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The other man grumbled something under his breath and kept his head down, revealing a bald spot. He continued to add to his mound of carrots.
“We always make plenty. Some people come from the other side of town for a bowl of Miss Livvy’s soup.”
“Bruce, you have three months before you need to start buttering me up for an extension.”
The two laughed. Even the old guy managed to contort his face into a grin of sorts.
“Will you wash up and give me a hand with this, please?” Olivia held a couple of quilted mitts toward Heath. “These potatoes are ready to be mashed, but I need you to drain the water off first. Over there.” She pointed to one of several deep sinks.
He quickly soaped and rinsed his hands, donned the mitts and then carefully dodged the blistering curtain of steam that rose off the potatoes as they drained into a wire colander. “Thanks for the gloves.”
“Good kitchen help is hard to find. We try not to injure a new recruit on his first day.” She placed a mixing bowl about half the size of the Astrodome on the counter before him.
“Now what?” Heath waited for instructions.
“We ain’t got time to hold your hand,” Amos barked.
“Sorry, sir,” Heath responded to the jibe. “I’m better with a Mac than macaroni.”
“Oh, a wise guy,” the older man bristled. “Well, if you’re gonna stay with us for a while you’d better get acquainted with the business end of a potato masher.”
Olivia handed Heath a utensil with a zigzag shape on one end. He brought it close to his face and studied the strange kitchen tool, trying to recall if he’d ever seen anything like it.
“I was planning to leave you in Bruce and Amos’s capable hands, but I’ve got some time to help out since I’m already prepared for tonight’s Bible study.”
Bible study?
Before he could question her last comment Olivia got busy giving him a cooking lesson. She scooped a portion of the steaming potatoes into the stainless steel bowl and then squashed away like she was working off a grudge.
“I think my mother used instant potatoes or maybe an electric mixer. Wouldn’t that be faster?”
“Look, Steve Jobs,” Amos snapped, “money don’t grow on trees around here. We make do with what’s donated. We only have one big mixer and it’s busy smoothin’ the lumps out of Bruce’s pitiful excuse for gravy.” He pointed toward a machine humming away on a countertop across the room.
“So I used a little too much flour,” Bruce defended himself. “Lighten up, old geezer.” He emphasized the insult.
Amos snarled and cast a menacing scowl toward Bruce.
“Okay, you two. Give it a rest,” Olivia insisted. “Nobody will notice a few lumps in the gravy once it’s poured over the potatoes.”
Amos turned his glare toward Heath. “We’ll never know unless Miss Livvy gets some help.”
“Sorry.” Heath reached toward Olivia who handed over the masher. He dumped more boiled potatoes into the bowl as she’d done and began to mash with gusto, little gobs flying as he worked. He eventually got a tub of chunky, starchy gunk for his effort.
When he paused, Olivia handed him a spoon and they each took a sample mouthful.
“Kinda boring and gloppy, huh?” he asked, pretty sure nobody would want to eat the stuff.
She nodded, her smile sympathetic as she reached for a cup of water to wash down the bite.
Heath stared down at the mess. “Ugly, too,” he admitted.
“I’ll take it from here, Miss Livvy.” Amos elbowed between Heath and the counter. “Out of the way, newbie. I’ll fix it since you don’t have the kitchen instinct God gave a goose.”
Without measuring a thing, the older man upended bottles of strange seasonings, dropped chunks of butter and added streams of milk to the bowl. After a couple minutes of stirring with a huge spoon till he was red in the face, Amos swiped a taste and pronounced it passable.
“It’s time for me to go help in the dining room.” He handed the spoon to Heath. “Clean up over here, and then see if you can figure out how to open those plastic bags and put the rolls in the bread baskets. And try not to make any more mess than you already have, ya pig.” Amos jerked his head toward the potato-spattered countertop before he stomped from the room.
Heath slanted a questioning look at Olivia who shrugged in response.
