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Michael dropped his hands to his sides. “No. I have no idea where she is. I doubt she’d seek me out.”
“But he wants her to!” Avery called out even as the man nodded and went back out the door.
“Avery, that’s enough,” Michael snapped.
“What’s the big deal? You’re single. My mom always says, ‘Michael’s a minister, he’s not a monk.’ She says she wishes you’d find a nice girl but you’re too hung up on some girl who…” The girl’s jaw dropped. She jumped up from the pew so fast she knocked a hymnal from the rack. “No way!”
“I said that’s enough.” He had dealt with far too much chaos these last few weeks. He did not need any more of it in his life, especially from an already-hard-to-handle teenager with a gleam in her eye and an impossible matchmaking scheme churning in her mind.
“But…but she’s the girl, isn’t she?” Avery pointed to the door. “You should go. She’s in town somewhere! You should go and find her and tell her—”
“She doesn’t want to hear anything from me.” Though Michael wasn’t sure why Heather felt the way she did, she had made herself perfectly clear. Michael had never wanted anything for Heather but her happiness.
If talking to him, or even just seeing him brought back old feelings that caused her pain, then Michael would do everything in his power to honor her wishes and make himself scarce around her.
“But if she needs a building as a base, maybe she could work out of the church. Then the two of you could—”
“There is no two of us. Don’t you get that, Avery?” He raised his voice to his niece in the house of the Lord. If just talking about Heather Waters did this to him, he was better off avoiding her anyway.
He clenched his jaw, then eased his breath out slowly. “I’m sorry. I…You were right when you said I’ve been really grumpy lately.”
“No problem,” she said quietly. But a quiet born of anger, embarrassment, injured feelings, not respect.
Not good, Michael thought. He had made so much progress bringing Avery out of her surly shell and now he had all but shoved her right back into it.
“Avery, I—”
“What did you want me to do around here?” She bent and picked up the hymnal and all but jammed it back in the rack.
“You can stay and go around the building picking up whatever the wind has blown in or…” He hesitated to send her out on a snack run now. One of her mother’s concerns was that as her defiance grew she’d decide to strike out on her own, or take off with some of her more questionable friends. “Or just put the vacuum away and make a couple of sandwiches in the church kitchen.”
She folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “What? Am I grounded?”
Suddenly, even having her take the shortcut through the parking lot to the small parsonage felt risky. “No. You’re not grounded. I just think…” That he was in over his head dealing with a mouthy young teen with raging hormones and authority issues. “Look, just stay in the church while I go get us some sodas. Answer the phone. Take messages. I won’t be gone long.”
“Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.” She turned, went to the door in a sulky huff, then looked back over her shoulder, and through clenched teeth added, “Ever.”
The door swung open and shut.
A burst of wind stirred the grit-filled air.
Michael shut his eyes intending to send up a prayer dart, a quick, focused plea for…
He needed guidance about Avery. He needed clear views and insight and the sort of inner peace that only comes from quiet contemplation. He needed to find a way to put the woman who had held his heart for more than a decade out of his thoughts for good.
“I need a cold soda,” he muttered. He opened his eyes and took a step, bumping into the old vacuum. Dust flew, dancing in the sunlight once more and leaving a film on his arms, shirt and jeans.
Life, Michael reminded himself, came from the dust. Which seemed very appropriate, because at the moment he felt like dirt.
Chapter Two
“You are the only person I know who takes time off from work to do some more work.”
“I’m not staying in High Plains. I have hotel reservations in Kansas City that they will only hold until 6:00 p.m. By tomorrow I’ll be shopping on the Plaza. Today I’m just stopping in for a few hours, maybe half a day, to check on the cabins. They are my responsibility now, you know.” Heather kept both hands on the steering wheel of the SUV that had come to her after her father’s death. She tried to keep talking and driving to a minimum but today she welcomed the company, though she could have done with a little less static from Mary Kate in her earpiece.
“Your dad has only been gone a few weeks, Heather.” Mary Kate seemed to need to remind Heather. “After all those days shuttling between work and caring for him in the hospital, you’ve had almost no time to grieve.”
“We each grieve in our own way, in our own time.” Heather had been grieving the absence of Edward Waters almost her entire life. In their last few days together, they had reached a resolution that was at least satisfying. Edward had let her know how much he appreciated her visits and she had thanked him for providing for her so comfortably as a child and for leaving her the bulk of his estate, including the cottages in High Plains. “I’ll have plenty of time for…for myself once I get the temporary intake worker set up here. I left High Plains a long time ago. There’s nothing to keep me here even a few hours longer than necessary.”
She went gliding past the cottages. Since she had agreed to meet the intake worker in town, she did not stop at her property. Though they had really begun to show their age, the cottages looked pretty good at first glance. Needed paint and some cosmetic shoring up, clearing away of dead brush, but otherwise, not bad.
As always the river that lay beyond them wound on in a swift, constant current. It served to remind her that life went on. God’s eye was on every living thing and even when things seemed out of control, He was always in charge. His will, His plan remained steadfast.
