Read Online Sweet Blessings (Love Inspired) by Jillian Hart - Free Book Online Page B

him, rolling and rib-boning up the gentle rises and falling out of sight in the slow dips. Then it rose again in the distance, like a thin black thread lying along the endless green. The road could carry him far away, past those mountains rising up thousands of feet, the rugged, bare-faced granite and white glacier caps holding up the vivid blue bowl of the sky.
    Yeah, he could keep going on this road, keeping on just the way he was. Adding this stain on his soul to go along with the emptiness in there. He could drive east and once he had those mountains behind him, he could forget this place ever existed and with it the wrong he’d done. He could go on.
    But he didn’t want to be the kind of man who did. He might have lost everything on a rainy night over two years ago. That didn’t mean he had to grow into the kind of man who went around causing harm.
    No, Lord knew there were enough of those kinds of people on this earth already.
    Was he going to be one of them? Suddenly he saw how it worked: One mistake after another, one harm caused after another, until it was a way of life.
    So he stopped in the middle of the road. With the windows down, sweet fragrant air breezed into the cab. As it bathed his face and tickled his hair, he debated. Then he checked for traffic—not that there was a vehicle in sight in either direction. And, with no one but God to witness it, he pulled a U-turn and headed back the way he came. Not so bitter a man, after all.
    Not so lost.
    Â 
    The diner was jammed. Amy gave thanks for the warm sunny day because they could use the tables set out on the brick patio at the side of the building. Without them, they’d be turning business away. As it was, they were almost out of those tables, too.
    As Jodi seated another soccer family, Amy filled orders as fast as the grill would cook them. She was glad the twins—young though they were—had shown up early to help with some of the prep work.
    â€œWestin is like the coolest kid ever!” Brandilyn—or was it Brianna?—grabbed the order for table three and, instead of hurrying, stopped, cracked her gum and gave a high-wattage smile. “I can’t wait until I get to be a mom. Not that I’m in a hurry, ’cuz I hope I can get into college first.”
    It was Brandilyn because Brianna sidled up to actually take the plates from the warming lights. Amy could clearly see the name badge on her collar.
    Equally as blond and cute and full of teenage charm, Brianna cracked her gum, too. “Like, college is a year away. We’re supposed to be waitresses, Brand. So, like, waitress, okay?”
    â€œOh, right!” With a swing of her head, which sent her ponytail flopping, Brandilyn grabbed the last plate and followed her twin down the aisle.
    â€œWe were never like that when we were their age,” Jodi commented as she brought in a bin of dirties and dumped them on the counter. “Right?”
    â€œRight. We never giggled. Never used words like cool. ” Amy laughed as she unloaded small glass plates of house salad from the refrigerator and uncovered them. “Is it me, or does it seem like a century since we were that young?”
    â€œFor me, two centuries at least.” Jodi hadn’t had the easiest life, either, but she managed to smile. “Those two are the cutest things. I adore ’em, except they make me feel about twelve hundred years old.”
    â€œOh, wait until they pull you aside for their senior life class assignment.” Amy trayed the plates andleft Jodi to finish them as the fryer beeped. She had fries to rescue.
    â€œI’m afraid to ask,” Jodi said as she spooned out the creamy salad dressings.
    â€œThey wanted to know what school was like in the ‘olden days.’”
    â€œWhat?” A spoon clattered to the floor and rattled to a stop. “The olden days?”
    â€œSure. I’m practically thirty and, as they said, that’s