Mountain Sanctuary by Lenora Worth Page A

shifted on her espadrilles, her wide-legged capri pants falling around her calves. “It’s not like I’m going to dock your pay, or something. To each his own.”
    “You don’t do church at all?”
    She shook her head. “Church hasn’t done very much for me. I’ve learned I can only count on myself.”
    Surprised at the determination in her eyes, he asked, “So you don’t believe in God?”
    “Oh, I believe in Him, but I’m not so sure He believes in me. No one else except my daddy ever has.”
    Adam’s heart hurt for the pain he saw in her eyes. This pain went deeper than any hissy fit or meltdown. This seemed to stem from a lifelong acceptance and understanding of hard luck and bad things happening. No wonder her mood changed so quickly from minute to minute. She wasn’t centered in Christ.
    Adam felt his faith returning twofold as he stood there, wanting Stella to feel the same way. How could he have ever doubted that God had a plan for him, after all?
    “Have you ever stopped to think that God does believe in you, Stella? I mean, you have to see the blessings in life to understand that it’s not all bad.”
    She glanced around. “I don’t see any blessing here, sorry.”
    Adam couldn’t let that slide. He grabbed her hand. “C’mon.”
    She balked and pulled away. “I’ve got laundry to fold. We’ve got a couple from Dallas checking in today. They want the Morning Glory room and you know that one requires special treatment.”
    The Morning Glory room was pretty and apparently very special. It was the large turret room at the back of the house on the second floor, complete with a big brass bed and morning-glory-sprinkled wallpaper and white lacy curtains. Stella liked to put fresh flowers in the room to greet the guests, chocolate candy on the pillows and fresh soap and good-smelling linens in the bath, just as they did with every room. But she was especially picky about that room for some strange reason. She fussed with fluffing the pillows and polishing the gleaming oak furniture. And, he remembered, one of her mother’s paintings hung over the fireplace in that room. This one was of a surprised morning glory looking down on a white picket fence as if it wanted to escape its boundaries. Adam sure knew that feeling.
    “I’ll help you get the room ready,” he said. “Right now, you need a break.”
    She gave him a curious, cautious look. “What are you going to show me, Adam?”
    “The things you can’t see,” he replied. He took her hand again, glad she didn’t pull away this time.

     
    Stella couldn’t imagine what Adam had in mind, but then she was fast learning that this quiet, unassuming man wasn’t all macho flash. He might have been a tough-guy cop back in New Orleans, but she could see that Adam Callahan had a gentle streak a mile long. Hadn’t she witnessed that gentleness firsthand with the way he treated her son and her daddy? And her, she reminded herself, the warmth of his fingers wrapped against hers as solid as the sun shining down on them. He had always been very gentle with her. Which made him a paradox in Stella’s eyes. And made her wonder what it would be like to spend time with such a man.
    Bad idea, she reminded herself. Very bad idea. She didn’t have time for daydreams or gentleness. She had to keep working, keep going.
    And besides, she could see that he was all gung ho about religion. Just another surprising twist to the man who’d showed up at her door looking for a room.
    He brought her to a halt in front of the white wooden fence at the back of the property. “Can you see it?” he asked, excitement coloring his eyes.
    Stella let out a tolerant sigh. “I see a fence with cracking, peeling paint. I see honeysuckle vines that are probably teeming with spiders and snakes. We probably need to clear out some of those weeds. I see—” She stopped. “What was that noise?”
    Adam held a finger to his lips. “Listen,” he whispered.
    Stella heard it again.