“I would’ve called once I saw the time, but my phone isn’t working yet.” She walked toward him. “The telephone company told me it wouldn’t be until week after next. Why it takes so long I’ll never understand. Aunt Lauretta had a phone. The place doesn’t have to be wired or anything.”
“Things move a bit slow around here.”
“Me included.” She revealed an apologetic grin. “I am sorry for making you wait.”
“No problem.” He was the one not being honest. It was a problem. He had a dozen unfinished chores that had to be done yet today. “Come inside and see what you’re getting yourself into.” He held open the door and waited while she passed by him.
She paused in the parquet entry. “Wow!”
He didn’t know if her one-word exclamation referred to the design of the house or the clutter and disorder she saw everywhere. He preferred to think it was the former.
“How long have you lived here?” she asked.
“All my life. I was born in one of the bedrooms upstairs. Doctor got here about ten minutes after I did. Or so my mother likes to tell folks every chance she gets.”
“Really? How interesting. Hmm …”
Nat couldn’t help noticing the way her eyes seemed to glaze over. He had the distinct feeling she was no longer with him. “Miss Vincent?”
“Chet’s mother …” She pursed her lips and nodded as she looked up the staircase. Then she whispered, “Of course. How perfect.”
Oh, brother. Now she was talking to herself. “Miss Vincent?” he said again, louder this time.
She blinked, shook her head, looked at him. “Yes?”
“Let me show you around. Maybe, after you see what a disaster it is, you’ll decide you don’t want the job.” At this point, he didn’t know if that’s what he hoped for or not. He needed someone he could depend on. He wasn’t convinced that someone was her.
“Good idea. I’m dying to see it.” She looked toward the room to their right.
A good idea? Maybe. Maybe not. But he had little choice except to follow through with it now. “My mother called this the great room.” He motioned for her to enter ahead of him.
A stone fireplace was the focal point of the large room. An oil painting of Rainbow Valley as it looked in the early 1900s hung above the mantel, and like many others before her, Shayla was drawn toward it.
“O’Connell,” she said, reading the signature in the bottom right comer. She glanced over her shoulder. “Did you do this? It’s magnificent.”
“No.” His answer was clipped. “I don’t paint.” Even after ten years, he found it uncomfortable to talk about Joanne and her art.
Shayla continued to look at him. He figured she was the type who would wait as long as it took to get the answer she wanted.
Bracing himself, he said, “My wife painted it.”
“Your wife?” She fully faced him, her eyes wide. “But I thought you said—”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
“It happened years ago.” He turned abruptly. “The library is this way.”
Shayla hesitated a moment before following him, wishing she knew what to say. But then, she supposed it was better to say nothing since that’s what he seemed to want.
“Are you coming, Miss Vincent?”
“Yes.” She hurried to catch up, hoping she wouldn’t make any more blunders.
While Nat showed her the library, his office, and the sitting room, Shayla confined herself to brief murmurs of appreciation. But when Nat led her into the huge kitchen, she couldn’t stay silent any longer. “This is incredible.”
The room had a bank of windows on two sides. Stainless-steel counters and sinks gleamed in the afternoon sunlight. Pots and pans and other cookware hung from hooks in the high ceiling above a center island. There were six burners on the stove and two ovens, and the refrigerator was large enough to walk into.
“It looks like a restaurant.”
“My grandma cooked for a lot of ranch hands back in the early years, back when Paradise Ranch was all that was in this valley. ’Course, the kitchen didn’t look like it does now. Started out with a wood stove, an icebox, and a plain wood floor. It’s been remodeled a time or two since then, but it was always this big.”
Shayla walked around the room, running her fingers over the countertops, admiring the details. Even the need for a thorough cleaning couldn’t diminish the wonder of it.
“What my mother wouldn’t have given for a kitchen like this,” she said. “There were seven of us kids, and we were always underfoot when Mom was trying to cook.”
“Seven kids?”
“Seven. I’ve got three brothers and three sisters.” She pictured them in her mind, playing and fighting the way they’d done throughout the years. She’d come to Idaho, in part, to get away from her large, ofttimes demanding family, and yet she still missed them.
“Which number are you?”
“I’m the oldest.” She turned toward him. “What about you?”
“Just one older sister. Leigh. She and Jim, her husband, live in Florida with their twin daughters. My mother lives near them.” He looked out the windows toward the pine-covered mountains that rose from his backyard. “We’re all that’s left of the O’Connell clan now. My grandparents are gone, and my dad died about eight years ago.”
She thought he looked lonely and wondered if he continued to mourn the wife he’d lost.
Still gazing out the window, he continued, “I always thought this ranch ought to be crawling with kids. But Joanne and I never—” He didn’t finish the sentence.
If Nat O’Connell knew what a big family was like, maybe he wouldn’t be so all-fired eager for a ranch crawling with kids. One reason Shayla had been eager to leave Portland for her aunt’s remote cabin was to escape the never-ending demands of her younger siblings.
Of course, she’d had to ask God’s and her parents’ forgiveness for the manner in which she left home. She never should have lost her temper, telling her mom and dad that she was sick to death of her brothers and sisters. She wasn’t. Not really. She loved all of them. But none of them understood how important her writing was to her.
For months, she’d felt God calling her to put her faith into words on paper, to tell stories that would exemplify God’s power over evil. Aunt Lauretta’s legacy had given Shayla the open door needed to pursue her dream of becoming a published Christian novelist. One precious year. Twelve short months.
She had to try. She had to discover if this was the path God wanted her to follow.
Please, God. May it be Your will.
“Let’s move to the upstairs,” Nat said, interrupting her thoughts. “After you see it, you still might decide against taking the job.”
He was wrong. She wouldn’t refuse the job. Working for Nat O’Connell would allow her to make the needed repairs to the cabin so it would be livable through the winter. Living in the cabin for the next year would allow her to write her novel. And writing her novel would be an act of obedience to the Lord’s call upon her heart.