“I admitted up front I don’t have any experience,” Heath explained, then turned to Bruce. “My mother didn’t like me in her way while she was cooking.”
“Is there a chance you ever insulted your mama while she was fixin’ you a meal?” Bruce asked. “’Cause that might explain why she didn’t want your company in her kitchen. Same goes for Amos.”
“Huh?” Heath hadn’t slept more than a few hours in a row for a couple of weeks, thanks to a stakeout where the good guys had come up nearly empty-handed. He was exhausted and asked to delay this assignment until tomorrow. But Biddle insisted that Heath get on the case right away, and without any of the disguises he normally used during undercover operations. He’d been told to report as is, clean-faced and bare-headed, a situation he’d never encountered before.
The confusion just kept on piling up. He strained his brain to understand the comparison Bruce had just made between Heath’s mama and Amos. Obviously he’d done something wrong. “Are you saying I insulted the guy?”
“When you came into the kitchen with Miss Livvy we heard what you said about sir being code for feeble old geezer. When you called Amos sir two beats later, I thought that big vein on the side of his neck might explode.”
“I was simply showing respect,” Heath explained.
“You can’t have it both ways. Everything’s black and white with Amos.”
Heath looked to Olivia, who nodded agreement.
He hung his head. How he wished for a beard and horn-rimmed glasses to hide his naked face. There was comfort beneath camouflage. Being out in the world like this made him feel exposed.
Judged.
The real Heath Stone wasn’t exactly a guy people took to right away. And who could blame them?
Most days Heath didn’t even like himself.
“Oh, don’t worry too much about it,” Olivia said, cutting him a break. “It may take a while, but Amos will warm up to you once he gets to know you.”
“How long you plan to stay?” Bruce asked. A smirk twisted one corner of his mouth. “I’ve been here three months and he’s still calling me Bryan.”
“Well, Bryan,” Olivia picked up the joke, “things are under control in here so how about checking with Velma to see if she needs help? With these freezing temps I expect a full-capacity night.”
Bruce nodded, scrapped his pile of chopped vegetables into a container and stored it in an oversized fridge. He hung his apron over a peg on the way out of the kitchen.
“Sorry I got off to a bad start,” Heath felt he should apologize, though he wasn’t sure he’d done anything so awful.
“Most people have the same experience with Amos.” Olivia tore big sheets of tin foil from a roll mounted on the wall and tucked them over the giant bowl of mashed potatoes.
“Including you?” Heath grabbed paper towels and began to clean up the mess he’d made.
When she didn’t respond right away, he glanced up. He was captivated for the second time that hour by the fair skin that rose above the neck of her sweater and the short crop of jet-black hair framing her face. Something quickened inside Heath’s chest at the thought of this woman being guilty of trafficking drugs, especially if it was to support her thieving father who’d fled the country a decade earlier to avoid prosecution for tax evasion. The Feds had never given up on finding Dalton Wyatt and they wondered if he might somehow be behind the recent influx of meth and ecstasy that seemed to be passing through this shelter.
Heath watched tiny lines crinkle the corners of Olivia’s indigo eyes, where she squinted as if the answer to his question was a pleasant memory.
“God’s touch was all over my first encounter with Amos.” The event was a sweet memory for Olivia. “We hit it off right away. He needed a place to live and I needed someone I could depend on.”
“What about your family?” Heath dipped his chin and turned his attention to wiping down the countertop.
“I’ve been on my own since high school, so help from family hasn’t been an option for years.”
She wondered how his life compared to hers. Wondered if he could possibly understand what it was like to be alone in the world, not knowing whether you’d have food to eat or a roof over your head from one day to the next. Heath Stone spent his life sitting at a computer while she went door-to-door asking for donations to feed the hungry. They probably didn’t have much in common at all.
Still, she’d been asked by Detective Biddle to let Heath repay his debt to the community through service at her mission. Maybe the time he spent at Table of Hope would have a life-changing impact. Maybe he’d find even more than anyone expected.
