House of Mercy by Erin Healy Page B

storm that passed over one’s house and one that shot directly through it. The light he had been using to illuminate his work sizzled and then sputtered out.
    Burnt Rock was an inhospitable location to be sure, a high-altitude mining town that no longer had an operating mine and was more capable of sustaining tourists than trees. Gardens were out of the question. And yet Garner had converted the basement of his home into a climate-controlled environment capable of growing a host of healing herbs. Many people relied on Garner’s Garden, Inc.: the residents of Burnt Rock, the tourists who discovered him on a summer’s day, and the enthusiasts who shopped his quality blends on the Web. They could be assured that his nettle leaf or spearmint or lavender or fennel or chamomile or any one of dozens of other helpful, healthful plants was of the highest quality. Though not all of them were entirely legal.
    Garner first invested in this pastime for his own physical comfort after the cancer diagnosis. Then he did it for the challenge of bringing plants to life in a pit, and then because it allowed him to stay connected to people, and to be admired for doing something important. Few things were as rewarding as harvesting rosemary and mint for a roasted-lamb supper with friends while a blizzard raged. He certainly didn’t do it for the money. He had plenty of that to last him the rest of his life.
    Before his family abandoned him, Garner had been a wealthy man, and a man of faith. Not a priest or pastor or any such thing, but a successful businessman who had simple beliefs about God’s goodness and love. Today he was wealthy and skeptical. The thing that had caused Garner to turn away from the more childlike notions wasn’t the classic problem of why God allowed bad things to happen. There were plenty of viable answers for that type of question.
    Instead, Garner’s crisis of faith came when first his wife and then his daughter rejected his love. He had offered it unconditionally, expecting nothing but love in return, and they treated his gift as if it was unworthy of their standards. He slaved for them, worked long hours for them, provided them with an expensive house on the most stunning piece of real estate in the San Luis Valley, and showered them with all the fringe benefits of financial security.
    “You think you’re being loving, but you’re not,” his wife had yelled at him the day she walked out. “ I don’t care about your intentions. Your results are pathetic.”
    His daughter left on a similar note a few years later, when he objected to her choice of husband. When Rose announced her engagement to Abel Borzoi, an established cattle rancher, Garner couldn’t help but be concerned for his daughter’s well-being. The Blazing B was not a ranch concerned about expanding its profitability. The Borzoi clan could promise nothing but a life of toil. Besides that, Abel was far too old for her. What kind of father would approve of such a future?
    Garner and Rose had not spoken in the twenty-seven years since she stormed out of his house, slamming the door so hard that she cracked all nine of its tiny panes of glass.
    This is what made no sense to him: not that the human race had the capacity to do wrong, but that it had equal capacity to reject kindness and decency and all manner of goodness, even—and perhaps especially—within the bonds of family ties.
    And if love was so worthless, then perhaps the God of love was even less valuable. His defining essence was being squandered on people who didn’t want it. There was no hope for such a race, nor for such a God.
    But in the dustiest corners of Garner’s heart, hope lingered. At age seventy-three he didn’t have the heart to sweep it out, because he had nothing more appealing to put in its place. So he poured what love he had to offer into the lives of people who would accept it, such as Cat Ransom. And he waited for a sign that, at the right time, his daughter might