Chapter One

Kate Hanlon smoothed her skirt, straightened the buttons on her periwinkle cardigan, and adjusted the silver drop-pendant at her neck. With a sigh, she flipped down the visor mirror and fussed with her strawberry-blonde collar-length hair in an attempt to tame the frizz brought on by the mist outside the car. Then she sighed again.

Her husband, Paul, who was driving Kate’s Honda Accord, grinned. “I can tell how close to Copper Mill we’re getting by how often you do that.”

“The sighing or the primping?”

He laughed. “Both.”

“As my mother used to say, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression.”

On either side of the narrow road, thick stands of hickories, hemlocks, ashes, and maples were just beginning to turn vibrant oranges, reds, and browns. Since dawn, when they first turned off the main highway into the hill country, a light fog had wrapped itself around the trees, causing the leaves to drip and the scent of damp, loamy soil to drift into the car.

They had been on the road for three days, taking turns at the wheel since leaving San Antonio. The moving van left before they did, and if everything worked according to plan, it would be awaiting them at the new parsonage. Paul’s car would arrive a week or so later.

They had hired a couple of college students from Riverbend Community, their former church, to drive Paul’s beloved old Lexus Sports Coupe to Tennessee. The boys planned to arrive soon after Paul and Kate did, though Kate worried they might have too much fun on their drive east to make it a hurried trip.

“There’s the sign,” Paul announced, breaking into her thoughts. He leaned forward, squinting. “Copper Mill, eleven miles. We’re almost there, Kate.”

He slowed the Accord and turned right onto a single-lane road. Within minutes they were traversing a series of switchbacks as they neared the summit.

The fog turned into gossamer strands as they climbed, then separated into random, thin patches as the sunlight finally broke through. Paul braked as they came to a series of steep curves along the top of the ridge.

They reached a clearing, and Kate sat forward for a better look. The view was breathtaking. Below the summit, ribbons of mist laced in and out among the hollows and ridges. Meandering streams caught the light of the morning sun, turning them into silver threads that almost appeared to be stitched along patches of forest. In the distance, rolling hills folded one behind the other like pale lavender-blue petals until they disappeared into the horizon.

“Oh, Paul! It’s beautiful.”

But it was the wide valley framed by the hills that caught her attention. Near its northern end was a small town with tree-lined streets and neat rows of houses laid out as if by a giant hand.

“That must be Copper Mill.” She studied an area that appeared to be near the creek just outside town, then leaned forward, trying to get a better look. “And it must be fireplace weather.”

“Why is that?”

“I see a small wisp of smoke.”

The idea of curling up in front of a fireplace in the early autumn chill pleased her. But the image was fleeting. Her thoughts turned again to her concerns about their move, especially to their new church, Faith Briar, and the families who awaited their arrival.

She must have sighed again, because Paul asked, “Are you nervous, Katie?”

She laughed lightly. “Aren’t you?”

He glanced at her and grinned. His expression reminded her of their children on the night before Christmas when they were young. She laughed again. “I guess I’ll be the one to do the worrying for us both.”

They had taken a huge leap of faith when they decided to leave their former church and make the trek from Texas to Tennessee to take on the pastorate of Faith Briar, a small church in a small village nestled in the mountains.

Kate settled back, pulled her feet comfortably onto the seat, and turned toward her husband.

Paul had built the congregation in San Antonio from fewer than one hundred to a membership of more than five thousand, with three Sunday services and a weekly televised program. In their first five years at Riverbend, they had moved from a storefront church to an imposing building that could seat twenty-five hundred in each service. And now Paul was taking over a church that was smaller than most Sunday-school classes in their former church. How could it possibly be enough of a challenge for this dynamic leader? Kate had also given up her job as an executive assistant—without a career of her own, would she find enough to keep her from getting bored?

Kate’s thoughts were interrupted when Paul maneuvered the car to the shoulder to let a black-and-white SUV pass. She noticed the sheriff’s symbol on the side of the vehicle as it sped past them. The driver was a very young-looking redheaded man in a khaki shirt. The emergency lights on top of the SUV weren’t flashing, but the vehicle seemed to be in a hurry and soon disappeared around the next curve.

“I can’t wait to see what’s ahead.” Paul steered the Honda back onto the road. “It’s almost as if we’re starting over again—like when we were a couple of kids fresh out of seminary.” He grinned.

“The closer we get to Copper Mill, the more I realize how scary this is. It’s one thing to be committed to following God’s leading; it’s quite another to take those first wobbly steps into the unknown with confidence and enthusiasm.”

