Precious Blessings

"Go on, do it." The barely audible whisper skimmed over the tall aisle of displayed greeting cards on the other side of the store. Ordinarily, there was too much noise in the Corner Christian Book Store to hear a low, private conversation. But with the heavy February snowfall tumbling just outside the Spring Is Coming front window display and the fact that most of the customers had hurried through their shopping and left for home when the snow began falling in earnest, the whispering was almost too loud in the quiet, nearly empty store. Katherine McKaslin didn't stop her work straightening and restocking the greeting-card display, but she did look around. The last time she'd heard those words whispered in the store, someone had been shoplifting. Two teenage girls stage right, between the crystals case and the humorous greeting cards. They giggled softly, their heads bobbing together to tell secrets. All Katherine could see of them over the chin-high displays were the tops of their heads. One had a tuft-like hairdo of orange spikes, and her friend had blond hair streaked with blueberry strands. Ah, teenage rebellion. It was a stage she'd missed entirely, which was probably why she was thirty-two and still single. She'd always been stuck in the same rut. There was comfort in the familiar. Whenever she got an impulse to color her hair"not orange or blue"and maybe add a few highlights to her plain blond locks or wear shoes with more than a sensible one-inch heel, it was short-lived. What would her family think? How would she explain it? They'd probably say, that's not like you, Katherine, what's gotten into you? And so here she was, thirty-two and working in her parents' store, wearing sensible low-heeled shoes and a black blazer, blouse and skirt that suited a conservative businesswoman. Ever since she'd been a teenager, she'd been afraid of making mistakes. "I'll be back," Spence, her brother, called as he shrugged into his nicest coat. "Send prayers and positive thoughts." "Already done." With a chime of the overhead bell, the door swished shut behind Spence and she was alone on the floor. She swung her gaze back to her work, pressing down serious worries over the store's worsening financial situation. Her stomach tightened with dread, but before she could send a prayer on Spence's behalf, a blur of movement caught her eye. There, in the corner security mirror, she had a perfect view of the blue-haired girl slipping something inside her oversized purple book bag. Oh, no. You aren't shoplifting, right? Katherine waited, pulse thumping, hoping against hope the teen was reaching for her cell phone. Or maybe the girl was checking where she'd left her keys. Customers did that all the time. But even as she searched for other possibilities, Katherine knew gut-level that it was serious. One look in the mirror showed the empty spaces in the crystals case right in front of the door. The door that should have been locked. Sure enough, the blue-haired teenager had just made a colossal mistake. Go on, kid, put the figurines back. That would be the best outcome for everyone involved, she thought as she crossed the floor calmly to the counter. Give the girls the chance to do the right thing. It had happened before in situations like this and it could happen again. She stared hard at the top of the girls'heads and wasn't surprised when the blue-haired girl looked up. Katherine couldn't tell the girl's exact expression beneath the layers of mascara, thick black eyeliner and shadow, but she thought she saw a flash of fear before a brittle hardness settled into a cold-eyed stare. Okay, maybe not the nicest girl on the planet, but she didn't look like the worst, either. And that brief flash of genuine emotion was telling. The girl wasn't well practiced at stealing. Maybe she wasn't a hardened criminal just yet. "Put them back, please." Maybe theHart, Jillian is the author of 'Precious Blessings ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373812974 and ISBN 0373812973.