скачать книгу бесплатно
“Why did you stop?” Margaret echoed her sister’s concern, but she stayed obediently buckled up as she looked up from the book she’d been reading.
“My car is not cooperating with my well-laid plans,” was all she said, turning the engine off at once.
Shauntelle hid her frustration from her seven-year-old daughters. According to her budget, this little car needed to last her at least another year. She had bigger priorities.
After her husband Roger’s death in a car bombing in Afghanistan two years ago, Shauntelle had grieved, railed against life and, to her shame, Roger. He was doing a temporary job, working for Doctors Without Borders, a dream of his since he had graduated med school.
He had died on one of those trips.
Shauntelle couldn’t afford to stay in Vancouver and because she couldn’t rent, let alone buy, a place of her own, she moved in with her parents in Cedar Ridge, Alberta. The girls settled into school, and at her brother Josiah’s urging, she started making plans for a restaurant in Cedar Ridge. It had been a lifelong dream of hers, and things were finally coming together.
However, the dream did not include a car breakdown. Especially not when it was full of baking deliveries she needed to finish by the end of the day.
She clutched the steering wheel as she inhaled, practicing what her grief counselor had told her. Pull back. Let go. Focus on the next thing you can do.
And commit everything to the Lord.
Since Roger’s death, Shauntelle had struggled with God. When Josiah died in a construction accident only a year ago, she really felt betrayed by Him.
But she knew she had nowhere else to go, and so she slowly found her way back to God. After the major things she’d dealt with, however, she didn’t think it proper to pray for a car.
She pulled in another breath, a tiny curl of panic starting in her belly.
She opened the hood, then coughed on the acrid smoke billowing out of the engine.
“What are you going to do?” Millie asked, hanging out of the back passenger window.
“Push this car off a cliff,” Shauntelle muttered as she pulled up the strut that supported the car hood and stood back, her arms crossed over her chest as she fought down the panic.
“You can’t do that, Mommy.” Margaret sounded frightened.
“Just having an automotive temper tantrum, honey,” Shauntelle assured her very sensitive daughter. “I’m not driving it anywhere. Besides, there’s no cliff handy.” The road they were on had only three people living on it. An older couple from Calgary only used their summer house from June to September. Carmen Fisher, the manager of Walsh’s Hardware and the T Bar C, was another resident, and then there was the Cosgrove Ranch.
Carmen was working today, so she wasn’t home. And it was the end of April, which meant no one would be at the other house either.
That left the Cosgrove Ranch, a couple of miles down the road.
Not an option.
“Call Grandpa,” Margaret suggested, getting out of the car and walking around to the front to join her mother.
“Grandpa and Gramma are working.” And she was not putting any extra pressure on them.
She didn’t have any cousins or relatives she felt comfortable calling out to the back of the beyond. Nor did she have AMA, so phoning a tow truck meant she had to pay for it herself. And what would that cost?
“Guess we’ll have to walk to the highway,” she said. Some of the deliveries consisted of meat pies, and though they were in a cooler with ice, she didn’t know how long they would stay fresh.
“Will we have to hitchhike?” Millie asked.
“At least it’s not hot today,” Margaret, ever the practical one, said. “So we won’t get too thirsty.”
Her daughter was right. A soft breeze swirled past them, tossing up stray leaves and pushing away the stinky smoke still drifting from the engine. A few geese honked overhead, the first harbingers of spring. Shauntelle shivered, pulling her sweater closer around her as she weighed her options. The highway was a few miles back, and neither she nor the girls had adequate footwear. They were all so excited for spring that they had put on flip-flops.
“I hear someone coming!” Margaret called out, shading her eyes against the midafternoon sun.
Hope rose in Shauntelle’s heart as she heard the muted rumble of a vehicle. Maybe it was Carmen Fisher.
“They might stop,” Margaret said.
“I sure hope so,” Shauntelle said.
The sound of the vehicle grew louder, and then a large, jacked-up, cherry-red pickup truck crested the hill and came swooping down toward them.
Obviously not Carmen Fisher.
“I hope the driver sees us,” Millie muttered, stepping closer to her mother’s car.
Shauntelle hoped so too.
