder, and fill a small paper bag with sweetener, creamer and napkins.
“That sure hit the spot.” The husband slid the meal ticket and a twenty on the counter by the till. “That was the best beef stew I’ve had in some time.”
“My Irish grandmother’s family recipe. I’m glad you liked it.” She rang in the sale with one hand while she pushed the baker’s box and cup holders in their direction. “Here’s a little something to keep you alert while you’re on the road. It’s a long stretch between rest stops once you’re past Bozeman. I’ll be praying for a safe journey.”
She counted back change, but the husband held up his hand, shaking his head. “Keep the change. That’s mighty kind of you.”
“Bless you.” The woman teared up again and headed for the door, wrapping her overcoat more tightly around her.
After taking the box and cup holder, the husband joined his wife in the entryway and held the door for her. They stepped outside, the door swished closed, and they were gone.
“That was awful nice of you.”
Paige startled, spinning around to see Evan Thornton watching her along the length of the serving counter. “I don’t know about nice. I had extra cinnamon rolls that I didn’t want to go to waste.”
“Still. Not everyone would go to the trouble.”
“Lord knows times like that are tough enough. We’ve all been there, battling heartbreak.”
“Yes, we have.” Evan’s face hardened, and he turned away, staring at his plate.
He’s known heartache, too, she remembered. She didn’t know the details, but he’d been divorced long ago. She knew just how much pain that could give a person.
Maybe it was just her mood today, but the shadows seemed to darken quickly. Maybe a storm was on the way.
Night fell like a curtain until she could see the lighted reflection of the diner in the long row of front windows and her own tall, lanky form standing there, nearly as dark as the world outside.
She saw something else in that reflection. Evan Thornton turned on the bar chair in her direction. Her stomach gave a funny tingle. Was he watching her? And why on earth would he do that? When she looked his way, he wasn’t studying her at all but recapping the ketchup bottle, his attention squarely focused on the task.
Funny. Maybe it was her imagination. Or maybe he’d been drifting off in his own thoughts, the way she’d been.
The back door clicked shut and the screen door banged, telling her that Dave had fled while the getting was good. It might be Friday night, but she expected it to be a quiet one from here on out. There were no games or matches at the high school. The middle school’s spring musical pageant had been last week, and weekend nights were typically quiet in the lull after Easter. It didn’t help that winter had decided to sneak in for a final showdown and the hailstorm earlier would keep most folks at home and off the slick streets.
Except for her son, wherever he was. She checked the wall clock above the register. Enough time had passed that he should be off the roads and safely inside the movie theater. She wouldn’t have to worry about him again for two more hours when the movie was over and he’d be out on the roads again.
That left her to worry instead about the growing list of things needing to be done. Like the extra cleaning she’d been trying to fit into the quieter times, and the general ledger, which was still a mess on the desk, and the paperwork for the ad she needed to place in the paper—
She was back in the kitchen before she realized she’d made a conscious decision to go there, apparently lured by the exciting thought of cleaning behind the refrigerator, which was the first thing on her list that needed doing.
Now, if she could only find the energy, she’d be in seventh heaven. What she wanted was chocolate. Lots of cool, soothing, rich chocolate.
“Hey, Paige?” It was Evan Thornton calling from the front.
Trouble. She knew the sound of it well enough. There was no disguising the low note of concern in his rumbling baritone. Now what?
Four steps took her into the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the front. The thought of taking a chocolate break and then cleaning behind the refrigerator vanished at the sight of water creeping from the men’s bathroom. Not just a trickle, but a shining sheet of water silently rushing from wall to wall and nosing like a giant amoeba toward the front counter.
There Evan was, a formidable shape of a man on the other side of the creeping waterway. “I could engineer a bridge for you.”
She blinked. Was it her imagination or was he practically smiling? She’d never known Evan Thornton, an engineer, to have a sense of humor. Then again, she really didn’t know him, which was the way she liked it and wanted to keep it. Getting too close to men, especially single, handsome, and apparently nice men, always led to trouble. At least, in her experience. “Uh, no, I’ll risk the current without a bridge, thank you.”
Why was it that some men looked better with a little distinguished gray in their hair? He shrugged those gorgeous shoulders of his, strong and straight. “Just thought I’d help. Let me know if you need me to toss you a lifejacket. Or a buoy. Or a marine? No?”
She blinked again. There he went again, and this time he was definitely almost smiling. The gentle upward curve of his hard mouth cut the hint of dimples into his lean sun-browned cheeks. She felt a flutter of interest down deep in her heart, and dismissed it. She was a woman after all, sworn to a single celibate life, but that didn’t mean she was dead. “Call for help if I don’t return.”
“You can’t deal with that yourself.”
“Watch me.” She swept past him, wading through the torrent streaming down the hallway. What would it be like to be free of this place? She’d been here so long, she couldn’t even imagine it. But she would sure like to.
She was planning to put the diner up for sale this summer. She’d been accepted at the nearby university to begin classes in the fall.
“Do you want me to call a plumber?” He spoke with that polished baritone that could make a girl take a second look.
She absolutely refused to turn around. She didn’t need a second look. She wasn’t interested in Evan or in any man. “Not yet, it might be something I know how to fix.”
“Are you telling me you’re a good cook and a handyman, too?”
“Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t use tools.”
Right. Evan watched Paige McKaslin march away from him, all business. She was a study in contradiction. On the surface, she was brusque, crisp and coolly efficient. A man might draw the conclusion that she was made of ice.
But if he watched close enough, he’d see a different woman. A woman who was vulnerable and overworked and tender. He’d seen the look on her lovely face when the crying customer had said they were on their way to a funeral. She cared. And she hadn’t charged the couple for the hot coffee and snacks to help them along on their all-night drive.
She wasn’t as coolly tough as she let on, either. Not judging by the way her straight shoulders had slumped when she’d first eyed the leak cascading down the hallway. She was handling the flood now, marching up the water-filled hallway braced like a warrior facing battle. She was a small woman, and that came as a surprise. She was always moving, a busy, no-nonsense, get-things-done woman. Now, as he watched her, he realized just how lovely she was.
Why he was noticing, he couldn’t rightly say. He’d given up on women and the notion of trusting them ever since he’d come home to find a quick note from his wife taped to the refrigerator door explaining why she was leaving him. That wasn’t all. She’d drained their bank accounts, maxed out the credit cards with cash advances. She’d even liquidated their nest egg of stocks and bonds.
All very good reasons never to notice another woman again.
So, why was he standing here watching as Paige disappeared into the men’s restroom? Water lapped around the toes of his shoes. A smart man would go back to his seat and finish off the rest of his meal and contemplate the dessert menu. He would not be staring down the hallway, feeling as if he ought to lend a hand.
Why? That made no sense. He wasn’t much of a handyman, so there was very little he could do to help, unless it was to turn off a valve. Paige had been clear she could handle the leak and any required tools. She was a competent woman; he’d have to believe her. Maybe the reason had more to do with her beauty than her competence.
No, that didn’t make any sense. After Liz had broken his heart, wrecked their family, and destroyed his financial security, no woman’s beauty could affect him. No, the reason he was standing here as the flood rushed past him into the dining room had nothing to do with Paige McKaslin. Not one thing. His chest constricted with a pain worse than a root canal.
He thought of his absolutely quiet, very empty house and took a step upstream. Water sloshed over the top of his shoes and wet his socks. Helping her was the only decent thing to do. It wasn’t likely that she could find a plumber this time of night. And certainly not fast enough to save her entire diner from water damage. At the very least, Paige would have a serious repair bill on her hands.
He’d see if he couldn’t help keep that to a minimum, he thought, as he knocked on the closed men’s bathroom door and shouldered it open. Water resisted, and when he shoved harder, he saw why. What might have started as a small leak had resulted in complete erosion of the major water pipe to the sinks. Water gushed out of the floor full-force now, and Paige sat beside it, her face in her hands, her shoulders slumped.
In utter defeat.
Evan’s heart twisted. He stepped forward, blown away by an overwhelming need to help her. To make this right.
Chapter Two
This is going to wipe out the diner’s monthly profit. And a lot more as well.
Paige scrubbed at her face. Tired, she was just so tired. She had to call a plumber. She couldn’t do this herself—this was no minor repair. Already the water level had risen a few inches. And since the break in the pipe was below the shut-off for the sinks, the main line would have to be shut off.
Not only that, but the clean-up was going to take time—hours of hard work. Don’t think about that, she commanded herself as she climbed to her feet. One step at a time. First she had to get this water turned off.
“Where’s the main shut-off valve?” A man’s voice came out of nowhere, bouncing off the bare walls.
She jumped, splashing the water around her. “Evan. I didn’t know that you were there. What are you doing? You’re going to ruin your shoes.”
“I’ve had worse problems. This is an older building. Don’t tell me the shut-off is underneath.”
“There’s a crawl space, but you can’t go down there.” She waded across the room, splashing and slipping, as fast as she could go.
Evan had already turned and was wading down the hall. “Evan!”
He was gone with a splash, but like the ripples ringing outward from his movements in the water, the effect of his kind presence remained.
You’re only imagining that the kindness in his voice is personal, she told herself as she slogged after him. Waves washed against the tile protection along the walls and threatened to start wetting the wallboard at any time.
Evan had gone back to his seat, right? As she scurried down the hall she caught a glimpse of the nearly empty dining room. Evan wasn’t in it.
Men. This was why she didn’t have one. You couldn’t trust them to do what you said—you couldn’t trust them at all, not as far as you could throw them. She grabbed her coat from the kitchen closet and the flashlight from the top shelf.
The chill in the wind cut through her, tearing at the edges of her coat, and she zipped it up tightly as she ran. The light from the windows gave just enough light to thin the shadows as she tripped along the icy flagstone path around the far edge of the building.
The trap door was flung wide open and the scant light down below gave her no hint of what was happening. Had Evan already found the valve and turned it off?
He peered up at her from the shadows below. Dust streaked the top of his head. “You wouldn’t happen to have any tools on you, would you?”
Those dimples had dug into his cheeks again and caught her off guard.
“I—” Her brain shut down. Tools. He was talking about tools. “You don’t need one for the shut-off. Just let me—”
“I found the valve, but it’s stuck open.”
“It’s stuck? No, it can’t be. The handle has to be jiggled just right. It’s temperamental.” She barreled down the wooden steps, swiping cobwebs out of her hair. “Let me try it.”
“Do you have a toolbox upstairs?”
“There’s a kit in the kitchen closet by the door but—” She stumbled along the uneven ground and went down on her knees by the valve. He was already gone. It didn’t matter. She wrapped both hands around the small metal handle and pulled. Nothing.
She strained harder. Nothing.
Okay, what she needed was a little more muscle. She braced her feet, used her weight as leverage and heaved with all her strength. The pipe groaned. The valve screeched a millimeter and then stuck as if it had been cemented into place.
No, this can’t be happening. She took a step back and her heel splashed in something wet. Water. It was coming through the floorboards at the end near the bathrooms. What was it doing upstairs?
Before panic could set in, Evan was back, thundering down the steps and into the narrow space, stooping as he went, the toolbox clinking with his movements. He dropped the box at her feet and snapped it open. Her hand shot out for the wrench but he’d already stolen it.
“Hey, this is my job,” she decided loudly.
He didn’t seem to care, as he was already shouldering next to her and fitting the wrench into place. “It’s just rusted some. Let’s hope this doesn’t break the pipe.”
“And if it does?”
“There’s always the shut-off at the meter in the street, but let’s—” he paused as he put some muscle into his effort “—hope that it doesn’t—come—to that.”
Metal screeched in protest.
“Is it working?”
“Not yet. Could you aim the flashlight right here? It’d help if I could see what I’m doing.”
“Sure.” She moved close to point the beam at the stubborn valve in the narrow corner. “I keep imagining that I’m going to need an ark to rescue the last of the customers I left in the dining room.”
He gave the wrench a little more muscle and the screech of old copper pipes told him he was making some difference. “If it comes to that, I’ll engineer you one.”
“Then I’ll be even more in your debt.” The gentle curve of her mouth eased into a ghost of a smile as she leaned closer to give the flashlight she held a better angle.
She smelled of cinnamon and roses. Cinnamon from the kitchen, he guessed. And roses from her lotion. The subtle aroma made him take notice. His chest throbbed. Heartburn, he thought, dismissing it as he felt the valve give a tiny bit. At his age, chest pain wasn’t a good sign. Being forty-two was a thrill a minute.
He was no longer young, but he wasn’t anywhere close to being old. Just in between. Which is pretty much where he’d been all his life anyway. Wasn’t that what Liz had always mourned? He wasn’t a stand-out kind of guy. Just average. Average looking, average earning…just average everything.
And that hadn’t bothered him much over the years until this moment.
The wrench froze in place, and as he moved into a better position, he bonked the top of his head hard on a thick wooden beam. Stars lit the dimness before his eyes a split second before pain reverberated through his skull.
Great going, Thornton.
“Are you all right?” Genuine emotion softened her lean face, and in the spare glow of the flashlight’s dim bulb, he saw concern fill her eyes.
“I’m fine. I’ve got a hard head.”
He couldn’t help noticing how lovely she was. Her heart-shaped face was classically cut with a delicate chin, a straight nose and wide, startlingly blue eyes. Dark feathery bangs spilled over her forehead, making him want to smooth those silky wisps away from her eyes. A band tightened around his chest like a vise.
That’s it, I’m cutting down on French fries.
He gave the wrench a little more torque, gritted his teeth and pushed for all he was worth. The stubborn wrench didn’t move a millimeter and then slowly, with a high-pitched squeal, it began to give. The pipes groaned. Evan groaned. His arms burned as he clenched his jaw and gave it everything he had.
