Love Shadows (9 page)

Still struggling with the zipper, Sarah’s patience wore thin. “This darn thing!”

“Here, let me help,” Luke offered, handing her the plate of cookies and then expertly putting the zipper teeth inside the pulley. As he zipped up the slicker, the fingers of his hand grazed against Sarah’s chin. He flung his hand back as if he’d been stung.

Sarah stiffened. She wasn’t quite sure what happened, but something had zapped her like an electric shock. She stared at him.

His eyes were locked on hers, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. His expression was implacable.

She held out the plate of cookies. “Don’t forget these. For the kids.”

“Thanks,” Luke said, then turned toward the back of the room where Margot was turning off the lamps. “Good night, Margot.”

“Good night, Luke,” Margot said.

He threw Sarah one last look. “Bye.”

“Night,” Sarah said and watched him leave. She picked up her purse, bid Margot good-night and then left the room. As she walked toward the library’s huge doors, she stared out at the rain. All she could think about was the electric shock that had run through her when his hand had touched her chin.

She’d never felt anything like that in her life. It was as if she’d been struck by a thunderbolt. Something had happened to Sarah in that moment, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. She’d felt as if she’d come alive from a long, dark sleep. Vaguely, she wondered if this was like the “kiss of true love” that awakened Snow White.

Sarah’s level head and logical thinking told her not to dwell on fairy tales. Certainly there were attributes of kindness, caring, good humor and thoughtfulness in Luke Bosworth, but if she’d scoured the earth for a century there was no doubt in her mind that she would ever have found a more emotionally unavailable man.

However, he had helped her with her rain slicker.
Maybe there’s hope there, after all.

CHAPTER TWELVE

S
ARAH
WATCHED
HER
fingers as they traveled up and down the piano keys, creating the melodic and moving strains of “In the Garden.” The children from the vacation Bible School auditioned for the choir with an eagerness she hadn’t expected. Mary Catherine had already chosen nine girls and four boys, including Timmy Bosworth. Now it was Annie’s turn to audition.

“May I sing something different, Mrs. Cook?” Annie asked.

“I suppose so, if Sarah knows the song.” Mary Catherine looked over at Sarah.

“What is it, Annie?” Sarah asked.

“‘Ave Maria.’”

Sarah gaped at the eight-year-old. “You know the ‘Ave Maria’?”

“In English and Latin. My mother taught it to me. It was her favorite. She was a really good singer.” Annie smiled widely.

Sarah smiled back. “It’s very difficult, but if that’s what you’d like to sing, I would love to play it for you.”

Annie, dressed in a white, cotton summer dress with watermelon slices appliqued on the skirt, nearly jumped up and down with glee.

Sarah began the intro and Mary Catherine gave Annie her cue. In less than one bar, listening to Annie, Sarah got goose bumps—the kind that were brought on when one was moved in both heart and soul. Sarah watched every nuance of the little girl who was as much inside the song as any adult soloist could be. With each chorus, Annie’s voice rose in crescendo, matching emotion with words and plucking the heartstrings of her choir director and pianist.

When the song ended, Annie stood radiant.

Sarah sat rigid in shock, but only for a moment. Then she bolted to her feet and applauded. “Bravo! Annie. Bravo!”

She rushed to the little girl.

Mary Catherine had tears in her eyes. “Beautiful. Beautiful.”

“Annie, we had no idea you could sing like this.”

Annie hung her head demurely. “I’ve been practicing.”

“I should say so!” Sarah couldn’t help it. She hugged the little girl.

Annie hugged her back. “Thank you, Miss Sarah. I’m glad you liked the song.”

“It’s one of my favorites, too. My mother always sang it to me on Christmas Eve.”

Mary Catherine tapped her cheek. “That’s exactly what we’ll do for Christmas. We’ll have Annie sing the solo at the Christmas Eve service.”

“Wonderful!”

Annie’s face fell. “What if my dad won’t let me?” she asked.

“Of course he’ll let you sing,” Mary Catherine chirped happily. “With a voice like yours, you should be on one of those television talent shows.”

Annie shook her head violently just as Timmy walked up.

He put his hand in Annie’s. “He won’t let her sing,” Timmy said.

Sarah was aghast. “Why on earth not? You are both very talented children. It’s practically his moral duty to encourage you and support you.”

“You don’t understand,” Annie said. “He really won’t.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes. “You two aren’t here without his permission, are you?”

“Not exactly,” Annie said. “He knows we’re at Bible School and I told him I wanted to be in the choir. But he wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention when I said today was the tryouts.”

“Does he know how good you are?”

Timmy frowned and pouted his lip. “He doesn’t know anything about us anymore.”

