Threat of Darkness(70)

 The next second, the voice of Grover Waller, her pastor, came to her. “The angels must rejoice when you sing and play! If I were a less principled man, I’d have told my brother pastor here that I didn’t know another soul who could play the piano besides our own Bethany. Ah, well,” he sighed, stepping into the aura of light around the piano. “That’s what comes of sharing a ministry.”

 As usual, Becca sat like a deer caught in headlights, knowing she should thank the man for his complimentary words but at a complete loss as to how to go about it. Her mind was stuck on those two words: “brother pastor.” Sure enough, just as the phrase suggested, a second man appeared at Grover’s elbow.

 Reaching beyond her, Pastor Waller turned the brass cover on the piano lamp, directing the light upward and casting back the shadows well enough to allow Becca to see her listeners. Middle age had thinned Grover’s ash-brown hair and softened his kindly face. Diabetes had rounded his body, making him appear shorter than she knew him to be. The flat-front pants and bulky sweater that he wore beneath a puffy down-filled jacket only added to the illusion. The younger man looked like a classical Greek sculpture by comparison—despite the dark slacks and full-length black wool coat that he wore. With the prominent jut of his squared chin, hair like dark chocolate and eyes of the lightest, most electric blue, he seemed almost otherworldly. Becca began to tremble even before he extended his long, square-palmed hand.

 “Becca, this is Davis Latimer,” Grover said, “the new pastor of our satellite church over on Magnolia Avenue. Davis, Rebecca Inman.”

 She briefly pressed her damp palm to his.

 “I’ve never heard better,” the young pastor said in a low, deep voice that skated across Becca’s nerve endings like a hot wind over a frozen pond.

 “Ah, I— I teach.” Duh. As if that had anything to do with his compliment. And were words of thanks foreign to her vocabulary?

 “Your students must count themselves blessed,” he said, easing back a step.

You’d never know it, Becca thought. Her choral students, most of whom were looking for an easy A, counted themselves free to talk, smack gum, throw things and generally ignore her. The piano students tended to be more cooperative, but she worked with them on a one-to-one basis.

 “We’re going to put it to you plainly, Becca,” Grover said, leaning a shoulder against the end of the console cabinet. “The Magnolia church needs a pianist.”

 Becca began shaking her head, hiding her quivering hands in the loose, ankle-length skirt of her simple, long-sleeved, gray-knit sack dress.

 “One of my sisters has been filling in since the first of the year,” Davis Latimer explained, “but she’s pledged herself to the mission field and expects an assignment any day now. We’re a small congregation as yet, without a large talent pool to pull from. We were hoping you might consider the position.”

 Becca felt the heavy, messy bun at the nape of her neck wobble precariously and croaked out, “Oh, I really don’t think I should try.”

 “You’ll probably want to pray about it first, of course,” Grover pronounced, just as if she hadn’t spoken.

 “Let us both pray about it,” Davis suggested gently, placing his hand on her shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice the slight jerk his touch evoked as he smoothly went on. “Then in a couple days we can meet and discuss it. Would Saturday morning suit you?”

 Saturday would not suit her grandmother, Becca knew. Grandma Dorothy hated being stuck alone in her little house all day while Becca worked. The only thing she hated worse was actually going somewhere. Getting her wheelchair through the door, down the narrow ramp and into Becca’s minivan was an ordeal, but Grandma only made it worse by gasping in alarm every other second. Becca, of course, said none of that, so naturally Davis Latimer took her silence as acquiescence.

 “Shall we say about eleven o’clock then? I’ll just meet you in the church parking lot there at the intersection of Magnolia Avenue and Iris Street.”

 Becca opened her mouth to say that she didn’t think she could, but his warm hand lightly squeezed her shoulder, strangling the words in her throat.

 “I look forward to it,” he said, bending low so that his softly spoken baritone filled her ear. “God has blessed you with a tremendous talent.”

 Nodding his thanks at Grover, he strode into the murky darkness. Grover, meanwhile, turned the shade on the lamp once more, saying, “I wish I could stay and listen, but I have a special Valentine’s supper waiting for me. Do you know there are some very fine sugarless chocolates now?” He smiled and hurried away, leaving Becca sitting spotlighted behind the tall piano.