Sweet Accord. Felicia Mason

she’d been about to say. It had almost sounded like the beginning of an apology, an olive branch offered. In a way, he was sorry the minister had intervened at that moment. Matt found it curious that mention of a deceased parent had triggered a turnaround in Haley’s attitude toward him.

      “I know you two don’t get along very well,” the minister said. “That’s one of the reasons I put you together to come up with a compromise. You’ll find common ground. I know you both have very strong opinions about this, and I know you also have the best interests of the church at heart.”

      “Thank you, Reverend. I won’t betray that trust.”

      Matt cut a glance at her. “Neither will I. We’ll work out our differences. One way or another,” he added in a barely audible mutter.

      Haley’s quick intake of breath told him she’d heard though.

      “Excellent.” The minister patted Matt on the shoulder and did the same as he passed by Haley. “Have a good day.”

      Matt looked at Haley. The day had been just fine until he’d been tasked to spend time with her. As long as he remained focused on his ministry, though, everything would be fine. Just fine.

      “I’m sorry about what I said,” she told him. “I didn’t know about your mother.”

      He shrugged, then gathered his own papers before standing. “Not a problem. Look, when’s a good time for us to meet? The sooner we get this over with, the faster we’ll be done with each other.”

      “Our task is very important, Mr. Brandon.”

      He sighed. “Call me Matt.”

      “You make light of it, but we can’t have tambourines and guitars in service. I can understand if it were during some sort of special program, but not in the regular service.”

      “Too much like having fun in church?”

      “Yes!”

      His eyes speared hers. “Then we really have a ways to go before we reach a compromise on this committee,” he said. “The God I serve says make a joyful noise. Do you even know how?”

      He walked out of the room before she sent a scathing reply his way.

      Haley seethed.

      “He’s the most conceited, self-absorbed, egotistical lout I’ve ever had the misfortune of meeting.”

      “Lout?” Haley’s cousin Amber grinned. “Now that’s a word you don’t hear very often.”

      “Whose side are you on?” Haley said as she snatched a saucepan from a cabinet in Amber Montgomery’s tiny but well-appointed kitchen and banged it on the counter.

      Amber winced. “I think I’m on the side of those very expensive pots and pans you’re slamming all over the place. Those are my work instruments, you know.”

      “Sorry,” Haley said. Amber was such a terrific cook that she carved a living at it.

      Amber put down the knife she’d been using to chop celery and took the saucepan from Haley’s hands. “Why don’t you sit down? I’ll finish this.” She drew a bit of water, put the pan on a burner, then returned to a waiting pile of fresh broccoli and grated carrots.

      Haley stomped through the small kitchen and plopped into a chair at the drop-leaf table Amber used as both eating surface and desk in her studio apartment.

      “He sounds like a dreamboat.”

      “You’re taking his side again.”

      Amber adjusted the flame, then dumped all of the chopped veggies in the saucepan with the now boiling water. After a quick blanching they’d go into the salad.

      “Well, from what I remember, the Bible does say something about making noise in church.”

      One of Haley’s missions in life was to get her cousin back to church. She couldn’t make the faith decision for Amber, but she could try to get her back to a place where she’d be exposed to the Word.

      “Come with me Sunday, you’ll see.”

      Amber glanced up. “Nice try. But I’m running in a 5K in Portland on Sunday. You should come with me. You hardly ever go into the city. We could have brunch and then stop at Powell’s.”

      Haley considered for a moment, the bookstore a temptation. “No. This situation with Matt Brandon is tenuous enough. If I’m not there, Lord only knows what he’ll do.”

      “So, when’s your date with him?”

      Haley leveled a heated look at her cousin. “It’s not a date. It’s a committee meeting.”

      “Yeah, whatever,” Amber said as she nibbled around a leftover carrot. “I think you object too much. You haven’t even heard any of his music.”

      “I heard what he played during his interview and believe me it’s not at all church music.”

      Amber shrugged. “Maybe your definition of church music is too narrow.”

      That offhand comment stayed with Haley throughout the evening. As she readied for bed that night she wondered if she was being overly critical without giving Matt Brandon a fair hearing. It didn’t sit well with her at all that she had to question herself. If nothing else, Haley had a reputation for being fair, scrupulously so.

      So, she reasoned, her visceral objections sprang from elsewhere. Too bad her friend Kara Spencer was out of town. As a therapist, Kara would have some definite ideas about this. Most likely the attraction she’d felt when she’d touched his arm, the awareness she’d been trying to feign indifference toward from the moment she’d laid eyes on him. Not since Timothy had she been so aware of a man’s presence.

      “And look where that got you,” she muttered.

      Matt and Timothy were nothing at all alike. She and her ex-fiancé, both tall blondes, had been the golden couple in Wayside. Timothy, an up-and-comer at the town’s branch of Portland’s largest bank, was perfection and propriety—which made them a matched set. Matt on the other hand put her in mind of James Dean in his rebel without a cause persona. Where Timothy had been solicitous of her opinions and feelings, Matt’s attitude in the church council meetings put her teeth on edge. She’d seen every one of the weary sighs and rolling eyes that he thought he’d hidden so well.

      Of course, to have noticed those things, she had to have been studying him pretty intently. She told herself it was the welfare of the church and the integrity of the council’s mission that had her watching his every move. The fact that he carried himself with an easy confidence that was both appealing and refreshing had nothing to do with it. Neither, she told herself, did the fact that when he smiled, tiny laugh lines at his eyes made her want to smile in return.

      But watching him in a meeting and working with him on a committee of two were entirely different issues. In the meetings at church, she could hide her feelings behind the shield of the others present. In a one-on-one situation, she had no protection—not that she feared for her physical safety around him. Sparks seemed to fly whenever they were together, and those sparks could prove dangerous to her on a variety of levels.

      “And so you’re stuck,” she muttered.

      Reverend Baines was determined to have them together on this committee. Realizing it was futile to hope that the pastor might offer another solution to the music issue, her prayer that night was for tolerance and understanding. She ignored the other part of her problem, the awareness of Matt Brandon, an awareness that left her in a decidedly uncharitable mood.

      The next afternoon, Haley struggled with a box jammed to overflowing with colorful cutouts and posters. As usual, she’d been the last teacher at Wayside Prep to clear out her room for the summer. Thank goodness, this was the last load. She’d store everything in her garage until she had time to sort through it all and figure out what she wanted to keep for the new group of fourth-graders