Page 9 of A Twist of Faith
If there was a God, he had a ruthless sense of humor.
The sound of a slamming vehicle door brought her back to the front door. She pushed away the soft cream folds of curtain veiling the sidelights. Mr. Mitchell stepped from his truck and walked around to the other door. What was he doing? Providing some raccoons or coyotes to prove his point about the dog? She snickered at her internal sarcasm. As if coyotes ever came close enough to anyone’s house to bother them.
He walked back around the truck with a five- or six-year-old little girl in his arms. Dee’s breath caught. The girl’s dark hair curled around her cherub face and framed a set of large eyes. Mr. Mitchell smiled down at her, his expression so filled with love, it squeezed Dee’s emotions to the melting point. He wasn’t so very bad looking when he smiled.
As soon as he set down the cherub-in-jean-overalls, she ran straight for the mangy hound at the foot of the porch steps … even wrapped her arms around him. Adelina cringed. The dog produced his eerie grin again. How could Mr. Mitchell let her snuggle up to the smelly, creepy creature?
Mr. Mitchell ruffled the little girl’s head, sending curls much like his bouncing. With a gentle nudge, he broke the little girl’s hold on the dog, and then lifted the dog into his arms. His long easy strides took him to his truck, where he deposited the mutt in the back and then knelt down to gather up the little girl, nuzzling her neck until she squealed. She grinned up at him, her dimpled cheeks and glowing eyes conveying sheer adoration. Dee pressed her palm against her chest, warmth vibrating around her heartbeat. If he loved a little girl like that, maybe Reese Mitchell wasn’t so bad after all.
He looked up, then, and caught her staring at him through the window.
She couldn’t move. His dark gaze held her, fastened to the spot as if glue was attached to her shoes. She should be indifferent to him, unaffected, but he carried an air of easy confidence. And gentleness. A combination she’d never seen before. And Reese Mitchell was her one-way ticket out of this backwoods place. Sheneededhim.
She pushed open the screen door and stepped out. “Thank you, Mr. Mitchell.”
He nodded and placed the little girl in the truck. “Haus will be back, you know.”
“Thank you all the same.”
His brow lifted. “Yer welcome.”
Dee drew strength from a deep breath and pushed the doubts as far away from her dreams as she could get them. She could win this wager. Shehadto win it. “Mr. Mitchell, I’d like to help you.”
“Help me?” His hand paused on the open door. “With what?”
“I can get you ready for your interview. I have an excellent track record. I could offer you therapy services, you see. Accent modification, it’s called.” She stepped farther out onto the porch. “It’s my specialty.”
An unshackled look of disbelief crossed his face. “You wanna give me lessons on how to talk right?”
“Well, lessons on how to talk more conventionally. Pronunciation and grammar. An accent isn’t right or wrong, it’s just a difference.” She lifted her finger and used her best ‘teacher’ voice. “Yet it is a difference that could cost you a job, I’m afraid.”
He removed his cap and ran his hand through his hair again.
“How badly do you want this job?”
He squinted up at her and shrugged. “It’s more of a need than a want.”
She clapped her hands together in an awkward attempt at selling her plan. Oh, what a tangled web … “Perfect. All the more reason to make your interview count. Right?”
“Daddy, look. I made Mavis smile like Haus.”
The little girl in the truck pressed the black dog’s mouth back into a crooked grin. The poor animal sat in contented stillness during the entire experiment. Dee almost let herself laugh.
“That’s sweet, honey.” Reese nodded to the little girl and then turned back to Dee. “You’re offering to give me lessons to help with my interview?” He tilted his head. “How much will it cost me?”
Dee opened her palms and smiled. “How does free sound?”
“Right.” He laughed and closed the truck’s passenger door. “What’s the catch, Doc? Ain’t too many things free.”
Dee shuffled through excuses in her mind and finally landed on one. “You’re right, Mr. Mitchell. I would like to use you as research. Accent modification is my area of expertise, and therapy with you would only prove to strengthen my work. We both win.”
“You do research on accents?”
“Whether you recognize it as a reality or not, in more metropolitan areas your accent can be the kiss of death to your career. With it comes a preconception, which may or may not be true.” Her saleswoman persona returned to the conversation. “What you want is to display your quality skills and not allow your accent to detract from those.”
She hoped he had some quality skills. From the looks of those dusty old jeans and dirt clod boots, fashion was not one of them.
“I don’t know.”
