Sweet Blessings

“Did you want to come in?

I’ll make you hot chocolate this time,” Amy asked.

“No, I just wanted to see you were safe,” Heath replied.

“So you could leave?”

“Something like that.”

Amy wished she could be angry with him, but it wasn’t that easy. How could she be angry with someone that wonderful? He spoke so well and knew how to make hollandaise sauce without checking a recipe and stood tall when danger called. Not the usual wanderer looking for a job. And that left the question “Why?” She instinctively knew it was a question that would only make him turn away.

Some things were left in the past where they belonged. Everyone deserved at least one free pass, one “do over.” Maybe that’s the way it was for Heath….

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.

Sweet Blessings

Jillian Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

—James 1:17

Contents

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

Letter to Reader

Chapter One

The jingle of the bell above the door announced a late customer to the diner.

Amy McKaslin glanced at the clock above the cash register that said it was eight minutes to ten, which was closing time, and sized up the man standing like a shadow just inside the glass doorway.

He wasn’t someone local or anyone she recognized. He was tall with a build to match. He wore nothing more than a flannel shirt unbuttoned and un-tucked over a T-shirt and wash-worn jeans. He had that frazzled, numb look of a man who’d been traveling hard and long without enough rest or food.

Road exhaustion. She’d seen it lots of times. He wasn’t the first driver who’d taken this exit off the interstate. It happened all the time. With any luck, he’d be a quick in-and-out, looking for nothing more than a shot of caffeine and a bite before he got back on the road.

That was a much better prospect than last night, when a half dozen high-school kids had piled into a booth. Amy enjoyed the teenage crowd, but it had been nearly midnight before she could lock up and head home. Not good when her son was waiting for her, and she was paying a baby-sitter by the hour.

Tonight, Westin would be waiting, too, and on a school night when little boys should be fast asleep. He was an anxious one, always worrying, and she prayed the lone stranger had somewhere he had to go, too. Someone who was waiting for him. She turned the sign in the window to closed before any teenage clique decided to wander in.

Forcing a smile after being on her feet since 6:00 a.m., she grabbed a laminated menu. “Table or booth?”

The loner shrugged, looking past her as if he didn’t see her at all. His eyes had that unfocused look drivers got when they’d been staring down pavement and white lines for too long, and the purple smudges beneath spoke of his exhaustion.

Yep, me too, buddy. She led him past the row of tables, washed and prepped for morning, to the booths in the corner, where the night windows reflected the brightly lit dining area back at her. Already she was thinking of home. Of her little boy’s after-supper call.

“Come home, Mommy,” he’d said in that quiet way he had. “I told Kelly not to read me any more of my story. You were gonna tonight, remember?”

She remembered. Nothing was more serious than the promises she made to her little boy. Almost there, she thought, as she watched the clock’s hands creep another minute closer to ten. Aware of the man behind her making less noise than a shadow, she slid the menu onto the corner booth.

She whipped out her pad. “What can I get you to drink?”

Haggard. That was one word to describe him. The overhead light glared harshly on his sun-browned skin and whisker-stubbled jaw as he folded his over-six-foot frame behind the table. “Coffee.”

“Leaded or decaf?”

“I want the real thing. Don’t bother to make fresh. If you got something that’s been sitting awhile, I’d rather have it.” He pushed the menu back at her. “A burger, too. With bacon if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Sure thing.” As she scribbled up the ticket, already walking away, something drew her to look one more time.

He had gone to staring sightlessly out the window, appearing tired and haunted. The black night reflected back the illusion of the well-lit café and his hollow face. The man wasn’t able to see through the windows to the world outside. It was within that he was looking.

Her heart twisted in recognition. There was something about him that was familiar. Not the look of him, since she’d never met him before, but it was that faraway glint in his eyes. One that she recognized by feel.

She, too, knew what it was like to feel haunted by the past. Life made a mark on everyone. She didn’t know how she saw this in this stranger, but she was certain she wasn’t wrong. The regrets and despair of the past yanked within her, like a summer trout caught on a fishing hook. As she grabbed the carafe from the burner, where it had been sitting since the end of the supper rush, she risked another glance at the man.

He sat motionless with his elbows braced on the table’s edge and his face resting in his hands.

Hopelessness. Yeah, she knew how that felt, too. Pain rose up in her chest, pointed like an arrow’s tip, and she didn’t know if it was the stranger she felt sympathy for or the girl she used to be. Maybe both.

She slid the cup and saucer onto the table. “I hope this is strong enough. If not, I’ll be happy to make a fresh pot that will hold up a spoon. You just ask.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He didn’t make eye contact as he reached for the sugar dispenser on the small lazy Susan in the middle of the table.

Whatever troubled him on this cool late-spring night, she hoped at least a cup of coffee and a meal would strengthen him.