The valve closed.
“Oh, Evan! You did it! Oh, I never could have done that by myself. You are incredible! Thank you so much!”
“It was nothing.” He removed the wrench and realized he was shivering.
“Nothing? You’ve only earned my eternal gratitude. It’s freezing down here. Come on up and we’ll get you something hot to drink.” She grabbed the wrench from him, and her warm, satin fingers brushed his.
Suddenly he totally forgot about being half frozen. He noticed the faint blanket of freckles across her nose. Her skin was flawless, her cheekbones high and chiseled, her mouth full and her chin delicate.
The vise around his chest clamped so tight he felt close to suffocating. He shouldn’t be noticing how beautiful Paige McKaslin was, because in the end it didn’t matter. He’d sworn off women, and that especially included noticing the beautiful ones.
He cleared his throat. “No, I’m fine. And as for your eternal gratitude, why don’t we call it even? You’ve served me plenty of good meals over the years.”
“Yes, and you’ve paid for them.”
“But I didn’t have to cook ’em for myself. See?”
“That’s not the same.” She headed up the stairs.
He did his best to behave like a gentleman and not notice how trim she looked in her worn jeans or the delicate cut of her ankle showing above her sneakers. He hit the light switch and climbed up after her in the dark. Something cold and icy pecked against his face.
“It’s snowing.” She towered over him, the toolbox in one hand and the flashlight in the other, aiming the shaft of light down the ladder, growing slippery with icy snow.
“Great. That will mix nicely with the dust and cobwebs.” The icy flakes slanted through the flashlight’s golden beam and pelted him as he landed with his feet on solid ground. “You’re going to need a plumber.”
“Very observant of you.” She knelt to grab the heavy trap door.
He beat her to it. “Go in where it’s warm and call Phil’s Plumbing. It’s in the phonebook. He’s my brother-in-law. You tell him I said to get over here pronto and give you a good price while he’s at it.”
“Thanks, Evan.” She marched away, blending with the dark until she was gone.
He didn’t know if it was the icy storm or the dark that made him feel keenly alone. Well, he was used to being alone these days, he thought as he hefted the heavy door into place.
There used to be a time when he’d been so busy, making a living, running after the boys, looking after laundry and meals and bills that he ran on constant exhaustion. It was painful to remember, and yet it only felt like a few days ago when he’d dropped into bed well after eleven each night and bemoaned having not a second to call his own.
Funny, how he missed that now. How he’d give just about anything to go back in time. Those days had whipped by so fast, he’d forgotten to hold onto the good in them. And now…well, his sons were grown up and both doing well. Cal was in college and Blake in law school. Grown men, or at least grownup enough that they didn’t need him like they used to.
As he made his way around the building to the back door, satisfaction settled over him like the snow. It was good to do something useful. To make a difference. There was no way Paige could have handled that valve on her own, but she certainly hadn’t been squeamish about crawling into a narrow dank space.
There she was. He could see her through the window in the back door. She was talking on a cordless phone tucked between her chin and shoulder as she worked at the counter. She met his gaze through the glass. She flashed him a smile, a rare one of the sort he’d never seen from her.
His heart stopped between beats. The usually cool and collected Paige McKaslin shone like a morning star, like the gentle light that remained even when all others stars had gone out. She yanked open the door. “You’re a lifesaver, Evan.”
That troublesome tightness was back in his chest. He managed a shrug, but he didn’t manage to breathe. “I take it you got a hold of Phil.”
“He’s on his way.” She headed straight to the counter. He couldn’t help being struck by the long pleasant line her arms made as she hung up the phone. She had beautiful hands, slender and graceful.
And exactly why was he noticing this? Dumbstruck, he padded away through the other kitchen door, the swinging one that led to the far end of the dining room, so he could avoid the pool of water.
Once he was far enough away, his ability to breathe returned, but the emotion remained jammed in his throat. At the doorway, he glanced over his shoulder at her. She was working her way around the corner and didn’t seem to notice him looking.
He took one shaky step into the dining area and along the empty aisles. Only one other couple remained in the diner, finishing up their steak dinners. He fumbled onto the stool and leaned his elbows heavily on the counter. The impact of her smile remained, and his heart pounded crazily in his chest as if he needed a defibrillator.
Never had he reacted to a woman like that. Not even to Liz when he’d first fallen in love with her. What was happening? He didn’t know. But as he took his seat and grabbed the last of his fries, his taste buds paled. Everything seemed suddenly dim and distant. It was a strange reaction. Maybe he’d hit his head harder than he’d thought.
His pastor, his friends, his sons and even his brother-in-law, whom he’d kept in contact with after the divorce, all told him he ought to start dating again. That he should find some nice woman to share his golden years with.
I don’t want to admit to being anywhere close to having golden years.
“Evan?
The fork clamored to the plate. His fingers had somehow slipped. When he managed to meet Paige’s gaze, he made sure he didn’t notice that she was a beautiful, graceful woman with a tender heart. He forced himself to see the efficient businesswoman, who had taken his orders, served his meals and counted back his change over the years. That was the only Paige McKaslin he could allow himself to see.
“Department of Health rules. I can’t be open for business unless I have working restrooms.” She set a big paper bag on the counter between them and a take-out cup, capped, next to it. “Your extra order of fries, a slice of banana cream pie, I know how you like it, and a hot cup of that gourmet decaf you sometimes order.”
“Uh…thanks.” What he needed was to head straight home, empty house or not, and put some distance between his stirred-up emotions and Paige McKaslin. What he needed to do was to sit in the quiet of his home, the same house where his wife had cheated on him and finally left, and then he’d remember why being alone was the right choice.
“Here.” She reached beneath the counter and began dropping packets into the bag. “Let me make sure you’ve got napkins and a few things. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“The pie would be fine. How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing, goodness. After your help tonight, this is on me. Please, you didn’t even get to finish eating.”
“No, forget it. I pay my way.” He pulled out his wallet and she held up her hand.
Men. Paige appreciated Evan’s pride and his ethics, but she had some of her own. “If you insist on paying for this meal, then I’m only going to give you the next one free. In fact, maybe I’ll do that anyway.” She turned toward the mature couple ambling down the aisle. “You, too, Mr. and Mrs. Redmond. I see that twenty you left on the table.”
“Well, dear, we’re not freeloaders, and we were nearly done anyhow,” Mr. Redmond kindly answered as he took a toothpick from the holder near the register. “You have a good night now. You still make the best steak in the state.”
“My mother’s secret spices.” Paige made a mental note to give the Redmonds their next meal free. She had the best customers anyone could wish for—they were so understanding! She grabbed the small white sack containing the baker’s box she’d filled in the kitchen and intercepted them at the front. “A little something for later.”
Mr. Redmond was not opposed to the gift of dessert and held the door carefully for his beloved wife. They disappeared together into the storm.
Sweet. What must it be like to have a bond like that? Paige couldn’t help the pang of regret or the pull of longing in her heart. She was thirty-eight years old, too old to believe in fairy tales, so why was she still wishing for one? The long painful years after her husband’s departure and the following divorce had taken their toll, as had the years of shouldering responsibilities for her family. Working sixteen-hour days seven days a week had worn her to the bone.
What she needed was a vacation.
No, what she needed, she corrected herself, as she waded to the hall closet, was a time machine so she could go back twenty years, grab that naive eighteen-year-old she’d been by the shoulders, and make that foolish, stars-in-her-eyes girl see the truth about life. A truth that the grown woman in her had come to accept as a cold, hard fact.
There was no such thing as true love and no real knights in shining armor. Anything that looked like a fairy tale was either an illusion or simply wishful thinking.
Okay, that sounded bitter, but it really wasn’t, she thought as she hauled out the mop. She sounded cold, but her heart wasn’t that, either. If anything, Paige felt foolish. Think of all the time and heartache she could have saved herself had she understood that truth earlier in her life. Her road would have been so much smoother had she seen the world—and the man she’d married—for what was real instead of what she’d wished them both to be.
If she had, she could have focused on what truly mattered—and only on that. She could have avoided wasting energy on dreams that only faded, on hopes that true love would walk into her life one day.
The hope that she’d find a good man to love had faded over time, bit by bit, shade by shade until it was nothing at all.
That was how she’d been living for a long, long time. She swiped the mop through the water, thinking that she’d been happier this way. Alone was good. She was strong, capable and independent. She was also safe from all the harm a man could bring to a woman. Sad, trying not to remember the long-ago love she’d been unable to save, she wrung the mop, listening to the water tap into the plastic bucket like rain.
As she worked, she listened to the sounds of Evan gathering up the bag and ambling down the aisle. His steps were deliberate and slow, as if he were in no hurry to leave. He drew to a stop in the breezeway between the eating area and the front counter. “Do you want me to hang around until Phil gets here?”
“That’s nice of you, but I’m used to being alone here after dark.” She swiped the mop through the cold water and wrung the sponge head well. “I do appreciate your help tonight. Not everyone would have gotten up to help me.”
“Glad I could make a difference. With my boys gone, I don’t get to do that much anymore.” He cleared his throat as if he had more to say, and could not.
What would it be like to come home to an empty house, she wondered? To open the door and know that her son would not be in his bedroom downstairs with his dog, listening to music or munching on potato chips or sacked-out fast asleep?
It had to be a long stretch of lonely, she thought as she went back to mopping. She didn’t know what to say as Evan walked past to snag his jacket from the coat tree, she couldn’t help noticing that he’d gotten pretty dirty crawling around under the diner. Dust streaked his slacks.
She bent to squeeze water from the mop head. “Uh, are those dry clean only?”
“No way. Don’t even worry about it.” He didn’t look at her as he slid into his black jacket, pulled a baseball cap over his head and leaned against the door.
“Drive safe out there, Evan. The roads have to be a mess.”
“You be safe, too.” He cleared his throat, slid a ten and a five on the counter and took the sack. There was a challenging glint in his dark eyes as he ambled past, as if he were daring her to give the money back.
The bell overhead jangled as he strode into the night. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Uh, yeah, that would be great. I’ll be waitressing.”
“Then I’ll be ordering.”
He stared at her for a beat, as the night began to engulf him. In the moment before the shadows claimed him completely, she saw the essence of him, not the physical, not the expected, but the steady strength of a good man.
The door swung shut, and she was alone. Snow pinged against the windows, driven by a cruel wind, and she swore she felt the echo of it deep in her heart, in a place that had been empty to romantic love since before her son was born.
And how foolish was that, that she was wishing for the impossible now? No, not exactly wishing, but thinking that it was possible again.
I’m more tired than I thought, she told herself with a chuckle as she turned the dead bolt and went back to her mopping.
Chapter Three
The house was dark. He’d forgotten to leave a light on again. Evan fumbled along the kitchen entryway. Cal had gone off to school what? seven, eight months ago, and he still couldn’t get used to him being gone. It hasn’t been so bad when Blake had left, for he and Cal had made the adjustment together. But this…having them both gone, it felt like he’d walked into someone else’s life.
But this was his life now. He was a free man, unencumbered and carefree. Shouldn’t it feel better than this? Evan tossed the keys and his battered gym bag, and slid the sack from the diner onto the counter, pushed the door to the garage shut with his foot and listened to his footsteps thump through the lonely kitchen.
Let there be light. He hit the switch and a flood of brightness shocked his eyes. He’d been outside so long, his eyes had gotten used to the darkness. The drive home had been slow and long and pitch-black. The headlights had been nearly useless in the rapid snowfall. And now, this place seemed too bright and too glaringly empty to feel like a home.
Well, he was just feeling lonely. It was Friday night, after all. Maybe one of the boys had had time to call in. That thought put some bounce in his stride as he left his briefcase on the kitchen table and leaned to check the message light on the phone recorder. Nothing.
Okay, young men had more fun things to do on Friday nights than to give their old dad a call. He was glad for them both. He wanted them to be out there, living their lives and doing well. It’s just that he hadn’t figured on how his own life would stand still when they were gone.
The flier one of his clients had sent him was sitting on the edge of the counter. He’d meant to toss it with the rest of yesterday’s mail, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. The apple-green paper seemed to glow neon in the half light and he pulled it out so he could look at it properly.
A Bible study for the rest of us. A bold carton caption stretched above a cartoon-like pen-and-ink drawing of a middle-aged man in his recliner. “The youth have their own lives, and the singles and the seniors have their activities. What about the rest of us? Come join us for Bible study, dessert and fellowship at Field of Beans.”
That was the coffee shop in town—and Evan knew Paige’s relatives owned it. That was a bonus, he suddenly realized. Plus, it was an evening meeting, something he could do after work. Something besides cleaning out the horse barn, that is.
He folded up the flyer and slid it in with the stack of bills needing to be paid. That was something he’d been meaning to do—study his Bible more. Now that he had the time. Maybe this was a solution to one of his lonely evenings. Maybe he would take everyone’s advice—not to date but to get out and do the things he’d been putting off when he’d been so busy raising his sons.
The phone rang while he was on his way through the family room. One of the boys? Hope jolted through him. He snatched up the cordless receiver on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Is this Evan Thornton?”
“Uh…” In his excitement, he’d forgotten to check the caller ID screen. “Yeah. Who is this?”
“This is Michael from First National Bank, how are you this evening? I want to tell you about our new identity theft program—”
At least it wasn’t bad news. “Not interested. Goodbye.”