“Nothing for you in High Plains?” Mary Kate asked. “Are you sure? Not even that cutie-pie of a minister?”
Heather clenched her jaw and stared at the road. “I have no intention of even seeing Michael Garrison. Trust me.”
“Wow, Heather.” Without a tsk or a tut or a cluck, just a subtle shift in the tone of her voice, Mary Kate slid into mother-hen mode. “Isn’t it awfully hard to drive that way?”
Heather leaned forward, squinting at the horizon, not letting her assistant’s attitude intrude on the moment as she scanned the once-familiar road. She should have seen the first signs of High Plains by now. But all she saw was dirt—trash blowing about and the occasional downed tree.
Finally, she sighed, showing her impatience with her own faltering memory, which must have all but rewritten the landscape around her. She asked, “Drive what way?”
“With that big ol’ chip on your shoulder?”
“I don’t…I didn’t…You don’t understand. Michael was my friend since…”
She passed the spot where a sign that welcomed people to High Plains had once stood and saw only two posts thrusting up out of a concrete base. The posts were twisted and bent like the gnarled branches of a long-dead tree.
She was at the edge of town, where Main Street should have been populated with well-kept buildings and neatly groomed sidewalks. She turned her head to look at the park that lay between the cottages and the Old Town Hall.
Heather took her foot off the gas pedal as the realization hit her. It was not her memory that had faded. She was seeing the first signs of High Plains, of what was left of High Plains. “Oh, Mary Kate. It’s gone.”
“The chip?”
“The town.” Heather managed only a whisper as she scanned the space from where the gazebo used to stand to the bare spot where the Old Town Hall, a symbol of the very heart of the community, had once stood. “I have to go, Mary Kate. I’ll call you later.”
If her assistant protested, Heather did not know. She took the earpiece off and tossed it onto the seat next to her.
She looked at the rubble, then toward the town stretched out along Main Street ahead of her. Here and there something remained seemingly untouched. Trash and leaves blew about, the empty sidewalks giving the place a sense of being neglected and abandoned.
She had thought she was prepared for what she would find, but she had not counted on the potent mix of sparseness and destruction and her own muddled emotions. Her eyes stung. She willed herself to stay strong and calm.
Never let them see you cry.
Tears did not change things. They had not made her father love her and they did not inspire confidence in people looking for reassurance in times of turmoil. These people had gone through enough without a weepy former local showing up and adding to it. She had to focus. She had to fix her mind on what had brought her here.
She lifted her eyes and caught a glimpse of High Plains Christian Church at the end of Main Street. Aside from a few odd-colored shingles, the obvious sign of patching on the roof, it looked just as it had that summer day ten years ago when she had run off and left…
“Michael?”
Loss and embarrassment, feelings she could not define and the memory of a happiness she had long forgotten came crashing in on Heather at just seeing Michael Garrison again.
She let the car roll to a stop as she concentrated on the lone figure walking along Main Street toward the church. If she had not seen him on the news the day after the twister, Heather doubted she would ever have imagined that the tall, broad-shouldered man in faded jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt could be the same kid who had taught her not to be afraid of a pop fly. Or the skinny teenager who had allowed her to be like a member of his family and thus learn the importance of one. She certainly wouldn’t have guessed it was the young man she had smacked in the face with a wedding bouquet.
Still a block away from the church, she watched the man in front pause and look up toward the steeple. Sunlight tipped his dark brown hair in golden highlights. He lifted his hand, the one not holding two cans of soda, to shade his face. He stood there a moment as if gathering strength. But for what?
Heather needed only to glance around her to have her answer. Michael Garrison loved High Plains. He loved his family, who had built so much of the town. She did not doubt that he loved his congregation. Right now, all the people Michael loved were trying to come to terms with the agony and confusion in the aftermath of this catastrophe. Of course the man needed strength.
What a blessing that he knew he could find it—from the Lord, first, but also from the town, from his family, from his congregation and from…
“Me.” Heather could all but see how Mary Kate would give her best “What am I going to do with you?” head shake at that. She didn’t care. She had come to High Plains to see if she could help, if there was anyone in need.
And she saw a need in Michael.
She directed the heavy SUV up the street. The sound of small rocks, twigs and debris crunching under the tires must have alerted Michael, because he turned and squinted in her direction. He did not seem to recognize her.
Butterflies dipped and dove in her stomach. She bit her lower lip to contain her smile at having the upper hand on her old friend. Her ex-friend, she corrected herself.
She took a deep breath and considered stepping on the gas and not slowing down, much less stopping. But when she got close enough to see his face, so warm and ready to greet whoever had come into his town, she let down her guard…and rolled down the window.
“Need a lift or you plan on staying true to your old nickname, Take-A-Hike Mike?”
“Take-A…” He squinted, stepped toward the SUV, then broke into a broad grin. “Heather? Heather Duster? Is that you?”
“I told you I’d be here when the dust settled.” She hit the electric door lock and it popped up. “Hop in.”
