“Okay. Yes, that’s wonderful.” When Devon stood, she found her legs were weak, her knees shaky. She put out her hand. “I don’t know how to thank you for giving me this chance. I promise I’ll do a good job.” She took a breath. She was exhausted. She smiled tremulously. “That took more energy than you can imagine.”

He stood as well, taking her hand. “You’ve had some struggles, haven’t you, Devon?”

“You have no idea,” she said on a breath.

“Then I’m glad I can be the one to offer you a chance to turn things around. From this moment on, it’s all up to you.”

Five

As Devon walked back across the beach, her spirits rose with each step. In her previous life, things had been so impossible! And now, at her very first try at finding a job, she was found acceptable. In fact Dr. Grant said “highly qualified”! It was beyond her imagination. She had tears running down her cheeks before she even realized it. She wiped at them impatiently.

When she was halfway across the beach, she stopped and looked out past the big rocks to the Pacific. There was a boat out there, a mere spec on the horizon. Sarah’s brother was on his paddleboard and it appeared he had a young boy along for the ride. The sun was high and bright; the air almost balmy. She passed a young mother with two small children playing on the beach, a stroller and a little cooler beside her towel. Mercy would like that—to be able to play and read and romp on the beach under a warm summer sun.

And she thought, God, if I’m lucky enough to make a life for myself and my child in this small place, I swear I will never complain about anything again!

She was halfway up the beach stairs when she saw him again. Spencer was just coming down. As he made to pass her on the stairs, he frowned and stopped. He reached out a hand and rested it on her shoulder. “You all right?”

He must have noticed her tears. She wiped her cheeks and smiled a little. “I got a job,” she said in a faint whisper. She cleared her throat and tried that again. Louder. Stronger. “I got a job!”

He smiled at her. “Good for you. Where?”

“In the doctor’s office. Full-time!”

He just laughed, silently.

She pushed past him and ran the rest of the way up the stairs and into the bar. There was just Cooper behind the bar, putting things away. She knew her smile was huge and her cheeks bright with excitement. “Where is Rawley?”

“Well, now. Looks like that job interview went well,” Cooper said with a smile. “They’re in the kitchen. Rawley is making bread with Mercy—a first. I hope she’s taken charge. He’s never done that before.”

With a laugh, she darted into the kitchen. With a stool propped up to the counter, Mercy was kneading green dough, rolling it out and making snakes. “What are you two doing?” she asked.

“Mercy said she was good at making bread and pie crust,” Rawley explained. “I thought green would be fun.” He wiped his hands. “How’d it go?”

“I got it,” she said in a near whisper. “I start tomorrow. And unless there’s some problem I don’t know about, I can share Dr. Grant’s babysitter. He’s a single father with two little kids, so he knows it can get complicated for single parents.”

“Good for you,” he said. “How’s ’at feel?”

“Oh, Rawley, you can’t imagine.” Her eyes teared up again. “All weekend I prepared myself for the inevitable—that he wouldn’t find me qualified. Or even that I wouldn’t look the part. You just can’t imagine...”

He turned to grab his coffee. “I reckon I can imagine.”

“I should...ah...look around for a place of my own,” she said.

He lifted an eyebrow and gave her a half smile. “That so? Last time I looked, you didn’t have no truck full o’ furniture.”

“Maybe there’s something furnished,” she said. “We don’t need much.”

“You do that if you want to, but it ain’t necessary. I got used to the two of you. If I didn’t know better, I’d think we were cousins. Family. Ain’t hardly had any family. My mother, she passed when I was barely a man. I had no brothers or sisters and, don’t tell anyone, but there ain’t never been cousins. And there sure weren’t no woman who could stand a crazy old vet like me.”

Devon just laughed. She put a hand on his arm, bringing a slight blush to his cheeks. “You’re the furthest thing from crazy I know.”

“Is ’at right? Well, don’t tell Cooper. He thinks he’s doing me a good deed, keeping me in the bar like this, giving me work because I’m an odd one.”

“You’re not,” she said. “And I think Mercy loves you a little bit. I should pay you rent at least,” Devon said.

Rawley sipped his coffee then put down his cup. He leveled old blue eyes at her. “Here’s the deal, missy. I know how important it is to you to be independent—you wasted no time telling me. What I’d like most of all is for you to find your way. You had a trial or two getting this far, you have a kid...it’s high time your luck changes a little bit. It would do me good, being part of someone’s luck changing. It’ll probably do me more good than you. That old house is paid off. If you want to help with food, you go on ahead.”

“That’s not very much help,” she said.

“You should prolly help with electric while you’re at it—you burn lights reading half the night or watching that TV or chargin’ up that laptop...”

She laughed at him. She tilted her head toward Mercy. “You’re not having any issues with a three-year-old taking over your house?”

He thought for a moment. He sucked a little on his teeth. Then he said, “If I’d a had a normal life, I mighta had grandchildren. Maybe a little one like this here who wants to make green bread. Nah, she don’t bother me at all. I get a big kick outta her. You about ready to go home?”