He hung up the phone, glanced around the room at the TV remote that was on the coffee table where it belonged and not flung and lost somewhere in the room, at the chairs pushed in at the table instead of all shoved around askew. There were no stacks of books or heaps of sports equipment and coats lying around, all needing to be put away.
Would he ever get used to the quiet, to the orderliness, to the emptiness? Standing alone in the family room, which had been put into tidy order by the cleaning lady, he felt at a loss. This didn’t feel like home anymore.
As he headed upstairs to change out of his work clothes and into his barn clothes, he realized this was what it meant to be unencumbered and carefree, a free man again. There was no phone ringing off the hook, no kids traipsing through the house.
Just the telemarketers and him.
He’d always known his boys were a great blessing. He’d given thanks to the Lord every night as he’d lain down to sleep, but he’d never stopped to see the treasured gift that each day really was, and that, for all of those eighteen years, they were surprisingly fleeting.
“Well, that should just about do it.” Phil the plumber tried to stomp the snow off his work boots. But considering the mud he’d picked up from the crawl space, it was a hopeless cause anyway. “I’ve double-checked the length of the pipes and couldn’t find a drop anywhere. I think we’ve got the problem licked.”
“Music to my ears. Thank you.” Paige dropped the scrub brush into the soapy bucket, where she’d been cleaning the water line against the bathroom wall. “I appreciate this so much. I know it was a long drive out here, and it’s going to be worse going back.”
“Before you get all misty on me…” He gave a friendly—but not too friendly—wink. “I’ve got bad news. You’re gonna have to replace some of this pipe. It’s gonna be expensive, and if you want, I can work up an estimate. I can either do it for all new water lines, or I can do it in phases and we can just do the worst stuff first. You just let me know.”
Bad news? Did he say bad news? No, he had that wrong; this was devastating news. The small allotment she put faithfully into the savings account every month for repairs would never be enough. She didn’t have to go grab the latest bank statement to know that she couldn’t afford to replumb the entire diner.
She also knew how lucky she’d been tonight. The damage could have been worse, and as it was, she could open for business as usual in the morning. She’d only lost three hours of business tonight. Not bad, considering. Heaven was gracious, as always, and she was thankful. “Why don’t you work up the bit-by-bit estimate?”
“Fine by me. I’ll send it with my bill.”
Already dreading the amount due, she handed him a sack with the last of the cinnamon rolls. “A little something for your breakfast tomorrow. You drive safely out there now.”
“I’ve got four-wheel drive.” Phil hefted his big toolbox to the door and stopped to retrieve his parka. “I’ll get the stuff in the mail on Monday. Thanks, ma’am.”
When had she become a “ma’am”?
Probably about the same time her son had learned to drive. Thank God for hair color that covered the gray and intensive eye cream. Worry could do that to a girl. Stress was her middle name these days, and that combined with her age didn’t help. She wasn’t quite sure where all the time had gone—wait, erase that. She did. She’d spent probably seventy-five percent of the last twenty-two years right here in this diner.
After seeing Phil out and locking the door behind him, she glanced at the clock. The movie ought to be getting out about now. Great, she could get back to worrying about Alex being out there on these roads. Maybe what she needed to do was to expend some of that nervous energy and clean.
So she kept her eye on the clock as she scrubbed down the grill and wiped the counters, tables and chairs. Then she tackled the rest of the floor that hadn’t been flooded, mopping until the tile squeaked beneath the mop head and her cell phone was ringing in her back pocket.
A quick glance at the caller ID window revealed her home number. Good. That meant Alex was home safe and sound—and even five minutes before his curfew. How great was that? “Hey there. How was the movie?”
“Good. You can stop worrying now. Notice the time? I’m calling you before eleven. What do you think about that?”
“It’s unprecedented, and it makes me suspicious. Worry and suspicion are a mother’s job.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. So, are you gonna be home soon?”
That question made her suspicious, too. “You didn’t happen to notice a leak in the bathroom before you bugged out of here, did you?”
“Nope. I’d have told ya, even though Beth was waiting for me. Why? What’d I do?”
“Nothing. I had a leak in a pipe, that’s all. Are you getting ready for bed, or are you going to get lost in your new video game?
“Uh, nope, I wasn’t playing my X-Box, but thanks for reminding me, Ma.” He sounded pleased with himself. “Just kidding. You want me to go out and feed the horse for you?”
He was volunteering to do barn work? There had to be something wrong. That wasn’t normal teenage behavior. “Okay, what did you do?” Expecting the worst, Paige hefted the bucket toward the kitchen. “Don’t tell me you dinged the truck.”
“No way.”
“Hit somebody on the way home?”
“Hey, I’m innocent. I’m just trying to help my poor tired mom.”
Help? Now she was suspicious. She maneuvered the bucket up to the industrial sink and up-ended it. “Okay. Out with it, young man. What did you do? What are you trying to soften me up for?”
“Nothing. I just thought I’d be a good son for a change.” There was a grin in his voice. “Don’t worry.”
“Yeah, I’m still suspicious, though.”
“You go right ahead, Mom. You’ll see.” He sounded extraordinarily happy.
Could it be her son was moving past the surly teenager stage that even the best of kids went through? No, that was too much to hope for. “I’ll see you when I get home. I’ll be leaving in about ten minutes. Think you can have your teeth brushed and your prayers said by the time I get there?”
“Aye, aye, captain.” With a chuckle he clicked off the phone.
Yep, something was definitely up with that boy. She snapped the cell shut, slipped it back into her pocket and rinsed the bucket. Done. Well, done enough for now.
She was beat; she usually put in more hours than this staying later on weekend nights. Maybe it was the worry and upset over the water pipe. She felt as if she’d worked two twelve-hour shifts back to back.
But the moment she stepped outside and locked the back door, she saw her journey wasn’t going to be an easy one. She still had to remove the snow coating her SUV and chip away at the ice frozen solid to the windows before she could even think about trying to drive. And once she was on her way, the roads would be more than a challenge.
Twenty minutes later, falling snow pelted her trusty Jeep with big wet flakes, and it was impossible to see more than a few inches in front of her. The accumulation on the road was sloppy and tricky to drive in. It caught at the wheels and tossed the vehicle every which way, so she slowed to a crawl to navigate through the town streets and along the county road where other vehicles’ tires had mashed the mire down into an icy compact crust.
When she turned off onto the private road, she relaxed a bit. Almost home. The evergreens and cottonwoods lining the lane were bent low from the heavy snow and scraped at the top of her Jeep; that’s when it got tough going. She fought the wheel to stay on the narrow road.
Only two other sets of tire tracks marked the way in the otherwise absolute darkness. One set, which was almost snow filled, veered off down a long, tree-lined drive. Evan Thornton’s place. The remaining tracks had to be her son’s and led her a few more miles into the hills, up her driveway and into the shelter of her garage.
Thank heaven. She was home and in one piece, and not that much worse for wear. Lights flicked on and there was Alex, holding open the inside door, already in a flannel T-shirt and pants she’d gotten him for Christmas. His blond hair was rumpled and in serious need of a cut. His dog panted at his side. “Hey, Mom. I was just nuking some cocoa. Want some?”
“Are you kidding? I’d love a cup.”
“Cool.” He flashed her a quick grin and disappeared behind the door, the dog, Max, loping along after him.
As she gave the door a shove, her back popped. Great. That was going to be the next disaster. Her back was going to go out. Every joint she owned creaked. Wasn’t life eventually supposed to be easier, Lord? Or are You trying to tell me something?
She rescued her purse from the floor, along with the small paper sack with the last two cinnamon rolls. She had to wonder, as she elbowed through the door and into the laundry room, whether God was sending her a sign.
Every time she tried to get ready to sell the diner for good something happened to hold her firmly here. In the last six months, her sister Rachel had married and moved away, the roof had needed to be replaced and now the plumbing. Those repairs would erode a big chunk of the savings she’d been squirreling away. Not good.
Then again, it was never a true disaster, either. The Lord might be trying to tell her something, but He always made sure she had help, too. The image of Evan Thornton flashed into her mind. Tall, broad-shouldered, he had the kind of quiet strength that made a woman sigh and wish—even a woman like her who did not place any faith in the non-constant nature of men.
Sure, some men were constant, but it was a rare thing. The trouble was, it would be easy to start believing Evan was one of those kind of men. He’d helped out tonight without expecting more than a thank-you. And what was it he’d said? Glad I could make a difference. He had his heart in the right place. Why had it seemed that he was so sad? Not depressed-sad, just…lonely-sad. He hadn’t wanted to go home to an empty house.
It hit her the moment she saw her strapping son at the microwave, punching the buttons. Hadn’t Evan’s youngest boy, who was a year older than Alex, gone to college this year? Maybe that’s why he seemed so lonely.
Alex’s crooked grin lit up his face. “Excellent, Mom. Sit down, take a load off. Want me to get that for you?”
He could have been a young, hip butler for the attention he was giving her. And while it was nice, she had to wonder what was behind his very sweet behavior. She let him take her purse, the dinner sack and her keys and then watched in amazement while he set them on the counter. He couldn’t resist peeking into the sack.
“Sweet. Good call. I could use a cinnamon roll. I’m a growing boy, you know.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Here, sit down.” His hand on her elbow guided her to one of the chairs at the breakfast bar.
“Okay, what’s up?” What trouble are you in now? She bit her tongue before she said it. “This is bringing to mind the time you drove into the school bus in the school parking lot and backed up traffic for thirty minutes.”
“My dearest mother, now why would I be up to anything? I’m a good kid.”
“Good is a relative term.” He was a good boy; her heart swelled up with endless love for him, but he was a teenage boy, no matter how great a kid he was, and he needed constant vigilant guidance. Even if she was proud of the fine man he was growing up to be.
As he fetched the full steaming mug he’d obviously fixed before she’d stepped through the door, she watched him like a hawk, trying to ferret out a clue to the truth. But nothing. No hint.
She kept staring at him, but he wasn’t going to crack. She took the mug he slid across the counter to her. “Okay, spill it. I want the truth.”
All innocence, he opened the microwave door. “There’s no truth. I just thought I’d be nice to my mom.”
“I like it. I just need to know why.”
“Well, let me think. I did rob a bank tonight, and I stopped by a convenience store and robbed that, too.” He laughed at his own joke. “Am I funny or what?”
“Hilarious.” Paige took a sip of chocolate. That hit the spot. She eyed her son over the rim of the cup. This was a teenaged boy, home from his date with a girl she didn’t approve of, and home early, despite the weather, come to think of it.
A sudden panic began to lick through her soul. He hadn’t gotten into some serious trouble with his girlfriend, had he? She’d been sure to talk to him about his responsibilities toward Beth, to respect her, but—No, she couldn’t begin to think about that!
Alex hopped onto the stool beside her. “Yo, don’t have a heart attack or nothin’. You don’t think I really robbed some place? I was just yanking your chain. It’s my job to torment my mom.” He grinned, knowing he was perfectly adorable.
“Just like it’s my job to worry and make sure you grow up right.”
“I’m growing up right.” He rolled his eyes. “All I did was take Beth home after the movie. That’s it.”
Oh, maybe they broke up. Maybe that’s what this was about. He was home early, making hot chocolate and sitting next to her. Maybe he wanted to talk. Relief rushed through her. “How is Beth?”
“Okay. I met her mom.” He shrugged, leaving her to wait while he rammed a cinnamon roll into his mouth, bit off a huge chunk and chewed.
Beth’s mom? That wasn’t what Paige expected him to say. Had the woman said something to upset him? She took a sip of the steaming cocoa and licked the marshmallow froth off her lip, waiting for the rest of the tale.
Finally, after a long beat of silence, Alex confessed. “I took Beth up to the door, and her mom was waiting. She was drunk, I think. And she started chewing out Beth, and I just…” He swallowed hard. “Felt so bad for her.”
“Me, too.” Paige knew Beth’s mom worked at the local motel as a cleaning lady, and rumor had it she was a woman with a sad life.
“Beth didn’t want me to see her mom like that, so she wanted me to go. But she said something to me.” He hung his head. “That I was lucky. To have you for a mom. And she’s right.” He attacked the cinnamon roll again.
Paige let the impact of his words settle. Her heart gave another tug. “You’re a pretty great kid, too, you know. I got lucky when the angels gave me you.”
“I know. I am a good kid.” There was that look again, The Eye, the one that made it impossible for her not to melt with adoration for him. He shoved off the counter, taking the cinnamon roll with him. “I got youth group stuff tomorrow. Did ya need help at the diner?”
“No, we’ll manage without you.”
“It’ll be hard, I know.” He was gone, bounding through the house, thumping and thudding as he went down the hall and into the basement where his bedroom was.
Leaving her alone. The warmth of the house, of her home, surrounded her as she sipped her cocoa. Alex’s advanced calculus and physics textbooks were stacked on the table, ready for him to do his homework when he caught a chance over the weekend. On the counter next to the microwave was the admission booklet and information from the college he’d be attending in the fall.
High-school graduation was just around the corner, in the last week of May, and then Alex would be getting ready to leave home. She’d be putting the diner up for sale and then she’d have all the time in the world to follow her own dreams. Paige had been planning for this time of her life for a long while. She deeply wanted this new future rushing toward her.
But maybe she wasn’t in so much of a hurry to get there.
She finished her hot chocolate, let the peace of the night settle around her and remembered to give thanks for all the good things in her life.
Chapter Four
Too much time on his hands. At first Evan had filled the void of the weekends with work on Saturday and church on Sunday, but the truth was, he worked long enough hours during the week and he’d more than caught up on his work load, which was usually such that he was always struggling to keep up. Now, suddenly, he was caught-up. After six months of working most weekends, he had no reason to be at the office. And so he was wandering around the local feed store, looking at stuff he didn’t need. At loose ends.