Chapter Two
Olivia watched Heath throughout the meal. He was obviously uncomfortable having his dinner in a shelter. He avoided eye contact, ate with his head down. He kept his elbows pulled close to his body, careful not to brush against his neighbors as if that would keep their cooties away.
The guy was definitely out of place among the homeless but after the strained introductions in the kitchen she suspected he might never find his personal comfort zone.
Anywhere.
Though Detective Biddle had briefly shared the circumstances that cost Heath a hundred hours of community service, she knew nothing about him personally. Was he a political activist or just a prankster? What on earth had compelled him to make the trip over from his home in Austin, visit the public library in Waco and use his talent to break into the city’s computer system? Whatever his objective, the price of reaching it had been high. The court had slapped Heath with the maximum number of hours and threatened him with contempt if he left Waco without serving his full sentence. They’d even impounded his vehicle!
If not for the creative thinking of Detective Biddle, Heath could be working highway detail during the coldest year on record. From the hangdog expression on his face he might actually prefer the road crew to eating in her cozy dining hall and sleeping in the men’s quarters for a while.
A shoulder nudged playfully against Olivia’s.
“Ain’t he somethin’, just like I said?” Velma whispered.
“Would you stop!” Olivia hissed, hiding the humor that would only encourage her friend.
“Mmm, mmm, mmm,” Velma smacked her always-painted lips. “That man needs a lady friend and I just might have to apply for the job, even if it’s only part-time.”
As Olivia stood to clear her plate from the table, she gave Velma’s arm a pinch. “You behave yourself,” she instructed. “We have rules here and for good reason.”
Even so, it was impossible to disagree with Velma’s assessment. Heath’s questioning brown eyes had met Olivia’s only once across the table. For the brief seconds she’d held his gaze, a deep sense of emptiness had stirred in her spirit. Olivia wasn’t experienced enough with relationships to know if the need she recognized was his or her own.
As she carried her plate toward the cleanup station, she tried to imagine what Heath thought of her cheerfully painted dining hall. She sniffed the warm air, wrinkled her nose. Okay, it got a bit smelly in the evenings with all the food and the crowd of people right off the street. But before lights out everyone would have an opportunity to freshen up, to appreciate a brief shower.
The hot water heaters would be nearly empty by the time the staff had a turn. But with a man as handsome as Heath Stone as their new resident, the chill of a cold shower was probably a good idea. Especially for Velma!
If Heath added up all the dishes he’d washed in his twenty-nine years of life, it would still be less than the number of plates that passed through his sink tonight. He was fairly sure this would become a frequent event, so he needed to accomplish the job he’d been sent to do and then make tracks toward a new future in a new place.
Just today he’d firmly decided to leave the force.
“I gotta get out of drug enforcement, Biddle,” Heath had complained to his trusted friend at lunchtime over chips and vending machine sandwiches. “What’s the use in bustin’ college kids for dime bags when there’s an endless supply out there? It’s just a waste of effort and tax dollars.”
“Oh, come on,” Biddle chuckled. “It was a bigger deal than that. You’re just sufferin’ poststakeout blues. You say this every time a case wraps and you have to cool your heels waitin’ on the grand jury.”
Bill Biddle was patient to a fault when a cop needed to let off steam. Venting had become a daily occurrence for Heath, frustrated as he was by the constant stream of drugs across the Mexican border into Texas.
“It would be different if the indictments paid off,” Heath griped. “But the honcho of this new outfit seems to have an endless supply of product and every money-grubbin’ lawyer in Texas in his hip pocket. Living in disguise twenty hours a day is making it harder and harder to remember who I am. It’s just not worth it to me anymore.”
“Listen, son.” Biddle had laced his fingers across a sixty-something belly. “I know going undercover wasn’t your first career choice, but you’re good at the work. Stick with us till we can afford another full-timer in the Computer Crimes Unit. Microsoft and Google aren’t the only places a natural nerd can find his calling, you know.”
