Threat of Darkness(75)
“But I’m not too young!” Caylie argued. “Even Mother says so, and she was nearly forty.”
“She was thirty-five,” Carlie said.
“Thirty-four,” Davis corrected, then he left them to their bickering, turning those azure eyes fully on Becca, who had somehow managed to actually eat. “Would a trial period be more to your liking?” he asked softly. “A month, perhaps, to decide if it will work out for you?”
A rush of warm affection flooded her. “Thank you, yes.” Somehow it helped to think that she had obligated herself only temporarily.
And somehow it did not.
“Good. I feel better now. When might you start?”
Becca thought rapidly. “Well, my sister’s back, but I still have the winter concert this Friday evening to get through, so the first Sunday in March?”
“Lovely. It’s settled then, a week from tomorrow.”
Becca took a deep breath before confirming, “A week from tomorrow, yes.”
“And don’t worry,” he told her. “Our congregation is still small in number, but they will be large in gratitude, I promise.”
They discussed the pay, which she found surprisingly adequate, and then he casually asked, “Friday, that would be, what, Leap Year day?”
“Yes, I thought it appropriate.”
“How so?”
She ran a fingertip around the rim of her coffee cup. “Let’s just say I’ll be taking a huge leap of faith that night.”
“I imagine it’s a daunting prospect,” he said, “a choral concert with reluctant high-schoolers.”
“You’ve no idea.”
“Will it help to know that I’ll be praying for you?”
“Yes.” Surprisingly she really thought it would.
He smiled and polished up his breakfast plate.
She was on her way home a half hour later before she finally allowed herself to consider the significance of one important fact: Davis Latimer’s mother had married at the age of thirty-four.
Perhaps it was not too late, after all. Thirty-three did not seem so terribly old when she considered that Mrs. Latimer had borne at least four children after the age of thirty-four. At the same time, judging by those children—the three whom she knew, anyway—the woman must be a courageous, forthright, Amazon of a figure. No doubt she had delayed marriage because she’d been off seeing the world and accomplishing great things. Music was bred in their genes, according to the twins. Perhaps their mother had been a great musical prodigy and thrown it all away for love.
There she went letting her fanciful dreams carry her away. The last thing she should be doing is building castles in the air just because some nice man had said he liked her hair.
“Oh, dear Jesus, help me,” she prayed.
Not only had she agreed to do the thing for which she was least suited in this world, she had done so for all the wrong reasons. Besides, she could never leave her grandmother alone or expect anyone else to put up with her, certainly not a man like Davis Latimer, minister or not.
* * *
“I am selfish,” Davis reiterated, enjoying the last of the bacon while his sisters shared a sink full of dirty dishes.
“If she’s as talented as you say,” Caylie qualified, “it would be selfish of her not to share her gifts.”
“And you gave her an out,” Carlie insisted.
“Which I won’t let her take,” Davis confessed, “if there’s any way I can prevent it.”
“You know you’re just asking God to stop you,” Carlie said.
“No, I’m asking God not to stop me,” Davis admitted.
“Well, then,” the twins said in unison.
“He will or He won’t,” Carlie finished for them. “Either way, it’s up to God.”
Davis nodded and silently prayed that God’s will would coincide with his own.
FOUR
“Becca, you have company.”
Company? Becca looked up from the folder of sheet music that she was going over in her head. Now? Here? She glanced around at the collapsible risers arrayed in a semicircle before the conductor’s music stand and felt the heavy crimson curtain at her back sway. Turning, she saw Davis Latimer push past Ryan Jefford, the assistant principal. She stared stupidly while Davis, elegant in a coal-black suit and white shirt with a pale blue tie, thanked Ryan and moved toward her.
“How are you?” he asked. “Nervous? Nauseous?”
She hadn’t even thought of being sick until that moment, but now she gulped down a doughy lump in her throat and nodded.