The Single Dad's Redemption. Roxanne Rustand

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       Chapter One

      Looking up at the roiling black clouds, Connor Rafferty turned up the collar of his denim jacket and lengthened his stride.

      Aspen Creek was definitely a tourist town. The far southern edge held a scattering of truck stops, bars and shabby houses, but the original part of town was more upscale with six blocks of stately old Victorian homes and brick mansions. At least ten of them had been converted to elegant B and Bs with small, discreet signs on the sidewalk offering off-season rates.

      Rates that would be far beyond his very limited means.

      He strode on, over an arched stone bridge spanning a wide creek and through the six-block-long downtown area, feeling as if he’d stepped back in time.

      The town was all about historical flavor. High on their fancy elevated facades, the quaint stone-and-brick, two-story buildings all proclaimed dates in the mid-1800s; the street signs were lettered in antique script.

      What had probably once been a main street filled with empty storefronts and other evidence of a dying town was now brimming with stores geared toward the yuppie tourist trade. Gift shops, pretty little tea shops, restaurants, fancy women’s clothing boutiques and a bookstore. For the outdoor sports enthusiasts, a variety of stores offered gear from fishing, kayaking and canoeing to skiing, backpacking and biking.

      A single, massive bank on Main, with a plaque embossed with the year 1864 on the cornerstone facing the sidewalk, looked as if it could withstand World War III.

      Somewhere on the north edge of town he’d find a cheap strip motel and, a mile farther, a campground with modern facilities, according to the tow-truck driver who had dropped Connor’s pickup at Red’s Mechanic Shop & Wrecker Service south of town.

      Connor hadn’t intended to make this stop in eastern Wisconsin on his way from Montana to Detroit, but major engine problems had certainly changed his plans in a hurry.

      This was exactly the kind of thing he didn’t need, with just a few hundred bucks in his pocket, nearly seven hundred miles to go and a burning need to reach the son he hadn’t seen in five long years.

      Five irreplaceable years in the life of a young boy. And five years of worry about how well his ex-wife was taking care of him...or not. A familiar surge of anger burned through his chest at the thought of what he and Josh had both lost, and the God who had ignored his prayers.

      Josh had been only four when Connor went to prison. Would the child even recognize him now?

      A blinding bolt of lightning struck the steeple of a white-clapboard church a few blocks down and a deafening crack! shook the sidewalk beneath his feet. The tentative patter of rain turned to a deluge in earnest, pouring off the brim of his Resistol Western hat and soaking through his denim jacket.

      Just as quickly the rain turned to an onslaught of marble-size hail.

      He ducked into the first entryway on his right and stepped into a dimly lit store. Soft classical music drifted through the cinnamon-and-coffee-scented air.

      It took a moment for his vision to adjust to the warm golden and amber lighting of flickering candles, plus a dozen or more stained-glass lamps and chandeliers displayed around the store. An avalanche of what his grandma had always called “pretties” seemed to fill every millimeter of space. China. Glass doodads. Frothy lace.

      Fancy stuff at odds with the steady plink of water hitting a galvanized bucket sitting on the floor by the end of the front counter.

      He couldn’t have felt more out of place if he’d suddenly found himself on Mars.

      A slender young woman behind the cash register stared at him in shock.

      He belatedly jerked off his hat and ran a hand over the two-day stubble on his face. “Sorry, ma’am. I...I just stepped in to get out of the hail,” he murmured. He reached behind himself for the door handle, acutely aware of the puddle forming beneath his battered Western boots. “Sorry ’bout the mess.”

      “No—don’t go.” She slipped around the corner of the front counter, deftly avoiding the bucket on the floor. Her shoulder-length, shiny blond hair swung forward against her cheek as she motioned to the white wrought-iron table and matching chairs displayed by the front window. “Just listen to that storm out there. Have a seat. Coffee? Hot tea? I’ve even got fresh shortbread cookies.”

      “Really, ma’am, I—”

      “Sit.” She smiled, her green eyes sparkling. “At least for a while. If you go back out and get yourself struck by lightning, I’ll forever feel it was my fault.”

      He awkwardly took the chair closest to the door and glanced around for a place to hang his hat, then settled it on his knees.

      “Coffee?”

      He nodded. “Uh...thanks.”

      She bustled to the coffeemaker at the end of the front counter and soon returned with two steaming mugs of coffee and a tray of cookies, each with a little purple-frosting flower on top.

      “You can be my taste tester. This is the first time I’ve made lavender shortbread, and the coffee is a new brand of Irish cream.”

      The aroma of the coffee was pure bliss. The first bite of cookie was like an explosion of rich butter and a delicate flowery flavor on his tongue. Nothing in his memory had ever tasted as good.

      She grinned at his reaction as she took the chair opposite his and offered her hand across the table. “Keeley North.”

      “Connor. Connor Rafferty.” He hadn’t seen—much less talked to—such a pretty woman in more than five years, and the brief contact of her delicate hand in his sent his mind reeling back to a different time and place. Back to when he’d been a carefree man who worked hard and found pleasure in simple things.

      Privileges he’d never appreciated until he was behind bars. Privileges and opportunities he would never fully regain.

      In his former life, he might have asked this charming woman to meet him for coffee...or maybe even dinner, in the hope of getting to know her better.

      Now he knew there was no point.

      Once he revealed his past, a woman like this one would run the other way.

      Shaking off his dark thoughts, he looked up and found she was watching him with an expression of concern. Had she asked him something?

      “Are you all right?” she asked, her voice gentle and warm.

      Today’s stress and exhaustion after fourteen hours behind the wheel of his pickup, plus several more on the side of the road with engine trouble, had turned his bones to lead.

      “Just...a long day.”

      “You aren’t from around here,” she said as she leaned back in her chair and studied him over the rim of her coffee cup.

      “Nope.” Clearly, she already knew that from the way she was looking at him. Maybe she’d already figured out he wasn’t just some СКАЧАТЬ