Changes of Heart by Paige Lee Elliston

Author:Paige Lee Elliston
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781441239235
Publisher: Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group

Maggie turned the steering wheel of her truck into the gust that had attempted to muscle the vehicle off the road and onto the shoulder, and looked at the landscape around her. Winters in Montana settled in during late October and early November and didn’t relinquish their arctic stranglehold until well into May. The sky took on a cerulean depth that was breathtakingly beautiful and at the same time starkly intimidating, because the depth of the blue was hard, flinty, and offered not an iota of warmth. The hues of this Montana winter were vivid rather than soft and gentle to the eye—the fields of snow, the expanses of dead grass, the naked trees, the diamondlike ice of streams, rivers, and ponds, the endless lines of fence posts sharp-edged under the endless sky.

The intrusive, manic voice of a car dealer offering Thanksgiving specials at the best price ever grated in Maggie’s ears, and she snapped off the radio. Sarah and Tessa Morrison were hosting Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, and Danny and Ian had guaranteed Maggie that if she didn’t show up at the appointed time, they’d come to her ranch and physically haul her to the feast. She didn’t doubt that they’d do it.

Main Street of Coldwater bustled with pedestrian traffic, with trucks and cars parked in front of each of the stores. Huge cardboard turkeys, cornucopias spilling fruit, and shocks of standing corn with leaves flapping in the wind as if trying to escape decorated the lampposts.

Maggie parked in front of the feed and grain store and used both hands when she opened her truck door. Even so, the pressure against her arms was sudden and strong, almost wrenching the door away from her. As she pushed her way down the sidewalk, tiny pellets of ice stung her face. It was a short distance, but by the time Maggie reached the bakery door, her face was numb.

Kornoelje’s Bakery had been a cherished institution in Coldwater for almost seventy years. Owned and operated by a close and loving Christian family, the store had barely made it through the bleakest years of the Great Depression. But it did make it—even though a large percentage of its daily production during those hungry years went over the counter to those who had no way to pay or was taken to the church for the soup kitchen there.

The warmth and the delightfully sweet scent in the bakery embraced Maggie like the hug of a grandmother for a favored grandchild. The individual aromas of spice, chocolate, fresh bread, sugar cookies, and pumpkin and apple pies, and the yeasty sharpness of fresh dough being shaped on the huge wooden table in front of the ovens created an ambiance that was perhaps too heavenly to exist in an imperfect world.

Maggie waited in line behind the glass-fronted wooden display case, nodding to people she knew, smiling at the kids begging their parents for cookies. The youngsters behind the counter—family members—hustled about filling bags, wrapping pies and cakes, counting out various treats, giggling, and colliding with one another frequently.

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