“Maggie, Ella brought us a pie,” Seth told her and set it in front of the table, pulling off the checked cloth.
“Oh, that looks delicious! Thank you, Ella. Stay forlunch. I’m making pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, and corn on the cob. Way too much food for just the two of us,” Maggie called out from behind the stove.
Her comment confirmed that Seth wasn’t married since there were only two of them, and she was always doing the cooking, which also made me assume he was single. A good-looking man in his late twenties—I was surprised he didn’t have a lady.
“I don’t want to impose. I just wanted?—”
“Seth Jacob!” she snapped, and my head swiveled to see Seth with a fork in his mouth, his lips wrapped tightly around it, eyes wide. There was a huge chunk missing from my pie. “Notbefore lunch,” she scolded him, and I had to suppress a grin.
He pulled the fork out, chewed, and then swallowed. “I had to taste it for poison,” he told her with a grin.
She smiled at him as if that were an inside joke. “Oh, I miss your grandfather.”
He nodded. It must have been something his grandfather used to say, and my heart melted a little.
Seth then looked at me. “Best apple pie I ever tasted,” he whispered.
“Whatdid you just say?” Maggie threw the question over her shoulder as he pressed his lips shut and walked over to the cupboard to get three plates so he could set the table.
Three plates? I’d just said no.
“Anyway. I just wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday. I’m having a hard time acclimating to life without…” I couldn’t say his name without crying, so I left it at that.
Maggie waved me off. “You were forgiven the secondyou left. Sit down and tell me what you do. Do you work in town?”
I looked at Seth and he shrugged as if saying that I was staying for lunch, whether I liked it or not.
After pulling out a chair, I sat down in front of the empty plate. “I’m looking for work. Not much in town, so the hunt continues.”
“Oh, well, what did you do before you moved here?” she asked and then came over to scoop a pile of beans onto my plate, followed by a pulled pork sandwich and then a giant piece of corn on the cob teeming with melted butter.
It was official. I was eating lunch here.
“I was a front office manager for a popular dentist in Boise.”
“That’s great. You should check with the church. I think they need help in office work,” Maggie said as she made a plate for Seth.
I ignored her comment. There wasno wayI was working in a church right now. I’d probably burn up on site. I was so mad at God.
Maggie dished a plate for herself, and when she sat, she reached for Seth’s hand and then mine. A pit formed in my stomach because I knew she was about to say grace.
I hadn’t spoken to God since James died, except when I was screaming and cursing at him, and I didn’t plan to anytime soon.
I was tempted to excuse myself to the bathroom, but I grabbed Maggie’s hand so that I wouldn’t embarrass myself further.
“Dear Lord, thank you for this wonderful meal and forour new friend, Ella. I pray that Seth and I can be a blessing in her life. In Jesus name, I pray.”
“Amen,” Seth and Maggie said in unison, but my throat was too tight to speak.
It was a short prayer, yet in those few words, she’d included me, and it touched my heart.
“Eat up before it gets cold,” she admonished me, and I cleared my throat.
Upon picking up the fork beside me, I took a bite of the beans. They were salty and sweet and delicious.
“What do you do for work?” I asked Seth.
He pointed behind himself to the giant glass window that showed the rolling hills with black and brown dots moving all across his acreage. “Cattle rancher,” he said.
