The Hero's Redemption. Janice Kay Johnson

not if she was going to be able to choke down a piece of toast and actually accomplish something like pulling a few weeds.

      And she did manage, although she had trouble believing she’d lived for no reason but to save her grandmother’s hundred-year-old house from being bulldozed so some new structure could be built in its place.

      Over my dead body, she thought, and wished she could laugh.

      * * *

      A MONTH LATER...well, she was taking better care of herself, which was something, and had painted the parlor, the library and the downstairs hall, as well as the small bathroom tucked under the stairs. She’d stripped the fireplace surround, sanded until her hand and arm ached, and finally stained it and applied a Varathane finish. It looked really good, if she did say so herself. Too bad the molding and floors still looked so bad.

      But in early April, spring could no longer be denied, and today she was going to assess the tools her grandmother had owned, and what needed to be done to get the yard in shape. Of course, she took her life in her hands every time she went down the rotten porch steps. She didn’t think the siding had rotted, except the porch skirt, but couldn’t be positive.

      Erin was acquiring a library of how-to books, since she had zero construction experience and didn’t even know how to replace a washer in a dripping faucet. She’d never refinished a piece of furniture—or floors—and barely knew a dandelion from a peony. She could afford to hire some help, but right now she didn’t want workers in and out of the house, blocking the driveway, wondering about the young woman who probably looked like she’d been rescued from a life raft that had drifted in the Pacific Ocean for three months.

      To get to the detached garage, she couldn’t cut across the yard because it was, well, a thicket. Fortunately, the driveway had been asphalted at some point, although the cracks in it allowed grass and weeds to send down roots. The garage had been updated more recently than the house, probably when an upstairs apartment had been completed. Of course, that was something like forty years ago. There’d been a time when her grandparents had rented out the garage apartment for extra income. Erin remembered from visits when she was a child that a young man not only lived in the apartment but did yard work, too. After Grandpa died, though, Nanna had quit renting it out. Maybe she hadn’t liked the idea of a stranger so close. Erin hadn’t thought to ask.

      She should have visited more often, seen that Nanna needed help. One more reason to feel guilty.

      Join the crowd.

      Now the apartment was dated, to put it kindly. The refrigerator was harvest gold. There was no dishwasher. The showerhead had corroded, the fiberglass walls of the shower showed small cracks and the toilet and sink were both a sort of orangey-yellow that might also qualify as harvest gold. The apartment was at the absolute bottom of her list of needed updates, however.

      Heaving the garage door open, she mentally moved a remote-controlled opener a few notches up on her list.

      The workbench probably hadn’t been put to use in decades. Unfortunately, the tools she located obviously hadn’t, either. Rust was crumbling the teeth of a handsaw. The pliers might work, but the blade of the shovel had long since separated from the handle. The rake lacked some tines, and the clippers... She squeezed with all her might and nothing happened except a shower of rusty dust.

      Along with the smaller tools, drawers contained tin cans filled with miscellaneous screws, nuts and nails, a hose nozzle, a couple of mousetraps and some object that looked like a branding iron. Very useful.

      The lawn mower... Well, if she could ever scythe the overgrown grass, weeds and blackberries down into something that resembled a lawn, she would need a new mower. This one was destined for the junkyard.

      Today, she decided, hardware shopping she would go. Hi-ho, the derry-o...

      And if she was lucky, the store would have one of those bulletin boards covered with business cards advertising useful people like electricians, plumbers and handymen.

      * * *

      USUALLY, SOMEONE IN a hardware store would buy a particular tool. Clippers with a longer handle than the ones she had, say. Or replace a shovel.

      As he waited for the elderly man leaning on the counter to quit gossiping, Cole Meacham idly watched the woman pushing a cart. She barely hesitated over her choices. Far as he could tell, she bought one of everything. Who didn’t have the basics?

      Her, evidently. She had to be a new homeowner.

      He watched out of curiosity, but she’d caught his eye because she was a woman—and appealing. Long hair somewhere between red and blond, caught up in a messy bundle on the back of her head. She was too thin for his taste—although he wouldn’t swear his taste had remained in cold storage and therefore unchanged—but long-legged and still curvy. A baggy denim shirt hid enough of her breasts to leave him wondering—

      A brusque voice had his head snapping around. “Done with that application?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      In this small-town hardware store, the manager had been running the cash register while chatting with his customers. A notice in the window had said Help Wanted. When Cole asked about the job, the guy had hardly glanced at him, but handed over an application.

      Filling it out had taken Cole a whole lot longer than it should have. His hands had shaken, and sweat beaded his forehead and trickled down his spine. All those little boxes. Some of them he could fill in, some he couldn’t. He had no current driver’s license. The employment history made him clench his teeth. He either had no recent jobs to list—or he admitted what kind of jobs they’d been. Where they’d been.

      But inevitably he came to the question he dreaded, the one asking whether he’d been convicted of a felony crime. It never asked if he’d committed a crime. He marked “yes,” as he had on all the other applications he’d filled out these past days. Lying wasn’t an option; employers could, and would, do a criminal background check before offering a job. Cole’s father always had.

      The manager bent his head to read Cole’s application, revealing a small bald spot on the crown. Waiting without much hope, Cole stared at it. Behind him, the wheels of a shopping cart rattled on the uneven floor in the old building.

      He saw the exact moment when the man reached that “yes” mark. His eyes narrowed and he looked up. “How long you been out?”

      “A week.”

      Shaking his head, he crumpled the application and tossed it toward what was presumably a trash receptacle behind the counter. “Don’t need to know what you did. Can’t have an ex-con working here. Now I’ll ask you to be on your way.”

      Cole nodded stoically and turned to find himself face-to-face with the woman he’d been watching. Of course she’d heard. He didn’t let himself see her expression or what would be shock and distaste in her eyes. He said a meaningless, “Ma’am,” and walked past, taking the most direct route to the front door.

      Outside, he turned left and walked twenty feet or so, until he was no longer in sight through the hardware store windows, before he stopped. He flattened his hands on the wood siding and allowed his head to drop forward.

      Maybe he’d have to give up on this shit town. West Fork. He’d refused to stay anywhere near the penitentiary on the east side of the mountains. The Greyhound bus had taken him to Seattle. Overwhelmed by the city, he had hitched north, looking for a smaller town he could handle, one that seemed friendly.

      He made a guttural sound. Friendly. What a joke. He needed to move on, but why would the next town be any different?

      “Excuse me.”

      At the sound of the voice, Cole whirled, his right hand balling into a fist. He never allowed himself to be unaware of his surroundings.

      It was her. The woman from the hardware store. Green-gold eyes widened and she retreated a step, making him realize his lips had drawn away from his teeth and every cord in his neck probably showed. It took him a