“There he is! He’s coming!”
    Arabelle drew in a deep breath even as her eyes sought the familiar stride of Black Heart. He was stomping at a faster clip than usual down the street. No teasing grin would be shot up at them today—that was clear from the angry set of his jaw and the hands clenched into fists at his side.
    His nickname was no great mystery. One had only to watch him for a few moments to see the resentment—some would call it hatred—that held him in its teeth. Arabelle’s fingers settled on the windowsill. She’d never met the man. But she knew him. Knew how the bitterness could eat at one, gnawing away until there was nothing left but sinew and bone, no heart to speak of.
    Just looking at him took her back to those dark days. The days before Aunt Hettie, before the Braxtons, before the Lord had shown her how He’d always been by her side. When it was just her and a dead mother and a missing father and a village rector who hadn’t a clue what to do with a seething ten-year-old girl.
    Father God, he wears his pain like a uniform. She watched Black Heart pound the pavement ever nearer to their window. But you can reach him, as you reached me. Touch his heart, Lord. Break it, if you must. Show him that you’re there, right there beside him.
    She’d prayed nearly the same prayer every day for months. Every day he stalked by Charing Cross on his way home from the Old Admiralty Building, where he’d somehow ended up instead of in front of a firing squad. To hear the papers tell it, he’d killed his entire squadron—willfully. Five flying aces taken out in their prime by his jealousy and hateful nature, all because of an argument with one of the pilots.
    He chose that moment to glance up. No smile upon his lips, not today. And who knew what he could really see behind the glass. But it felt as though he looked directly at her, straight into her eyes. As if with that glance he was challenging her daily prayer for him. God isn’t here, that look said. No one is.
    But He was. And He would show him. She knew He would.