Free The Red Gloves Collection by Karen Kingsbury

do you have?”
    Earl didn’t blink. “How much does she need?”
    The mission director stared at Earl for a long time. “Maybe it’s time you told me your story.”
    “Maybe it is.” Earl settled back in the chair and looked hard at D.J. “I wasn’t always like this.”
    “Most street people aren’t.” D.J. cast him a kind smile. “Something happens: a death, an addiction, a lost job, a bout of depression. You’d be surprised at the stories behind some of the regulars at the mission.”
    Earl was quiet. “I guess I never thought about it. They’re just like me.”
    “That’s normal. It’s hard to see past the dirty clothes and haggard faces, hard to imagine anything other than the vacant eyes and familiar stench. But bottom line is this: Everyone has a story.”
    Dirty clothes and familiar stench?
Earl let the words play again in his mind. What would Anne and Molly think about the way he’d let himself become? Shame wrapped its arms around him and squeezed until he could barely breathe.
Help me, God. Let me see beyond this meaningless life I’ve created.
    “Okay.” The mission director motioned to him. “So tell me yours.”
    Tears welled up in Earl’s eyes as for the first time in five years he allowed himself to go back to that December five years ago—allowed himself to remember the events that had led him to a life on the streets. As they had in the alleyway the night before, layers began falling from Earl’s heart until he knew exactly where to start. Back at the beginning. In the days when he’d first fallen in love.
    When the images were clear, they formed words. And finally, after years of silence, Earl began to speak.

CHAPTER TEN
    H er name was Anne.” Earl’s vision grew cloudy as he drifted back in time. “We grew up across the street from each other. Down south in Redding, California.”
    D.J. crossed one leg over the other and listened.
    “She was the prettiest kindergarten girl I’d ever seen, and even though I was two years older, I told my mother she was the one. Some day I was going to marry her.”
    The mission director chuckled softly as Earl’s story tumbled out.
    At first his parents had smiled the way parents do when their children say something cute and innocent. They’d patted him on the head. “Sure, son. Marry the girl across the street.” Right.
    As the years passed, Earl never wavered in his plan. But there was one problem.
    Anne didn’t know he was alive.
    Outgoing and social, she was surrounded by friends and only waved at him occasionally when they passed in the street outside their respective homes. But all that changed the summer Anne turned sixteen. That year, Earl’s first out of high school, she and her friends took to tanning in the front yard. One afternoon, an hour after Earl got home from work, Anne knocked at his door.
    “Hi, Earl.” Her smile outshone the sun. “My friend wants to meet you. Why don’t you come over and hang out with us for a while?”
    Earl had finished work at three that day. With his heart knocking about and his hands sweaty, he changed into shorts, jogged across the street, and took his place with the girls. Long after her friends went home, Anne stayed and chatted with him.
    “How come we never did this before?” She angled her face, her eyes dancing.
    “Busy, maybe.” Earl could feel his face growing hot. Now that they were alone he was terrified she would see the truth. That he’d been in love with her since before she could write her name.
    She leaned back, and the breeze played in her hair. “Know what my friend said about you?”
    “What?” Earl relaxed some.
    “She said I’m lucky you live across the street.” Anne batted her eyelashes at him. “And that you’re the best-looking guy she’s seen all year.”
    “That’s good, I guess.” Earl shrugged. “Of course, does she get out much?”
    Ripples of laughter spilled from Anne’s slender throat and she fell back against the grass. When she regained