must she have endured? It was obvious Dottie still hurt. He could see it. As a cop he’d learned to read people pretty well. And Dottie was a book that had to be read slowly. Carefully.
“But I will.” She smiled.
He stopped. They’d made the fifty-yard walk to the corner. Though she hadn’t voiced any of it, he had a vivid picture of this fragile woman in pain unlike any he’d ever experienced. Looking into her eyes, he searched harder this time. He glimpsed a shadow of…anger, despite the smile. He’d seen it before…but suddenly he wondered if she even knew it was there. “I bet you will,” he said. “You impress me as a person who can do anything she sets her mind to.”
To his surprise she shook her head, and her eyes misted with tears.
“Only by the grace of God.” She lifted her chin and blinked away the mist. “You can’t imagine how many times I felt like quitting. But that verse! It kept popping into my head, forcing me on, reminding me that God was there, right beside me. The truth is—until I was so low I couldn’t get any lower, I never really understood that I can really do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Her earnest expression melted into another smile. “That’s what got me through grueling rehab, through days that I couldn’t take on my own. God’s faithful. He can take the worst of times and make something good. If we let Him.”
Brady was in trouble.
He knew it the moment she smiled at him again.
He knew the moment she lifted her eyes to the sky and winked, like she and God had a secret. It was as if she was defying the tears and the anger to grasp the joy.
Oh yeah, Brady was in trouble all right, because although he’d only known Dottie Hart for less than thirty minutes, he knew he wanted in on her secret.
Chapter Two
Mule Hollow was getting ready for a pretty big day. Even in the dusky light Dottie could see there were spots sectioned off in the field for booths and trailers. They’d even set up electrical services for vendors, which she wasn’t. But how coincidental that she was both a baker and a candy maker on her way to California, who just happened to find Cassie on the side of the road, which brought her to Mule Hollow where her motor home happened to die. She smiled, reminded of the song about the old woman who swallowed the fly.
It had dawned on her just now talking to Sheriff Brady—Mule Hollow seemed like a safe place to be stranded. God had protected her. Even before she knew she needed protecting. How sweet was that?
He’d even given her a way of saving her money for California. At least most of it. Instead of dipping into her bank account she now had a way to pay for the repairs to her RV…she could make and sell some simple candy and baked goods over the weekend and have a little extra money to help pay the mechanic. She wouldn’t have to tap into her insurance.
Everything was fine, except for the time factor. But that was what had her winking toward heaven a moment ago. She was on God’s time schedule, so she was going to try and relax. Try not to worry. Really…why should she? She’d prayed for a safe trip to California—never had she envisioned God would take her a hundred miles out of her way to get her there safely. But the reality was that if she’d been on the highway when the engine burst into flames—she hated to think about it. For one, she may not have been able to stop the fire; two, she’d have become a hitchhiker herself.
And three, she might have lost everything.
Again.
Not that much meant anything to her anyway. When a person lay dying beneath all her worldly stuff, stuff accumulated over a lifetime, it changed a person’s perspective. But she had to admit that her RV mattered to her. It had belonged to her granddad and there was a host of memories inside the poor-looking thing.
Besides, it had been beat up and banged up during the same storm that beat her up…she and her prehistoric monstrosity were survivors.
Sheriff Brady pushed his hat back a bit and looked down at her, and she realized with a start that he’d said something. He probably thought she was crazy since not everyone winked at heaven and grinned like a goofball.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” she asked, focusing on him.
“I said, the rest of the vendors will start trickling in tomorrow afternoon, but the actual event won’t start until Friday.” He paused, touching her shoulder with his finger, halting her. “Are you okay?”
His touch was gentle and Dottie tried to ignore the warmth that seemed to radiate from it. “Yes, I get kinda weird sometimes, thinking about how good God is, that’s all.”
He smiled. “I have to say I’ve never seen anyone wink at God.”
“Get outta here.” Dottie shoved his arm. “You’re telling me you never winked at God.”
He laughed. “I’d have to say that’d be an affirmative. But it was cute.”
She laughed and their gazes locked.
The laugh died in her throat. His face was shadowed, his eyes shimmered, in the disappearing light. Suddenly it felt like a pebble dance across her stomach, instantly sending ripples radiating through her solar plexus. Oh my!
“L-look,” she managed to say. “I have to explain something.”
“What’s that?” He dropped his chin and raised an eyebrow.
What in the world was happening to her? She was tired—it had been a long, a very long, hard day. “I didn’t come here to be a vendor in the trade show.” She rattled out the words so fast that he stepped back, head cocked back a notch.
“You didn’t?” He looked over his shoulder at the motor home being set up in the vending spot. The motor home that looked exactly like it wasn’t out of place in a setting like this.
“Actually…” She snapped the words out. Ignoring—well, trying to focus on what had brought her here in the first place. “I picked Cassie up on the road. She was hitchhiking about a hundred miles away. I just couldn’t stand seeing that young girl out there on the road, so I broke my ‘no hitchhiker’ rule.” She made quotation marks in the air with her fingers. “I picked her up. When she started telling me where she was going I couldn’t just drop her off somewhere along the way and hope someone else brought her safely here—I had to bring her.”
Brady removed his Stetson and scrubbed his hand through his short brown hair.
And Dottie, drat her fickle brain, forgot everything for a moment. The man was gorgeous—even with the hat crease running across his forehead.
“You’re telling me you went a hundred miles out of your way to bring a hitchhiker to Mule Hollow?”
She nodded, hearing the disbelief edging his words, understanding it completely. It was her reaction to him that she didn’t have a clue about! “Not any hitchhiker. Cassie. Oh, wait—is hitchhiking against the law?”
The corners of Brady’s lips curved engagingly and her stomach did a double backflip!
“Nope. Least not the last time I checked. Though it could possibly be bad for your health.”
“Funny.”