“Getting ready for summer camping?” Dalton Whitely had inherited the store from his granddad, and had been several years behind Evan in school. Even though they’d played in sports together for a year, when Evan was a senior and Dalton a freshman, Evan really only knew the man as a salesman.
Now that his life was slowing down, Evan was noticing he had a lot of acquaintances, folks he knew by name, but not nearly enough true friends. He wasn’t sure what that said about him, but he knew he was guilty of keeping a healthy distance between him and most people. He’d turned into a man who didn’t trust easily. Maybe, when that came to trusting a wife, that was a good thing. But he felt adrift these days. Unconnected. The flier he’d kept, the one about the Bible study, popped into his mind again.
Maybe, he thought. Maybe it was just the thing he needed. He realized Dalton was waiting for an answer. “I’m just looking. Don’t need a new tent, but those are sure nice.”
“Latest models. Just put ’em out.” Dalton flashed a cordial smile. “You let me know if you have any questions?”
“Yep.” Looking at the camping gear reminded him of better times. Maybe he’d like camping alone. It was something he’d never done before. For more summers than he could count, he and the boys had spent most weekends up in the mountains: camping, hiking, fishing, hunting. There was nothing like riding up into the mountains on horseback. It was like stepping back a century in time. He hadn’t thought about the summer to come. He was already dreading it.
As he turned his back on the brand-new pup tents and eyed the wall of bright halters and braided bridles, he already knew how the summer was going to go. Cal would be off working to make spending money and money for books for next year; he’d probably go off with Blake and fight fires all summer. A good paying job, great for the boys, but Evan was going to be alone. He’d have to face the prospect of a long summer by himself.
His cell buzzed in his jacket pocket. He fished it out, hope springing eternal as he glanced at the screen. It was neither of his sons, but he was grinning as he answered. “Hi, Phil.”
“Hey, I wanted to thank you for the business last night. Things are slow and I needed the work.”
“Great. I hope you gave her a good price. Paige seems like a nice lady.”
That was an understatement. Evan had thought of her on and off all morning, since she’d slipped cinnamon rolls in with his pie, and he’d had them with his coffee this morning. He couldn’t get the image of her out of his mind, the softness she was so careful to hide. He’d been trying not to think of her, but things kept happening to bring his mind back to her. The cinnamon rolls, the sight of the diner as he drove past and now Phil’s call. That unsettled tightness clamped back around his chest, and he didn’t like it. He tried to will it away, but it remained.
“Seems. You mean you don’t know?”
Okay, Phil was fishing for the truth. What truth? There was nothing between him and Paige. How crazy was that? And Phil knew Evan’s position on women, including all the reasons behind it. Phil had been with him through the aftermath of the divorce. “I can’t believe you! I don’t have a personal interest in Paige. I was eating dinner in the diner when the pipe burst. That’s it.”
“Oh. Well, that explains it then. For a minute there, I thought you just might have found a woman who could help you get over what Liz did to you.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am, but I understand. I’m on my way into town right now.”
“Here? You’re coming here?” For some reason that was too much of a switch for his thoughts to take. Probably because they were still lagging, as he gazed out the store’s window at the front window of Paige’s diner. He realized he had a new halter and lead rope in hand, although he didn’t remember picking one out, and he headed to the cash stand. “What’s the deal? You’re not out in this neck of the woods much, not since Cal flew the coop.”
“I started work on an estimate for the diner, and realized I had to come take a second look to do it up right. I need the business, so I want to do a good job. You wouldn’t want to give Paige a good word or two about me, huh? She looks savvy enough to get more than a few estimates for me to compete with. What do you say?”
“I say come meet me for lunch and I’ll let you talk me into it. Or at least, you can talk to her about it.”
“Done. I’m, uh, about five minutes away. I’ll meet you at the diner?”
Evan pocketed his phone and set his purchases on the scarred wooden counter as Dalton slid behind to run the decades-old cash register. Funny thing how he had a better view of the diner from here. And he could see not only the diner, but also the woman who ran it, out salting down the freshly shoveled sidewalk in front of the door.
She looked as lovely as the day’s sunshine. She wore a bright yellow spring coat over her standard dark sweater and jeans, and he couldn’t remember ever noticing her in a bright color before. If he had, surely he would have taken a long second look. The splash of color brought out the pale rosebud pink of her cheeks, and the sheen of golden highlights in her dark brown hair. Teenagers climbed out of a minivan, calling out to her, and she greeted them with an unguarded smile.
The impact hit him like a punch to his chest.
“Should I just put that on your bill, Evan?” Dalton asked.
“Uh…yep.” Rattled but not wanting to show it, Evan nodded thanks to the storeowner, grabbed his bagged purchase and walked on wooden legs to the doors. He was only distantly aware of pushing through the swinging door and into the chill of the wind. Cold penetrated his shirt, for he hadn’t zipped his jacket, but it registered only vaguely. He could not seem to take his eyes off Paige.
She was talking with the kids, listening attentively, her head tipped slightly to the left, her thick fall of bangs cascading over her forehead. She was pretty. She was nice. She was a good mom. That was easy to see as her son stood at her side, tall and good-natured; Evan remembered that Alex McKaslin had played on both the football and basketball teams with Cal. He was a good kid. And Paige, as busy as she was, had made it to every game, home and away. A longing filled him as he inexplicably felt drawn to her, and suddenly the distance between them seemed intolerable.
What was happening to him? You’re lonely, man, he admonished himself. And loneliness was wearing on him. Making him vulnerable. Making him wish for what he knew was impossible. For what he never wanted to try again. Marriage had been a miserable path for both him and Liz: even though he’d tried his best to make her happy, he’d failed.
It wasn’t all his fault—he took what blame was his and he’d learned from it, but she’d been a hard woman to please. Selfish to the core, and in leaving she had ruined his credit and nearly bankrupted him, holding the custody of the boys over him. That’s what he should be reminding himself of every time he looked at Paige McKaslin.
Except it was hard, and he didn’t know why the memory of the disasters and hurts of his past weren’t keeping his interest in her at bay. Paige was talking with the teenagers now, easy and open. Her son and the other kids seemed to like her so well. She ushered them inside, holding the small plastic bag of rock salt in the crook of one arm. When she stepped through the threshold and out of sight, it was as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud, and he shivered.
“Evan! Earth to Evan! Are you all right, man?”
Evan realized he’d been staring across the street as though he was mesmerized. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts, and looked around. His big burly brother-in-law was bounding down the sidewalk, his plumber’s van parked six or seven car lengths up the street. He realized Phil must have called his name several times. Do I look like a fool, or what?
Not knowing what to do with himself, he yanked open the passenger door of his truck and tossed the bag on the floor. “Phil. You look ready to work.”
“I came to get a better look in the crawl space. Didn’t want to wear my Sunday best.” Phil was no dim bulb. There was a knowing twinkle in his eyes as he gazed across the street. “That Paige McKaslin sure is a nice lady, don’t you think?”
That sounded like a loaded question. Just how long had he been watching Paige? And how transparent had he been? “She seems nice enough. She runs a good business. Serves some of the best food in the county.”
“All good reasons to go get something to eat at her place, right?” Phil seemed to take that in stride.
As Evan stepped off the curb, he realized that maybe he’d been misreading Phil’s statements. He was starting to scare himself. But considering the financial devastation a woman had brought to his life, he probably should be terrified. He was committed to being totally single. That was the way of it. Nothing was going to change his mind about that. “I’m in the mood for some good homemade chili.”
“Homemade chili?”
“It’s her family’s recipe. Her parents and her grandparents. It’s good stuff.”
“Now you’ve got me hungry. How are the boys?”
“Do you think I know? Good, I guess. They’re busy. You just wait. Has your daughter picked a college yet?”
“She’s got another year, thank the Lord, but that’ll go by quick. Then Marie and I won’t know what to do with ourselves.” Phil hiked up onto the sidewalk, his toolbox rattling. He seemed nonchalant about the upcoming change in his life—as if it would be an easy transition.
Not so easy. Then again, Phil had a good wife. A woman who’d stood by him and worked beside him every day of their marriage. An empty nest might not be so empty in the presence of a happy marriage. But a happy marriage—those had to be rare. It certainly hadn’t happened for him.
“Hi, Mr. Thornton. Welcome back.” One of Paige’s teenage twin cousins cracked her gum and pulled out two menus. “Wherever you wanna sit. You just go ahead and pick.”
“Thanks. You might want to let Paige know that the plumber is back with some questions.”
“Oh, yeah, like, I’ll go get her.” The teenager accompanied them down the aisle. “Paige is having a day.” She rolled her eyes. “So it’ll probably be a minute or two before she’s free.”
Evan remembered what Cal had called the McKaslin twins, who were a year behind him in school: A hundred percent clueless, but they get your order right. He’d suspected Cal had a crush on one of them—he wasn’t sure if it was this one, since the girls were entirely identical right down to their hair styles and jewelry.
Evan chose a booth in the back away from the crowd of teenagers that had settled into two booths near the front. He recognized most of them from the church’s youth group. Cal had been active in it up until he’d left home.
Evan opened the menu as a formality, mostly to give him a moment or two to develop a plan. Paige McKaslin had blown him away last night, and he hadn’t expected that. And today when he’d seen that private side of her, it had been something he’d never seen in her before last night. What would he do if last night had changed things between them?
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Jillian Hart
Responsibility was nothing new to Paige McKaslin.She had raised her siblings and her son. And though duty was her guiding force, even in matters of the heart, she never stopped counting her blessings — her faith and her wonderful family. Then the McKaslin diner, her livelihood and heritage, burned to the ground….Paige was suddenly free to discover herself… and a blossoming relationship with rancher Evan Thornton. This intriguing man asked her out on her first date in eighteen years, totally disrupting her routine. Now love was an exciting possibility that made her rethink her orderly life. Could it be that God still had some surprises for her?
JILLIAN HART
makes her home in Washington State, where she has lived most of her life. When Jillian is not hard at work on her next story, she loves to read, go to lunch with her friends and spend quiet evenings with her family.
A Handful of Heaven
Jillian Hart
When I am afraid, I will trust in You.
—Psalms 56:3
Dear Reader,
Thank you for choosing A Handful of Heaven. I hope you enjoyed reading Paige and Evan’s story as much as I did writing it. Paige and Evan were both heartbroken from their marriages and they found it easier, each in their own way, to live without love. Better to be safe than to be hurt like that ever again. I wrote this story because I wanted to remind others that it’s never too late for wonderful blessings to come into a person’s life. True love can be just around the corner. As hard as it is to trust again, it is worth the risk to live with a whole and loving heart.
Wishing you peace and love,
Contents
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
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
Epilogue
Chapter One
“Hey, Mom!” The diner’s back door slammed shut with an icy gust of wind. Heavy boots tromped across the clean kitchen floor. “I took the garbage out. The bathrooms are spotless. I even cleaned the milkshake machine.”
Paige McKaslin turned from the prep table to take one look at her seventeen-year-old son who was giving her “The Eye,” as she called it, the one meant to charm her. He’d been using it effectively since he was fifteen months old. Alex was tall, blond and athletic and rangy. One day he would fill out those wide shoulders of his, but in the meantime he was eating as though he had two hollow legs. “You just had supper. Do you need two chocolate doughnuts?”
“You don’t wanna stunt my growth, Ma!” He pretended to be shocked but those baby blues of his were twinkling. “Can I go? The movie starts at eight and Beth doesn’t like to miss the previews.”
One thing a mother didn’t want her teenage boy to have—aside from the keys to her car—was a girlfriend. Especially a girl who did not belong to their church or any church in the county. “You behave, and remember what I told you.”
“Yeah, I know, I’ll be a gentleman. As if!” He rolled his eyes, his grin widening because he’d achieved victory. “I’m outta here.”
“Drive safely. It’s icy out there.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I passed my driver’s test, remember?”
As if she could forget. Letting go was hard but necessary. She bit her lip. Alex was a good driver even if he was young and inexperienced. “Don’t forget to call me at the diner the second you get home—before your curfew.”
“Mom, I know the drill. See ya!” He pounded out of sight, whistling. The back door slammed shut and he was gone.
Off to any kind of danger.
Paige bussed the eight plates from the Corey family’s party.
She’d thought nothing could be more worrying than having a toddler. Alex had been such an active little tyke, and fast. She’d been a wreck trying to stay one step ahead of him, worrying what he would try to choke on next. Or electrocute himself with next. Or fall off of and break open his skull next. How she’d worried!
Little had she imagined all those years ago that her sweet little boy was going to turn into a teenager and do something even more dangerous than try to stick pennies in electrical sockets. He would drive. She dealt with that the way she always dealt with anxiety—she just tried hard not to think about it.
“I had that same look of sheer panic,” Evan Thornton commented as she shot down the aisle. “It was right after each of my boys got their licenses. I don’t think I’ve calmed down yet, and they’re both in college now.”
“No, of course you’re not calm because they are probably out there driving around somewhere.”
Evan chuckled, and the fine laugh lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled handsomely. “Exactly. It’s hard not to be overprotective. You get sort of fond of ’em.”
She heard what he didn’t say. There was no stronger love than a parent’s love. “Lord knows why.” She balanced the plate-filled dishpan on her hip. “Would you like a refill on your fries?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Are you kidding? I’ll be right back. Looks like you need more cola, too.” She flashed him a smile on her way by.
Evan had been frequenting the diner most evenings. Bless her regular customers who gave this tough job its saving grace. She did like making a difference, even if it was only cooking or serving a meal that they weren’t in the mood to fix for themselves.
