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indicated with hand gestures how the rest of the hymn should build. When they came to the final phrase, instinctively, Nola lifted her fingers from the organ keys, allowing his voice to carry the final words without accompaniment.
    “God in three persons,” he sang softly, his inflection filled with wonder, and then “Blessed trinity” with the emphasis on blessed.
    “Oh, my,” Oliver gasped as the last note died away. “Oh, that was just splendid.”
    And hard as she tried not to take pleasure in the moment, Nola found herself beaming up at Harrison Starbuck.
    But her smile faded when his eyes locked on hers for he wasn’t smiling at all. He was studying her as if she’d suddenly turned into a completely different person. And then it was as if he tore his gaze from hers as he accepted Oliver’s compliments.
    “In the theater, the actors are well aware that often they are made to look better than they are by those who support them.” He gave Nola a little bow. “We make a fine team, Miss Nola. Are you satisfied with the arrangement or shall we try it your way?”
    Was Starbuck mocking her? He knew very well that what he had done was magnificent. Nola stiffened. “I doubt there’s time for testing other arrangements,” she said, deliberately looking at the gold brooch watch she had pinned to her jacket lapel. “And if you’ll forgive me, gentlemen, I should like to run through the prelude and review today’s congregational hymns before people begin arriving.”
    “Of course,” Oliver said. “Nola always uses this hour to rehearse. She’s so busy during the week. I’m afraid we have intruded on your time, my dear.”
    “Not at all,” Nola assured Oliver. “The prelude today is a standard that I’ve done many times before. Mostly,” she added for Starbuck’s benefit, “I rely on this time to make sure the organ is working well and to warm up for the service.” And not waiting for a response, she turned her attention to the music and began to play.
    To her relief the two men moved up the aisle and she assumed they had gone outside to give her privacy while they enjoyed the warm spring morning. Reverend Diggs arrived and nodded to her as he went through his own preliminary preparations for the service. He placed his notes on the pulpit, marked each hymn page with a bookmark and then headed into the small side room where she knew he would don the black robe he wore for services.
    She sounded the final chords of the prelude and then leaned back, stretching her shoulders and splaying her fingers as she lifted her arms high above her head.
    “I never appreciated how gifted a musician you are,” Starbuck said.
    Nola whipped around to find him sitting alone in the last pew, one long leg crossed over the other and his arms stretched along the back of the pew in a posture that seemed to announce ownership over his domain.
    “Thank you,” she replied rigidly and scanned for some way to occupy herself as a means of escape. In her peripheral vision, she saw the long legs unfold, saw the polished shoes beneath the tailored black trousers move down the aisle, and felt her breath grow shallow.
    “Seriously,” he continued as he propped one foot on the platform that held the organ and rested his elbow on his knee, “you should think of doing a concert—classical music.”
    “I do not perform for profit,” Nola said and was surprised when instead of being rebuffed Starbuck leaned even closer and grinned.
    “Who said anything about paying you?” Then he pushed himself upright and turned to join other members of the choir who were beginning to fill the pews across from the organ.
     
    As she walked back to the tearoom after church, Nola was still trying to work through the range of emotions that had come with the morning’s service. It was not the sermon that had touched her. The truth was she had barely heard Reverend Diggs’s lesson for that day and during the closing prayer she had asked God’s