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“You’re very observant.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
With a small grin, she peered back at him.
Given time, he hoped to reach this woman.
Maybe even help bring some peace to her life.
“It’s just good to hear that my kid thinks so highly of me,” she said. “I worry how unfair all of this has been to Ellen. She’s taken on a lot with the younger kids, especially since she got her driver’s license.”
“Life isn’t fair.” It was one of the first lessons he’d had to learn.
Martha frowned. “That’s an odd thing for a preacher to say.”
“Why?” he asked, serious and intent. “It’s the truth.” She turned her head, not looking at him. He was losing her. “Besides,” he added with a grin, “you already know I’m odd. You told me so. A couple of weeks ago. In my own chapel. It’s one of those moments that stand out.”
She smiled and he breathed a little easier. “Give it up, Preacher,” she said lightly. “You aren’t going to send me on a guilt trip over that one.”
She had him all wrong. Sending her on a guilt trip was the last thing on his agenda.
But it probably wasn’t a bad idea to keep her guessing. At least he had her attention.
Now he just had to find a reason for them to spend more time together.
ELLEN WASN’T HAVING the best day. Thursday night, less than a week after the most perfect Valentine’s Day she’d ever imagined, she’d gone and fought with Aaron over something stupid. He’d agreed to partner with Karen Anderson for his biology project, and Ellen had been furious—even though she knew that Karen had won first prize in a state college science competition the year befor
e and was the perfect partner for a young man who hoped to graduate summa cum laude. Never mind that she—Ellen, his girlfriend—had equally high marks. However, she was majoring in English, not sciences.
Clocking out in the back room at Wal-Mart, she grabbed her sweater and purse from her locker, said goodbye to the mentally challenged man who did nighttime janitorial work, and hurried out to her car, avoiding eye contact with anyone. The customers had been unusually cantankerous that evening and she didn’t feel like talking.
Aaron had accused her of not trusting him. And she didn’t blame him. She’d overreacted.
And she did trust him. It was just men in general that she had trouble believing in. She hadn’t told him about her father’s last phone call—the new baby on the way. Nor about the nights following that call when she’d heard her mother crying in her room after she thought they were all asleep. Ellen hadn’t known what to do, what she could possibly say that could ease her mother’s pain. In the end, she’d cried, too.
Sometimes life sucked.
Her car wouldn’t start. Ellen turned the key a third time, pumping the gas pedal, but nothing happened. And she knew why. She’d just used the last of her gas to flood the tank. The gauge had been on Empty when she’d driven to work, but she’d been running late—because of fighting with Aaron—and had decided to fuel up on the way home.
She should’ve done it after she left college that afternoon, before picking up her sisters and brother from school. There was a station right around the corner from the university.
Head on the steering wheel, she promised herself she wouldn’t cry. She’d never run out of gas before. Wasn’t sure what she should do.
Except not call her mother. There was no way she was going to add more problems to her mom’s already overflowing plate. The gas station was too far to walk. And she couldn’t call Aaron. Not after she’d stomped off the way she had.
This was her problem. She’d gotten herself into it. She’d get herself out of it.
Filled with resolve, feeling better, stronger, more in control, she climbed out of the car and headed for the highway off-ramp just beyond the Wal-Mart parking lot. She’d noticed a girl hitchhiking out there once before, and she’d been picked up almost immediately by a car coming off the highway and heading toward town. Not that it surprised her. That was how things were in Shelter Valley, where there was always someone nice willing to help out.
Purse in hand, she reached the road, stuck out her thumb with uncharacteristic boldness and waited. She would ask to be dropped at Aaron’s dorm. First she’d beg his forgiveness, because that was all she really cared about at the moment. And then, if he accepted her apology, she’d tell him about her car. He would know where to find a gas can. And he’d drive her back to the parking lot.
Without telling her even once how stupid she’d been to run out of gas in the first place. That was Aaron’s way.
It was only one of the hundreds of reasons she loved him so much.
Lost in thoughts of the boyfriend she couldn’t imagine living without, Ellen almost didn’t notice the brand-new Lexus that pulled up beside her. It took the open passenger door and the loud “Get in” to garner her attention. She didn’t recognize the car—or the older man at the wheel—which was unusual in Shelter Valley. But she certainly recognized that the suit he was wearing was expensive.
He could be a friend of Will and Becca Parsons, her mother’s best friends. As president of Montford University, Will Parsons was always entertaining rich and important people from Phoenix. And his wife, Becca, the new mayor of Shelter Valley, knew her share of rich folk, too.