Something sad might have happened to him to make him a traveler tonight, she speculated. Maybe some family tragedy that had torn him from his normal life and had him driving on lonely roads through the nighttime. She knew that pain, too, and closed her mind against it. Some pain never healed. Some losses ran deep as the soul.

She put in the order, catching sight of her sister. “This is the last one. I already turned the sign over.”

Rachel glanced at the ticket and pivoted on her heels to remove one last beef patty from the cooler. “If you want to take the floors, I’ll total out the till. Have those other guys left yet?”

“No.” Amy had almost refused them service when they came in, a little too bright-eyed and loud. They’d quieted down once they started eating. “They were just finishing up when I walked by.”

“Good. I don’t like them. I know they’ve been in before, but not this late.”

Amy knew what her sister didn’t say. Not when we’re alone with them. Yeah, that had occurred to her, too. Big-city crime didn’t happen in their little Montana town, but that didn’t mean a woman ought to let down her guard.

She could see the two rough-looking men through the kitchen door with their heads bent as they both studied the totaled check.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured her sister. “We aren’t exactly alone with them.”

“Good.” Rachel slapped the meat on the grill. “We may get out of here before eleven, if we’re lucky. Say, how’s Westin holding up?”

Westin. Amy’s stomach clenched thinking of all her little one had gone through. “He had a rough day, and now we’re just waiting for the test results. They can do a lot for asthma nowadays. It won’t be like what Ben went through.”

They both fell silent for a moment, remembering how ill their brother had been when he was Westin’s age. They’d had to keep oxygen in the house just in case of a severe attack. They’d almost lost him a few times, calling the ambulance while his lips turned blue and he struggled for breath that was impossible for him to draw in.

Amy’s stomach clamped into a hard, worried ball. It wouldn’t be like that for Westin. She would make sure of it. How, she didn’t know, but she certainly had the strength to will it. That, with prayers, had to make a difference, right?

“I slipped a little gift for him into your coat pocket. Don’t get mad at me. I couldn’t resist.”

“You got him that video game, didn’t you? You’re spoiling him, you know. It was supposed to wait until his report card.”

“Yeah, yeah, but you know me.” Sweetheart that she was, with a heart-shaped face and all gentleness, Rachel shrugged helplessly, as if she had no choice but to spoil her nephew.

Since it was impossible to be even a little mad at Rachel, Amy just rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

“Oh, excellent!” Pleased, Rachel set the hamburger buns on to toast.

Yep, it was hard to do anything but be deeply grateful for her big sister. Amy gave thanks, as she always did. They’d lost their parents long ago, when they were all still kids. It had only made her hold tight to the loved ones in her life now. Her sisters, her brother, and her son. So tight, there was no way she’d let them go.

It looked as if the two men, who’d initially been upset there was no alcohol served in the diner, were getting ready to leave. Although Amy couldn’t smell alcohol on them, she suspected they’d imbibed sometime earlier in the evening. Not that she approved, but there was no outward reason to refuse service. In a small town, turning away customers tended to be bad for business.

Still, they’d done nothing more than laugh a little too loudly while they’d waited for their burgers. Now, with any luck, they’d pay and be on their way. She’d breathe easier once the door was safely shut behind them. They had that rowdy look to them. Men like that…no, it was best not to remember.

Her life was different now. She was different.

There was a ruckus from table five. “Hey, waitress! What pie do you got?”

Oh no, and here she’d been wishing them out the door. Amy had to dig deep to remain patient and courteous. She didn’t like the way they were looking at her. As if she were a slice of pie with whipped cream on top. “We have a few slices of apple left.”

“Nah. I was hopin’ for something sweeter.” The one on the left—with a gold cap on one front tooth—gave her a wink.

As if. “I’ll be your cashier if you’re ready.”

“It’s too bad about that pie. You must be just about done here. Maybe you’d like to come out with us?”

“No, I have to get home to my little boy.” She waited.

One gave her an oh-I’m-not-interested-now look.

The other didn’t so much as blink. “Then maybe you need a night out worse than I thought.”

“Sorry. Will this be cash or charge?” Hint, hint. Let’s go, boys. Out of my diner. She waited, trying to be courteous but firm.

“It’ll take us a minute.” The one who was not so interested in her reached into his back pocket for his wallet.

Good. Rachel’s call bell jangled, signaling the last customer’s burger was ready. She left the men to their arithmetic, glad for an excuse to put as much distance between them as possible.

She caught a movement in the window’s reflection. The loner was in the act of lifting his coffee cup. Had he been watching her?

“Hey, waitress.” They were talking to her again.

She dreaded turning around, but these weren’t the first tough customers she’d dealt with. “Yes?”

“Are you sure you don’t have a bottle or two hid in back? I know you said you don’t got beer to sell. But me and my buddy here sure could use a couple a beers.”