Annie looked from Timmy up to Sarah. “I don’t sing much anymore at home. It reminds him too much of my mom. And that makes him sad.”

Sarah stood up and folded her arms across her chest. “So where do you practice?”

“On the beach. Mrs. Taylor thinks I’m good, too,” Annie said proudly. “She’s teaching me some other songs. I like ‘America the Beautiful’ a lot.”

Sarah looked at Mary Catherine, who gave her a very worried look. “I think we have a problem.”

Annie’s blue eyes were filled with the pain of rejection. “I was hoping... I just wanted to be in the choir. So does Timmy. He’s a good singer, too.”

“Yes, he is, sweetheart. You both are wonderful,” Sarah assured them. “I’ll talk to your dad.”

Annie’s eyes grew wide and Timmy dropped his mouth. “You will?” They exclaimed in unison.

Sarah hadn’t expected such elation and eagerness from them. Her heart soared as she realized that, in an instant, she’d become someone’s champion. She hadn’t asked for the job—she’d simply taken it on. Just as quickly, she realized she might have made a huge mistake. Luke was a volatile guy, and nobody knew that as well as she did. But as she stared at their eager, impassioned faces, she assessed the situation. She decided that the kids were worth the risk.

Mary Catherine escorted the children out of the church as Sarah gathered her music and placed the sheets in her father’s battered briefcase.

She looked around the church one last time before turning out the lights. As she walked down the cracked terrazzo floor and passed the pews with their worn-out pads, Sarah’s designer-architect’s mind stopped her in her tracks.

“This place needs more than repairs. It needs serious redesign.” Sarah scanned the dull, brown paint and cracked, peeling gold leaf. Looking at it with a trained eye, it was no wonder the church was losing people. The place couldn’t be more depressing if it was a morgue.

“It needs me,” she said aloud, as creative adrenaline spiraled through her body. She, turned off the lights—the ones that were working— and closed the doors reverently behind her. Then she took off in a run for home.

* * *

S
ARAH
WORKED
ALL
night at her drafting table, struggling to put down on paper all her ideas for a complete renovation of her church. She used every medium at her disposal, from charcoals to pastel chalks and even acrylic paints, hoping to get just the right blends that would lighten up the church’s dreary interior. The hours passed, but to Sarah they felt like minutes. She was completely unaware of the mess she’d made until dawn seeped through the plantation shutters on the window.

“How can it be morning? I’ve barely begun,” she groaned aloud and looked at her watch. She wiped her hand over her face and tried to bring herself back to reality.

She remembered she’d made only one pot of coffee in her French press, and had consumed it early on in the evening. Around two in the morning, she’d gone downstairs for an apple and a handful of walnuts, but glancing at the side table, she realized she hadn’t touched her fruit.

Sitting on her high-backed stool with the pink-and-green-candy-striped cushion her mother had made for her when she’d gone off to college, she looked at the large pile of crumpled papers at her feet. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the drafting table.

Lying before her were twenty-nine depictions of the renovations she knew the church would need. And she didn’t remember creating half of them.
When did I do all this?

When she’d worked on a particularly demanding project back in Indianapolis, she’d gotten into her creative zone and lost track of time, but she’d always kept a sharp bead on her progress.

Something about this experience was different. Very different.

She vaguely remembered opening all the tubes of oil paints. She remembered the acrylics and then throwing those drafts into the wastebasket. She remembered throwing some pen and ink drawings away, but she was at a loss as to how many drawings she’d completed.

Could this be real artistic inspiration?

Sarah, girl. You are really losing it,
she chastised herself. Then picked up the first drawing.
Or...could you possibly be getting it?

Sarah went through the first stack of sketches, which were all done in charcoal pencil. These were for the construction work she knew had to take place before any other changes could be executed. The largest and most costly alteration would be the removal of the old glassed-in “cry room,” which sat off to the left of the altar. Sarah wanted to rip it out and make a new area for the choir. She would keep the choir section on the right-hand side of the altar as it was, but refurbish the pews. The addition of the extra choir area was for the children’s choir. She knew it would be a mainstay for years to come.

Sarah saw a new electric piano and an electric organ in the left area, as well. They would need amps, a very good sound system and someone to run it. Music brought joy to everyone’s lives. She couldn’t help thinking of little Annie and the joy Sarah had felt throughout her body just listening to the child sing.

In the back of the church, where the vestibule flowed openly into the main area, she would partition the vestibule off with columns, wood arches and soundproof glass windows. Fifteen-foot-high, massive, wood doors with brass handles would open to the center aisle. There were matching but smaller doors on the far right and far left where people could enter through the side aisles.

