Gail Sattler - Hearts in Harmony

“Since you own something this nice, it’s probably redundant to ask if you play. Maybe we could do something together one day. I’d bring my guitar.”

She broke out into a cold sweat. Her hand shook too much to put on the CD she’d chosen. Her past was behind her. What Adrian was asking was entirely different.

She forced the words out. “I just play for my own enjoyment. I don’t think so.” Her words were truer than Adrian would ever know. When she played for her own enjoyment, she now only played alone. She’d exchanged the joy of making music with others for something of far greater value…even if at times the loneliness hurt.

lives in Vancouver, British Columbia (where you don’t have to shovel rain), with her husband of twenty-six years, three sons, two dogs, five lizards, one toad and a degu named Bess. Gail loves to read stories with a happy ending, which is why she writes them. Visit Gail’s Web site at www.gailsattler.com.

Gail Sattler

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Therefore, my brothers,

I want you to know that through Jesus

the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.

—Acts 13:38

Dedicated to Colleen Coble, TD.

Without you, this wouldn’t have been possible.

SD

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

Letter to Reader

The engine began to spit. The car chugged, slowed and died.

Celeste Hackett steered her mother’s decrepit sedan onto the gravel shoulder of the deserted country road and came to a complete stop. The endless expanse of farmers’ fields seemed to mock the silence of the dead car.

She refused to accept being stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Celeste attempted to restart the car, but the engine only made a horrid grinding sound, turning over and over with no contact.

With a groan, she lowered her head to the top of the steering wheel. She had been a fool to trade cars with her mother. She should have known her mother’s hunk of junk wouldn’t make the long trip back without something going wrong, but she tried to convince herself now that it was far better that her own reliable car was sitting in her mother’s garage, ready for her mother to begin her vacation tomorrow, and that it was she, Celeste, who was stranded in the middle of nowhere. If the car couldn’t make the shorter trip fifty miles between her home and her mother’s home, it definitely wouldn’t have made the fifteen-hundred-mile trip from her mother’s home to her aunt’s home, which was where her mother was going on an extended holiday.

Celeste now had two options. She could either walk ten miles ahead to the gas station at the highway entrance to ask for assistance, or thirty-five miles back to her mother’s house where she could call for a tow truck.

At the thought of all that walking, Celeste gritted her teeth and whacked the top of the dashboard with her fist. The needle on the gas gauge quivered, then dropped to the E.

Celeste tried not to scream. Her mother had given her a list of the car’s problems but apparently had forgotten to mention the malfunctioning gas gauge. However, if her mother knew about it, list, or not, there would be a container of gas in the trunk.

Celeste froze. Carrying a can of gas in the trunk was dangerous, but it was also dangerous for a woman to be stranded alone in the middle of nowhere.

Praying for the best, Celeste pushed the heavy door open, trying to ignore the creak of the rusty hinge. As she stepped onto the highway, a blast of heat hit her in the face. She did her best to ignore the stifling temperatures and walked to the rear of the car, where the stench of the car’s last, fatal backfire caused her to cough painfully. Once she caught her breath, she jabbed the key in the trunk lock. After a series of calculated wiggles, a click sounded and the lock opened. When she hoisted the heavy lid of the trunk, gas fumes wafted up.

The gas can lay on its side. Beside it lay the plug for the container’s air hole. She picked up the plastic container and shook it, confirming that it was indeed, empty.

Celeste squeezed her eyes shut for a brief second. Taking the short cut through the country rather than the longer but well-traveled main highway had not been a good choice.

She slammed the trunk shut. The bang echoed into oblivion over the surrounding fields, taunting her.

Grumbling under her breath, she replaced the plug to the empty gas container, pocketed the keys, hiked her purse strap over her shoulder, and began the long walk down the deserted country road.

Monday morning, she was going to buy a cell phone.

Adrian Braithwaite glanced at his watch and smiled. Despite the abundant potholes, the back road was still faster than the main route. And it was that knowledge that was going to earn him a big, fat, chocolate donut from his friend Paul after the evening service tonight. After he beat Paul home, of course.

An abandoned vehicle at the side of the road loomed up on the horizon. He slowed to stare. It was some car—a variety of different colors, one door blue, the trunk red, while the main body of the car was probably at one time supposed to have been white. The antenna was bent at a ridiculous angle, and the muffler was tied up with wire. The car’s condition made him wonder if someone had bought it out of a junkyard, intending to restore the old beast, although he didn’t think it was exactly a collector’s item.

Adrian checked his watch again as he drove on. He could taste that donut already.

Although he could no longer see the old car, his thoughts returned to its absent owner. Now that he thought about it, the car probably belonged to a teenager, maybe a first car. Given the old car’s condition, however, it was more likely, it belonged to someone down on their luck.

A few miles further, he caught sight of a person up ahead, walking on the shoulder, or rather, he caught sight of a gas can, its bright red visible far in the distance.

Adrian slowed again to study the stranded motorist. A green T-shirt and jeans covered a narrow waist and a nice feminine figure.

He frowned. Familiar stories of women alone being attacked or abducted flashed through his mind. He didn’t want that to happen.

Expecting her to stick out her thumb to hitch a ride when she heard him coming, Adrian slowed even more, until he was parallel to her.

Not only did she not stick out her thumb, she didn’t even look at him. Instead, she remained on the left shoulder, walking determinedly against oncoming traffic—if there had been any other traffic.

She appeared to be a couple of years younger than himself, probably about twenty-five, with chin length brunette hair, and a pert little nose. An understandable scowl tightened pouty lips. To attract her attention, Adrian leaned out the window as he idled along the highway.