Sweet Blessings

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.