“Sorry, we don’t have a liquor license.”

“What kind of place don’t serve beer?”

“A family restaurant.” Amy kept her smile in place as she withdrew the order pad from her apron pocket.

The bigger of the two swore.

She flinched. Okay, she didn’t want any trouble. She wanted them gone, the faster the better. She pivoted on her heel, hoping this was the end of it. C’mon, just leave your money and go.

In the window’s reflection, she again noticed the lone stranger. Sitting hunch-shouldered as if uninterested, but his gaze was alert. He didn’t move, although she could feel how his every muscle was tensed like a wolf watching his prey. Waiting to spring.

It strengthened her. She knew it was the Lord at work in her life, as He always was. For every bad customer, there was always another who was not.

Thankfully, there was no trouble. The offending parties left a pile of greenbacks and pounded to the door, chewing on toothpicks and making as much noise as possible as they went. The bell chimed when the door shut.

Trouble averted. Relieved, she hurried over to turn the dead bolt. Thank you, Father.

Her reflection stared back at her in the glass. She saw a woman of average height and weight, with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Her face was shadowed by too many hollows. The circles beneath her eyes looked like gouges from too many nights without sleep.

Maybe tonight she’d sleep better. A girl had to hope. She had so much to do before she could get home and into her warm bed. There was this one more customer, and then clean-up, and she could be home by eleven, eleven-thirty, depending. Westin would be listening for her. The hard knot in her stomach relaxed a smidgen, just thinking of her little boy. Yeah, she couldn’t wait to get home to him. To see his sweet face.

Rachel peered at her over the hand-off counter, where a plate piled high with a deluxe bacon burger and fries waited beneath a warming light. “Our last customer looked road-weary, so I made the burger with an extra patty.”

“I thought you might.” Amy didn’t bother to change the total on the ticket she left on the table with the meal. “Can I get you anything else?”

The lone wolf was staring out the window again. He shook his head.

He seemed so far away. His black hair was cut short, but not too short. Just enough for the cowlick at the crown of his head to stick up. It made him seem vulnerable somehow, this big beefy man with linebacker’s shoulders and a presence that could scare off a mountain lion.

Curiosity was going to get the better of her, so before she could get caught staring at him, she left a full ketchup bottle next to the meal ticket and went to collect the money the other men had left.

“I don’t believe this. I should have known.” She recounted the stack of ones.

“What?” Rachel appeared in the doorway, dishcloth in hand. “Didn’t they pay?”

“For only half of the total. I should have watched them closer. I just didn’t want to be any nearer to them than I had to be.” It wasn’t the end of the world. It was only five dollars. “Men like that just make me so mad.”

A flash of movement caught her attention. The loner stood with the scrape of his chair. Without a word he took off down the aisle.

She looked at him with surprise.

“Should I give Cameron a call at home?” came the woman’s voice from the kitchen doorway. “He can handle it for us.”

The waitress dropped the bills back on the table. “It’s not worth it. Men like that—”

She didn’t finish the statement, but Heath Murdock could read it in her stance. She wrapped her slender arms around her narrow waist as if in comfort and he had to wonder if a man like the two lowlifes that were out in the parking lot had hurt her somewhere down the line. Not just a little, but a lot. And because he knew how that felt, he headed for the door.

The world was a tough place and sometimes it was enough to break a man’s soul. There was a lot he couldn’t fix that was wrong in this world and in his own life, but this…he could do this. The dead bolt clicked when he turned it and he went outside into the gust of wind that brought new rain with it.

He felt the woman watching him. He didn’t know if she approved, or if she was instead one of those ladies who disapproved of any show of strength. But it didn’t stop him. He knew what was right. And walking out on a check was stealing, plain and simple. Not to mention the disrespect they’d paid to the perfectly decent waitress who’d done nothing more than remain polite.

A small diner in a small town didn’t probably make much in sales. Heath knew he had justice on his side as he stalked across the parking lot. A pickup roared to life. Lights blazed in the blackness, searing his eyes.

Trouble. He could feel it on the knife’s edge of the wind. Through the blinding glare of the high beams, he made out a newer-model truck with big dirt-gripping tires. A row of fog lights mounted on the cab were bright enough to spotlight a path to the moon.

The engine roared, as the vehicle vibrated like a predator preparing to attack. Heath didn’t have much of a chance of stopping them now. Not when they were already in the cab and behind the wheel. When the engine gunned again, their crude words spat like gunfire into the air. The truck lurched forward with an ear-splitting squeal of tires.

Heading straight for him.

Heath didn’t move. A small voice inside him whispered, “This is it. Let it happen. Stand still and it will all be over.”

It was tempting, that voice, inviting as it tugged at the shards of his heart still beating. All he had to do was not move, that was all.