The vestibule would double as a greeting area and as a new cry room for parents with babies and small children. Two rows of comfortable, stackable chairs would be placed in this area, and could be removed for weddings and gatherings when seating was not required.

At some point in the seventies, someone had decided to cover the dull, concrete columns that ran up and down the side aisles of the main area with an even duller beige grasscloth. Tearing out the columns and replacing them was senseless. In addition, the columns accented, though they did not support, the twelve arches in the lower left and right aisle ceilings. Sarah planned to remove the grasscloth and have the columns painted in a dramatic and rich-looking dark green with gold marble veining. She realized she would need an expert artist to execute the complicated veining process that would make the columns resemble real marble. If the painting was not executed with precision, a very good eye and steady hand, the result would look more like graffiti than faux marbling.

Around the far back wall of the sacristy and altar area, she designed the faux-marble wall decor that would resemble panels, but would require no wood and thus keep costs down.

The costs!
Sarah looked at her work, and for the first time since she started her drawings and plans over twelve hours ago, she felt depressed. She knew enough about construction and design work—the materials and the labor—to realize that her initial proposal would cost upwards of three-quarters of a million dollars.

“Buck up, Sarah. You can do this,” she said to encourage herself.

She flipped through the drawings again. She reached over to her paint sample fan decks and started choosing the colors she imagined. Sky-blue for the barrel ceiling. Gold leaf for the arches. Butter-yellow for the side walls, choir areas and the vestibule. A deeper sunflower-yellow for the accent curves. The windowsills and window insert walls would all be that dark blue-green. Jamaican Sea. She paused and looked at the paint swatch.
That’s the color of the columns and the new carpet.

With a deep frown, Sarah wondered how they would repair the rose, gray, beige, black and white terrazzo floor. Suddenly, the phone rang.

“Are you still in your drawing room, pumpkin?” Mrs. Beabots asked.

“How do you know that?”

“Your lights were on all night.”

“I was working.”

“Sounds intriguing,” Mrs. Beabots said. “I just wanted to remind you about tomorrow night. The Arts in the Park.”

Sarah scrounged through her brain, barely remembering anything besides her drawings. “Right. I’m driving us.”

“That’s right, dear. It’s the first concert of the season. It will be a virtual festival.”

A festival?

Sarah felt as if the clock had stopped.

A festival.

The word conjured whirling visions in her head.
Festival
evoked a scene of Renaissance tents and food wagons, Harlequin clowns and jugglers, puppeteers and actors bellowing lines from Shakespeare. A Midsummer’s Eve festival would attract hundreds, possibly thousands of people who would spend money freely in a fantastical setting, Sarah thought.

“Sarah? Did you hear me?”

Sarah snapped out of her reverie. “Yes. We’ll leave at six-thirty. Maddie said she’d be here at six. I’m making stuffed green peppers for dinner beforehand.”

“I’ll bring the wine,” Mrs. Beabots said. “Something special, I should think. After all, it’s the beginning of summer.”

As soon as Sarah hung up the phone, she realized Mrs. Beabots had given her the perfect idea for raising the money for St. Mark’s.

“I can do this,” she said to Beau, who was watching her with rapt attention.

She would organize a summer festival on the church grounds, and all the proceeds would go to the building fund. She needed a huge extravaganza, which was not hard for Sarah to conjure. She always worked best with large concepts. Skyscrapers. Huge shopping malls. Civic centers. That’s the kind of work she’d accomplished in Indianapolis. No wonder she hadn’t produced a good design for Charmaine on her last assignment. It was too small. Too utilitarian. She couldn’t make her head lower the bar that much. No, a project like St. Mark’s was her forte. She liked tackling the big whale.

In less than an hour, Sarah had jotted down all the basics for the summer festival. She would hold it on the 4th of July, when Indian Lake was host to an extra twenty to thirty thousand tourists for the weekend. She would start the festival right after the huge downtown parade, which boasted bands, fire engines, dressage and Western horse teams, antique cars and over a hundred floats. It was not unusual to have the governor of Indiana come to the parade. There was always a flyover by F-16 jets from the Grissolm Air Force Base at precisely eleven o’clock. People would stream to her festival. She would cajole all the best retailers in town to purchase booth space, starting with Maddie Strong. She’d also ask Scott Abbott, who owned the the Book Shop and Java Stop. The competition would be good for them. Liz Crenshaw could advertise her wines, even if she couldn’t sell them directly to the public.

And Sarah would plan a children’s freedom pageant, which would entice parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents to attend, boosting numbers through the gates. Sarah envisioned the children’s choir onstage, each of their eager faces belting out patriotic songs. She would feature Annie Bosworth as the star. Annie had said she was practicing “America the Beautiful.” She would be perfect.