A Handful of Heaven

“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?”