And then, thankfully, the truck slowed, geared down and coasted to a halt right behind her car. Shauntelle eased out a sigh of relief, but behind that came a niggle of unease. This didn’t look like the kind of vehicle an elderly couple would drive.
Then she saw the driver, and her unease morphed into fury.
Noah Cosgrove stepped out of that ridiculously fancy truck, the sun glinting off his collar-length dark hair, his eyes narrowed, a leather jacket hanging on his broad shoulders and dark jeans hugging narrow hips. He looked dangerous and threatening.
Shauntelle took a step back, shielding herself with the hood of the car, her growing rage boiling up in her soul. Noah was the last person she wanted to see.
Because of Noah Cosgrove, her brother had died.
* * *
“Hey there. What’s happened to your car?” Noah grinned at the twin girls who stood beside the obviously broken-down vehicle. They were thin, gangly and utterly adorable with their high ponytails, matching pink T-shirts and black leggings.
“It’s smoking,” one said, her eyes wide. “And Mom is trying to fix it.”
“I don’t think she knows how,” the other said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Do you think you can?”
“Maybe.” As he looked at the girls, a memory rose to the surface. Twins in Cedar Ridge were not common.
And then his heart thudded in his chest.
Of all the people to run into on the road to his mother’s place, why did it have to be Shauntelle Dexter, Josiah Rodriguez’s sister?
He gave himself a moment to fight the too-familiar guilt, straightened his shoulders and walked around the car. Shauntelle stood by the hood, arms clasped tightly over her chest, head held high, her brown hair drifting over her shoulders. Her flush-stained cheeks were sprinkled with freckles, and her blue eyes were narrow with anger. Clearly she knew precisely who he was.
“Hey, Shauntelle,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. Nonthreatening. So far her reaction was the same as the one he had received only half an hour ago from Shauntelle’s parents at the Shop Easy when he stopped there for gas and some pop. They were both working today, and while Selena Rodriguez acted reasonably civil, it wasn’t hard to see Andy’s fury.
“Hey, yourself,” was all she said, her tone abrupt.
“So. Car trouble.” He sucked in a quick breath and looked into the engine, the acrid smoke telling him everything he needed to know.
“Yes” was her clipped reply.
He gave her a cursory glance, but she was glaring at the engine ticking loudly in the ensuing silence.
“So what happened?”
“It started making a clunking noise and then it got louder.”
“Can you fix it?” one of the girls asked, poking her head around the hood.
Noah shook his head. “Not with what I’ve got in my toolbox. I’m guessing the engine seized up.”
“That sounds bad,” the other girl said with a frown.
Noah took a closer look at the girls, surprised he hadn’t seen the similarity between them and their mother previously. Of course, he’d had no reference point until he realized they were Shauntelle’s daughters.
“It is. But let me see for sure.” He flashed them a grin, then looked more closely at the engine. That’s when he saw the quarter-sized hole in the engine block. He shook his head in dismay. “Sorry. It looks like a rod went through your engine. It’s toast.”
“So it’s done?”
The rusted-out car looked like it had many better days behind it and none ahead. “Probably,” he said, wishing he could give her better news.
Shauntelle pressed her hands to her mouth, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry. Not that he blamed her. From what he knew about her, she’d had a lot to deal with.
In the past two years she’d lost her husband, moved in with her parents and then, to bring it all to a tragic trifecta, lost her brother only a year ago.
Noah shoved that memory down. Josiah Rodriguez had been working for him when he fell to his death off a scaffold. And no matter how many times Noah went over the situation, how many times he tried to remind himself he wasn’t to blame, he still felt at fault. He should have trained Josiah better. He should have been at the job site that day instead of chasing that other job, trying to make a few more bucks and keep his huge crew of guys busy.
“So where were you headed?” he asked, fighting the blame and self-loathing that always accompanied thoughts of Josiah. “Can I give you a ride?”
“That would be awesome,” one of the twins piped up. “We’re doing deliveries.”
“Of what?”
“Baking and stuff,” the other one put in. “My mom makes bread and buns and all kinds of goodies for the Farmer’s Market. We go every Saturday, but Mrs. Fisher is in Calgary and my mom promised her and some of her other customers that she would get their stuff to them.”
