Heaven Knows

He was very efficient—she had to give him that.

“I’ll ring you up front.” All business, he hardly glanced at her as he tucked away the small pocketknife he’d used to cut the rope. “Let me guess. You’re going camping?”

“Something like that,” she hedged. “I had a tent disaster last night, so I need to repair the main nylon cord.”

“Been there.” He led the way down the aisle of kitchen cabinet handles in every size and color, his stride long and powerful. “Figured you for a tourist. This valley’s small enough that sooner or later, you meet everyone in it.”

She’d grown up in a town like that, but she kept the information to herself. Her past was behind her and she intended to keep it that way. “This part of the country is beautiful.”

“Have you been down to Yellowstone?” He was only making polite conversation as he punched buttons on the cash register.

“Not yet.”

“The campsites aren’t booked up this time of year, so you don’t need reservations.” He slipped the rope into a small blue plastic bag. “That will be two seventy-one. If you have your tent in your car, you can bring it in and I’ll repair it for you. Free of charge. Company policy.”

His offer surprised her. She stopped digging through her purse for exact change to stare at him. A familiar panic clamped around her chest. Patrick was hundreds of miles away and he had no idea where she was, but this is how he’d affected her. Even a store clerk’s courtesy frightened her, when there was no reason for it.

The phone rang, and the clerk answered it. “Corey’s Hardware. John, here.” He spoke in the same friendly voice to whomever was on the other end of the phone.

John, huh? He looked like a John. Dependable, practical, rock solid.

There was no danger here. She had to remember that not every man was like Patrick. She knew it—now, if only her heart would remember it, she’d be fine.

Alexandra relaxed and bent to dig a penny from the bottom of her coin purse.

“Well, now, washers are tricky things, Mrs. Fletcher,” John drawled, tucking the receiver against his shoulder. “Maybe I ought to come by this afternoon and put in the right size for you, free of charge, except for the washer, of course. That’d be the best way to get the job done right.”

See what a nice man this John was? He helped all sorts of people. There was no reason at all to feel uneasy. She watched as he swept her coins into his palm as he listened to Mrs. Fletcher.

Nodding, he dropped the money into the cash register till. “Sure thing. I’ll give you a call before long.”

He tore off the receipt and slipped it into the bag. “I appreciate your business,” he told her. “Bring in your tent if you want.”

“Thanks.” She could do it herself. She zipped her purse closed and reached for the little blue plastic sack. The last thing she wanted to do was to rely on anyone else ever again. She’d learned that lesson the hard way.

A note pinned to the back wall behind the counter caught her attention. Help Wanted. Full-Time Position.

The rest of the printing was too small to read as she swept past. A full-time position, right there, posted for her to see. She’d been praying for just this sort of an opportunity.

Maybe she should ask about it. Surely it wouldn’t hurt.

She took a look around at the neat shelving, the tidy merchandise and the polished old wood floor. This wasn’t what she had in mind. She’d been a cashier long ago, and she wouldn’t mind being one again, but working alongside a man—no, no matter how nice he seemed. Not after what she’d been through.

“Do you need anything else?” John asked from behind the counter, polite, clearly a good salesman.

“No, thanks.” She grabbed the doorknob, the bell jangled overhead and she tumbled onto the sidewalk. A cool push of wind breezed along her bare arms.

The advertisement troubled her. Was it coincidence that she’d spotted it, or more?

Unsure, Alexandra unlocked her car door, stowed the rope on the back floor behind the driver’s seat and grabbed her hand-knit cardigan from the back. The soft wool comforted her as it always did. Pocketing her keys, she continued down the cracked sidewalk toward the grocery at the end of the block.

The store bustled with activity as weekend shoppers chatted in the aisles and in the checkout lines at the front. Feeling like a visitor in a foreign land, Alexandra headed to the dairy section. The refrigeration cases were the old-fashioned kind, heavy glass doors with handles, reminding her of the small-town store where she used to shop as a girl.

This was not the kind of place where she wanted to live, she told herself as she selected a small brick of sharp cheddar that was marked as the weekly special. She’d left small-town life forever three days after graduating from high school and had never looked back.

Then again, living in a bigger city hadn’t exactly worked out well, either.

She wove around two women who looked to be about her age, chatting in the aisle, with their toddlers belted into brimming grocery carts, and felt a pang deep in her chest. What would it be like to live those women’s lives? Alexandra found a bag of day-old rolls that still felt as soft as fresh.

The Help Wanted sign in the hardware store kept troubling her. It was frightening not knowing what was ahead of her. Worse, not knowing if she would be able to build a new life. She had to trust that if the job at the hardware store was what God wanted for her, then He would find a way to tell her for certain.

“Why don’t you go ahead of me?” A woman with a small girl in tow gave Alexandra a smile. “I have a full cart, and you have only a few things.”

“Are you sure?” When the woman merely nodded, Alexandra thanked her and stepped in line.

She’d almost forgotten what small towns were like—the friendliness that thrived in them. A coziness that felt just out of her reach—as if she could never be a part of it. But she enjoyed listening to the checker ask an elderly woman about her new grandbaby.

Everyone seemed to know everything about a person in a small town, she reflected as she placed her cheese and rolls on the conveyer belt.

Why, if she actually were to interview for the job and got it, she’d be easy to locate. If she stayed here, she would probably be known as the new woman in town, even ten years from now.

No, if she took a job anywhere, it had to be in a larger city where she could blend in unnoticed and be harder to track down.

“Did you find everything all right?” the checker asked.

“Yes.”

“That will be three eighty-three, please.”

Alexandra pulled the fold of bills from her jeans pocket and peeled off four singles.

“Are you enjoying our countryside?”

“It’s very beautiful.”

“This time of year we don’t see too many tourists and Yellowstone is about ready to open some of its entrances, but I think it’s the best time to sightsee.”

Alexandra hardly knew what to say as the checker pressed change into her palm. “Have a good day.”

Even the bagger was friendly as she handed Alexandra a small paper sack.

Taking her purchases, she headed for the electronic doors. Everywhere she looked, she saw people chatting, friends greeting one another, and heard snatches of cheerful conversations.

After the stress and noise of living in a city, she liked breathing in the fresh-scented air. It was so quiet, the anxiety that seemed to weigh her down lifted a little and she took a deep breath. Longing filled her as she headed back to her car. A yearning for the kind of life she’d never known.

Fishing the keys from her pocket, she watched the woman from the checkout line lead the way to a minivan parked in the lot. How content she looked, carrying her small daughter on her hip, opening the back for the box boy who pushed her cart full of groceries. Full of dinners to be made. No doubt she’d drive to a tidy little house not far from here, greet her husband when he came home from work and never know what loneliness was.

That life seemed impossible to Alexandra. Wishful thinking, that’s what it was. Maybe, someday—if the good Lord were willing—she’d have a life like that, too.