“Yes, please,” she said. “I have to get ready for tomorrow. My first day.”

He wiped his hands on a towel and reached in his pocket. He pulled out some keys. “You can take the truck. You got a seat for Mercy. You should have a ride so you can get back and forth—my hours just ain’t the same as yours. But you’re gonna have to take care of your own gas, and it eats a bunch.”

She was stunned silent for a moment. “But how will you get around?”

“I told you—I have an old truck I’m workin’ on that runs fine. Loud and ugly, but fine.”

“Then if I use anything, it should be the old one!” Devon said.

“Nah, that won’t work. I need that truck. When my work’s done here and things get quiet, I work on that truck out back. I use Ben’s old tools—he left ’em along with the truck. It’s the most sensible way.”

“Rawley,” she said, stepping toward him. “This is too much. I could ride into Thunder Point with you in the morning and come home with you at night. I can stay busy till work starts or till you finish. And quiet—I can stay quiet. We won’t make any trouble or fuss. Or get in the way.”

He pushed the keys at her. “It’s a stick. Can you drive a stick?”

“Rawley...”

“Mercy needs her sleep and I get up at five. And she needs a meal, a bath and bed at night. She needs cartoons or some kid show. Let’s think about her right now. And when you get a little money saved and get used to this place, maybe you’ll find just what you need. For now? It’s a ride.”

“Oh, Rawley....”

“That truck’s a hundred years old. It’ll work another few. I’m done talking about this now.”

* * *

Devon was a little hard on Rawley’s transmission going up the hill on her way to Elmore. She didn’t dare look in the rearview mirror—she didn’t want to see him wince or cringe. But once she got going, once she was on the highway, she not only did fine, she found it exhilarating. She felt so free, driving herself and Mercy, headed to a safe and secure place.

Once she got back to Rawley’s, after giving Mercy some lunch and settling her with thirty minutes of cartoons before her afternoon rest, Devon was back on the computer. She was researching Oregon driver’s licenses and laws concerning custody to see if Dr. Grant was right. She also looked at the Washington State records of birth and her college transcripts. Although she had a Washington driver’s license somewhere, now that she was in Oregon, that license wouldn’t work for long. To get her driver’s license in this state she’d have to take a test and provide documentation. And she was thrilled to find that all she had to do was apply to receive a copy of her birth certificate, which she could do online, if she could get a credit card.

Then she read about custody and found Dr. Grant had it right. Certainly as an E.R. doc he would have run into domestic situations from time to time, so he’d learned all about this.

Devon came to several sudden conclusions. She had done nothing wrong by taking her child out of a commune in which the biological father was conducting illegal business. He would never seek legal help to get Mercy back—not only did Jacob believe he knew everything, he didn’t trust courts or law enforcement or government. Then there was his elaborate marijuana growing operation. Devon had no idea who he sold it to or how the business was handled. There were new faces around the commune from time to time and the men who lived there came and went with regularity. And, of course, one of these days Jacob would be caught and he would go to prison.

What she now knew with blinding clarity was that his “cult” was a front for his drug operation. It was a perfect distraction to have a God-loving, hippy-dippy, granola-natural, free-spirited commune that only appeared to live off the land and to do so modestly. Devon also realized that each woman there, including herself, had been targeted and recruited very carefully by Jacob himself. Devon shuddered at the reality of it all.

* * *

The next day Devon went to work and Mercy went to Dr. Grant’s house to play with his children, Jenny and Will, watched over by Gabriella, the sweetest and most beautiful nineteen-year-old Latina she’d ever met. Gabriella had known Dr. Grant and his family since she’d been a small child. They had a good arrangement—she managed his household and he paid her college tuition—organizing their schedules to accommodate his work and her class schedule.

Devon quickly learned the routine in the doctor’s office, which could be boring at times, since it was so slow. She scheduled a few appointments; improved his filing system; updated his computer files and even swept, mopped and dusted the office.

Devon brought her lunch from home but she took her coffee breaks across the street at the diner where she could count on seeing some of the women she’d met. Many people passed through the diner and in no time she’d become a familiar fixture. Sometimes, when it was just Gina McCain and herself in the diner, or maybe Sarah as well, she found herself revealing parts of her story.

She shouldn’t have been surprised when those women both chimed in with their own stories of bad relationships with men. It was almost like a rite of passage, surviving relationships that were not meant to be.

Spencer often found a reason to stop by the new clinic. She shouldn’t have been surprised as she knew he was very curious about her. But he claimed he was just interested in how the doctor could help out with physicals for the members of the football team and the other high school athletes. Devon prepared a flier for Spencer complete with a price list. Scott was pleased with her initiative and Spencer took some fliers back to his office at the high school. He stopped by a couple more times to pick up more fliers. “You haven’t been back to the beach lately,” he said. “And the weather’s been perfect.”