“Patricia Anne. Now.” Marie knew her raised voice was attracting undue attention but she didn’t care. As long as she couldn’t see her car, there was no guarantee it was all right. Not only was that vehicle their current means of escape, but also practically everything they owned was crammed into it.
Dragging the reluctant little girl by the hand and praying silently, Marie hurried toward the exit. Something made her stop in the small entryway and look up just before she pushed through the glass outer door.
A muscular man in jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt was preparing to climb into the box truck. He had one booted foot planted on the step, his hand on the open driver’s door. Nothing about the scene would have bothered Marie if the trucker hadn’t paused to stare straight at her—and kept on staring.
She stood very still, wondering if she’d be able to make her feet move if she had to. Seconds crept by. A group of noisy, jostling teenagers piled out of a yellow school bus and filed between Marie and the menacing truck driver, temporarily distracting her and blocking her view.
She had to step back and pull Patty close to allow the rowdy teens to squeeze by in the confining space of the entryway. When she looked back at the parking lot, she was relieved to note that the worrisome truck was slowly pulling away.
Her relief was short-lived. As the unmarked vehicle passed, the menace in the driver’s piercing gaze gave Marie chills all the way to her toes.
Marie’s car didn’t begin to run badly until later that afternoon. At first it just stuttered and missed a few times. Then it began to falter as if it wasn’t getting enough fuel.
Marie nursed the car into a filling station and garage off Highway 62. Was it was possible she was out of gas? She was trying to figure the distances in her head and make an educated guess when a tall, broad-shouldered man came toward her.
“That engine sounds like you have a problem,” he said amiably.
If he hadn’t been wearing a baseball cap with a repair service logo on it and wiping black grease off his hands as he spoke, Marie might have been worried by his approach.
She nervously combed her fingers through her cinnamon-colored hair and tucked the longer side tresses behind her ears out of habit. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It was running fine until a little while ago.”
“You from around here?” the man asked.
She tensed. “Why?”
“Just wondered,” he said, still smiling. “Want me to have a look at it for you?”
“I don’t know. I…”
“No charge,” he said. “I promise.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, looking for hidden motives behind the magnanimous offer. Maybe the good Lord was looking out for her after all, she reasoned, feeling guilty for being so suspicious. If God chose to use this man to bless her, who was she to refuse or to doubt?
“I’m just being neighborly,” he said. “The name’s Seth Whitfield.”
“Pleased to meet you. If you think you can tell anything about my car by looking, go for it. Just don’t start taking things apart. I can’t afford expensive repairs.”
“It’s a deal.” He raised the hood, propped it up and leaned in.
Marie got Patty out of the car and stood with her in the shade of the service station bay while the man tinkered with her car. If she’d had the slightest warning that she’d need to make a cross-country trip she’d at least have had the car serviced first.
Penitent, she took a moment to thank God that she’d managed to escape the same fate that had befallen poor Roy. It seemed odd that she didn’t feel much connection to him other than simple concern, but she supposed the intervening years of separation had deadened her emotions. Roy had chosen to continue his illegal activities in spite of her pleas for him to stop, and the last time she had tried to discuss it with him he’d gotten drunk and given her a brutal beating. That had been the final straw. She’d left him that night and never looked back.
Marie smiled down at her daughter. The child was her joy, her whole life, and she wasn’t a bit sorry that she’d finally had the courage to distance herself from Roy. She was just sad that the little girl would grow up without the love of a decent father figure.
She sighed, remembering her own childhood. She’d managed to survive without the moral support of either parent and she’d turned out okay. Well, sort of, if you didn’t count her unwise alliance with Roy when she was only seventeen. He had promised her the moon, and for a while she’d been able to fool herself into believing him, to put up with his terrible temper no matter how much he hurt her.
Patty’s birth had changed everything. It had placed an innocent life in Marie’s hands, and for the first time in her life she knew what it was like to really love and be loved. The realization that there could be so much more to living had been such a shock she could still hardly believe it.
And it was concern for her little girl’s welfare that had drawn her into church, had brought her to acknowledge a faith she’d only glimpsed before circumstances had led her to make that choice. When she’d decided that Patty needed exposure to Sunday school, Marie had attended, too, and had found solace and acceptance there, as well as soul mates, when she’d finally turned to Christ.
Leaving her church family behind in Louisiana without so much as a goodbye had been hard for Marie. Those wonderful people cared about her, truly cared. And they would be so worried when they realized she had left town without a single parting word.
Sighing, Marie watched the mechanic move from side to side and tap on parts of her car’s motor. She had no idea what was wrong, nor did she care. All that mattered was getting the car fixed and being on her way again.
If the man hadn’t acted so friendly to begin with, she might have been put off by his rustic looks and grease-streaked clothing. She didn’t expect a garage worker to wear a suit, of course, but the employees of the place where she went to have her oil changed dressed in neat coveralls. This man’s tattered jeans and short-sleeved shirt looked anything but professional.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she finally asked.
He straightened, grinning, and wiped his hands on an already dirty rag. “The boss thinks I do. But if you want to go on down the road, you’re welcome to.”
“Do you think my car will make it very far?”
“Honestly? No. I suspect you got some dirty gas the last time you filled up. Where was that?”
She wanted to snap at him, to tell him it was none of his business, but she stifled the urge. He wasn’t asking anything that a normal person wouldn’t be glad to answer. Rather than admit that her trip was far from typical, she shrugged. “Beats me. I didn’t pay much attention. We’ve just been kind of rambling across the country.”
“I see. I noticed the Louisiana plates and figured you were probably headed north.”
The license plates! She’d been so upset she hadn’t thought of that. “I—I borrowed the car from a friend,” Marie alibied. “She lives down there. I’m actually from Texas.”
Her daughter tugged on her hand and looked up at her. “Mama? No, we’re…”
“That’s enough, Patty,” Marie said, purposely interrupting. “You and I will go get an ice cream while this man works on our car. How does that sound?”
“Chocolate,” the five-year-old said. “Two scoops.”
“Fine.” She turned back to the mechanic. “I’ll trust you to do whatever the car needs, within reason. Can you have it running soon?”
“I can try,” Seth answered. He pointed. “There’s a café on the square