Sweet Accord. Felicia Mason

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 she’d greet in the fall.

      She fumbled for car keys that tangled somewhere under the box.

      “Here, I’ll lend you a hand.”

      Haley yelped and dropped the box—straight onto Matt’s foot.

      “Ow.” He hopped out of the way, too late to protect his toes, though.

      “What are you doing creeping up on me like that?”

      Even as she said the words and her heartbeat slowed down, her mind registered running shoes, jeans, white T-shirt and a sport jacket, the same uniform she’d seen him in the day before. And the same objectionable thin gold hoop remained in his left ear. “And what are you doing here?”

      “I came by so we can have our meeting.”

      She reached for fallen posterboard apples and egg crate lions, remnants of the bulletin boards she’d designed and created that year. Their hands met when both sought the same fruit cutout. Heat raced through Haley. Rather than maintain even that minimal physical contact, she surrendered the cutout to Matt.

      While he appeared nonplussed, she found herself totally flushed and flustered. “H-How did you know where to find me?”

      “Eunice told me you were probably here. I thought you’d be at the church so I went there first.”

      “Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say. Jamming her key in the latch of her Honda, she unlocked the trunk and turned to get the box. She crashed into it and Matt instead. Again the box tumbled to the ground, this time most of its contents scattering.

      “What are you doing?” she snapped at him.

      “I thought I was helping you. Since that doesn’t seem to be the case, why don’t I just leave? Meet me at the church at six and we’ll go over some things.”

      Haley lost her patience and her temper. “You’re just going to walk away? You destroy my bulletin board material and you’re leaving.”

      He turned to face her. “Look, lady. What do you want?”

      At the tone and the words, she stood tall and proud, ready for battle. Her fierce positioning must have convinced him she didn’t cower to anyone, least of all an upstart choir director. Without a word he bent down and started filling up the box.

      Careful to put lots of space between them, they picked up the assorted decorations that during the school year illustrated the parts of speech and new vocabulary words.

      “You just make me so…ugh!” She shook her head, apparently unable to think of a despicable enough word.

      “The feeling’s mutual.”

      They completed the rest of their task in silence, though Matt paused every now and then to read the words and descriptions on some of the illustrations. He handed her a piece of white construction paper with a blue sailboat drawn on it. “So, you’re an English teacher.”

      “Language arts.”

      “Why don’t you like me?”

      She opened her mouth, but no words came. Haley swallowed, glanced away and then tried to meet his direct gaze. “Excuse me?”

      He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You’ve hardly rolled out the red carpet to make me feel welcome here. Do I look like a boyfriend who dumped you or is it just the music you hate?”

      Haley found herself flustered. She’d never met a man who was so straight to the point.

      “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t hate anyone or anything.”

      “You’ve made no secret about what you think of me. I was just wondering why.”

      “Mr. Brandon.”

      “Call me Matt.”

      She ignored that. But she did decide to level with him. It was the right thing to do. She could be honest with him without revealing that it wasn’t just the style of music he preferred that disturbed her.

      “I joined Community Christian because it was a small conservative church with traditional values and services. If I had wanted to be affiliated with a congregation that had rock bands, hip-hop artists and jazz ensembles as part of the so-called worship experience, I would have joined one of the churches in town that feature that sort of…” She waved a hand as she floundered for an acceptable word. СКАЧАТЬ