his eyes on the darkness that was the lake, he leaned against the headrest and gave himself over to the pain. “Never expected such a big lake in the Rocky Mountains,” he muttered to himself. Talking to himself was a habit he’d had since he was a kid. Some counselor had told him he did it so he wouldn’t feel alone. He hadn’t wanted to think about that then, and he didn’t want to think about it tonight.
She didn’t respond.
“Heaven’s a different name for a town,” he said, this time louder.
The silence spread so long he thought she wasn’t going to answer, and then she shook herself slightly as though to rouse herself from troubling thoughts. “The original settlers had such a hard time coming down that canyon—” she flashed him a look “—as you can imagine, that when they came to this point and saw the bizarre blue of the lake, they figured they’d died and gone to heaven. Hence the name.”
Everyone had told Sparks he was crazy to take a cut-rate job designing fireworks in the middle of nowhere. When he’d been sitting with his feet dangling over the edge of the wrecked car door, he would have had to agree. Now, seeing the size of the lake and with a summer to play in it, he began to doubt his doubts. He could entertain himself watching the spin cycle in a Laundromat and make five new friends before he’d even folded his polo shirts. He would amuse himself in Heaven and get back into sync with his career. A win-win for him and the town.
In fact...he eyed the petite woman next to him. He’d get a summer girl. Summer girls didn’t need to know why he couldn’t stick around.
The uncomfortable niggling at the back of his mind, the keening loss that often surged within him, kicked in again. He’d been feeling it off and on for months now. A place to call home. A place to be from. Come back to. Sparks touched the cut on his forehead. It had stopped bleeding.
Shooting a sideways look at his angel girl, he wondered where she was from, where she was going. She’d said a hospital. Local girl with a sick husband? He sighed. He hoped not.
Minutes later, she braked at a four-way stop sign with a Qwik Stop in need of a paint job on one corner. The other three corners were the edges of fields that gave way to Main Street.
“It looks like...home,” he blurted as yet another crash sounded in his head.
“Don’t bet on it.” Her muttering landed so softly he wasn’t sure he’d actually heard her. After she stopped on Main Street in front of the Safari Motel and put the car in Park, she turned to look at him—or rather, the cut on his forehead. Then she smiled.
Her smile curved up wide, showing white teeth with a tiny overlap of the right incisor. The move pressed her eyes into a delightful squint. He was glad she’d been coming down the canyon when she had. In the reflected light from the motel’s office, he saw coppery highlights glinting in her dark hair. A pretty woman preoccupied with something. After her rescuing him, he wanted to make everything right for her. Keep that smile on her face.
Finally, she spoke. “Looks as if Lynette kept the light on for you. She’ll want to know why you look as though you got beat up. She’s not much on troublemakers staying at her motel.” The smile faded and the tone sharpened. “Or unreliable, undependable charmers.” She closed her lips in a thin line.
“You’re from here?” His spirits lifted; he’d choose to ignore the edge to her last words. Summer girl. For the summer, he could be anything she wanted. For the summer.
A look swept over her face. Revulsion? Regret? He couldn’t place it.
“Not really.”
He slid slowly out of the car, emitting a few spontaneous grunts as he pulled his suitcases out of the backseat. “Thanks for rescuing me.”
Her smile returned, lightening her expression. “You rescued me from rescuing you. We’re square.”
As he came around the front of the car, he spoke in the direction of her open window. “See you around, then?”
She leaned out the window. “I’ll call on my cell about your car. The garage will contact the rental company.”
“Hey, no problem. I’ll call from my room.”
Another transforming smile. “I’ll call.” She put the Omni in Drive.
“Thank you for saving my life!” he shouted belatedly as she left the parking lot. She didn’t look back. He knew because he watched her. She knew where he was, so maybe...
Digging a piece of paper out of his jeans’ pocket, Sparks gingerly felt around the scrape on his chin. He leaned over, stretching right and left to unravel the increasing kinks, while checking out his home for forty-six glorious days of vacation. To the right was a line of single-level motel units of cinder block with a metal, aqua-painted eaves running their length as they sloped down away to the lake. Probably built in the 1950s.
He pushed open the glass door of the office and the bell at the top of the door tinkled; the theme song for a late-night talk show sounded in a room behind the desk. He was hours past his guaranteed reservation time. As his hand hovered over the bell on the counter for a second time, a bouffant-haired older woman pushed through the bead curtain.
“Don’t be pounding that bell. At my age, it takes more time to get everything moving.” Of average height, a loose black pullover tunic and legs encased in black knit pants, she didn’t look as though she had an ounce of fat on her. Taking in his damaged face, her eyes narrowed. “You got a reservation? We don’t allow riffraff here.”
Sparks glanced at the confirmation number on his piece of paper and passed it over to her. She snatched it from his hand.
“You’re Lynette?” he said.
Looking up from the paper, she seemed satisfied with his right to be there. “I’m the owner, Lynette.” She peered at him over half glasses. “You’re that hotshot fireworks designer who’s going to put Heaven on the map this year.” She swung her head back and forth. Her hair never moved. “Why do you look as though you lost a fight at the Wayside Inn?”
“I had an accident coming down Bigelow Canyon.”
“The Last Nasty, no doubt. Going too fast, I imagine. Happens all the time.”
His head ached in cadence to the throbbing in his jaw. He hadn’t eaten anything for hours, and he was feeling that Heaven fell short of Naomi’s rhapsodizing about warm, friendly people. Forcing his split lips into a smile, he said, “Yes, ma’am. Fortunately, a woman from town stopped to help me. I didn’t get her name.”
She shrugged. “Payment’s in full. Up front. Cash preferred.”
Naomi had warned him of Lynette’s affection for cash. No plastic card was accepted, but as he pulled out his wallet, he noted the rest of the office asserted a predilection for plastic. On the counter, plastic—not silk—daffodils leaned out of a hot pink plastic vase with seashells glued on it. The bead curtain was plastic. Plastic covered the lampshade by the cash register. He shifted his feet, heard a crackle. Plastic runner.
After opening his wallet and removing the cash, he glanced down at the registration card she slid in front of him.
“Fill it out completely—including home address. I’ll need your license plate number, too, in case you go
