Sweet Blessings (Love Inspired) Read Free

justice on his side as he stalked across the parking lot. A pickup roared to life. Lights blazed in the blackness, searing his eyes.
    Trouble. He could feel it on the knife’s edge of the wind. Through the blinding glare of the high beams, he made out a newer-model truck with big dirt-gripping tires. A row of fog lights mounted on the cab were bright enough to spotlight a path to the moon.
    The engine roared, as the vehicle vibrated like apredator preparing to attack. Heath didn’t have much of a chance of stopping them now. Not when they were already in the cab and behind the wheel. When the engine gunned again, their crude words spat like gunfire into the air. The truck lurched forward with an ear-splitting squeal of tires.
    Heading straight for him.
    Heath didn’t move. A small voice inside him whispered, “This is it. Let it happen. Stand still and it will all be over.”
    It was tempting, that voice, inviting as it tugged at the shards of his heart still beating. All he had to do was not move, that was all.
    He held his breath, letting it happen, feeling time slow the same way a movie did when the slow-motion button was hit on the remote. His senses sharpened. The rain tapped against his face with a keen punch and slid along his skin. So wet and cold.
    The wind blew through him as if he were already gone. His chest swelled as he breathed in one last time. He smelled the distinct sweetness of wet hay from some farmer’s field and the petroleum exhaust from the truck. The headlights speeding toward him bore holes into his retinas.
    Just don’t move. It was what he wanted with all his being. He felt the swish of the next moment, although it hadn’t happen yet. The truck gaining speed, the squealing tires and the stillness within him as he wished for an end to his pain.
    But even the wish was wrong. He knew it. His spirit bruised with the sin of it. At the last moment he sidestepped, the same moment the pickup veered right and careened off into the rain. Time shot forward, the rain fell with a vengeance and his lungs burned with the cold. He listened to the subwoofers thumping as the truck vanished.
    Lightning split the sky. The sudden brightness seared his eyes and cleaved through his lost soul, and then he was plunged into darkness again.
    Alive. He was still alive.
    Wind drove icy rain against him like a boat at sea and wet him to the skin. Water sluiced down his face as he stood, shivering from the cold and a pain so deep it had broken him. Being alive was no victory. He felt that death would have been kinder. But not by his own choice and, once again, hopelessness drowned him.
    â€œAre you all right?” Her concern came sharp and startling as the thunder overhead.
    Heath turned toward her, like a blind man pivoting toward the sound that could save him. But nothing could. Lost and alone, he was aware of what he must look like to her. His clothes were soaked through. His hair clung to his scalp and forehead. Rain dripped off the tip of his nose and the cleft in his chin.
    There, in the cheerful glow of the diner’s windowed front, the two women stood framed in thelight. Two women, one a half inch or so taller than the other, with blond hair pulled back from nearly identical faces. They had to be related. The classic features of girl-next-door good looks ought to be a reassuring sight.
    Except both women were watching him with horror-filled eyes. He must look like a nut.
    With the darkness tugging him and the brutal rain beating him back, he ducked his head and plowed into the storm. He splashed through puddles and the water seeped through the hole in his left boot. As he went, his big toe became wetter and his sock began to wick water across to his other toes.
    â€œGoodness, you gave us a scare!” The waitress was holding the door for him. Concern made her seem to glow as the light haloed her.
    He blinked, and the effect was gone. Maybe it was from his fatigue or the fact that