Ruth Scofield - Her Cinderella Heart

Was he here to join the Easter worship service? Cassie took a step toward him. “Can I help you? We have a sunrise worship—”

The helmet came off, and a mass of silver hair sprang free. The man glanced over his shoulder, showing her his profile. A strong nose, defined mouth and firm chin. Cassie felt the breath swoosh out of her. “Peter?”

“Am I late?”

She blinked like a starstruck schoolgirl, and was instantly glad she’d had her hair stylishly cut the day before. “A bit. Did you have trouble finding the park?”

“No. Pastor Michael sent me directions. I’m sorry I’m late, but yesterday I couldn’t leave work before midnight. Shall we go?”

What kind of business kept him until midnight? she wondered.

Peter took her elbow as they climbed the dirt path. For a few moments, Cassie imagined he did so because he thought her worthy of protection. That she was his to cherish. She was a little old to let herself go nutty over so inconsequential a touch.

But it was enough to dream on.

became serious about writing after she’d raised her children. Until then, she’d concentrated her life on being a June Cleaver–type wife and mother, spent years as a Bible student and teacher for teens and young adults, and led a weekly women’s prayer group. When she’d made a final wedding dress and her last child had left the nest, she declared to one and all that it was her turn to activate a dream. Thankfully, her husband applauded her decision.

Ruth’s first book was published in 1993 just a month after her return to her native Missouri after years in the East. She often sets her novels in Missouri, where there are lakes and hills aplenty, and as many stories and history as people. She eagerly expects to write at least two dozen more novels.

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For God so loved the world that He gave His only son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

—John 3:16

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

—Galatians 6:2

To my friend, Ruth M., who makes friends everywhere she goes. And loves them all.

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

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Questions for Discussion

Why did she have to be so clumsy? She always made a spectacle of herself when she was nervous…and new situations always made her edgy.

Cassie Manning hurriedly wiped up the coffee spill under the thirty-gallon pot. She’d bumped the spigot, causing hot coffee to spatter everywhere before she’d managed to shut it off.

“Sorry,” she muttered over her shoulder. The minister, Michael Faraday, affectionately known to the group as Pastor Mike, and that sleek woman who looked like the well-known model she’d been, Samantha something, stood in the church’s kitchen doorway chatting. They glanced her way, but thankfully ignored the accident, intent on their conversation.

Why couldn’t she just do something graceful for a change instead of her usual bumbling reactions when meeting new people? Every new situation doesn’t have to be a trial by fire, does it, Lord?

Although her father would’ve said she usually made it one. He often said she must have been a changeling because neither he nor her mother had been so awkward. Nor plain, either.

Cassie shoved those negative thoughts aside. This was to be a new phase in her life. One for which she’d longed. New Beginnings, a ministry in the Blue River Valley Community Church, located in western Missouri, was exactly what she needed, with its programs on how to redirect one’s life after the age of forty, and social gatherings.

Social gatherings…. The very description implied a promise that life after the first flush of youth had passed could still hold wonder and excitement.

Well, she was trying, wasn’t she? She took a deep breath, steadying her nerves.

“Nothing to worry about, Cassie,” Pam Lawson, a small, compact blonde standing at Cassie’s side, remarked as she arranged cups and set out napkins. “That’s a touchy spigot and annoys us all.”

Cassie’s spirits lifted. The coffee spill hadn’t been entirely her fault. She grinned her thanks. She had one friend at least. “Thanks.”

Pastor Mike scanned his watch, his dark lashes brushing his high cheekbones for a second before glancing their way. Although he wore a wedding ring, Cassie wondered about the status of his marriage. His wife never made an appearance at New Beginnings and Michael didn’t speak of her—only his kids. She’d also overheard something the last time she was here—something negative.

Poor man. Being in the ministry was no guarantee of a happy marriage. Perhaps he needed the prayers of this group as much as the members needed his leadership, she mused. Whatever his personal problems, he’d spoken with a fine authority when he quoted Paul for this evening’s scripture, and seemed to draw sustenance from it.

“Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

That was what Cassie was doing, pressing onward with her life. Finding new directions to what she wanted to do before her next birthday. That was what New Beginnings was all about, wasn’t it? To find out what she could do with the rest of her life?

She hated thinking of her next birthday. Imagine! Next month she’d be forty years old and she’d never left home, never traveled farther than St. Louis and Branson, never had a steady boyfriend, never…

It wasn’t too late, she reminded herself. She still had half her life to live, and she’d make the most of it! She just hadn’t found the right man. That wasn’t a crime, was it?

“Coconut cake and lemon pie,” Cassie called to the group at large, urging them to come and help themselves. She hated to see the evening end, and found herself thinking about the people she met here. Her thirty-minute drive home gave her a lot of time to think about the evening. But like everyone, she had a job to face the next morning—in her case, twenty-eight fifth-graders—so she was grateful she’d be home before ten-thirty.

But it had nothing to do with who was waiting. Or who wasn’t.

Her father, who’d been an invalid in a wheelchair, had died last year. So had the many demands his helplessness had made on her. She was at last free to do whatever she wanted, go anywhere she wanted, do anything she wanted. It made her feel like jumping up and down, like her fifth-graders.