On the way down the aisle, she stopped to leave the bill with a couple who looked as if they had wandered in off the interstate. They still had that road-weary look to them. “Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Oh, no thanks.” The woman, who was about Paige’s age, tried to manage a weak smile, but failed. Sadness lingered in her dark eyes. “I suppose we ought to be heading on.”
“Will you be traveling far? I have a friend who owns a nice little bed and breakfast in Bozeman. It’s the most restful place and reasonably priced. If you’re staying in the area, I could give her a call for you. No pressure, I just thought I’d try to help.” Paige slipped their bill on the edge of the table.
“Sounds like just what I need, but we have a funeral we’re expected at in Fargo in the morning. The airlines were full, and so we’re driving straight through.” Tears rushed to the surface.
Paige whipped a pack of tissues from her apron pocket and slipped it onto the table. “I’m so sorry.”
“Th-thank you.” The woman covered her face, her grief overtaking her.
Her husband shrugged his shoulders. “We’re going through a tough time.”
“I know how that is. Let me know if you need anything.”
Not wanting to intrude, Paige backed away, the memory of her own losses made fresh by the woman’s grief. The day her parents had died had been the day after her sixteenth birthday, and it was as if the sun had gone out.
Time had healed the wound, but nothing had ever been the same again. She was thirty-eight, on the edge of turning thirty-nine—eek! But time had a strange elasticity to it, snapping her back over two decades to that pivotal loss.
Maybe there’s something I can do to make the woman’s journey easier. In the relative calm of the late evening diner, Paige bustled into the back, where the evening shift cook was sitting at the prep table bent over the day’s newspaper.
Dave looked up, his expression guilty. “I thought I got everything done I needed to. But here you come looking like I’m in trouble. What’d I forget to do?”
“Nothing that I’ve found. I can come up with something if you’d like.”
“Are you kidding? I just got set down. It was a heavy Friday rush. I’m about done. I’ve been standing in front of that grill for twenty years and every night just seems longer.”
Sometimes Paige forgot how much time had passed, not only for Dave but for her, as well. She’d been in this place for so long that the decades had begun to blur. She still saw Dave as the restless wanderer just back from Vietnam. He’d come in for an early-Saturday lunch and stayed on as one of the best short-order cooks they’d ever had.
In a blink, she saw not the past but the present, and the man with liberal shocks of gray tinting his long ponytail, looking the worse for wear. “Go on, get home. And don’t forget to take some of the leftover cinnamon rolls with you. They’ll be a nice treat for breakfast tomorrow.”
“I wasn’t complainin’, you know. I don’t mind stayin’ in case you get a late rush.”
“I’ll handle it. Now go, before I take hold of the back of your chair and drag you out of here.” Paige turned to snag one of the cardboard to-go boxes. A few quick folds and she had two of them assembled and ready.
“Well, if you insist.” Dave’s chair grated against the tile floor as he stood.
“I do.” She split apart a half dozen of the last rack of cinnamon rolls—why they hadn’t moved this morning was beyond her. Yesterday the whole six dozen she’d been regularly buying had disappeared before the breakfast rush was over. She popped the sticky iced treats into the waiting boxes and added a few of the frosted cookies, too—those hadn’t moved, either—then snapped the lids shut.
“Here. Go. Hurry, before a bunch of teenagers break down the door and take over the back booth.” She slid one box on the table in his direction.
“Only if you promise to call me if you get slammed.”
“Deal. Now beat it.” She pounded through the doorway and into the dining room where the grieving woman and her husband were just gathering up their things to leave.
It took only a few moments to fill two extra large take-out cups with steaming coffee, stick them in a cardboard cup holder, and fill a small paper bag with sweetener, creamer and napkins.
“That sure hit the spot.” The husband slid the meal ticket and a twenty on the counter by the till. “That was the best beef stew I’ve had in some time.”
“My Irish grandmother’s family recipe. I’m glad you liked it.” She rang in the sale with one hand while she pushed the baker’s box and cup holders in their direction. “Here’s a little something to keep you alert while you’re on the road. It’s a long stretch between rest stops once you’re past Bozeman. I’ll be praying for a safe journey.”
She counted back change, but the husband held up his hand, shaking his head. “Keep the change. That’s mighty kind of you.”
“Bless you.” The woman teared up again and headed for the door, wrapping her overcoat more tightly around her.
After taking the box and cup holder, the husband joined his wife in the entryway and held the door for her. They stepped outside, the door swished closed, and they were gone.
“That was awful nice of you.”
Paige startled, spinning around to see Evan Thornton watching her along the length of the serving counter. “I don’t know about nice. I had extra cinnamon rolls that I didn’t want to go to waste.”
“Still. Not everyone would go to the trouble.”
“Lord knows times like that are tough enough. We’ve all been there, battling heartbreak.”
“Yes, we have.” Evan’s face hardened, and he turned away, staring at his plate.
He’s known heartache, too, she remembered. She didn’t know the details, but he’d been divorced long ago. She knew just how much pain that could give a person.
Maybe it was just her mood today, but the shadows seemed to darken quickly. Maybe a storm was on the way.
Night fell like a curtain until she could see the lighted reflection of the diner in the long row of front windows and her own tall, lanky form standing there, nearly as dark as the world outside.
She saw something else in that reflection. Evan Thornton turned on the bar chair in her direction. Her stomach gave a funny tingle. Was he watching her? And why on earth would he do that? When she looked his way, he wasn’t studying her at all but recapping the ketchup bottle, his attention squarely focused on the task.
Funny. Maybe it was her imagination. Or maybe he’d been drifting off in his own thoughts, the way she’d been.
The back door clicked shut and the screen door banged, telling her that Dave had fled while the getting was good. It might be Friday night, but she expected it to be a quiet one from here on out. There were no games or matches at the high school. The middle school’s spring musical pageant had been last week, and weekend nights were typically quiet in the lull after Easter. It didn’t help that winter had decided to sneak in for a final showdown and the hailstorm earlier would keep most folks at home and off the slick streets.
Except for her son, wherever he was. She checked the wall clock above the register. Enough time had passed that he should be off the roads and safely inside the movie theater. She wouldn’t have to worry about him again for two more hours when the movie was over and he’d be out on the roads again.
That left her to worry instead about the growing list of things needing to be done. Like the extra cleaning she’d been trying to fit into the quieter times, and the general ledger, which was still a mess on the desk, and the paperwork for the ad she needed to place in the paper—
She was back in the kitchen before she realized she’d made a conscious decision to go there, apparently lured by the exciting thought of cleaning behind the refrigerator, which was the first thing on her list that needed doing.
Now, if she could only find the energy, she’d be in seventh heaven. What she wanted was chocolate. Lots of cool, soothing, rich chocolate.
“Hey, Paige?” It was Evan Thornton calling from the front.
Trouble. She knew the sound of it well enough. There was no disguising the low note of concern in his rumbling baritone. Now what?
Four steps took her into the narrow hallway between the kitchen and the front. The thought of taking a chocolate break and then cleaning behind the refrigerator vanished at the sight of water creeping from the men’s bathroom. Not just a trickle, but a shining sheet of water silently rushing from wall to wall and nosing like a giant amoeba toward the front counter.
There Evan was, a formidable shape of a man on the other side of the creeping waterway. “I could engineer a bridge for you.”
She blinked. Was it her imagination or was he practically smiling? She’d never known Evan Thornton, an engineer, to have a sense of humor. Then again, she really didn’t know him, which was the way she liked it and wanted to keep it. Getting too close to men, especially single, handsome, and apparently nice men, always led to trouble. At least, in her experience. “Uh, no, I’ll risk the current without a bridge, thank you.”
Why was it that some men looked better with a little distinguished gray in their hair? He shrugged those gorgeous shoulders of his, strong and straight. “Just thought I’d help. Let me know if you need me to toss you a lifejacket. Or a buoy. Or a marine? No?”
She blinked again. There he went again, and this time he was definitely almost smiling. The gentle upward curve of his hard mouth cut the hint of dimples into his lean sun-browned cheeks. She felt a flutter of interest down deep in her heart, and dismissed it. She was a woman after all, sworn to a single celibate life, but that didn’t mean she was dead. “Call for help if I don’t return.”
“You can’t deal with that yourself.”
“Watch me.” She swept past him, wading through the torrent streaming down the hallway. What would it be like to be free of this place? She’d been here so long, she couldn’t even imagine it. But she would sure like to.
She was planning to put the diner up for sale this summer. She’d been accepted at the nearby university to begin classes in the fall.
“Do you want me to call a plumber?” He spoke with that polished baritone that could make a girl take a second look.
She absolutely refused to turn around. She didn’t need a second look. She wasn’t interested in Evan or in any man. “Not yet, it might be something I know how to fix.”
“Are you telling me you’re a good cook and a handyman, too?”
“Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I can’t use tools.”
Right. Evan watched Paige McKaslin march away from him, all business. She was a study in contradiction. On the surface, she was brusque, crisp and coolly efficient. A man might draw the conclusion that she was made of ice.
But if he watched close enough, he’d see a different woman. A woman who was vulnerable and overworked and tender. He’d seen the look on her lovely face when the crying customer had said they were on their way to a funeral. She cared. And she hadn’t charged the couple for the hot coffee and snacks to help them along on their all-night drive.
She wasn’t as coolly tough as she let on, either. Not judging by the way her straight shoulders had slumped when she’d first eyed the leak cascading down the hallway. She was handling the flood now, marching up the water-filled hallway braced like a warrior facing battle. She was a small woman, and that came as a surprise. She was always moving, a busy, no-nonsense, get-things-done woman. Now, as he watched her, he realized just how lovely she was.
Why he was noticing, he couldn’t rightly say. He’d given up on women and the notion of trusting them ever since he’d come home to find a quick note from his wife taped to the refrigerator door explaining why she was leaving him. That wasn’t all. She’d drained their bank accounts, maxed out the credit cards with cash advances. She’d even liquidated their nest egg of stocks and bonds.
All very good reasons never to notice another woman again.
So, why was he standing here watching as Paige disappeared into the men’s restroom? Water lapped around the toes of his shoes. A smart man would go back to his seat and finish off the rest of his meal and contemplate the dessert menu. He would not be staring down the hallway, feeling as if he ought to lend a hand.
Why? That made no sense. He wasn’t much of a handyman, so there was very little he could do to help, unless it was to turn off a valve. Paige had been clear she could handle the leak and any required tools. She was a competent woman; he’d have to believe her. Maybe the reason had more to do with her beauty than her competence.
No, that didn’t make any sense. After Liz had broken his heart, wrecked their family, and destroyed his financial security, no woman’s beauty could affect him. No, the reason he was standing here as the flood rushed past him into the dining room had nothing to do with Paige McKaslin. Not one thing. His chest constricted with a pain worse than a root canal.
He thought of his absolutely quiet, very empty house and took a step upstream. Water sloshed over the top of his shoes and wet his socks. Helping her was the only decent thing to do. It wasn’t likely that she could find a plumber this time of night. And certainly not fast enough to save her entire diner from water damage. At the very least, Paige would have a serious repair bill on her hands.
He’d see if he couldn’t help keep that to a minimum, he thought, as he knocked on the closed men’s bathroom door and shouldered it open. Water resisted, and when he shoved harder, he saw why. What might have started as a small leak had resulted in complete erosion of the major water pipe to the sinks. Water gushed out of the floor full-force now, and Paige sat beside it, her face in her hands, her shoulders slumped.
In utter defeat.
Evan’s heart twisted. He stepped forward, blown away by an overwhelming need to help her. To make this right.
Chapter Two
This is going to wipe out the diner’s monthly profit. And a lot more as well.
Paige scrubbed at her face. Tired, she was just so tired. She had to call a plumber. She couldn’t do this herself—this was no minor repair. Already the water level had risen a few inches. And since the break in the pipe was below the shut-off for the sinks, the main line would have to be shut off.
Not only that, but the clean-up was going to take time—hours of hard work. Don’t think about that, she commanded herself as she climbed to her feet. One step at a time. First she had to get this water turned off.
“Where’s the main shut-off valve?” A man’s voice came out of nowhere, bouncing off the bare walls.
She jumped, splashing the water around her. “Evan. I didn’t know that you were there. What are you doing? You’re going to ruin your shoes.”
“I’ve had worse problems. This is an older building. Don’t tell me the shut-off is underneath.”
“There’s a crawl space, but you can’t go down there.” She waded across the room, splashing and slipping, as fast as she could go.
Evan had already turned and was wading down the hall. “Evan!”
He was gone with a splash, but like the ripples ringing outward from his movements in the water, the effect of his kind presence remained.
You’re only imagining that the kindness in his voice is personal, she told herself as she slogged after him. Waves washed against the tile protection along the walls and threatened to start wetting the wallboard at any time.
Evan had gone back to his seat, right? As she scurried down the hall she caught a glimpse of the nearly empty dining room. Evan wasn’t in it.
Men. This was why she didn’t have one. You couldn’t trust them to do what you said—you couldn’t trust them at all, not as far as you could throw them. She grabbed her coat from the kitchen closet and the flashlight from the top shelf.
The chill in the wind cut through her, tearing at the edges of her coat, and she zipped it up tightly as she ran. The light from the windows gave just enough light to thin the shadows as she tripped along the icy flagstone path around the far edge of the building.
The trap door was flung wide open and the scant light down below gave her no hint of what was happening. Had Evan already found the valve and turned it off?
He peered up at her from the shadows below. Dust streaked the top of his head. “You wouldn’t happen to have any tools on you, would you?”
