Heather swept aside and kicked through the grass and weeds much faster than she probably should have, but she couldn’t help it. She had to press on, keep moving, put some distance between her and Michael. Besides, she reasoned, she wasn’t moving any faster than the quick, erratic beating of her suddenly elated heart.
Had she just promised, even conditionally, not just to stay in High Plains but to go into the sanctuary that held so many painful memories and hear the man tied to those memories preach? What had she been thinking?
She pressed her lips together and tried to force her mind to focus on the task. Things. Find things. Look.
Look…at…Michael.
She stole a peek behind her just as he straightened up from examining something close to the ground. Sunlight caught the tips of his tousled hair and bits of grass clung to the tumbles of dark waves. He grinned at her and held something up.
“Muddy hat with a hole in it doesn’t count, does it?” He poked his fingers through the giant gaping tear in the blue-and-red baseball cap and wriggled them.
“Not unless you know the fellow with a hole in his head to match!” She feigned rapping her knuckles against the side of her head then held out the black plastic garbage bag she had attached to her belt. “I think we can pitch that.”
He grabbed the brim between his thumb and fingers, cocked back his arm and sent it flying, the way a kid might do to skim a flat stone over a still pond. But instead of zinging fast and low to her, the battered cap fluttered up high, got snagged by the wind and fell limply at his feet.
Heather giggled but resisted the urge to tease him about his lack of athletic ability.
“Here.” She took a step toward him and bent down.
“No, I can get—”
A sudden blinding pain shot through her head from the point of impact with Michael’s forehead.
“Ow!” Michael put his hand on his temple and squeezed his eyes shut. “I always knew you were hardheaded, Heather Duster, but I had no idea your head was pure titanium.”
“A metal skull? That would explain the ringing I’m hearing.” She stood straight. Keeping her neck bent, she pressed the heel of her hand to the spot just above her eye where they had made contact.
The position of her arm cast a shadow across her line of vision and in that shadow something caught Heather’s attention.
He blinked a few times then grinned at her. “I’m seeing stars here. You?”
“Nope. Better.” She squinted, trying not to give away what she thought she had discovered until she knew for sure.
“Better? Better than stars?” He took the cap, which he had managed to snatch despite their collision, and peered at her with one eye through the hole. “What? Chirpy little bluebirds?”
“Nope. I’m looking at the first found object of our collecting challenge. And it sparkles, too.” Heather bent down and plucked up the delicate locket she’d glimpsed in a tangle of dead grass and leaves.
“What is it?”
She let the small locket dangle from her fingers for a moment to show him, then tucked it away in her shirt pocket and gave it a pat. “That’s one find for me.”
He looked a little stunned and a little amused and actually more than a little pleased…though she didn’t dare imagine what he found so pleasant. Being with her? Enjoying their challenge? Knowing that no matter who found the most things, the end result would be that they helped people and would be spending more time together?
Or maybe…
Heather shut her eyes. Avery was right. She did overthink things.
So instead of trying to read too much into Michael’s expression, she grabbed the hat and popped it in the trash sack. “If you want to catch up, you’d better stop playing around and get hunting.”
She spun around, took a step and almost tripped over something.
“I am not playing around. I’m being thorough. The Bible says seek and ye shall find.”
“Ha! Thorough? Is that what you want me to believe? You always wanted to wait until everything was just right before you’d take action. And here I wasn’t even seeking just now and look what I found!” She pried up the brown leather, mud-caked mass and held it aloft.
He squinted. “What is it?”
She held it an arm’s length away from her body and gave it a shake to try to dislodge some of the dirt and any potential “guests” such as worms or bugs. “I know it’s been a long time, but even Take-A-Hike Mike should recognize a baseball glove when he sees one!”
He peered close, then nodded. “Any identifying marks? Initials? Name?”
Heather shook her head. “Not that I can see just now. It’s pretty filthy.”
“Don’t worry. The volunteers working with the lost and found will get it cleaned up before Greg adds it to the online catalog.”
“It’s all working together so well, isn’t it?”
“Why shouldn’t it? It’s High Plains. We don’t just share a zip code. We share a history.”
Heather stood there on the riverbank and looked around her. The cottages. The townspeople. Michael. They shared a history.
Her? She was the girl not good enough to marry John Parker. The girl who did not even know who her father was. Not good enough to win the love of the man who had raised her.
How could she ever hope to belong anywhere? Least of all here?
“Hey, Heather, this time I’ve really found something.” Michael’s warm voice called her back from her moment of doubt and melancholy
“What?” She wrapped the baseball glove in the garbage sack that only had the cap in it, to keep it from getting mud and dirt everywhere, then turned to Michael. “A broken—”
Michael stood no more than two feet away, holding a single purple flower between his thumb and forefinger.
He raised his gaze to hers over the petals trembling in the breeze.
Never let them see you cry. She had always equated that with not showing weakness, with always wanting to put on a brave face to protect herself. Not once in all those years that she had made that her motto did she consider that it might apply to the sweet swelling of emotion she now felt.
She sniffled.
Michael smiled and held the flower out, seeming almost tentative as he waited for her to accept the offering.
A shimmer of unshed tears blurred her vision. She smiled and took the flower.
“Lunch is ready!” Avery practically bounced down the slope of the river toward them.
“Thank you for the flower,” she whispered.
Michael put his hand on her back as he urged her with him up the bank. “We can put it in a plastic cup and use it to decorate the picnic blanket when I serve you that picnic lunch for winning one challenge.”
“You two won’t believe all the stuff people have brought in. My hands got cramped from writing everything down.” Avery, in her overalls and a High Plains High School T-shirt, crooked then straightened her fingers. She wasn’t just smiling, she was beaming with pride at what she had accomplished.
“After all the work you did on the cottages this morning?” Heather called out. She let Michael help her up the riverbank—not because she needed the help but because she liked having him help her, and she wanted to make sure she didn’t smoosh the flower he’d given her. “I think more than your fingers will be sore.”
“I’m all right.” Avery waved off any concern, then pivoted to run back to where they were serving lunch, calling back, “In fact, I feel so good I may go door to door later handing out flyers for Tommy’s lost dog.”
Michael took the garbage sack from Heather, tossed it into the grass then took her hand. “Thank you for helping with Avery. It’s really made a difference.”
Making a difference. That’s what she had wanted when she started Helping Hands Christian Charity. Now all she seemed to do anymore was paperwork, appeasing people and chasing down donors.
“Thank you, Michael, for giving me the chance to do that,” she whispered.
She raised her face to feel the sun on her cheeks and couldn’t help seeing all the people who had come out to work on what was now her property. They laughed and chatted and shared their burdens as readily as they shared their meals.
The sight filled Heather with a kind of purpose and satisfaction she had not known in years. “Thank you for giving me back a little piece of my personal history.”
He helped her the rest of the way up with a sure but subtle pull on her arm. When she reached his side, he steadied her by cupping her elbow in his hand, careful of the flower in her hand.
Heather held her breath, standing there so close to him she could see the darkness of his pupils opening against the blue of his eyes.
“If there’s anything else I can do, anything else I can give you, Heather.” He leaned in even closer. “Just ask.”
Tell me that I am not unlovable. Tell me that you will always trust me with the truth, even if the truth isn’t pretty. Heather thought of all the things she might ask of him and then of the one thing he had asked of her. To stay long enough to hear him preach.
She owed it to him to stick around long enough not only to help the town she loved, but also to find the courage to go into the sanctuary at High Plains Christian Church.
“You’ve done enough for me, Michael, just by being yourself, just by being my friend.” She moved past him. “I think it may be time I ask what I still have to do for myself.”