A Handful of Heaven

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?”