He held his breath, letting it happen, feeling time slow the same way a movie did when the slow-motion button was hit on the remote. His senses sharpened. The rain tapped against his face with a keen punch and slid along his skin. So wet and cold.

The wind blew through him as if he were already gone. His chest swelled as he breathed in one last time. He smelled the distinct sweetness of wet hay from some farmer’s field and the petroleum exhaust from the truck. The headlights speeding toward him bore holes into his retinas.

Just don’t move. It was what he wanted with all his being. He felt the swish of the next moment, although it hadn’t happen yet. The truck gaining speed, the squealing tires and the stillness within him as he wished for an end to his pain.

But even the wish was wrong. He knew it. His spirit bruised with the sin of it. At the last moment he sidestepped, the same moment the pickup veered right and careened off into the rain. Time shot forward, the rain fell with a vengeance and his lungs burned with the cold. He listened to the subwoofers thumping as the truck vanished.

Lightning split the sky. The sudden brightness seared his eyes and cleaved through his lost soul, and then he was plunged into darkness again.

Alive. He was still alive.

Wind drove icy rain against him like a boat at sea and wet him to the skin. Water sluiced down his face as he stood, shivering from the cold and a pain so deep it had broken him. Being alive was no victory. He felt that death would have been kinder. But not by his own choice and, once again, hopelessness drowned him.

“Are you all right?” Her concern came sharp and startling as the thunder overhead.

Heath turned toward her, like a blind man pivoting toward the sound that could save him. But nothing could. Lost and alone, he was aware of what he must look like to her. His clothes were soaked through. His hair clung to his scalp and forehead. Rain dripped off the tip of his nose and the cleft in his chin.

There, in the cheerful glow of the diner’s windowed front, the two women stood framed in the light. Two women, one a half inch or so taller than the other, with blond hair pulled back from nearly identical faces. They had to be related. The classic features of girl-next-door good looks ought to be a reassuring sight.

Except both women were watching him with horror-filled eyes. He must look like a nut.

With the darkness tugging him and the brutal rain beating him back, he ducked his head and plowed into the storm. He splashed through puddles and the water seeped through the hole in his left boot. As he went, his big toe became wetter and his sock began to wick water across to his other toes.

“Goodness, you gave us a scare!” The waitress was holding the door for him. Concern made her seem to glow as the light haloed her.

He blinked, and the effect was gone. Maybe it was from his fatigue or the fact that adrenaline had kicked in and was tremulous in his veins. He still had the will to live, after all.

Thunder crashed like giant cymbals overhead, and it felt as if he broke with it. As he trudged up the steps and into the heat of the diner, bitterness filled him. There was shelter from this storm, but not from the one that had ripped apart his life.

No, there was no rest and no sanctuary from the past. Not tonight.

The waitress moved aside as he shouldered by, and he felt her intake of breath. The concern was still there, for she wore it like the apron over her jeans and blouse. As sincere as it was, he had no use for concern or sympathy. Those paltry emotions were easy to put on and take off and the words, “I’m sorry for your loss” came back to him.

Words meant to comfort him, when for a fact they were for the speaker’s benefit. To make the speaker feel safe from the brutal uncertainty this life sometimes had to offer.

He’d learned it the hard way. Life played tricks with a person. Get too much, become too happy and bam! It could all disappear in the space between one second and the next.

It was a lesson he would never forget and he doubted the pretty waitress with her big blue-violet eyes and lustrous ponytail of gold would ever understand. What tragedy could happen here in this small little burgh miles from frantic big cities and desperation?

None, that’s what. His boots squished and squeaked against the tile floor as he ambled down the aisle. The faint scent of perfume stayed with him, something subtle and sweet that made him think of dewy violets at dawn’s first light and of hope. That’s what that fragrance smelled like, and he wanted nothing to do with hope.

He didn’t look back as he lumbered the length of the diner to the booth where his burger waited. He reached into his back pocket and hauled out his wallet. Dropped a ten on the table. “I’ve changed my mind. I want this to go.”

“Sure thing.”

She’d said that phrase before and just like that. Politely cheery words held up like a shield as she efficiently went about her work. Amy, her little gold nametag said. Amy. She didn’t look like an Amy. Amys were cute and sweet and bubbly, and this one was somber. Polite and nice, but somber. She liked to keep people at a distance. He knew enough about shields to recognize one when he saw it. He had too many of his own.

She returned with a container and he took it from her. He didn’t like to be waited on. He tipped his plate and the burger and fries tumbled into the box.

Ever efficient, the waitress reached into her crisp apron pocket and laid a handful of ketchup packets on the table. That annoyed him. He couldn’t say why. Maybe because he felt her gaze. Her heavy, questioning gaze as if she were trying to take his measure. Trying to figure him out.

He’d given up long ago.

“There’s no charge,” her voice followed him like a light in a bleak place. “For what you tried to do.”