Sweet Blessings (Love Inspired) Read Online Free PDF

second.”
    His big brown eyes stared up at her. She caught the flash of fear when it sounded as if golf balls were hitting the roof with the force of a hurricane, but she nodded, letting him know without words that she was here now. He might be cowboy-tough, but he was a little boy who needed his mother. She wouldn’t let anything hurt her little one.
    â€œâ€™Kay,” he agreed, “but hurry up! We got a light all set up and everything. Bye, Kelly!” he called to the woman in the shadows of the tiny kitchen.
    â€œG’night, don’t let the bedbugs bite!” came the answer and then her cousin by marriage emerged from the dark with her coat in hand. Kelly slipped one arm into the raincoat’s sleeve and then the other. “Hi, Amy. I got the dishes put away, too, just to help out. If you want me tomorrow night, just give me a call. You know I can use the extra cash.”
    â€œSure.” Amy dug through her apron pocket and counted out a small stack of ones. Tips had been sparse with the state economy the way it was and they’d been even worse tonight.
    She regretted that three-quarters of her tip money was already gone, but there were other places to cut corners. Her son’s care was not one of them. “Rachel wants to come over and spend time with him tomorrow, but if I have to work at night, I’ll give you a call. We’re still short-handed. Are you sure you don’t want a job at the diner?”
    â€œIt’s harder to do my school work and wait tables at the same time. I have a test Monday.” Kelly settled her backpack on one shoulder. It was heavy with college texts and notebooks.
    Amy had wanted to attend college, too, like so many of her friends and cousins had. Sparkling-eyed freshmen going to classes and chatting over coffee and learning exciting new things. There were a lot of reasons that had kept her from that path, mostly her own choices and the fact that a college education took money neither she nor her family had.
    She admired Kelly for sticking to the hard course.It couldn’t be easy working several jobs and studying, too. “Drive safe out there. The roads are slick.”
    â€œI will. Heavens!” Kelly opened the door and the racket was deafening.
    Hail punched the pavement and hammered off the row of trailers lined up in neat order along the dark street. Ice gleamed black as it hid lawns and driveways and flowerbeds starting to bloom.
    The wind gusted and Amy wrestled the door closed. She pulled the little curtain aside and watched through the window in the door, making sure Kelly got to her car safely and it started all right. In a town where few people ever bothered to lock anything, Amy turned the dead bolt and made sure Kelly made it safely down the lane.
    It’s just the storm, she told herself. That’s why she felt unsettled. But she knew that wasn’t the truth.
    The hail echoed like continual gunshots through the single wide, and she circled the living room, dodging the couch. A thick candle, one she’d gotten for Christmas, sat in the center of the coffee table and shed enough light for her to see her way around an array of toy astronauts and space ships arranged in the middle of a battle. The windows were cold, streaked with ice and rain and locked up tight.
    Amy knew it wasn’t the storm that bothered her. It was those two men tonight. The harsh, brash way they’d laughed over their meal. The suggestive leers they’d shot at her. The way they’d walked out of thediner without fully paying, as if they had the right. It all burned in her stomach, the anger and the helplessness of it. They probably thought nothing of it, just two guys out having some fun.
    But it was a big deal, their lack of respect. She wasn’t some questionable woman. She had standards and morals she lived by. What hurt is that times like this and men like that reminded her of the days when she’d behaved in ways