BY ELIZABETH ELLEN CARTER
A Fine Chance
A SHORT STORY SET IN 1922 SAN FRANCISCO
Sometimes coming home only begins when you get there.
A Fine Chance first appeared in the Bluestocking Belle anthology, Follow Your Star Home. Forged for lovers, the Viking star ring is said to bring lovers together, no matter how far apart, no matter how hard the task.
San Francisco, 1922
Helen Watson has arranged a job for an out-of-work former soldier at her workplace, unaware that she’s the miracle he needed.
Robert Fairmont has returned from the Great War a different man with a new name. A job in his father’s factory is the first step toward reconciliation.
Can Helen forgive him for hiding his real identity or will Robert end up losing his father for good as well as his one true love?
All he needs is A Fine Chance.
In eight stories covering more than a thousand years, the heroes and heroines of Follow Your Star Home put a legend to the test. Watch the Viking Star ring work its magic as prodigals return home in the season of goodwill, uncertain of their welcome.
Excerpt
Late October, 1922
The wind stopped rushing round Helen’s ears as she rounded the corner, the sturdy brick building providing a respite from the frigid winds whipped up from the Bay.
It was quieter here and she heard the sound of a foot-pedaled whetstone operated by the itinerant knife sharpener who had started operating from that corner a couple of weeks ago.
The steady rhythmic turn of the bicycle pedals operated the sharpening stone. The back wheel of the conveyance was up on a stand, giving the operator a seat and a steady place to work.
Over the handlebars, and either side of the front wheel, were two saddlebags that seemed to be stuffed full – possibly the knife sharpener’s worldly possessions.
Helen stamped her feet and wrapped the forest green woolen coat around her more carefully, listening for the sound of the trolley car and its bell announcing its arrival at the stop that would take her to work at the Crusader Shirt company in The Mission District.
The knife sharpener stopped pedaling. He sat up straight and lifted the object he’d been working on up. The long sword blade glinted silver in the shaft of sunlight that streamed through the alley way – a misplaced King Arthur pulling the steel from the stone, she mused.
The man was much younger than she thought. He looked no older than thirty and wore mid-brown hair cut neatly, slightly longer than a regulation hair cut. A former soldier no doubt, down on his luck.
Ding-ding!
The bright sound of the trolley car bell caused him to turn. Their eyes met, his silvery grey. The look held. For a moment Helen was sure he was going to call out to her.
Ding-ding!
Helen started and remembered herself. She rushed around the corner back into the blustery street and hopped straight onto a trolley car.