“I’m just going over to the church. Just about to grab a sandwich for lunch.” He gestured with the soda cans clasped in his strong grasp. “Hey, you should join us.”
“Us?” The single-syllable word hit Heather like a slap in the face. It had never dawned on Heather that Michael might be a part of an us now.
“My niece has been staying with me this summer. Avery? You remember Avery, don’t you?”
“Remember her?” Heather relaxed, though for the life of her she couldn’t imagine why thinking that Michael Garrison had a significant other in his life would make her tense. She laughed and scooted toward the passenger side to better talk to him. “I helped you babysit her when she was little. In fact, I drove you to your sister’s to do it because you didn’t have a car.”
“I was saving money for college. Besides, who needed a car when one of your best friends got the latest model for her sixteenth birthday?”
Heather ran her hand along the leather dashboard of the new SUV that had come to her as part of her inheritance and said softly, “A car was always easier to give than affection.”
Michael folded his arms on the open window and leaned in, all concern and kindness. “How is your father?”
“He died two weeks ago.” She hung her head for only a moment before looking at Michael again. “That’s why I couldn’t get to High Plains until now.”
“Heather, I am so sorry.” He reached out to her.
“It’s not…” She looked down at where his tanned and rugged hand grasped the pale, soft skin of her arm. His calluses and scars bore evidence of the kind of work he had been doing, that he had put his time, his effort, his very body out there to serve others. It humbled her, knowing she had spent most of the last year fund-raising, doing paperwork and dealing with her father’s last days as if it were just another item on her already crowded to-do list. The contrast struck her in more ways than one. “I appreciate your sympathy but I’m all right.”
“That’s good to know. Now tell me, are we all right?”
“We?” She looked up into his eyes. They were still blue. So very blue. In them shone depths of hope and faith and gentleness that Heather had never seen before.
She flexed her fingers and pursed her lips. Tell him you forgive him, her mind urged. But her mouth could not seem to form the words. She had trusted him more than she had ever trusted anyone in her whole life. “Michael, I think you should know I’m only here for—”
“I just can’t work in this—” a man interjected, wiping his nose “—environment.”
“Hey, Mr. Paisley!” Michael stepped back and held his hand out to indicate Heather. “This is the lady you were looking for.”
“Good! I…I…I quit!” He coughed, then gave a wave to Heather through the window. “I’m sorry, Ms. Waters, but I have allergies and that…that…that young lady…”
“Avery?” Michael frowned. “Avery did something to you?”
“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, but…” Paisley coughed then kept moving past them, calling after himself. “But I think that before you turn that young lady loose in your church with a vacuum again, you probably should instruct her that the dust is supposed to go into the bag, not spew out of it.”
“She was probably trying to help,” Michael said to Heather through slightly clenched teeth.
“But you can’t quit…if you run off I’ll have to…” Heather pushed open the passenger door and leaned out to call after the man, who was already fumbling to get into a small car parked at an odd angle along the devastated remnants of the street.
He got in and slammed the door. The engine started.
“Stay myself,” she murmured even as the man waved again and pulled away.
“Sorry about that.” Michael peered at her through the lowered window of the opened passenger door. He scratched his scalp, his head lowered just enough to hide his full expression, then his gaze flicked upward, finding her. His lips twitched. He did not look one bit sorry at all. “I’d have offered to run him down and tackle him. Get him in a hammerlock or…uh…throw a monkey wrench at him or…uh, give him a proper Bible thumping, but I don’t think it would have mattered.”
Heather sighed. She could make a joke about his poor athletic prowess but she just didn’t feel like laughing right now. She felt like…
She met Michael’s gaze.
Her breath caught in the back of her throat. Despite the August heat, her skin drew into a million tiny tingle bumps. She had no idea what that feeling winding around inside her was. Fear? Anger? Frustration? Joy?
Heather put her chilled fingertips against her collarbone and pressed her lips together. She could not identify her own reaction, but she did know that she was in a bind. Her temp worker had flaked out and it would take at least a couple of days to get a new one in.
“It’s good to see you, Heather. I really didn’t think you’d come back.”
She hadn’t. Not to stay.
“I have reservations at a hotel that…” She just could not finish that sentence. She could not look at the devastation in High Plains or face the dedication in Michael’s eyes and announce her intentions to go shopping on the Plaza.
Good and bad, this town and its people had given her her start. Couldn’t she give them twenty-four hours of her long-overdue time off?
The church’s bells rang out, making Michael jump. She supposed if he’d been another kind of man he’d have cussed a blue streak. Instead, he winced and ducked his head, his eyes scrunched shut.
“Problem?” she had to ask.
“Always.” He opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on her as though nothing else in the world mattered. “But the good news in all this is that it’s brought an old friend back. I could sure use a friend right now. That’s gotta make things better, right?”
Decision time. Leave and put the town and Michael behind her. Or stay and take a chance at putting the past behind her and getting on with her life.
I need a friend right now. The sincerity of his words got to her. This wasn’t just another job for her charity, not just another case. This was her hometown. This was a man who had once been her teammate, her confidant, her friend.
