Love Mercy

Table of Contents

 

THE SADDLEMAKER’S WIFE
LOVE MERCY

 

FOOL’S PUZZLE

IRISH CHAIN

KANSAS TROUBLES

GOOSE IS THE POND

DOVE IN THE WINDOW

MERINER’S COMPASS

SEVEN SISTERS

ARKANSAS TRAVELER

STEPS TO THE ALTAR

SUNSHINE AND SHADOW

BROKEN DISHES

DELECTABLE MOUNTAINS

TUMBLING BLOCKS

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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2009 by Earlene Fowler.

 

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PRINTING HISTORY

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

Fowler, Earlene.
Love mercy / Earlene Fowler.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-101-01457-8

1. Widows—Fiction. 2. Grandmothers—Fiction. 3. Granddaughters—Fiction. 4. Morro
Bay (Calif.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3556.O828L68 2009
813’.54—dc22
2008049051

For Jo-Ann Mapson
beloved friend and sister in heart
may you never run out of words or chocolate
and
For Kathy Vieira
dearly loved friend, favorite riding partner
and chosen
hermana

ROMANS 12:9-12

 

My gratitude to:

 

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

 

Ellen Geiger—dynamite agent and wonderful friend—thank you for your support, wisdom and awesome sense of humor!

 

Kate Seaver—my enthusiastic and talented editor—I appreciate your hard work, your deft touch and your high-spirited encouragement.

 

Andy Rau—gifted musician, banjo player, songwriter and teacher—thank you for your patience in answering all my crazy questions.

 

Lela Satterfield—faithful friend, talented musician and writer, sister in Christ—your loving spirit and devotion to Jesus always inspires and amazes me (and thanks for the bridge!).

 

Tina Davis, Janice Dischner, Jo Ellen Heil, Cathy Higgins, Christine Hill, Karen Meek, Carolyn Miller, Pam Munns, Karen Olson, Laura Ross Wingfield—some gave information, some prayed, some listened to me whine and some sent chocolate. You are dearly loved and cherished friends. Thank you all.

 

Always to Allen—all my days—if I had a choice, again I would spend them with you.

The Central Coast of California holds a special place in my heart, so when I started
Love Mercy
, I decided to set this book in some of the same places I’ve used in my Benni Harper mystery series. The town of Morro Bay resides in the fictional county of San Celina. The series characters my readers have come to love—Benni Harper, her police chief husband, Gabe, and her gramma, Dove—are minor characters in
Love Mercy.
The difference is that the Benni Harper series is set in the 1990s and
Love Mercy
is set in 2008. And, to those of you who have not read my Benni Harper books, yes, I know that San Celina is improper Spanish. If you want to know the reason why, check my website’s FAQ section.

The Love Mercy novels (and I’m hoping there will be more) are not mystery novels, so don’t expect a dead body behind every hay bale. But they will deal with another kind of mystery: that of the human heart, especially with how it pertains to family. I’ll still write the Benni Harper novels, but I hope you fall as much in love as I have with Love Mercy Johnson, her friends Melina LeBlanc and Magnolia Sanchez, and Love’s banjo-playing granddaughter, Rett.

ONE

T
he Magic Genie Weight and Fortune machine in the gift shop of Larry’s Speedy Time truck stop in Amarillo, Texas, gave Rett her weight but stole her fortune. She smacked the silver machine in frustration. A perfectly good quarter down the drain. Rett needed that fortune. She already knew how much she weighed. One hundred thirteen pounds. In her scuff-toed Justin boots.

“Hon, that contraption ran out of fortunes years ago,” said the gum-smacking woman behind the shop’s cash register. “It’s just a big ole piece of junk, if you ask me.”

Rett ducked her head and didn’t answer, embarrassed to be caught putting money in something so stupid. She picked up her dirty aqua backpack and black banjo case and headed for the Speedy Skillet café attached to the gift shop. Dwaine said they’d be stuck here for at least six hours.

Loretta Lynn Johnson—who would only answer to Rett despite her mom’s insistence that Loretta Lynn was a perfectly nice name—figured a person could have a real full life traveling around the country from truck stop to truck stop. You could do about anything you wanted at a Flying J truck stop or a TravelCenters of America: take a hot shower; get a haircut; buy sugar-free Red Bull, a banana MoonPie or some banjo strings; even learn Spanish from a bilingual Bible.

Rett contemplated becoming a trucker while she chewed her grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. How old did a person have to be to drive long-haul trucks? Her twenty-first birthday was still two and a half years away. Would she have to know how to parallel park? She’d never gotten the hang of that. She wasn’t too hot at backing up either. Dimpled trash cans back home in Knoxville, Tennessee, bore witness to that fact.

She nibbled at the gooey sandwich middle and considered her options. She had a for sure ride until Albuquerque with Brother Dwaine Porter Wilburn, a traveling evangelist who held nondenominational church services in the back of a white Peterbilt truck he’d christened the Holy Roller. From there, he was driving north to Denver for the national board meeting of the Jesus Loves Truckers Outreach Ministries. He was vice president this year. Rett was headed for the West Coast.

Brother Dwaine approached her yesterday while she was perusing the candy aisle at a Petro truck stop in Little Rock, Arkansas, trying to decide between a dark chocolate Milky Way and a PayDay candy bar. He said if she needed a safe ride to somewhere, he’d be glad to help her out. He had an accent like Roy, her second stepdad: pure Texas Panhandle.

When he gently repeated his offer, Rett glanced nervously over at the big-haired woman stocking the potato chips shelves. She wore a Petro name tag. The woman smiled and said, “He’s okay, girlie. You’ll be fine.” She reminded Rett of Dolly Parton, so she believed her.

“I reckon I could find you rides with decent people most the ways to where you’re going,” Dwaine said after he cajoled a little of her story out of her. “Young ladies like yourself shouldn’t be out on the road alone. Jesus says to love your fellow man, but I’m here to tell you, there’s some bedbug-crazy folks traveling the highways and byways of our fine country.”

“Yes, sir,” she’d murmured, staring out the window at the toy-sized cars darting around them. She loved the high vantage point of the semi’s orange-scented cab. It made her feel like she was in charge of the whole world. On the truck’s satellite radio, a gospel group was singing an a cappella version of “Nothing But the Blood of Jesus.” The alto was slightly flat.

Normally a statement like his about the dangers of young girls traveling alone would cause her to roll her eyes. But she wasn’t stupid. Attitude was fine, but survival was better. Ten years of navigating the fringes of the gospel and bluegrass music business taught her that. It had been her good luck to run into Brother Dwaine. He’d called it God’s Providence.

Whatever, she thought. He was kinda preachy, but that was easy enough to tune out. She’d been doing that most of her life. Listening to him definitely beat taking a chance on another van full of college guys, which had been her transportation from Knoxville to Memphis. At the Winn-Dixie two miles from her house, while standing in the ten items or less line, Rett met a Vanderbilt student named Derek. She was buying a bottle of water and some Hershey bars for the road. She’d vaguely thought about taking the bus to California, but she didn’t want to waste what little money she had saved. Luckily, the Vanderbilt guy and his buddies were heading in her general direction and offered her a ride. They were okay, didn’t hassle her at all and she did pitch in ten bucks for gas. Things were fine until the driver pulled out a Jack Daniel’s bottle. She’d ditched them when they’d stopped for snacks at a Wal-Mart outside of Memphis. She wasn’t about to become a grease spot in the middle of Interstate 40 because of some drunk frat boy.