“I’m sure Mr. Cosgrove has other things he needs to do,” Shauntelle said, a sharp tone to her voice. It wasn’t hard to see she preferred he be anywhere but here.
“But he’s the only one who stopped.”
“Millie.” The tone grew harsher as Shauntelle shot her daughter a look of warning.
Millie glanced away, her hands fiddling with the bottom of her T-shirt as she pouted.
“I’m calling a tow truck,” Shauntelle said, pulling a phone out of her pocket.
While she did that, Noah took another look at the car in the faint hope he had misdiagnosed the problem. He turned on the flashlight function of his cell phone, but it only showed him the full extent of the irreparable damage.
“Is it bad?” the one named Millie asked.
He gave her an apologetic glance and nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“My mom always said this car was a beater. I thought she meant like a mixer, but my grandpa said that it meant it wasn’t reliable. My grandpa is kind of smart. Just like my dad was.” Millie sighed and gave Noah a wistful look. “My dad is dead. He died in the overseas. Two years ago.”
“Two and a half,” her sister corrected, her mouth pursed as she clutched her book. “And it’s not in the overseas, it’s just overseas. It was in Afghanistan. He was a doctor without borders. We used to be sad, but now we’re not so sad anymore. My name is Margaret and my sister’s name is Millie.”
“I’m sorry for you,” Noah said. He’d heard bits and pieces about Roger Dexter from Josiah whenever Noah stopped by the work site. Josiah had been proud of Roger, and when he was killed, Josiah was devastated. Noah gave him a week off to be with his parents and sister.
Now Josiah was gone as well.
Noah wondered again about the wisdom of coming back to Cedar Ridge. But he had made a promise to his mother and his cousin Cord, whose wedding he had come to attend, and he couldn’t back out now.
“My daddy was a hero,” Millie put in. “That’s what my grandpa says. A genuine hero.”
Noah experienced a tinge of melancholy at the girl’s admiring words. A doctor working selflessly for other people. That was the very definition of hero. “He sure was,” he agreed.
“Not for two hours?” Shauntelle’s annoyed cry broke into the conversation. She clutched her cell phone in one hand, the other grabbing her head. “Okay. I guess I don’t have a choice.”
She slid her phone in the back pocket of her blue jeans, her hands clasped around the back of her neck. It wasn’t hard to read the frustration on her face.
“That’s a long wait,” Noah said.
“Yep.” Shauntelle massaged her neck with her hands, then dropped them on her hips. “Well, girls, guess we’re stuck here for a while.”
An awkward silence fell at that. Noah knew he couldn’t leave Shauntelle here. The road dead-ended at his mother’s ranch. If Carmen Fisher was in Calgary, she wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours. There was only one other family who lived down this road.
“Do you know if Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are home?” he asked.
“They only come in the summer,” the other twin said with a tone of resignation. “No one else will come down this road.”
And his mother couldn’t help them out either. She hadn’t been feeling well the past few weeks, which was one of the reasons he’d made the trip back to Cedar Ridge. She hadn’t been diagnosed with anything specific. Some vertigo, some headaches, low iron. Just worn and weary, was all she would tell him.
“Can you help us do deliveries?” Millie asked. “You have a big truck.”
“Mr. Cosgrove is probably busy.” Shauntelle’s voice held an undertone of condemnation. “I’ll try Leanne. Maybe she can help. She’s got a big SUV.”
She punched in another set of numbers, which was followed by a few seconds of silence. Guess that was a no-go too. He saw the battle on Shauntelle’s face, and he knew she fought her anger with him and the reality of her situation.
“I don’t mind helping,” he said.
“Okay. Fine.” She tossed out the words like they were poison. “I need to make a delivery to Mrs. Fisher’s place. If you could bring me back to my parents’ house after, that would be great.”
“But what about all the other stuff?” Millie put in. “You said we need to deliver them to get enough money for the eggs in your nest.”
Noah repressed a grin at the mash-up of the term.
“Can you help us deliver those too?” Millie asked, turning to Noah and giving him a mournful look.
