<< Go Back

Autumn Leaves, a Novella: book 2 of the Pies, Books & Jesus Book Club series

By Kathleen YBarbo

Order Now!

Chapter One

Galveston, Texas
Autumn Skye Hudson found Jesus three weeks before she gave birth to her daughter and lost Him two summers ago. No, she amended. That wasn't true. Hard as she tried, she had never managed to lose Jesus. Just like the lady at the teen moms' group said, He was always there, whether she liked it or not.
She steered her bicycle around the pothole at the corner of Galveston's Thirty-Fourth and Seawall Boulevard and thought about the time she'd almost taken a job as an exotic dancer. Not that it was her first choice, but she had to manage the payment on the car she should never have bought. But there was a pesky whisper in the back of her mind. She knew that was Jesus.
The whisper became a shout when Skye slipped back into Sugar Pine, Texas, under the cover of darkness on her daughter's fourth birthday with plans to take her away to someplace neither of them could be found.
Instead of snatching her sleeping little girl, she settled for watching her from the window and then disappearing into the night. Each mile she put between her and Pansie Chambers felt like another nail in a coffin she wished she could crawl into. Yet she couldn't escape the certainty that Jesus had again saved her from doing something very wrong.
Each time she thought of her daughter's thick lashes dusting cheeks sprinkled with freckles—fairy kisses, one of her many foster care moms had called them—she wondered. Did Jesus really love her, or did He just love Pansie enough to keep her mama at a distance?
Even now as she dodged a pair of tourists strolling along the seawall and pedaled toward the gift shop where she worked, the question bothered her.
Especially since it wasn't her first time to abandon Pansie. Nope, she'd already walked away from Sugar Pine without her daughter twice. Another time and Skye would be straying dangerously toward becoming her mama, and that just wasn't going to happen.
Better Pansie live without Skye than learn what it felt like to lose her parent. After all, she'd already lost her daddy.
And as for Jesus, if He was as real and omnipotent as His followers made Him out to be, then He could easily prove that to her.
Skye lifted her eyes to the bluebonnet blue sky, allowing her gaze to study the strings of white clouds that floated lazily by. All right, Jesus. If You're up there, speak to me. Or do something to let me know you're there and can hear me.
Her attention returned to the boardwalk in front of her just in time to collide with something that felt like a brick wall. Her bike went one way, and she went the other.
As she reeled backward against the wooden rail, an arm shot out to snatch her back from falling over and onto the rocks below. "Are you all right?" a man's voice asked.
The horizon tilted yet again, and her sandaled feet left the boardwalk. Her rescuer turned sideways to dodge a pair of fishermen and a sign for this weekend's Galveston Surf Safari. At the door to the gift shop, he set her on her feet in the shade of the porch.
She swiveled around to see who'd been carrying her, putting inches between them. The man was tall and had short hair that was spiked with sunshine and seawater. His board shorts and flip-flops made her immediately think surfer.
"I think I know you," she said. Yes. He looked just like guy who'd moved in next door. She'd ask just as soon as she could gather her wits enough to form the question.
"Hey," he said with a crooked grin. "I thought you'd fainted."
"No." Her voice was weak, and she blinked and tried to focus. "I wasn't looking where I was going and then…" She read the words written in big blue letters on the front of his T-shirt. It was the logo from the Christian radio station up in Houston.
God listens.
Oh.
She swayed, and that same muscled arm snagged her around the waist.
"Look, something's wrong. How about you sit down?" He nodded toward a bench in the shade of the gift shop. "I'll grab some water and be right back."
"No." Her voice was stronger now, and things were coming back into focus. "That's not necessary. Really."
And it wasn't. What was wrong had nothing to do with her health. She was perfectly fine. Healthy as a horse, as her last foster mom would have said.
The only thing wrong with her was her shock that God had listened. Or so it seemed.
Skye backed away from the bench and straightened her spine, determined to manage the distance between where she stood and where she needed to go, namely inside the gift shop to take her place behind the cash register, without anyone's help. The last thing she needed was to give Myrna a reason to fire her.
And yet there was something familiar about this guy. Something very familiar.
"Do I know you?" she managed, and then thought better of asking the question she'd been pondering. To inquire whether he lived in a duplex on Fourth, she'd have to tell him she did.
And she didn't tell anyone where she lived. Not that she'd lived anywhere long enough to worry about talking about it.
"No, I don't think so," he said to her relief.
"Look, sorry. I'm late for work." She removed herself from his grasp. "Thank you for…" It was her turn to nod, this time toward the direction of her near-fall. "I don't know what happened."
He eyed her with no small measure of suspicion. "I really think you ought to get yourself checked out. You don't look like you're feeling well."
She wasn't, but that wasn't his business.
God listens.
Skye looked away. "Well, thanks." She trekked toward the shop's back door.
"Hey," he called as she yanked on the knob. "I'm Nate."
Skye turned in his direction but held tight to the door. To turn loose now would likely require another rescue, and she'd had her fill of them this morning.
"What's your name?"
"Autumn." She gave him the name she'd decided fit her best for this new life she'd chosen.
Autumn.
As in autumn leaves.
Or in her case, Autumn leaves. Because just like her mama, she always seemed to.
 

Order Now!

<< Go Back