Chapter 1
Poppy Kyle slowed her car to a crawl and gave the old rickety bridge a second look.
She wasn’t a naturally positive person, but she’d worked hard the last few years to train herself to always see the good.
Most of the time, it worked.
She bit her lip as her finger tapped on the steering wheel. Positive thinking wasn’t helping her to see this bridge in any light other than rotted and old and about to fall into the admittedly placid-looking river below.
The river wasn’t exceptionally wide or deep, and the bridge wasn’t terribly high; still, maybe it was conditioning since childhood, or maybe it was just a natural inclination, but the idea of falling into it as the bridge collapsed made her keep her foot on the brake and her finger tapping on the wheel.
She lifted her eyes. West Barclay’s house and barn were two hundred yards on the other side of the river.
She could smell the steaming meatloaf and almost taste the mashed potatoes that were packed in newspaper and sitting in a box in the back of her car along with three other casseroles that could be frozen or cooked later this week.
She supposed Pastor Race and Miss Penny would be extremely disappointed in her if someone were to find her parked alongside the road, halfway back to town, with the meatloaf and mashed potatoes half gone and crumbs in her lap.
Her stomach rumbled, almost as though putting up an argument in favor of losing her position at the church.
Even if it was volunteer, the idea of not being dependable didn’t sit right.
She shoved the idea out of her head, less appealing for the food aspect, maybe, than for the idea of not having to drive over that bridge.
Her finger hadn’t stopped tapping. She leaned forward, looking up at the sky, like that would help anything.
She kept hearing about a “storm of the century” coming. Next week. But in her experience, the weather station liked to exaggerate things. They went wild and crazy with their green crayon any time it rained and even wilder and crazier with the white one when it was time to snow.
Not that Arkansas saw that much snow.
But she hadn’t always lived in Arkansas.
She sighed. The sky hadn’t given her any answers, not that she expected them. Looking out through the windshield, she scanned the picturesque Ozark Mountains that created the backdrop behind West’s house.
Pretty.
Beautiful, actually.
Although she hated to give West Barclay any more credit than he deserved. Or his house.
He treated her like an annoying insect—a gnat flying around his head. One he put up with but would prefer to swat away.
Her brain wanted to get stuck on that track, but she pulled it back.
Positive thinking.
Anyway, regardless of how West treated her, he was in over his head with his new houseguest and her four children. Which was why Poppy had a car full of food for them.
Unfortunately, her car was on this side of the creek. In order to get on the side of the creek where West, his guest, her children, and his house was, she had to cross that rickety old bridge.
Tempted to get out and visually inspect the bridge, she stopped with her hand on the latch.
What would a visual inspection help? She wasn’t an engineer.
Even an engineer couldn’t predict with infallibility whether or not the bridge was going to collapse.
Maybe she’d be better off to say a prayer and have faith.
Lord? Am I supposed to die today? Maybe You could let me deliver the food first?
Holy smokes. She hadn’t even thought of that. She’d have to cross the bridge twice. Once on the way over, and once on the way back.
Consider West’s pickup.
Maybe it wasn’t the Lord speaking to her—He should be talking about lilies of the field rather than pickups—but it was definitely a voice of reason.
His pickup was much bigger, and she assumed much heavier, than her little compact car. Probably it would be an accurate assumption that if the bridge could hold his pickup, it could hold her car too.
Maybe it was the prayer, maybe it was the voice of reason—although she truly believed that God was reasonable and she did not find reason and prayer mutually exclusive—she felt her foot lifting off the brake pedal and sliding slowly to the gas.
She wasn’t exactly an expert on driving, and she was kind of torn. Should she go slow and stay on the bridge longer, causing less trauma with the slower speed? Or should she go as