the bagger was friendly as she handed Alexandra a small paper sack.
Taking her purchases, she headed for the electronic doors. Everywhere she looked, she saw people chatting, friends greeting one another, and heard snatches of cheerful conversations.
After the stress and noise of living in a city, she liked breathing in the fresh-scented air. It was so quiet, the anxiety that seemed to weigh her down lifted a little and she took a deep breath. Longing filled her as she headed back to her car. A yearning for the kind of life she’d never known.
Fishing the keys from her pocket, she watched the woman from the checkout line lead the way to a minivan parked in the lot. How content she looked, carrying her small daughter on her hip, opening the back for the box boy who pushed her cart full of groceries. Full of dinners to be made. No doubt she’d drive to a tidy little house not far from here, greet her husband when he came home from work and never know what loneliness was.
That life seemed impossible to Alexandra. Wishful thinking, that’s what it was. Maybe, someday—if the good Lord were willing—she’d have a life like that, too.
In the meantime, she had a lot troubling her. She grabbed her water bottle from the front seat and tucked it under her arm. Clouds were moving in overhead, but the sun still shone as brightly as ever. The weather would hold for a lunchtime picnic.
When she spied a little ice-cream stand through the alley, she headed toward it. At the far end of the gravel parking lot, there was a patch of mown grass shaded by old, reaching maples.
Perfect. There were picnic tables beneath the trees, worse for the wear, but functional and swept clean. No one was around, so she chose the most private one. The wood was rough against her arms as she spread out her rolls and cheese.
A car halted at the ice-cream stand’s window. As the driver ordered, she heard the murmur of pleasant voices like friends greeting one another.
Alone, Alexandra bowed her head in prayer and gave thanks for her many blessings.
John Corey knew the look of someone hurting. Maybe because he knew something about that. For whatever reason, he couldn’t get the woman out of his mind as the minute hand slowly crept up the face of the twenty-year-old clock his uncle had hung on that wall decades before.
She was beautiful, no doubt about that. Not in a flamboyant, look-at-me sort of way, but pretty in a quiet, down-deep sort of way. And those wounded-doe eyes of hers made him wonder what had become of her. She hadn’t been back to let him repair her tent, and that disappointed him.
Only because he wanted to do what he could, that was all. Helping was sort of his calling. Sure, he owned a hardware store in a little town that was so small, a person could blink twice and miss the entire downtown. But being part of a community meant being aware of its needs.
He’d gotten in the habit of helping out where he could, fixing eighty-year-old Mrs. Fletcher’s outside faucet, for instance, because a widow on a set budget might not be able to afford a plumber.
He’d also come to believe that the Lord gave everyone a job in this world. And that his job was doing what he could. Like the beautiful young woman—there he went again, thinking about her. She’d looked as if she had the weight of the world on her slim shoulders, and, in a way, it was like looking at a reflection of himself.
Some might say her problems weren’t any of his business, and they might have a point. But what if she did need help? What if there was something he could do? Lord knew he had a debt to pay this world, and he’d seen her look at the Help Wanted sign he’d posted behind the counter. Did she need a job? But before he could ask her, she’d bolted through the door and was gone with a jangle of the overhead bell and a click of the knob.
And now that it was long past the noon hour and not one customer had been by the entire hour, he had plenty of time to think on what might have been. Plenty of time to notice the little yellow Volkswagen was still parked outside his front window.
Not any of his business, he reminded himself as he finished his microwaved cup of beef-flavored noodles at the front counter. She didn’t want help repairing her tent. Fine. Still, something nagged at him, troubling his conscience.
You’re just thinking of another woman you couldn’t help. John couldn’t deny it, and it left him feeling as if he had to do something, no matter how small, to help even the balance of things.
He was crumpling the noodle container and tossing it into the garbage bin in the back when it came to him. Working quickly, he dug his way through the messy storage room until he found the small kits he’d received a few months ago.
With one of them tucked under his arm, he hurried to the front. Just in time, too. He spotted her through the display window, unlocking her car. Her long dark hair tumbled around her face, a face more beautiful than he’d seen in a long while. Wearing faded jeans and a fuzzy white sweater, she caught his attention and held it.
Like a good Christian man, he ought to be concentrating on his good deed. But what did he notice? Her slim waist and her lean, graceful arms. She’d settled behind the wheel by the time he made it outside and since she’d rolled down her passenger side window, he did what any good man would do.
He leaned on the door and peered through the window. “Need any help, ma’am?”
She squinted at him as she settled her pink plastic sunglasses on her nose. “Ma’am?”
“I’m trying to show off the manners my mama raised me with.”
That made her smile, and it was a sight to behold. Dimples teased into the creases bracketing her mouth as she flipped a lock of molasses curls behind her shoulder.
What was with him? He had no business trying to make a pretty woman smile. No right to notice her beauty.
He cleared his throat, hoping to sound more gruff. “I’ve got something for you. Call it a visitor’s gift for every new customer through my door.”
“I don’t need a gift.”
“It’s a tent repair kit.” He handed her the package through the window. “It’s got everything you need. Since you’ve already experienced one tent disaster, you could have another. It never hurts to be prepared.”
“It certainly doesn’t.” She stared at the kit he offered, her soft mouth turning down in a frown. “How much does this cost?”
“Not a thing.”
“I’d hate to be indebted to you.”
“What debt? I didn’t mention any debt.”
“Nobody does something for nothing. It’s a hard fact of life.”
“The kit was a free sample to me from the manufacturer, trying to get me to order a whole batch from them. My storage closet is full of them. You’d be doing me a favor by taking one off my hands.”
How wary she looked. “All right. Thank you.”
“No problem,” he replied, already backing away. “You take care now.”
That was that. He’d done the right thing, he figured. Funny thing was, he couldn’t seem to turn around and walk away, or even look away as she bent to set the tent