Those dimples had dug into his cheeks again and caught her off guard.
“I—” Her brain shut down. Tools. He was talking about tools. “You don’t need one for the shut-off. Just let me—”
“I found the valve, but it’s stuck open.”
“It’s stuck? No, it can’t be. The handle has to be jiggled just right. It’s temperamental.” She barreled down the wooden steps, swiping cobwebs out of her hair. “Let me try it.”
“Do you have a toolbox upstairs?”
“There’s a kit in the kitchen closet by the door but—” She stumbled along the uneven ground and went down on her knees by the valve. He was already gone. It didn’t matter. She wrapped both hands around the small metal handle and pulled. Nothing.
She strained harder. Nothing.
Okay, what she needed was a little more muscle. She braced her feet, used her weight as leverage and heaved with all her strength. The pipe groaned. The valve screeched a millimeter and then stuck as if it had been cemented into place.
No, this can’t be happening. She took a step back and her heel splashed in something wet. Water. It was coming through the floorboards at the end near the bathrooms. What was it doing upstairs?
Before panic could set in, Evan was back, thundering down the steps and into the narrow space, stooping as he went, the toolbox clinking with his movements. He dropped the box at her feet and snapped it open. Her hand shot out for the wrench but he’d already stolen it.
“Hey, this is my job,” she decided loudly.
He didn’t seem to care, as he was already shouldering next to her and fitting the wrench into place. “It’s just rusted some. Let’s hope this doesn’t break the pipe.”
“And if it does?”
“There’s always the shut-off at the meter in the street, but let’s—” he paused as he put some muscle into his effort “—hope that it doesn’t—come—to that.”
Metal screeched in protest.
“Is it working?”
“Not yet. Could you aim the flashlight right here? It’d help if I could see what I’m doing.”
“Sure.” She moved close to point the beam at the stubborn valve in the narrow corner. “I keep imagining that I’m going to need an ark to rescue the last of the customers I left in the dining room.”
He gave the wrench a little more muscle and the screech of old copper pipes told him he was making some difference. “If it comes to that, I’ll engineer you one.”
“Then I’ll be even more in your debt.” The gentle curve of her mouth eased into a ghost of a smile as she leaned closer to give the flashlight she held a better angle.
She smelled of cinnamon and roses. Cinnamon from the kitchen, he guessed. And roses from her lotion. The subtle aroma made him take notice. His chest throbbed. Heartburn, he thought, dismissing it as he felt the valve give a tiny bit. At his age, chest pain wasn’t a good sign. Being forty-two was a thrill a minute.
He was no longer young, but he wasn’t anywhere close to being old. Just in between. Which is pretty much where he’d been all his life anyway. Wasn’t that what Liz had always mourned? He wasn’t a stand-out kind of guy. Just average. Average looking, average earning…just average everything.
And that hadn’t bothered him much over the years until this moment.
The wrench froze in place, and as he moved into a better position, he bonked the top of his head hard on a thick wooden beam. Stars lit the dimness before his eyes a split second before pain reverberated through his skull.
Great going, Thornton.
“Are you all right?” Genuine emotion softened her lean face, and in the spare glow of the flashlight’s dim bulb, he saw concern fill her eyes.
“I’m fine. I’ve got a hard head.”
He couldn’t help noticing how lovely she was. Her heart-shaped face was classically cut with a delicate chin, a straight nose and wide, startlingly blue eyes. Dark feathery bangs spilled over her forehead, making him want to smooth those silky wisps away from her eyes. A band tightened around his chest like a vise.
That’s it, I’m cutting down on French fries.
He gave the wrench a little more torque, gritted his teeth and pushed for all he was worth. The stubborn wrench didn’t move a millimeter and then slowly, with a high-pitched squeal, it began to give. The pipes groaned. Evan groaned. His arms burned as he clenched his jaw and gave it everything he had.
The valve closed.
“Oh, Evan! You did it! Oh, I never could have done that by myself. You are incredible! Thank you so much!”
“It was nothing.” He removed the wrench and realized he was shivering.
“Nothing? You’ve only earned my eternal gratitude. It’s freezing down here. Come on up and we’ll get you something hot to drink.” She grabbed the wrench from him, and her warm, satin fingers brushed his.
Suddenly he totally forgot about being half frozen. He noticed the faint blanket of freckles across her nose. Her skin was flawless, her cheekbones high and chiseled, her mouth full and her chin delicate.
The vise around his chest clamped so tight he felt close to suffocating. He shouldn’t be noticing how beautiful Paige McKaslin was, because in the end it didn’t matter. He’d sworn off women, and that especially included noticing the beautiful ones.
He cleared his throat. “No, I’m fine. And as for your eternal gratitude, why don’t we call it even? You’ve served me plenty of good meals over the years.”
“Yes, and you’ve paid for them.”
“But I didn’t have to cook ’em for myself. See?”
“That’s not the same.” She headed up the stairs.
He did his best to behave like a gentleman and not notice how trim she looked in her worn jeans or the delicate cut of her ankle showing above her sneakers. He hit the light switch and climbed up after her in the dark. Something cold and icy pecked against his face.
“It’s snowing.” She towered over him, the toolbox in one hand and the flashlight in the other, aiming the shaft of light down the ladder, growing slippery with icy snow.
“Great. That will mix nicely with the dust and cobwebs.” The icy flakes slanted through the flashlight’s golden beam and pelted him as he landed with his feet on solid ground. “You’re going to need a plumber.”
“Very observant of you.” She knelt to grab the heavy trap door.
He beat her to it. “Go in where it’s warm and call Phil’s Plumbing. It’s in the phonebook. He’s my brother-in-law. You tell him I said to get over here pronto and give you a good price while he’s at it.”
“Thanks, Evan.” She marched away, blending with the dark until she was gone.
He didn’t know if it was the icy storm or the dark that made him feel keenly alone. Well, he was used to being alone these days, he thought as he hefted the heavy door into place.
There used to be a time when he’d been so busy, making a living, running after the boys, looking after laundry and meals and bills that he ran on constant exhaustion. It was painful to remember, and yet it only felt like a few days ago when he’d dropped into bed well after eleven each night and bemoaned having not a second to call his own.
Funny, how he missed that now. How he’d give just about anything to go back in time. Those days had whipped by so fast, he’d forgotten to hold onto the good in them. And now…well, his sons were grown up and both doing well. Cal was in college and Blake in law school. Grown men, or at least grownup enough that they didn’t need him like they used to.
As he made his way around the building to the back door, satisfaction settled over him like the snow. It was good to do something useful. To make a difference. There was no way Paige could have handled that valve on her own, but she certainly hadn’t been squeamish about crawling into a narrow dank space.
There she was. He could see her through the window in the back door. She was talking on a cordless phone tucked between her chin and shoulder as she worked at the counter. She met his gaze through the glass. She flashed him a smile, a rare one of the sort he’d never seen from her.
His heart stopped between beats. The usually cool and collected Paige McKaslin shone like a morning star, like the gentle light that remained even when all others stars had gone out. She yanked open the door. “You’re a lifesaver, Evan.”
That troublesome tightness was back in his chest. He managed a shrug, but he didn’t manage to breathe. “I take it you got a hold of Phil.”
“He’s on his way.” She headed straight to the counter. He couldn’t help being struck by the long pleasant line her arms made as she hung up the phone. She had beautiful hands, slender and graceful.
And exactly why was he noticing this? Dumbstruck, he padded away through the other kitchen door, the swinging one that led to the far end of the dining room, so he could avoid the pool of water.
Once he was far enough away, his ability to breathe returned, but the emotion remained jammed in his throat. At the doorway, he glanced over his shoulder at her. She was working her way around the corner and didn’t seem to notice him looking.
He took one shaky step into the dining area and along the empty aisles. Only one other couple remained in the diner, finishing up their steak dinners. He fumbled onto the stool and leaned his elbows heavily on the counter. The impact of her smile remained, and his heart pounded crazily in his chest as if he needed a defibrillator.
Never had he reacted to a woman like that. Not even to Liz when he’d first fallen in love with her. What was happening? He didn’t know. But as he took his seat and grabbed the last of his fries, his taste buds paled. Everything seemed suddenly dim and distant. It was a strange reaction. Maybe he’d hit his head harder than he’d thought.
His pastor, his friends, his sons and even his brother-in-law, whom he’d kept in contact with after the divorce, all told him he ought to start dating again. That he should find some nice woman to share his golden years with.
I don’t want to admit to being anywhere close to having golden years.
“Evan?
The fork clamored to the plate. His fingers had somehow slipped. When he managed to meet Paige’s gaze, he made sure he didn’t notice that she was a beautiful, graceful woman with a tender heart. He forced himself to see the efficient businesswoman, who had taken his orders, served his meals and counted back his change over the years. That was the only Paige McKaslin he could allow himself to see.
“Department of Health rules. I can’t be open for business unless I have working restrooms.” She set a big paper bag on the counter between them and a take-out cup, capped, next to it. “Your extra order of fries, a slice of banana cream pie, I know how you like it, and a hot cup of that gourmet decaf you sometimes order.”
“Uh…thanks.” What he needed was to head straight home, empty house or not, and put some distance between his stirred-up emotions and Paige McKaslin. What he needed to do was to sit in the quiet of his home, the same house where his wife had cheated on him and finally left, and then he’d remember why being alone was the right choice.
“Here.” She reached beneath the counter and began dropping packets into the bag. “Let me make sure you’ve got napkins and a few things. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“The pie would be fine. How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing, goodness. After your help tonight, this is on me. Please, you didn’t even get to finish eating.”
“No, forget it. I pay my way.” He pulled out his wallet and she held up her hand.
Men. Paige appreciated Evan’s pride and his ethics, but she had some of her own. “If you insist on paying for this meal, then I’m only going to give you the next one free. In fact, maybe I’ll do that anyway.” She turned toward the mature couple ambling down the aisle. “You, too, Mr. and Mrs. Redmond. I see that twenty you left on the table.”
“Well, dear, we’re not freeloaders, and we were nearly done anyhow,” Mr. Redmond kindly answered as he took a toothpick from the holder near the register. “You have a good night now. You still make the best steak in the state.”
“My mother’s secret spices.” Paige made a mental note to give the Redmonds their next meal free. She had the best customers anyone could wish for—they were so understanding! She grabbed the small white sack containing the baker’s box she’d filled in the kitchen and intercepted them at the front. “A little something for later.”
Mr. Redmond was not opposed to the gift of dessert and held the door carefully for his beloved wife. They disappeared together into the storm.
Sweet. What must it be like to have a bond like that? Paige couldn’t help the pang of regret or the pull of longing in her heart. She was thirty-eight years old, too old to believe in fairy tales, so why was she still wishing for one? The long painful years after her husband’s departure and the following divorce had taken their toll, as had the years of shouldering responsibilities for her family. Working sixteen-hour days seven days a week had worn her to the bone.
What she needed was a vacation.
No, what she needed, she corrected herself, as she waded to the hall closet, was a time machine so she could go back twenty years, grab that naive eighteen-year-old she’d been by the shoulders, and make that foolish, stars-in-her-eyes girl see the truth about life. A truth that the grown woman in her had come to accept as a cold, hard fact.
There was no such thing as true love and no real knights in shining armor. Anything that looked like a fairy tale was either an illusion or simply wishful thinking.
Okay, that sounded bitter, but it really wasn’t, she thought as she hauled out the mop. She sounded cold, but her heart wasn’t that, either. If anything, Paige felt foolish. Think of all the time and heartache she could have saved herself had she understood that truth earlier in her life. Her road would have been so much smoother had she seen the world—and the man she’d married—for what was real instead of what she’d wished them both to be.
If she had, she could have focused on what truly mattered—and only on that. She could have avoided wasting energy on dreams that only faded, on hopes that true love would walk into her life one day.
The hope that she’d find a good man to love had faded over time, bit by bit, shade by shade until it was nothing at all.
That was how she’d been living for a long, long time. She swiped the mop through the water, thinking that she’d been happier this way. Alone was good. She was strong, capable and independent. She was also safe from all the harm a man could bring to a woman. Sad, trying not to remember the long-ago love she’d been unable to save, she wrung the mop, listening to the water tap into the plastic bucket like rain.
As she worked, she listened to the sounds of Evan gathering up the bag and ambling down the aisle. His steps were deliberate and slow, as if he were in no hurry to leave. He drew to a stop in the breezeway between the eating area and the front counter. “Do you want me to hang around until Phil gets here?”
“That’s nice of you, but I’m used to being alone here after dark.” She swiped the mop through the cold water and wrung the sponge head well. “I do appreciate your help tonight. Not everyone would have gotten up to help me.”
“Glad I could make a difference. With my boys gone, I don’t get to do that much anymore.” He cleared his throat as if he had more to say, and could not.
What would it be like to come home to an empty house, she wondered? To open the door and know that her son would not be in his bedroom downstairs with his dog, listening to music or munching on potato chips or sacked-out fast asleep?
It had to be a long stretch of lonely, she thought as she went back to mopping. She didn’t know what to say as Evan walked past to snag his jacket from the coat tree, she couldn’t help noticing that he’d gotten pretty dirty crawling around under the diner. Dust streaked his slacks.
She bent to squeeze water from the mop head. “Uh, are those dry clean only?”
“No way. Don’t even worry about it.” He didn’t look at her as he slid into his black jacket, pulled a baseball cap over his head and leaned against the door.
“Drive safe out there, Evan. The roads have to be a mess.”
