LITMIR.BIZ

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of her car, the animal dashed around the back of the car. Polly glanced back and there was Sam walking across her front yard, heading back toward her. And he had his hand up in a wave. She raised her hand as the dog returned and ducked into the back of the car.

      “Wow, maybe I do mean that guy is the reason I came here,” she whispered to her canine companion as she took in a sharp breath. “He sure seems like he isn’t ready for me to go yet.”

      The dog paced back and forth over the seat. If she kept him, she knew she’d have to invest in a safety restraint but thought for now this was safer than leaving him in her house or outside.

      “Maybe I should see if he wants to join us for burgers.” Polly gripped the door.

      Sam came to a halt in her yard. His raised hand fell to his side.

      She smiled and worked up the courage to say, “Hi, it looks like you’re thinking what I’m thinking …”

      He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “That your dog has my hat?”

      “Your … Oh, no! You set it on the driveway, didn’t you?” She glanced back in time to see the animal give the hat a shake. “No!”

      Sam put his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. Probably unable to look at what the dog had done.

      “I am so sorry.” She hurried to the back door, reached in and grabbed the hat by the brim. It took a firm tug to rescue it, but she held it out to him.

      He looked down, his expression guarded.

      Polly stared at the damp brim and the crown the dog had shaken into a shapeless wonder. “I’m so sorry,” she said again. Her voice was barely a whisper.

      “What’s done is done.” Finally he put his own hand up and turned his head to one side as if to say, I don’t want it now. “It’s okay. Don’t feel bad. It was just an old Christmas gift from my wife.”

      “Wife?” Now she felt careless and a bit silly. “I didn’t think you were—”

      “My late wife,” he clarified. He frowned down at the mash up of brim and crown. “Hmm. Well, okay, then. I guess that’s the end of that.”

      He flicked it with one finger as if to say, Goodbye, old friend, then raised his hand in a sort of salute to her, turned and headed for his truck.

      “Your taking this so well only makes me feel worse,” she called after him. “Isn’t there something I can do with it?”

      “Maybe we can cut ear holes in it and let the dog wear it.” He didn’t look back.

      Polly climbed into the car and looked her only friend in all of Baconburg in the eye. Poor little thing. Of all of God’s creatures, he could understand her fear, sadness, embarrassment and loneliness when she said, “Maybe Essie was right. Maybe running away isn’t going to be the big solution to my problems that I thought it would be.”

       Chapter Two

      “So, let me get this straight.” Sam’s sister, Gina, slipped off her computer glasses and aimed her sharp-eyed gaze at him. “You just left your hat in her hands and drove off?”

      “Hey, it wasn’t like I was going to wear it home.” Sam moved around the kitchen table gathering up the three empty bowls where a few minutes ago his daughters had been eating ice cream. He stacked Juliette’s “sprinkles, please, Daddy, and no nuts” dish inside Hayley’s “chocolate on chocolate with a side of chocolate” one. Finally he took up Caroline’s “whatever you give me is fine, Daddy” dish, held them up and said to his sister, “Anyone who thinks those girls are completely identical has never had to feed them.”

      “Don’t try to change the subject on me.” Gina wriggled in the high-backed oak chair, then kicked it up on two legs, bracing her hiking shoe against the table leg to stabilize herself. “Marie gave you that hat.”

      “I am well aware.” Sam plunked the bowls into the sink. He turned on the water to rinse them out and said, loudly enough to be heard over the splashing, “By the way, if Mom were here she’d tell you she didn’t care if you are the owner of this place now, you keep both your feet and all the chair legs on the floor, young lady.”

      Gina rocked the chair slightly and crossed her arms defiantly, not even flinching when her long, dark blond braid got snagged under one arm. “Tell me again who this woman is.”

      “Mom?” He faked surprise to cover his determination not to prolong any discussion of Polly Bennett. “I know she and Dad have been living in Florida for a few years now, but—”

      “You know who I mean. The mysterious woman who got you to help rescue a dog. A dog, Sam. That’s huge for you.”

      He finished washing up the dishes, then moved to drying them off with the towel that usually hung from the handle of the oven door. “I don’t dislike dogs and she’s not mysterious. Her name is Polly Bennett from Atlanta, Georgia.”

      “New in town?”

      “Didn’t say.” He put the bowls up and shut the cabinet, wishing he could finish up this conversation that easily. He wouldn’t normally have even mentioned any of this to Gin, but she had asked if he had left his hat at work when he’d come home. And when she didn’t get an answer had wondered aloud if he had left it in her truck and she’d have to get it out of there later. She wouldn’t let it go, even several hours later.

      “You don’t suppose this Polly Bennett is the new schoolteacher?” Gina asked.

      “Thought of that myself.” But he’d dismissed it almost instantly. Polly Bennett, with her wild, dark hair, her fresh face and pint-size stature, didn’t look like any grade-school teacher he’d ever had. “But then I remembered you said word on the grapevine was they’d gone with someone born here in Baconburg.”

      “That’s right.” The chair legs came clunking down. She shifted her laptop around on the table as if she was about to get back to work promoting the farm’s upcoming fall pumpkin-themed festival, the Pumpkin Jump, online. Instead she looked up at him again. “And you just left your hat with a stranger?”

      “Stop this ride.” He held up his hands. “I am not going around again.”

      “Fine.” She leaned in over her keyboard and put her fingers over the touch pad. But always one to want the last word, she said, “You know, they say if you leave something at a person’s house, it’s a subconscious way of giving yourself an excuse to go back.”

      “Then they don’t know me because I don’t go back.” He headed out the kitchen door into the hallway.

      “Walking away is not the same as moving forward, you know.”

      “I’m not walking away. I’m going to check on the girls and tell them good-night.” He paused at the bottom of the stairs.

      “Good luck with that.”

      “I don’t believe in luck. I believe in God’s blessings.” He wasn’t sure why he’d said it, but the words, and thinking of the woman who had said them, actually made him smile.

      “Fine, go say good-night to your little blessings. Remember they’re all wired up about getting their classroom assignments tomorrow. I hope you’re ready to deal with the fallout.”

      “I was born ready.” Whatever came his way, Sam met it, wrestled with it, made it his or left it behind. Nothing slowed him down. Full speed ahead. Farm kid. College football hero. Hometown business owner. Husband. Father. Widower. Single dad to three six-year-old girls.

      He moved forward, always forward, tackling every new role with his faith to uphold him. When he made up his mind, applied his experience and attitude, he could handle anything.

      Except second grade.

      Sam took a deep breath,

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