Heath reached for another dirty plate, grateful for the ugly yellow gloves that were a barrier between him and cleaning up after these homeless people. This place was definitely not for him and the sooner he was out from under the eagle eye of Grandpa Amos, the better.
Earlier, while Heath picked up the shattered pieces of a fumbled cup, he’d foolishly mentioned that using disposable stuff might be a good idea. He was swiftly educated about the virtues of soap, water and elbow grease versus garbage that would still be in a landfill when Christ returned. Then Amos started in about the number of trees that died for the sake of paper plates when a restaurant supply had donated perfectly good dishes.
“And, by the way, butterfingers,” he’d warned, “try not to break anything else. Money’s tight around here!”
Olivia’s return to the kitchen was like a sedative, quieting the curmudgeon who was a cranky Pit Bull guarding his boss lady’s business. As she picked up a stack of clean bowls near Heath’s work area and then stepped away, a sweet aroma lingered. She turned to carry them to the dish pantry and he seized the moment.
“Um, excuse me. Could we talk?”
“Sure,” she answered. A patient smile lifted the corners of her tired eyes. Setting the bowls back on the counter, she grabbed a fresh kitchen towel to dry the coffee cups in his drainer. The woman’s hands hadn’t been still since she’d introduced herself. He knew rookie cops who could use a dose of her stamina.
“It’s been crazy here tonight,” she admitted. “That’s the nature of a shelter in the winter. When the weather’s warm, folks leave right after the meal, but if it’s freezing we tend to bed down almost everybody. And even when it finally gets quiet, there still seem to be a dozen problems that need attention.”
“I noticed.” He’d only been in the place a few hours and had already come to the conclusion there must be easier ways to get some of the jobs done. But if it was all a front for drugs, why care about efficiency?
“So, what can I do for you?” she asked.
Before he bothered to state his case, Heath was pretty sure what the woman standing beside him would say, but he needed an opportunity to poke around the place when everybody else would be occupied. He gave it a shot.
“You can tell me Amos is wrong about nightly Bible study being a requirement of staying here.”
Olivia flung her red checkered towel over her left shoulder and pointed to a plaque on the wall above their heads. It was identical to the one he’d noticed above the front entrance.
Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
“We’re in the business of seeking God. Shelter and food are only the physical part of what Table of Hope is about. Introducing lost souls to Christ and helping believers grow closer to Him is the primary reason we’re here. If you’re going to be with us even for a short while, worship is nonnegotiable. It’s a daily time that brings the staff together with a common heart.”
“But what if I don’t believe that stuff anymore? Why would you want me to take part if I didn’t feel the same way you do?”
“Faith comes by hearing the message and the message comes through the Word of God. Just because you don’t feel the same way I do doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit can’t use Scripture to meet your needs, whatever they are.”
Heath’s jaw tightened, sending a pinpoint of pain into his temple. This shouldn’t be a big deal. He’d find another way to skin this cat. But having somebody force religion on him rankled all the same, reminded him of the well-meaning adoptive parents who were forever trying to suck him into their church activities. Once they moved to Florida, he thought this sort of coercion was behind him.
Evidently not.
“I’ll cooperate because I have to, just like I have to wash dishes.” Heath reached for more dirty flatware and slid spoons and forks into the sudsy water while keeping his gaze away from the intensity of Olivia’s oh-so-lovely eyes. “But I want to say up front that requiring me to listen to Bible study will be about as effective as forcing me to do community service. Neither one can rehabilitate the person I am inside.”
A hand rested lightly on his shoulder. His already tense muscles stiffened more.
“Is it being stuck here that’s got you keyed up or are you angry at the world in general?”
“Is submitting to therapy also a requirement of your program?” He glanced at the spot where her fingers touched him, warming the flesh beneath the fabric of his long-sleeved shirt.
Olivia pulled her hand away. She reached for another dish and continued to help in spite of his rudeness.