“You be safe, too.” He cleared his throat, slid a ten and a five on the counter and took the sack. There was a challenging glint in his dark eyes as he ambled past, as if he were daring her to give the money back.
The bell overhead jangled as he strode into the night. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Uh, yeah, that would be great. I’ll be waitressing.”
“Then I’ll be ordering.”
He stared at her for a beat, as the night began to engulf him. In the moment before the shadows claimed him completely, she saw the essence of him, not the physical, not the expected, but the steady strength of a good man.
The door swung shut, and she was alone. Snow pinged against the windows, driven by a cruel wind, and she swore she felt the echo of it deep in her heart, in a place that had been empty to romantic love since before her son was born.
And how foolish was that, that she was wishing for the impossible now? No, not exactly wishing, but thinking that it was possible again.
I’m more tired than I thought, she told herself with a chuckle as she turned the dead bolt and went back to her mopping.
Chapter Three
The house was dark. He’d forgotten to leave a light on again. Evan fumbled along the kitchen entryway. Cal had gone off to school what? seven, eight months ago, and he still couldn’t get used to him being gone. It hasn’t been so bad when Blake had left, for he and Cal had made the adjustment together. But this…having them both gone, it felt like he’d walked into someone else’s life.
But this was his life now. He was a free man, unencumbered and carefree. Shouldn’t it feel better than this? Evan tossed the keys and his battered gym bag, and slid the sack from the diner onto the counter, pushed the door to the garage shut with his foot and listened to his footsteps thump through the lonely kitchen.
Let there be light. He hit the switch and a flood of brightness shocked his eyes. He’d been outside so long, his eyes had gotten used to the darkness. The drive home had been slow and long and pitch-black. The headlights had been nearly useless in the rapid snowfall. And now, this place seemed too bright and too glaringly empty to feel like a home.
Well, he was just feeling lonely. It was Friday night, after all. Maybe one of the boys had had time to call in. That thought put some bounce in his stride as he left his briefcase on the kitchen table and leaned to check the message light on the phone recorder. Nothing.
Okay, young men had more fun things to do on Friday nights than to give their old dad a call. He was glad for them both. He wanted them to be out there, living their lives and doing well. It’s just that he hadn’t figured on how his own life would stand still when they were gone.
The flier one of his clients had sent him was sitting on the edge of the counter. He’d meant to toss it with the rest of yesterday’s mail, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. The apple-green paper seemed to glow neon in the half light and he pulled it out so he could look at it properly.
A Bible study for the rest of us. A bold carton caption stretched above a cartoon-like pen-and-ink drawing of a middle-aged man in his recliner. “The youth have their own lives, and the singles and the seniors have their activities. What about the rest of us? Come join us for Bible study, dessert and fellowship at Field of Beans.”
That was the coffee shop in town—and Evan knew Paige’s relatives owned it. That was a bonus, he suddenly realized. Plus, it was an evening meeting, something he could do after work. Something besides cleaning out the horse barn, that is.
He folded up the flyer and slid it in with the stack of bills needing to be paid. That was something he’d been meaning to do—study his Bible more. Now that he had the time. Maybe this was a solution to one of his lonely evenings. Maybe he would take everyone’s advice—not to date but to get out and do the things he’d been putting off when he’d been so busy raising his sons.
The phone rang while he was on his way through the family room. One of the boys? Hope jolted through him. He snatched up the cordless receiver on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Is this Evan Thornton?”
“Uh…” In his excitement, he’d forgotten to check the caller ID screen. “Yeah. Who is this?”
“This is Michael from First National Bank, how are you this evening? I want to tell you about our new identity theft program—”
At least it wasn’t bad news. “Not interested. Goodbye.”
He hung up the phone, glanced around the room at the TV remote that was on the coffee table where it belonged and not flung and lost somewhere in the room, at the chairs pushed in at the table instead of all shoved around askew. There were no stacks of books or heaps of sports equipment and coats lying around, all needing to be put away.
Would he ever get used to the quiet, to the orderliness, to the emptiness? Standing alone in the family room, which had been put into tidy order by the cleaning lady, he felt at a loss. This didn’t feel like home anymore.
As he headed upstairs to change out of his work clothes and into his barn clothes, he realized this was what it meant to be unencumbered and carefree, a free man again. There was no phone ringing off the hook, no kids traipsing through the house.
Just the telemarketers and him.
He’d always known his boys were a great blessing. He’d given thanks to the Lord every night as he’d lain down to sleep, but he’d never stopped to see the treasured gift that each day really was, and that, for all of those eighteen years, they were surprisingly fleeting.
“Well, that should just about do it.” Phil the plumber tried to stomp the snow off his work boots. But considering the mud he’d picked up from the crawl space, it was a hopeless cause anyway. “I’ve double-checked the length of the pipes and couldn’t find a drop anywhere. I think we’ve got the problem licked.”
“Music to my ears. Thank you.” Paige dropped the scrub brush into the soapy bucket, where she’d been cleaning the water line against the bathroom wall. “I appreciate this so much. I know it was a long drive out here, and it’s going to be worse going back.”
“Before you get all misty on me…” He gave a friendly—but not too friendly—wink. “I’ve got bad news. You’re gonna have to replace some of this pipe. It’s gonna be expensive, and if you want, I can work up an estimate. I can either do it for all new water lines, or I can do it in phases and we can just do the worst stuff first. You just let me know.”
Bad news? Did he say bad news? No, he had that wrong; this was devastating news. The small allotment she put faithfully into the savings account every month for repairs would never be enough. She didn’t have to go grab the latest bank statement to know that she couldn’t afford to replumb the entire diner.
She also knew how lucky she’d been tonight. The damage could have been worse, and as it was, she could open for business as usual in the morning. She’d only lost three hours of business tonight. Not bad, considering. Heaven was gracious, as always, and she was thankful. “Why don’t you work up the bit-by-bit estimate?”
“Fine by me. I’ll send it with my bill.”
Already dreading the amount due, she handed him a sack with the last of the cinnamon rolls. “A little something for your breakfast tomorrow. You drive safely out there now.”
“I’ve got four-wheel drive.” Phil hefted his big toolbox to the door and stopped to retrieve his parka. “I’ll get the stuff in the mail on Monday. Thanks, ma’am.”
When had she become a “ma’am”?
Probably about the same time her son had learned to drive. Thank God for hair color that covered the gray and intensive eye cream. Worry could do that to a girl. Stress was her middle name these days, and that combined with her age didn’t help. She wasn’t quite sure where all the time had gone—wait, erase that. She did. She’d spent probably seventy-five percent of the last twenty-two years right here in this diner.
After seeing Phil out and locking the door behind him, she glanced at the clock. The movie ought to be getting out about now. Great, she could get back to worrying about Alex being out there on these roads. Maybe what she needed to do was to expend some of that nervous energy and clean.
So she kept her eye on the clock as she scrubbed down the grill and wiped the counters, tables and chairs. Then she tackled the rest of the floor that hadn’t been flooded, mopping until the tile squeaked beneath the mop head and her cell phone was ringing in her back pocket.
A quick glance at the caller ID window revealed her home number. Good. That meant Alex was home safe and sound—and even five minutes before his curfew. How great was that? “Hey there. How was the movie?”
“Good. You can stop worrying now. Notice the time? I’m calling you before eleven. What do you think about that?”
“It’s unprecedented, and it makes me suspicious. Worry and suspicion are a mother’s job.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. So, are you gonna be home soon?”
That question made her suspicious, too. “You didn’t happen to notice a leak in the bathroom before you bugged out of here, did you?”
“Nope. I’d have told ya, even though Beth was waiting for me. Why? What’d I do?”
“Nothing. I had a leak in a pipe, that’s all. Are you getting ready for bed, or are you going to get lost in your new video game?
“Uh, nope, I wasn’t playing my X-Box, but thanks for reminding me, Ma.” He sounded pleased with himself. “Just kidding. You want me to go out and feed the horse for you?”
He was volunteering to do barn work? There had to be something wrong. That wasn’t normal teenage behavior. “Okay, what did you do?” Expecting the worst, Paige hefted the bucket toward the kitchen. “Don’t tell me you dinged the truck.”
“No way.”
“Hit somebody on the way home?”
“Hey, I’m innocent. I’m just trying to help my poor tired mom.”
Help? Now she was suspicious. She maneuvered the bucket up to the industrial sink and up-ended it. “Okay. Out with it, young man. What did you do? What are you trying to soften me up for?”
“Nothing. I just thought I’d be a good son for a change.” There was a grin in his voice. “Don’t worry.”
“Yeah, I’m still suspicious, though.”
“You go right ahead, Mom. You’ll see.” He sounded extraordinarily happy.
Could it be her son was moving past the surly teenager stage that even the best of kids went through? No, that was too much to hope for. “I’ll see you when I get home. I’ll be leaving in about ten minutes. Think you can have your teeth brushed and your prayers said by the time I get there?”
“Aye, aye, captain.” With a chuckle he clicked off the phone.
Yep, something was definitely up with that boy. She snapped the cell shut, slipped it back into her pocket and rinsed the bucket. Done. Well, done enough for now.
She was beat; she usually put in more hours than this staying later on weekend nights. Maybe it was the worry and upset over the water pipe. She felt as if she’d worked two twelve-hour shifts back to back.
But the moment she stepped outside and locked the back door, she saw her journey wasn’t going to be an easy one. She still had to remove the snow coating her SUV and chip away at the ice frozen solid to the windows before she could even think about trying to drive. And once she was on her way, the roads would be more than a challenge.
Twenty minutes later, falling snow pelted her trusty Jeep with big wet flakes, and it was impossible to see more than a few inches in front of her. The accumulation on the road was sloppy and tricky to drive in. It caught at the wheels and tossed the vehicle every which way, so she slowed to a crawl to navigate through the town streets and along the county road where other vehicles’ tires had mashed the mire down into an icy compact crust.
When she turned off onto the private road, she relaxed a bit. Almost home. The evergreens and cottonwoods lining the lane were bent low from the heavy snow and scraped at the top of her Jeep; that’s when it got tough going. She fought the wheel to stay on the narrow road.
Only two other sets of tire tracks marked the way in the otherwise absolute darkness. One set, which was almost snow filled, veered off down a long, tree-lined drive. Evan Thornton’s place. The remaining tracks had to be her son’s and led her a few more miles into the hills, up her driveway and into the shelter of her garage.
Thank heaven. She was home and in one piece, and not that much worse for wear. Lights flicked on and there was Alex, holding open the inside door, already in a flannel T-shirt and pants she’d gotten him for Christmas. His blond hair was rumpled and in serious need of a cut. His dog panted at his side. “Hey, Mom. I was just nuking some cocoa. Want some?”
“Are you kidding? I’d love a cup.”
“Cool.” He flashed her a quick grin and disappeared behind the door, the dog, Max, loping along after him.
As she gave the door a shove, her back popped. Great. That was going to be the next disaster. Her back was going to go out. Every joint she owned creaked. Wasn’t life eventually supposed to be easier, Lord? Or are You trying to tell me something?
She rescued her purse from the floor, along with the small paper sack with the last two cinnamon rolls. She had to wonder, as she elbowed through the door and into the laundry room, whether God was sending her a sign.
Every time she tried to get ready to sell the diner for good something happened to hold her firmly here. In the last six months, her sister Rachel had married and moved away, the roof had needed to be replaced and now the plumbing. Those repairs would erode a big chunk of the savings she’d been squirreling away. Not good.
Then again, it was never a true disaster, either. The Lord might be trying to tell her something, but He always made sure she had help, too. The image of Evan Thornton flashed into her mind. Tall, broad-shouldered, he had the kind of quiet strength that made a woman sigh and wish—even a woman like her who did not place any faith in the non-constant nature of men.
Sure, some men were constant, but it was a rare thing. The trouble was, it would be easy to start believing Evan was one of those kind of men. He’d helped out tonight without expecting more than a thank-you. And what was it he’d said? Glad I could make a difference. He had his heart in the right place. Why had it seemed that he was so sad? Not depressed-sad, just…lonely-sad. He hadn’t wanted to go home to an empty house.
It hit her the moment she saw her strapping son at the microwave, punching the buttons. Hadn’t Evan’s youngest boy, who was a year older than Alex, gone to college this year? Maybe that’s why he seemed so lonely.
Alex’s crooked grin lit up his face. “Excellent, Mom. Sit down, take a load off. Want me to get that for you?”
He could have been a young, hip butler for the attention he was giving her. And while it was nice, she had to wonder what was behind his very sweet behavior. She let him take her purse, the dinner sack and her keys and then watched in amazement while he set them on the counter. He couldn’t resist peeking into the sack.
“Sweet. Good call. I could use a cinnamon roll. I’m a growing boy, you know.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“Here, sit down.” His hand on her elbow guided her to one of the chairs at the breakfast bar.
“Okay, what’s up?” What trouble are you in now? She bit her tongue before she said it. “This is bringing to mind the time you drove into the school bus in the school parking lot and backed up traffic for thirty minutes.”
“My dearest mother, now why would I be up to anything? I’m a good kid.”
“Good is a relative term.” He was a good boy; her heart swelled up with endless love for him, but he was a teenage boy, no matter how great a kid he was, and he needed constant vigilant guidance. Even if she was proud of the fine man he was growing up to be.
As he fetched the full steaming mug he’d obviously fixed before she’d stepped through the door, she watched him like a hawk, trying to ferret out a clue to the truth. But nothing. No hint.
She kept staring at him, but he wasn’t going to crack. She took the mug he slid across the counter to her. “Okay, spill it. I want the truth.”
