Heart and Soul

Or one so handsome he made her teeth ache.

The house was dark, except for the lone lamp in the entryway. It wasn’t Mom’s Bible-study night. Or Dad’s grange hall meeting night. Where were they? And didn’t they know she worried?

Maybe they’d gone out to dinner. Could it be? Afraid to hope, afraid to say it out loud, Michelle grabbed fresh linens from the hall closet. If her parents had gone out together, it would be the first time in six years. Ooh, the curiosity was killing her as she stole a pillow off Kendra’s bed along with the plain blue comforter.

Brody. He’d turned down her invitation to come into the house and was checking out the apartment over the garage.

He sure was a courteous guy. Concerned about her safety. Maybe it came from the kind of life he’d lived. Always on the road with the rodeo. He’d probably seen a lot that she couldn’t even dream of.

She liked that about him. That he was worldly. Experienced. But when he smiled, his eyes sparkled with a quiet kindness. She liked that. Which was too bad. Brody didn’t have plans to stay. He was just passing through.

At least it didn’t hurt a girl to dream.

She caught sight of him through the second-story windows. He stood gazing around the small apartment, wandering around to look at this or that. A zip of warmth flooded her heart, and she couldn’t stop the sigh that bubbled up until she felt as if she were floating with it.

What a man. He stood like a soldier, alert, strong and disciplined, and so inherently good, it made her eyes glisten. She knew beyond a doubt that helping him was the right thing to do.

She closed the front door, skipped down the steps and dashed through the remaining splashes of the rainstorm. In no time at all she was bouncing up the steps and into the attic apartment where Brody turned to her.

And made her pulse stop.

“This is a nice place you’ve got here.” Brody gestured around at the shadowed front room that led into the small kitchen.

But Michelle didn’t bother to look around the place and admire it with him. How could she notice anything when he was so near? He’d taken his leather jacket off and folded it on the tabletop, leaving him in the black T-shirt where torn fabric gaped over another thick bandage.

Was her heart ever going to start beating again, she wondered as air rushed into her lungs and she could breathe. Maybe she’d waited too long to eat dinner—they’d grabbed takeout on the way out of Bozeman—and that’s why she felt funny.

“Does someone live here?” Brody strolled to the wide front windows and closed the blinds. “Or do you just keep this place for random strangers in need of a good night’s sleep and patching up?”

“The foreman used to live here until my dad had a cottage built down by the creek. Then my sister Karen lived here for a long time, but then she got married, and my uncle lost both his job and his wife and needed some place to stay but he said it was too small….” Oh my, was she rambling? Yes, she definitely was. Stop it, Michelle.

“As it turns out, we don’t have a foreman anymore, so my uncle took over the cottage last month. So, no one’s staying here right now.” Was she still holding the sheets and stuff?

Yes. What was with her anyway, staring at handsome Brody as if she’d lost her cerebral cortex? She dropped the pillow, sheets and comforter on the corner of the couch.

She still felt nervous. Why suddenly now? Because she was alone with him, and that didn’t make any sense at all. They’d been all alone in the truck. This felt different. When was the last time she’d been alone with a guy like Brody? Had she ever?

“I appreciate the hospitality.” He favored his injured right ankle as he ambled over to grab the set of floral-printed linens. “I can’t say that I’ve slept on pink and blue flowers before.”

“Flowered sheets are more restful.”

“Is that a scientifically proven fact?”

“Absolutely.”

They should have been teasing, but it was something else. Something that flickered in an odd way in her chest. A warmth of emotion that she didn’t know how to describe because she’d never felt it before.

She turned away. Feeling like this couldn’t be a good thing. Vulnerable, that’s what she was, and she didn’t like it. She retreated to the open entry where a dark slash of the deepening night welcomed her. “The bedroom’s through those doors. If you need anything, let me know.”

“Thanks, Michelle. You don’t know how much I appreciate this.” He looked sincere. Strong. Like everything a good man ought to be.

Michelle fled onto the tiny porch, pulling the door closed behind her. She felt her face flaming and her pulse jackhammering. She was feeling a strange tug of emotion, longing and admiration all rolled into one.

Great. Had he noticed?

Probably. How could he not? At least he was leaving come morning. She could pretend she didn’t think he was the coolest man ever for a few more hours.

It wasn’t like she had a chance with him. He was too worldly, and he had a life. It wasn’t as if he was going to drop everything and move to a tiny town in Montana that was a pinpoint on a detailed state map.

Be real, Michelle.

Common sense didn’t stop the stab of longing that pierced through her chest. It didn’t stop the pain of it.

She wiped her feet on the welcome mat on the front porch. She locked the door behind her. As she did every night, she hung her denim jacket on one of the hangers inside the entry closet. There was a note tacked to the message board in the kitchen by the phone. Her mom was the queen of organization.

“Michelle, went to supper and a show with your gramma. Make sure you start the dishwasher when you get in. Don’t stay up too late.”

There went the hope that her parents were out together. After all this time, she knew better than to hope. But it was one of those wishes that never died, that flickered to life new and fragile every day.

The message light on the answering machine was blinking and she hit the playback button. The old machine ground and hissed and clicked. There was a message from older sister Karen, calling to remind Michelle about her shift tomorrow at the coffee shop. A message from some old guy looking for Dad.

Michelle groaned at the third message. It was from Bart Holmes. The farmer who lived down the road. The same Bart who’d been mooning after her sister Kirby, until Kirby had married.

As if! In disgust, Michelle erased Bart’s nasal voice. She was so not interested in going out to dinner. She’d do her best to avoid him in church. She was not interested in joining his Bible study, either, thank you very much! Couldn’t he get a clue?

Just her luck. The guys she didn’t want to notice her, pursued her. And the one that she did want to notice her was so far out of her league, she might as well be trying to jump to the moon.

Give it up, Michelle. She squeezed dishwashing soap into the compartment and turned on the contraption. She left the kitchen to the hissing sound of water filling the dishwasher, and hopped up the stairs.

Every step she took was like a glimpse at her past. School pictures framed and carefully hung on the wall showed the six McKaslin girls, all blond and blue-eyed, alike as peas in a pod, smiling nearly identical smiles.

As she climbed toward the second story, the pictures grew older, marching through the years. To high school portraits in the hallway and Karen’s and Kirby’s wedding pictures. Everyone looked so happy and joyful, all the sisters crowded together in colorful bridesmaid dresses in both sets of wedding photos, but one sister was missing. Allison.

Nothing would ever be the same, she knew, as she stood before the final picture in the photo saga of the McKaslin family. Karen’s newborn daughter, Allie was named in honor of the sister who had died so young.

What other pictures would follow, Michelle wondered? There would be more babies, more weddings. She had no doubt her two currently unmarried sisters would find love.

Would there be love for her? Or would she always be like this, running behind, left in the dust. She’d watched as her sisters were old enough to do what she couldn’t: ride horses, ride bikes, go to school, become cheerleaders, go to the prom, go steady, marry a great guy.

She’d always felt as if she’d never caught up as her sisters grew up and left home. And in the grief of losing Allison, she’d felt like she’d lost her family, as well. The house that was once full now echoed around her as she made her way down the hall.

She supposed that’s why she wanted to fall in love. To try and finally have what had been so wonderful and then slipped away. The warm tight cohesive love of a family and the happiness that came from it.

“Patience,” Gramma was always telling her. “The good Lord gives us what we need at just the right time.”

Well, how long would she have to wait? Her steps echoed through the lonely house that once had been filled with laughter and love.

She knew better than to hope that a stranger, a man passing through town on his way to a more exciting life, would be the one who could save her from this aloneness.