“It’s only natural...”

Laughing, she finished his sentence as long-married couples often did. “...after all this anticipation and preparation.”

He braked at a hairpin curve as they started the steep decline into the valley, and she tried to picture their new home. Maybe it was a Cape Cod. Or a Victorian. Paul, who didn’t pay attention to such things as house exteriors, couldn’t tell her. Though it had been just a formality, Paul had flown to Chattanooga, rented a car, and driven to Copper Mill six months earlier. The church board had met with him and extended a warm invitation. He had toured the church, the town, and the parsonage, though he admitted it was dark by the time they reached the last stop on his tour.

He’d told her the house was small. Very small. And a bit dog-eared. “It just needs your decorating touches,” he’d said. “And maybe a fresh coat of paint.”

Small was okay with Kate. Small could be cottage-cute and lovely.

They came to a clearing in the trees, and Kate noticed that they were closer now, and the details of the town were clearer.

She leaned forward for a better look, her attention riveted to an area just outside town. “Paul!” Her heart did a staccato beat.

He gave her a worried glance. “What is it?”

“That smoke we saw a while back?”

“What about it?”

“It’s not from a fireplace. The plume is huge. It looks like a building’s on fire!”

Paul picked up speed, looking for a turnout to pull over. Kate tried to catch a glimpse of the fire in the clearings between the stands of hemlocks and maples. Finally, a longer stretch of open sky gave her enough time to stare at the billowing cloud of smoke.

“There’s so much smoke, I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

“Could it be a factory or something? Maybe it’s steam from a processing plant?”

“No, it’s too dark. Too big. It’s a fire, Paul. And now I see an orange glow in the smoke.”

Her heart dropped as the sounds of sirens came up suddenly behind them. Paul immediately braked and maneuvered the Accord onto a narrow shoulder.

Sirens blasting and lights flashing, two fire trucks sped by, followed by a large EMS van. The wail of sirens faded into the distance as the vehicles made their way down the switchbacks toward Copper Mill.

“They must be from Pine Ridge,” Paul said. “I know Copper Mill has a volunteer fire department, but when they need help, they call on Pine Ridge.”

Kate nodded, recognizing the name of the larger town they had passed on their way to Copper Mill.

Through the trees, Kate could see thick black smoke rising from somewhere just outside town. Sick at heart, she turned away as Paul steered the Honda back onto the road, tires spinning gravel and dirt. He picked up speed and raced down the mountain, rounding the corners, tires squealing. Within minutes he closed the gap between the Accord and the emergency vehicles and followed them toward Copper Mill.

Kate held on to the seat, knowing her husband’s pastoral heart: he would let nothing get in the way of reaching those in need of help.

The fire trucks slowed and turned onto Mountain Laurel Road, which ran parallel to a creek. Up ahead, flames leaped into the sky above the orange-red smoke.

Before the trucks had even come to a stop at the burning building, the firefighters had already jumped to the ground. One immediately directed traffic away from the fire and waved Paul and Kate down Smoky Mountain Road.

As Paul inched the car into the smoke and ashes, Kate coughed, her throat stinging and her eyes watering. The stench of wet smoldering embers and acrid smoke drifted toward them.

“I hope no one’s hurt,” Paul said, his voice low. He drove down a couple of side streets and reconnected with Mountain Laurel Road. Turning right, he headed back toward the densest smoke. The burning building was just outside downtown Copper Mill on a lush tree-lined street.

“There, up ahead! I see people...Look, Paul! It’s right in front of us.”

He hurriedly parked, and they jumped out of the car, grabbing their jackets before slamming the doors. They ran up the sidewalk to where dozens of people stood, young and old, alone and in groups, horror and disbelief showing on their faces.

Paul suddenly stopped, looked at Kate, and then to the burning building. “Oh, Kate.”

Kate squinted through the smoke. Flames had almost swallowed the building, but above the uppermost tongues of the roaring fire rose a steeple. Delicate. Fragile. Vulnerable. About to be engulfed in the inferno.

Her eyes watered, but this time it wasn’t from the smoke.

The official letter from the church board asking Paul to consider a call to pastor Faith Briar had been written on church stationery. A photograph of the beautiful old church had graced the upper left-hand corner. The steeple was distinctive, its historic bell proudly described below the picture in a paragraph relating the church’s history.

Kate’s knees went limp, and she grabbed Paul’s arm to steady herself.

“No, it can’t be,” she whispered. “It can’t be our church!”