Halos

Kristen Heitzmann

Description

It was the halo that caught her heart between beats and made her pause to take notice. When Alessi Moore drives her red Mustang convertible into town, she wonders if this could be the place she was meant to find, a place to settle down. But when her convertible and all she owns is stolen, she is filled with doubt.

Sujets

• Romance
• Thriller

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2004
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781585588077
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

© 2004 by Kristen Heitzmann
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan. www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2010
Ebook corrections 04.14.2016 (VBN), 12.20.2016
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-58558-807-7
The Scripture text on the dedication page is taken from the New American Bible with Revised New Testament and Revised Psalms © 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
All other Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Inter national Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.
Cover Design by Brand Navigation
Cover photograph by Steve Gardner, PixelWorks Studios, Inc.
Car provided by Robberson Ford, Bend, Oregon
For Melodie
In thanksgiving for your precious friendship
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience . . . And over all of these put on love, that is, the bond of perfection.
Colossians 4: 12, 14
Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
About the Author
Other Books by Kristen Heitzmann
Ad
Back Cover
One
I T WAS THE HALO THAT CAUGHT her heart between beats and made her breath pause and take notice. The sun in the white sky was a pale face surrounded by a glow, and she let up on the gas and stared one moment before it began to snow. Plump sugarplum fairies, crystalline dancers afloat on the air . . . and she knew, she knew it meant something good.
The gravelly shoulder of the highway ground beneath her tires as she pulled over to the side and stopped. She opened the convertible top and, tipping back her head, watched the flakes separate from the gauzy sky like moths from a giant cocoon.
Alessi held her face still to receive the icy kisses on her skin and hair. A car zoomed by, sending the dancers awhirl in a wild tarantella. She traced their motion with a finger in the air, then dropped her hand to her lap and laughed.
What was she doing on the side of the highway with her car filling with snow? She looked again at the sunglow through the thickened clouds. The halo was gone. They never lasted. But their magic did. She felt it now, captured inside her as she activated her roof and pulled back onto the highway.
She’d seen the first halo at seven years old; her father had been gone for three. Mom had shouldered several jobs, and after school Alessi worked with her. They cleaned houses for people with lots of “don’t touch” things. Three nights a week they also stocked shelves at a health food market. The other nights they were home, but Mom was often too tired to fuss over dinner.
The night she saw the halo, Alessi had just started to protest Chef Boyardee when her mother reached into a drawer. “Do you know what these are?”
They were the handkerchiefs they’d found at the Salvation Army for three cents each.
Her mother said, “The fine linens of the queen of Sheba.”
Mom liked that queen. She always said one day they’d live like the queen of Sheba. But Alessi was tired of canned spaghetti.
Her mother’s eyes lit. “They were smuggled out of the country by very smart sparrows who brought them to the fairy queen for her banquet.”
Now, that was a queen Alessi couldn’t resist. A story about two royal persons meant extra magic. “How did they get here from the fairy queen?”
“A gift, of course,” Mom said.
“But we found them at—”
“Because wicked gnomes stole them from the fairy messenger. But their magic drew us to them on the shelf and made us recognize the gift. You will always see the gift if your heart is open to the magic.”
Alessi’s heart was opened wide as Mom spooned canned spaghetti onto the plate. “And this,” she said, “is the fairy ambrosia.”
That’s when she saw it, her mother’s head encircled by light, her golden hair aglow. Alessi’s mouth fell open. Mom bent to serve her own portion and the lamp behind spread its light to the room. But Alessi had seen it.
Reveling in the memory, Alessi pressed the accelerator to pass a wooden-sided truck filled with rubber tires. The driver honked and waved as she went by. The Mustang had that effect. It was the nicest thing she had ever been given. That had been a halo day too—her eighteenth birthday.
“A Mustang? For me?” The convertible had sat in the circular drive like a dark candied apple with caramel leather seats.
“Now that you’re on your own, you’ll need some wheels,” her uncle said, noblesse oblige . Aunt Carrie flashed her Estée Lauder smile.
“Thank you both so much. Should I . . . maybe I’ll just pack up now?” She had entertained thoughts of college, even the possibility Uncle Bob would put her through. But this was reality. “I really don’t know how to thank you. For everything. Taking me in and . . .”
“Less . . . you’re my sister’s only child.” Her aunt’s eyes moistened on cue.
Uncle Bob nodded. Standing with their two children outside their sun-washed Palm Beach home, they positively glowed. Halos. She had waved good-bye to the Fisher Price family and envisioned their lives sealing up like a knife mark in Jell-O as soon as she was gone.
Now, three and a half years later, her paint still gleamed, the leather was soft as a puppy’s underbelly, and two and a half weeks before Christmas, Alessi had reached a place where it snowed. The flakes flew around the Mustang as the sun disappeared in the pasty sky. A halo on the sun, and now the snow. Something good was coming.
The orange gas pump light flashed on the dashboard, and an eighth of a tank would only take her so far. The road ahead was white, with no cars in view, but she knew the tire truck men were somewhere behind, should a true emergency occur. She just needed an exit, the sort with services.
Snow thickening, she decreased her speed. Her needle was close to empty. The wipers thwack ed more quickly as she adjusted them. Finally an Exit sign appeared, though the snow obscured the words and almost covered the trusty food and gas symbols. She tapped her fingertips on the steering wheel in time with the turn signal, then eased off the highway, climbing the ramp to the crossroad. Her stomach growled.
She was used to going without, but the snow had conjured images of hot mashed potatoes with melting pats of butter, meat loaf and gravy, and cocoa swirled with whipping cream. Her last great meal had been a Thanksgiving splurge of turkey and dressing at a cafeteria. Her stomach tightened again. She would stop for food this time.
But searching the road ahead, she hoped there really was something out there. The sign at the top of the exit had been equally unreadable except for the bottom stems of several letters and an arrow to the right. Trees thickened; conifers, pines, and a bare deciduous net on both sides. The road began to dip and rise, and ahead she saw a sign, sideways to the wind and at last readable: Charity, four miles .

Halo, snow, Charity. How much clearer could it be? Alessi passed into Charity’s city limits, noting the first buildings in a daze: a breeder kennel, a hardware store, a mini mart.
There was a small fire station and, next to that, a post office, city hall, and maintenance all in one log building. At the Stop sign were clustered the Hawkeye Gift Gallery, Bennet’s Books, and Moll’s Café. To her right, Best Beer and Pool, and diagonally, Mr. Gas Garage and Videos. It didn’t seem like the setting for a miracle, but what else could be coming with a halo on the sun?
She pulled up to the pumps and got out. The snow fell steadily, with less whimsy than before. She leaned on the car door and looked back the way she’d just come. A few cars were parked along the street, though none putted down the road, and only one man was out in the snow getting a newspaper from the stand outside the mini mart.
It was a scene she’d never experienced: cold, yet warming, each roof and ledge flocked with foam that for a moment reminded her of the ocean. But she was far from the balmy air, the flaming bird of paradise, bougainvillea, and green, waving fronds. And she couldn’t help thinking this was what Christmas should look like. No pink flamingos with neck wreaths, lighted palm trees, or Santas in swim trunks.
She shivered. Her cotton top, bought secondhand, was lightweight, and her canvas sneakers were getting wet. She would have to find her jacket in one of the bags in her trunk. But for now, she reveled in the cold. Except for the smell of gasoline, the air was crisp and charged with some energy she