Against The Odds

She knew about skiing. “Alpine, cross-country or snowboarding?”

One side of his mouth lifted a fraction. “Any of them.”

“Actually done them? No. But—”

He pointed to the long delicate rods on a rack to his left. “How about fishing?”

Her brain skipped pages. “Spin cast, fly rod, Spey rod or—”

“Let’s say any of the above.” His eyes reminded her of the close-up photo of a hawk she’d happened upon while researching camping. Watchful. And a bit predatory.

“No, not actually, but—”

“Miss—” he glanced down at her résumé. “Sanderson. You’ve done your homework. That much is apparent. But our clientele actually participate in these sports. Our retail specialists require more than a Wikipedia education.” He looked her over, from her dress flats to her carefully arranged hair. “And be honest, given your background and education, why you would you want this job?”

Her courage melted like candle wax under his hot focus. When her sweaty hands threatened to slip apart, she laced her fingers and hung on. Her career ambitions were shrinking like the rear end of a galloping horse, leaving her in the dust.

Her mother’s rosary bead litany started up. You give up a perfectly respectable career, what do you expect? I scrimped and did without to see that you had an education, and you throw it away for what? To become a store clerk? You don’t have the sense God gave a paving stone. I am a total failure as a mother if this is what—

Hope cut off the tape, midscreech. She’d lived with it while her mother was alive, plus two years. She had no intention of living with it any longer. Or the life her mother had so carefully steered her to. She forced her hands to relax, letting blood return to her fingertips.

Come on, Hope. How do you expect to live a life of adventure, if you give up this easily?

She lengthened her spine and opened her mouth to say something. Something brilliant, to convince this man that she was the one for this job.

Nothing came out.

Her only fallback strategy was to pour out her sob story and hope for the best.

But she couldn’t.

Hope snapped her mouth closed so fast, her teeth clicked. She’d be darned—no, she’d be damned (take that, Mom)—if she’d gain passage to her new life through pity for her past one. Courageous people didn’t behave that way.

She took a breath, a step forward and a chance. “Have you ever in your life wanted a do-over?”

He tipped his head to the side, which she took as encouragement.

She forced her shoulders square. “You know, you go day to day through your life, not really thinking. But one day, something happens to make you stop and realize the path you’re on isn’t leading where you want to go. So you look back, and see all the steps you took to get you to where you stand now...see all the missteps that took you off the path to where you want to be.” She released her hands, spreading them in a shrug. “This job is my step back onto that path.” She glanced around the store, then back to the gatekeeper of her future. “Mr. Kurt, you may be able to find an applicant who has more experience. But I guarantee you won’t find one who learns faster, or will work harder than I will.” She curled her fingers into a fist and dropped it, soft but solid, on the glass case before her. “I have more at stake, and I refuse to lose.”

“I believe you.” The white lines at the corners of his eyes disappeared with his squint. “Okay, I’ll take a chance.”

Hope’s muscles relaxed just enough to get a full breath.

“But—”

Her muscles snapped back to attention.

He leaned on his hands, bringing his face closer. “Training is expensive, so you’d better be sure you want to do this. You’ll be required to take lessons from our experts in three sports that we sell equipment for. Your choice which.”

Not trusting her voice, she nodded.

“You won’t need to be an expert. You just need firsthand knowledge and familiarity with the equipment and how to use it.”

This man was taking a chance on her. What if she wasn’t up to the task? Was her mother right, keeping Hope sheltered all those years? Did she know something her daughter didn’t? A wisp of panic must have escaped on to her face, because he asked, “But if you’re not sure about this...”

Gravity weighed heavier than it had a moment ago, pulling the blood to her feet. She swallowed. Audibly. “Nope. I’m sure.”

He gathered the employment papers. “In the meantime, you can start as a cashier. I assume you won’t need much training there, given your background. When can you start?”

“Tomorrow.” The word, pushed from her diaphragm, came out too loud.

He smiled. “We’re closed on Sundays. Let’s make it the day after that.”

* * *

THE RUMBLE OF his truck’s glass pack mufflers vibrated through the seat, settling into Bear’s chest like a cat’s purr. A crazy extravagance, but the mufflers were a promise he’d made to the ’64 Chevy beater. He knew it looked like shit, with rust and primer spots, but he was saving the paint job for last. He wasn’t sure what he wanted yet, but it was going to be epic. He patted the plastic steering wheel. “Hang with me, honey. We’ll get you a makeover as soon as the bank balance comes up.”

Checking both ways at the stop sign, he turned onto Monterrey. The spring air blowing in the window cooled his sweaty face. Maybe a new A/C compressor before the paint job. A long low brick building on his left caught his attention. No, actually it was the sign out front—The Bar None. A neon Schlitz sign flickered in the small window, and the door stood open. He slowed, trying to peer through the typical bar murk to see if it was crowded.

Damn, I’d love a beer.

He could almost feel the vinyl bar seat under his ass.

But after his last visit to a bar, he had no interest in a repeat performance. Prison claustrophobia squeezed, making him feel trapped in his own clammy skin. He hit the accelerator.

I’ll get a six-pack at the store.

At the Piggly-Wiggly, he scanned the breakfast aisle, hunting for Pop Tarts. Spying them on the bottom shelf, he bent and took two boxes of strawberry. The Walmart in Santa Maria was cheaper, but the place was so crowded and noisy that he couldn’t relax there.

Not that he could here, either, today. He tossed the boxes in the little plastic basket he held in his other hand, and sidestepped a harried woman trying to lift a toddler headed for a full-on meltdown. He walked away, fast.

Turning into the bread aisle, an old lady in a print housedress stood on tippy-toe, trying to reach a loaf of organic whole grain. He reached and handed it to her.

“Oh, thank y—” Looking up to see him towering over her, a look flashed in her eyes. The look of a rabbit, in the shadow of a hawk.

“You’re welcome, ma’am.” Feeling the sting of being innocently intimidating, he turned away and pulled a loaf of the whitest, fluffiest, empty-calorie bread he could find. After the bland slop in prison, he now ate whatever he damned well pleased, and white bread reminded him of lunches when he was a kid.

At the checkout stand, he snagged a box of Cracker Jacks. Ducking the cashier’s stare, he paid cash and beat feet for the truck.

His jaw loosened when he turned off King’s Highway onto the road that wound through the hills that would lead him home. The hills were still green, but soon they’d shift to the brushed gold tint he loved so much. When he turned in at the ruts that constituted his driveway, grass shushed along the underside of the floorboards. Bordered by barbed-wire fences, the trail wound a quarter mile to the copse of trees that hid his cabin and barn from prying eyes. The privacy was one of the reasons he’d loved this place on first sight. He rolled into his tree-shadowed cave.

A dusty sedan stood in the packed dirt yard.

Warning sirens wailed in his head.

A skinny man in a white shirt stood on the porch, hand cupped, peering in the front window. Bear’s guard-dog temper woke, and snapping and growling, lunged to the end of its chain.

The mufflers burped as he hit the gas and roared into the dooryard. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he yelled out the passenger window, threw the truck in Park and shut down the engine. Then he was out the door and stalking for the cabin, fists clenched.