Heart and Soul

“Not so much. I’m sorta fond of hot water and plumbing.” It was hard to talk past the painful emotion knotted in the center of her chest. “I guess what I miss is the way things used to be. How close we all used to be. The fun we used to have. I know everyone grows up and everything changes, but it just seems sad.”

“Some days I think the best part of my life is behind me. Times spent with my folks on the farm. Those were good memories. I haven’t been that happy again.”

“I hope that I will. One day.”

“Me, too.”

Amazing that this perfect stranger understood. That they had this in common. The knot of emotion swelled until her throat ached and her eyes burned. It was grieving, she knew, for the better times in her life. Pastor Bill had told her that the best was still ahead of her. To have faith.

Is that the way Brody felt? Did he look around at other people who were starting marriages and families or raising their children and see their happiness? Did he long to be part of that warm loving world of family and commitment the way she did? Did he feel so lonely some nights it hurt to turn the lights out and hear the echoes in the room?

Maybe Pastor Bill was right. Maybe life was like a hymn with many verses, but the song’s melody remained a familiar pattern. One that God had written for each person singularly. And maybe she was starting the second verse of hers.

She had faith. She had no patience, but she had faith. And knowing that a perfect stranger, and one as handsome as the man beside her, was walking a similar path helped.

She pulled up to the well-lit ATM at the local bank and put the truck in Park. As Brody ambled up to the machine, rain began to fall. Small, warm drops polka-dotted her windshield and felt like tears.

Chapter Three

The plump woman behind the motel’s front desk cracked her gum and tilted her head to the side, forcing her bleached beehive at an angle that reminded Michelle of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. “Honey, we’re booked up solid. It’s tourist season. There are no vacancies from here to Yellowstone, but I’ll call around for you, if you’d like. See if there was a last-minute cancellation somewhere.”

“I’d sure appreciate that, ma’am.” Brody sounded patient and polite.

Michelle noticed he was looking pasty in the bad overhead lighting. He was in pain, she realized with a cinch in the middle of her chest. Much more than he was letting on. She remembered the prescription he didn’t want to fill.

So, he was a tough guy, was he? She wasn’t surprised.

But she was shocked at the dark patches in the woman’s hair. Someone had done a bad job—a seriously sloppy coloring job. Shameful, that’s what it was.

That was something she could fix. Michelle dug around in her purse and found a business card. This side of Bozeman wasn’t far at all from the pleasant little town she lived and worked in, and so, why not?

God had given her a talent for hairstyling, and maybe she ought to do good where she could. She dug around for a pen, found one beneath her compact and wrote on the back of her card, “Free cut and coloring. Just give me a call.”

“Maybe you’d better sit down before you fall down.” Michelle eyed Brody warily. He stood militarily straight, but dark bruises underscored his eyes. The muscles along his jaw were rigid, as if it took all his will to remain standing.

“I’m fine.” His terse reply was answer enough.

Yep, definitely a tough guy. Too macho for his own good. Michelle rolled her eyes and capped her pen. He wasn’t her responsibility, not entirely, but what was she going to do? Just leave him? He obviously needed help and he didn’t even know it.

“I’m sorry,” the clerk returned. “I’ve called all the chains and independents around. The closest vacancy I could find was a room in Butte.”

An hour away. Brody groaned. That wasn’t going to work. Maybe he’d call his emergency contact at the local office. See if he couldn’t crash on a fellow agent’s couch for the night. Brody thanked the woman for her trouble.

“If you’re interested,” Michelle said as she handed something to the woman. “On the house. For your trouble tonight.”

“Why, that’s awful nice of you.” She beamed at Michelle. “I’ll sure do that. I’ve been needing to make an appointment, and gosh, just couldn’t fit it into my budget.”

“Then I’ll be seeing you.” Michelle joined him at the door.

Had she just given away a free haircut? Brody pondered that.

“What are we going to do with you, mister?” Rain dripped off the overhead entrance and whispered in the evening around them as she flipped through her key ring.

“Abandon me in the street?” He shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Let me get my pack out of your truck before you go.”

“I’m not leaving you here.” With a flick of her hair, she marched toward her truck, fearless in the rain. “What are you standing there for? Hurry up. You’re coming with me.”

“As in, going home with you?”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

No way. That was too good to be true.

“What are you going to do? Sleep in the rain? My parents have this big house. They won’t mind a guest for the night.”

An invitation to spend the night in the McKaslins’ home. He was speechless at this rare opportunity. “They’d take a stranger into their house, just like that?”

“You can have the bed over the garage. Don’t worry. It’s nice. You can get a good night’s sleep, and in the morning one of us will drive you to town so you can check out the damage to your bike.” With a shrug, Michelle unlocked her truck and climbed behind the wheel.

He swiped rain out of his eyes and took refuge inside the cab. Unbelievable.

As the rain began falling in earnest, tapping like a hundred impatient drummers on the roof, he had this strange, sinking feeling. Just like the time when he’d been diving and his gear hung up on a snag, pulling him down against his will. “You shouldn’t be offering perfect strangers rides in your truck. Or to stay overnight in your parents’ house.”

“I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“You’re a man of faith.” She touched her own dainty cross.

“I don’t suppose you realize some people pretend to be what they’re not. To take advantage of others.” When he did so, he did it for justice. To protect the innocent citizens of this country.

He knew for a fact there were bad people in this world. And those bad people kept him and his colleagues well employed. Didn’t she have a clue? “I could be dangerous.”

“But you’re not. I have a sense about these things.” Michelle’s smile was pure sunlight—gentle and bright and true—as she turned her attention to her driving.

Unaware that she was about to bring a wolf in sheep’s clothes into her family’s home. A protective wolf, but one just the same.

The hard edge of his trusty revolver cut into his side, mocking him, concealed in the slim leather holder beneath his leather jacket.

“Besides, what else are you going to do? Walk all the way to Butte? You’re injured and I told you, I feel responsible.”

The way Michelle saw it, God might have placed her on that road at that exact moment just so that Brody wouldn’t be alone when he crashed to avoid the deer and her fawn.

Maybe she was meant to help him. As a Christian, it was her duty. How could she not help? It would be wrong.

She didn’t know if her mom would see it that way, but she was absolutely sure that her dad would, because he was cool. By now, her parents ought to be used to her habit of bringing home strays, right?

Even if she’d never brought home a stray this big before.