Heart of Grace (Return to Grace Trilogy #1) by Abigail Easton Page A

the things that had
once drawn her there. Even as the familiarity of her apartment,
her office – her life – beckoned her, she was struck by the stark
realization that it was all a ghost of what she once had.
She thought of the things she had given up, and those she
had left behind. A client had given her an aged bottle of merlot,
which she had been saving for a special occasion. Now it sat in
a box in storage, destined to turn to vinegar. There was the
farmers’ market down the block and the coffee shop on the
corner, where they knew her drink by memory. Would they
even know she had left? And there were the choices she had
made. The dirty subway stations; trash on the sidewalk at dusk.
A nearly empty back account and maxed out credit cards.
No job. No apartment.
Jeffrey.
She would not stoop to begging him for her job back.
Maybe she should just move somewhere else entirely. She
had no job, no family, no roots, and one credit card that still
had an open limit. She was headed to the airport where a
thousand different destinations were just a plane trip away. She
could go to L.A. Or Alaska. Or Spain. She knew enough
Spanish to get by.
Angela had just begun to entertain the fantasy of walking
through the Puerta del sol when the sign announcing the turn to
the Bullpen Arena flashed in her peripheral.
She slammed on the brakes, coming to a complete stop in
the center of the highway. Her pulse scrambled. Even with the
windows shut and the air conditioning running she could hear
the rusty sign creak on its hinges. The sound taunted her like
an eight-year-old child singing “Na-na, na-na, naaa-na.” A
glance in the rear view mirror revealed another car coming up
fast behind her.
She swore, ground into first gear, and squealed the tires as
she took the turn. The car fishtailed when it transitioned from
pavement to gravel. She knew she was going too fast, and later
she would wonder what possessed her to take that long,
winding road to the arena, but for now she knew only that she
couldn’t not do it.
She needed to see it one last time.
As the car neared its destination the twin pillars to the
entrance rose over the horizon. To the left was the ticket office,
the midnight blue mini blinds pulled down.
She parked and stepped out of the car and onto the gravel
lot. The pungent scent of manure overcame her. Angela
breathed shallowly and resisted the urge to cover her nose with
her sleeve. She walked down the pathway into the open arena,
beneath a roof held up by a circle of pillars.
Air rushed through the open space. It twirled around the
pillars and swept over and through aluminum stands with a
quiet whoosh. The late morning sun stretched shadows across
the freshly raked dirt.
She rested her hand on the steel fence rung, musing on the
oddity of her acrylic nails against the rusted steel. The same
hand had once been that of a girl – with dirty nails – clutching
the rail excitedly as she hung over the edge to catch a better
view of the boys as they practiced, hoping one boy in particular
would catch a view of her.
Angela smiled sadly at the memory and pushed herself on
down the aisle, toward the offices at the far end of the arena.
The animals would be resting now as the crew prepared for the
night’s events. She imagined the cowboys were resting as well,
and the few that ran the offices here would be humming away
silently. There had always been the excitement of silence
before a rodeo. The air waited with great anticipation for the
shouts and blood and pure adrenaline that pumped through
here each Friday night during the summer circuit season.
“I wondered when you’d get around to coming by.”
Reed Sanderson, the arena’s events manager, walked out
from one of the passageways between the stands. He had aged
considerably, but his eyes still danced in the manner of a man
who could either shoo a girl away or welcome her with open
arms. It was the latter he greeted her with today. He removed
thick black gloves, stuffed them