All innocence, he opened the microwave door. “There’s no truth. I just thought I’d be nice to my mom.”
“I like it. I just need to know why.”
“Well, let me think. I did rob a bank tonight, and I stopped by a convenience store and robbed that, too.” He laughed at his own joke. “Am I funny or what?”
“Hilarious.” Paige took a sip of chocolate. That hit the spot. She eyed her son over the rim of the cup. This was a teenaged boy, home from his date with a girl she didn’t approve of, and home early, despite the weather, come to think of it.
A sudden panic began to lick through her soul. He hadn’t gotten into some serious trouble with his girlfriend, had he? She’d been sure to talk to him about his responsibilities toward Beth, to respect her, but—No, she couldn’t begin to think about that!
Alex hopped onto the stool beside her. “Yo, don’t have a heart attack or nothin’. You don’t think I really robbed some place? I was just yanking your chain. It’s my job to torment my mom.” He grinned, knowing he was perfectly adorable.
“Just like it’s my job to worry and make sure you grow up right.”
“I’m growing up right.” He rolled his eyes. “All I did was take Beth home after the movie. That’s it.”
Oh, maybe they broke up. Maybe that’s what this was about. He was home early, making hot chocolate and sitting next to her. Maybe he wanted to talk. Relief rushed through her. “How is Beth?”
“Okay. I met her mom.” He shrugged, leaving her to wait while he rammed a cinnamon roll into his mouth, bit off a huge chunk and chewed.
Beth’s mom? That wasn’t what Paige expected him to say. Had the woman said something to upset him? She took a sip of the steaming cocoa and licked the marshmallow froth off her lip, waiting for the rest of the tale.
Finally, after a long beat of silence, Alex confessed. “I took Beth up to the door, and her mom was waiting. She was drunk, I think. And she started chewing out Beth, and I just…” He swallowed hard. “Felt so bad for her.”
“Me, too.” Paige knew Beth’s mom worked at the local motel as a cleaning lady, and rumor had it she was a woman with a sad life.
“Beth didn’t want me to see her mom like that, so she wanted me to go. But she said something to me.” He hung his head. “That I was lucky. To have you for a mom. And she’s right.” He attacked the cinnamon roll again.
Paige let the impact of his words settle. Her heart gave another tug. “You’re a pretty great kid, too, you know. I got lucky when the angels gave me you.”
“I know. I am a good kid.” There was that look again, The Eye, the one that made it impossible for her not to melt with adoration for him. He shoved off the counter, taking the cinnamon roll with him. “I got youth group stuff tomorrow. Did ya need help at the diner?”
“No, we’ll manage without you.”
“It’ll be hard, I know.” He was gone, bounding through the house, thumping and thudding as he went down the hall and into the basement where his bedroom was.
Leaving her alone. The warmth of the house, of her home, surrounded her as she sipped her cocoa. Alex’s advanced calculus and physics textbooks were stacked on the table, ready for him to do his homework when he caught a chance over the weekend. On the counter next to the microwave was the admission booklet and information from the college he’d be attending in the fall.
High-school graduation was just around the corner, in the last week of May, and then Alex would be getting ready to leave home. She’d be putting the diner up for sale and then she’d have all the time in the world to follow her own dreams. Paige had been planning for this time of her life for a long while. She deeply wanted this new future rushing toward her.
But maybe she wasn’t in so much of a hurry to get there.
She finished her hot chocolate, let the peace of the night settle around her and remembered to give thanks for all the good things in her life.
Chapter Four
Too much time on his hands. At first Evan had filled the void of the weekends with work on Saturday and church on Sunday, but the truth was, he worked long enough hours during the week and he’d more than caught up on his work load, which was usually such that he was always struggling to keep up. Now, suddenly, he was caught-up. After six months of working most weekends, he had no reason to be at the office. And so he was wandering around the local feed store, looking at stuff he didn’t need. At loose ends.
“Getting ready for summer camping?” Dalton Whitely had inherited the store from his granddad, and had been several years behind Evan in school. Even though they’d played in sports together for a year, when Evan was a senior and Dalton a freshman, Evan really only knew the man as a salesman.
Now that his life was slowing down, Evan was noticing he had a lot of acquaintances, folks he knew by name, but not nearly enough true friends. He wasn’t sure what that said about him, but he knew he was guilty of keeping a healthy distance between him and most people. He’d turned into a man who didn’t trust easily. Maybe, when that came to trusting a wife, that was a good thing. But he felt adrift these days. Unconnected. The flier he’d kept, the one about the Bible study, popped into his mind again.
Maybe, he thought. Maybe it was just the thing he needed. He realized Dalton was waiting for an answer. “I’m just looking. Don’t need a new tent, but those are sure nice.”
“Latest models. Just put ’em out.” Dalton flashed a cordial smile. “You let me know if you have any questions?”
“Yep.” Looking at the camping gear reminded him of better times. Maybe he’d like camping alone. It was something he’d never done before. For more summers than he could count, he and the boys had spent most weekends up in the mountains: camping, hiking, fishing, hunting. There was nothing like riding up into the mountains on horseback. It was like stepping back a century in time. He hadn’t thought about the summer to come. He was already dreading it.
As he turned his back on the brand-new pup tents and eyed the wall of bright halters and braided bridles, he already knew how the summer was going to go. Cal would be off working to make spending money and money for books for next year; he’d probably go off with Blake and fight fires all summer. A good paying job, great for the boys, but Evan was going to be alone. He’d have to face the prospect of a long summer by himself.
His cell buzzed in his jacket pocket. He fished it out, hope springing eternal as he glanced at the screen. It was neither of his sons, but he was grinning as he answered. “Hi, Phil.”
“Hey, I wanted to thank you for the business last night. Things are slow and I needed the work.”
“Great. I hope you gave her a good price. Paige seems like a nice lady.”
That was an understatement. Evan had thought of her on and off all morning, since she’d slipped cinnamon rolls in with his pie, and he’d had them with his coffee this morning. He couldn’t get the image of her out of his mind, the softness she was so careful to hide. He’d been trying not to think of her, but things kept happening to bring his mind back to her. The cinnamon rolls, the sight of the diner as he drove past and now Phil’s call. That unsettled tightness clamped back around his chest, and he didn’t like it. He tried to will it away, but it remained.
“Seems. You mean you don’t know?”
Okay, Phil was fishing for the truth. What truth? There was nothing between him and Paige. How crazy was that? And Phil knew Evan’s position on women, including all the reasons behind it. Phil had been with him through the aftermath of the divorce. “I can’t believe you! I don’t have a personal interest in Paige. I was eating dinner in the diner when the pipe burst. That’s it.”
“Oh. Well, that explains it then. For a minute there, I thought you just might have found a woman who could help you get over what Liz did to you.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am, but I understand. I’m on my way into town right now.”
“Here? You’re coming here?” For some reason that was too much of a switch for his thoughts to take. Probably because they were still lagging, as he gazed out the store’s window at the front window of Paige’s diner. He realized he had a new halter and lead rope in hand, although he didn’t remember picking one out, and he headed to the cash stand. “What’s the deal? You’re not out in this neck of the woods much, not since Cal flew the coop.”
“I started work on an estimate for the diner, and realized I had to come take a second look to do it up right. I need the business, so I want to do a good job. You wouldn’t want to give Paige a good word or two about me, huh? She looks savvy enough to get more than a few estimates for me to compete with. What do you say?”
“I say come meet me for lunch and I’ll let you talk me into it. Or at least, you can talk to her about it.”
“Done. I’m, uh, about five minutes away. I’ll meet you at the diner?”
Evan pocketed his phone and set his purchases on the scarred wooden counter as Dalton slid behind to run the decades-old cash register. Funny thing how he had a better view of the diner from here. And he could see not only the diner, but also the woman who ran it, out salting down the freshly shoveled sidewalk in front of the door.
She looked as lovely as the day’s sunshine. She wore a bright yellow spring coat over her standard dark sweater and jeans, and he couldn’t remember ever noticing her in a bright color before. If he had, surely he would have taken a long second look. The splash of color brought out the pale rosebud pink of her cheeks, and the sheen of golden highlights in her dark brown hair. Teenagers climbed out of a minivan, calling out to her, and she greeted them with an unguarded smile.
The impact hit him like a punch to his chest.
“Should I just put that on your bill, Evan?” Dalton asked.
“Uh…yep.” Rattled but not wanting to show it, Evan nodded thanks to the storeowner, grabbed his bagged purchase and walked on wooden legs to the doors. He was only distantly aware of pushing through the swinging door and into the chill of the wind. Cold penetrated his shirt, for he hadn’t zipped his jacket, but it registered only vaguely. He could not seem to take his eyes off Paige.
She was talking with the kids, listening attentively, her head tipped slightly to the left, her thick fall of bangs cascading over her forehead. She was pretty. She was nice. She was a good mom. That was easy to see as her son stood at her side, tall and good-natured; Evan remembered that Alex McKaslin had played on both the football and basketball teams with Cal. He was a good kid. And Paige, as busy as she was, had made it to every game, home and away. A longing filled him as he inexplicably felt drawn to her, and suddenly the distance between them seemed intolerable.
What was happening to him? You’re lonely, man, he admonished himself. And loneliness was wearing on him. Making him vulnerable. Making him wish for what he knew was impossible. For what he never wanted to try again. Marriage had been a miserable path for both him and Liz: even though he’d tried his best to make her happy, he’d failed.
It wasn’t all his fault—he took what blame was his and he’d learned from it, but she’d been a hard woman to please. Selfish to the core, and in leaving she had ruined his credit and nearly bankrupted him, holding the custody of the boys over him. That’s what he should be reminding himself of every time he looked at Paige McKaslin.
Except it was hard, and he didn’t know why the memory of the disasters and hurts of his past weren’t keeping his interest in her at bay. Paige was talking with the teenagers now, easy and open. Her son and the other kids seemed to like her so well. She ushered them inside, holding the small plastic bag of rock salt in the crook of one arm. When she stepped through the threshold and out of sight, it was as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud, and he shivered.
“Evan! Earth to Evan! Are you all right, man?”
Evan realized he’d been staring across the street as though he was mesmerized. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts, and looked around. His big burly brother-in-law was bounding down the sidewalk, his plumber’s van parked six or seven car lengths up the street. He realized Phil must have called his name several times. Do I look like a fool, or what?
Not knowing what to do with himself, he yanked open the passenger door of his truck and tossed the bag on the floor. “Phil. You look ready to work.”
“I came to get a better look in the crawl space. Didn’t want to wear my Sunday best.” Phil was no dim bulb. There was a knowing twinkle in his eyes as he gazed across the street. “That Paige McKaslin sure is a nice lady, don’t you think?”
That sounded like a loaded question. Just how long had he been watching Paige? And how transparent had he been? “She seems nice enough. She runs a good business. Serves some of the best food in the county.”
“All good reasons to go get something to eat at her place, right?” Phil seemed to take that in stride.
As Evan stepped off the curb, he realized that maybe he’d been misreading Phil’s statements. He was starting to scare himself. But considering the financial devastation a woman had brought to his life, he probably should be terrified. He was committed to being totally single. That was the way of it. Nothing was going to change his mind about that. “I’m in the mood for some good homemade chili.”
“Homemade chili?”
“It’s her family’s recipe. Her parents and her grandparents. It’s good stuff.”
“Now you’ve got me hungry. How are the boys?”
“Do you think I know? Good, I guess. They’re busy. You just wait. Has your daughter picked a college yet?”
“She’s got another year, thank the Lord, but that’ll go by quick. Then Marie and I won’t know what to do with ourselves.” Phil hiked up onto the sidewalk, his toolbox rattling. He seemed nonchalant about the upcoming change in his life—as if it would be an easy transition.
Not so easy. Then again, Phil had a good wife. A woman who’d stood by him and worked beside him every day of their marriage. An empty nest might not be so empty in the presence of a happy marriage. But a happy marriage—those had to be rare. It certainly hadn’t happened for him.
“Hi, Mr. Thornton. Welcome back.” One of Paige’s teenage twin cousins cracked her gum and pulled out two menus. “Wherever you wanna sit. You just go ahead and pick.”
“Thanks. You might want to let Paige know that the plumber is back with some questions.”
“Oh, yeah, like, I’ll go get her.” The teenager accompanied them down the aisle. “Paige is having a day.” She rolled her eyes. “So it’ll probably be a minute or two before she’s free.”
Evan remembered what Cal had called the McKaslin twins, who were a year behind him in school: A hundred percent clueless, but they get your order right. He’d suspected Cal had a crush on one of them—he wasn’t sure if it was this one, since the girls were entirely identical right down to their hair styles and jewelry.
Evan chose a booth in the back away from the crowd of teenagers that had settled into two booths near the front. He recognized most of them from the church’s youth group. Cal had been active in it up until he’d left home.
Evan opened the menu as a formality, mostly to give him a moment or two to develop a plan. Paige McKaslin had blown him away last night, and he hadn’t expected that. And today when he’d seen that private side of her, it had been something he’d never seen in her before last night. What would he do if last night had changed things between them?
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Jillian Hart
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Responsibility was nothing new to Paige McKaslin.She had raised her siblings and her son. And though duty was her guiding force, even in matters of the heart, she never stopped counting her blessings – her faith and her wonderful family. Then the McKaslin diner, her livelihood and heritage, burned to the ground….Paige was suddenly free to discover herself… and a blossoming relationship with rancher Evan Thornton. This intriguing man asked her out on her first date in eighteen years, totally disrupting her routine. Now love was an exciting possibility that made her rethink her orderly life. Could it be that God still had some surprises for her?