Alaskan Sweethearts

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“I’m surprised you don’t have Joey accompanied by more than a teddy bear,” he added finally, shaking his head. “I’d think you’d have guard dogs.”

She acknowledged his words. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”

“Surely your grandmother...” he began.

“She’s the reason I haven’t gathered those guard dogs,” Scarlett said, relieved to tell the man what kind of a person he was up against. “She believes no one is so bad that they can’t change. It agitates her if I say otherwise.”

“I know a woman who says the same—that with the good Lord’s help any of us can start over.”

“Hallelujah,” Scarlett said drily. So he had a woman. She should have known.

“She taught me in Sunday school when I was a boy,” Hunter added. “Mrs. Hargrove is her name. I stopped going to church for years, but I always remembered what she told me and a year ago I made my peace with God and started going again. My grandfather and I both did.”

Scarlett tried hard not to be pleased that Mrs. Hargrove wasn’t a romantic interest. Still, she didn’t want any misunderstandings.

“I’m not much on church myself,” she said. “I still believe in God, but it just doesn’t add up right. God does let people down. And, sometimes, He refuses to help those who ask. I know. It’s happened to me. What kind of God is that?”

Hunter smiled wryly. “He’s not a celestial vending machine, if that’s what you mean. I know that much. You don’t just put in a prayer and wait for the request you ordered to come shooting out. Life is more difficult than that. God is more complex. We are more flawed.”

He said the last in a whisper, as though it pained him.

“What do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Just that sometimes we mess up and there’s no going back to fix it.”

“Oh.” Scarlett waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “I’m just saying it would be nice to have help sometimes.”

She still felt she was a Christian, which was the cruel part of all this. She couldn’t help believing in Him. But she no longer trusted that He was there to help when she needed Him. She wasn’t going to tell that to Hunter, though. Not if he wasn’t going to tell her what had happened to put that look on his face. Anyway, she had to live in the real world if she was going to protect her son. She couldn’t rely on anyone, and especially not a God who never seemed to show up.

Hunter was silent for so long she wondered what he was thinking.

“You’re not going to try to change my mind?” she finally asked. “My grandmother would be making her arguments by now.”

“I’m not your grandmother,” he said mildly.

“I see that.”

“And I know it sometimes seems that God doesn’t care,” he added. “Like I said, I was away from God for a long time, too.”

She was glad he wasn’t going to scold her. Maybe he even understood.

A streak of lightning flashed between the clouds and seconds later a loud clap of thunder rattled the windows. Scarlett shivered as fat drops of rain fell from the sky. Hunter stepped close enough to shield her from the worst of it, but not all. She was grateful for that as the rain hid the tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t realized until now just how upset she’d been that God had let her down. Before she’d married Victor, she’d believed in a God who loved her. Because her father had left them when she was young, she’d felt particularly vulnerable. She’d prayed, specifically asking Him if she should marry Victor. He hadn’t sent any sign not to do it. He hadn’t even punished Victor for leaving, either. Bad people truly did win. Now all she had was a raw emptiness where her faith had once been.

“We best get back inside.” Hunter put his arm around her shoulders and led her toward the door. “No point in standing out here and drowning in the rain.”

She looked up at him, trying to regain her composure. “No one drowns in the rain.”

He might know she’d been crying, but she wasn’t sure. The politeness she saw in his eyes made her suspect, though—as if he was being careful not to intrude on her emotions just as he’d been careful not to reveal all his emotions when they’d talked.

“Turkeys do,” Hunter said blandly as he opened the door and smiled down at her. “Stupidest bird you ever want to meet. They open their mouths when it rains and look up at the sky until they literally drown.”

It wasn’t until Scarlett stepped over the threshold into the café that she realized she was no better than a turkey. Her new silk suit would be ruined unless she got it all wet soon. The only way to do that was to take it off and put it in water or to keep it on and go back out into the rain. If she didn’t, then the hundreds of rain spots would dry and the material would never be evenly colored again.