God must have wanted Breena to attend Todd and Sandra’s reception. She took a left turn out of the parking lot of the wrong St. John’s when she should have taken a right, but she didn’t realize her mistake until she’d gone about a mile. By now thoroughly frustrated, she tried to take the expressway as a shortcut home, only to get caught in a huge traffic snarl behind an accident. Exasperated, she pulled off at the next exit, and while she was trying to establish her bearings she looked down the street…and spied the Chapel of St. John just a few blocks away.
She arrived at the banquet hall a few minutes before the newlyweds, found a seat at a big round table, and did her best to join in the conversation with Todd’s neighbors and co-workers. As she pushed a piece of wedding cake—the awful kind, with an unidentified fruit filling and that frosting that leaves a coating of lard on the roof of your mouth—around her plate, her thoughts persistently drifted to Keegan Neil.
Keegan Neil was on her mind again as she climbed the spiral staircase leading from her workshop to the apartment above. Sighing, she hung her purse on a peg in the hall closet and flipped the switch beside the front door. Soft light flooded the room, puddling on pale oak tabletops and washing over the cushiony brown sofas that flanked her floor-to-ceiling fireplace. Breena loved everything about her home, from the panoramic view visible through a row of arched windows to the rough adobe walls where she’d hung her collection of antique lutes and mandolins.
Before she’d rented the property, the upstairs space had been an artist’s studio, complete with kaleidoscopic paint spatters dotting the warm hardwood floors. She hadn’t scraped them up because she liked the way the multi-hued splashes brightened the otherwise dull boards. Using those drips and drops as her color palette, Breena had matched scatter rugs and throw pillows to the bright shades, giving the open area a lively, eclectic look.
She’d carried the cheery look downstairs and into her workshop, too, coating the trim boards, doors, and windowsills with brilliant enamels.
Breena enjoyed her home, but she relished her work even more. Music—and anything to do with it—had always been her heart’s desire. Her love of music had, at the age of ten, inspired her to take apart the battered old piano in her grandmother’s back room. Hours after closing the door to that oversized closet, she emerged, eyes shining with victory at having turned an out-of-tune beast into a beautifully singing instrument. Fingers swollen and bruised from struggling with stiff wire and rough wood, she’d placed both hands on her hips and announced her plans for the future to her family: “I’m going to be a piano tuner when I grow up!”
Her parents had exchanged patronizing glances. “Only Breena could say a thing like that,” her mother had said. And because of it, Breena had made up her mind right then and there to prove she could do it. She studied hard to reach her goal. The job, her research taught her, involved more than a talent for the keyboard. It required a good ear, physical strength, dexterity…and a slightly reclusive nature, since the best tuning work is done in solitude. Not that Breena didn’t like chatting with her customers, but in her opinion, the real fun began when the interview ended. She likened being alone with the instruments—and the music they made—to visiting heaven several times a day.
She’d always liked her lifestyle, free to come and go as she pleased, unencumbered by the tethers of a nine-to-five office job, or family, or beaus. Her only responsibilities were to her customers…and Hershey.
As usual, the cat leapt from his cozy bed—a threadbare afghan piled on the seat of a bentwood rocker—and padded toward her. The brown-striped tabby wove a figure eight around her ankles, alternately chirping and purring his affectionate greeting. “It’s good to see you, too,” Breena said, scooping him into her arms.
Digging a fish-shaped treat from a foil-lined pouch, she let him nibble it from her open palm, then stooped to put him back on the floor. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, wagging a finger in his direction. “You know the rule: More than one a day and you’ll get fat and lazy. And we don’t want that, now do we?”
Hershey’s hollow-sounding meow told her that was exactly what he wanted. He looked up at her with big green eyes…which reminded her of Keegan.
Keegan Neil. It was a fine, strong name that fit the man well, she thought.
But why does the name sound so familiar?
Breena headed for her bedroom, slipped off her heels, and put them on the shoe shelf in her closet. No point straining your brain trying to remember, because even if he is everything you’ve ever wanted in a man, you can’t have him. Not with your past.
Breena hung her dress on a padded hanger, shrugged into jeans shorts and a T-shirt, and climbed down the spiral staircase that led to her workshop.
A mahogany baby grand, Breena’s pride and joy, dominated the center space. Someday, she hoped to own a home of her own. She could see it in her mind’s eye—a two-story Victorian with a covered, wrap-around porch. Through the tall, narrow windows to the right of the red-painted door, folks would be able to view her grandmother’s oak dining room table and matching claw-footed chairs.
And the baby grand, placed at an angle, would be visible through the living room windows to the left of the door.
Mind on your work! Breena scolded herself. She turned on the overhead lights with one hand and grabbed her tool bucket with the other. She’d promised to have the little spinet repaired and ready by midweek. No way you’ll make that deadline if you don’t get cracking! The piano needed new wires and hammers before it could be returned to the customer’s home for its final tuning.
Pulling on a pair of well-worn leather gloves, she hunkered down and began the arduous task of removing the old strings. The last one hit the floor as the grandfather clock struck twelve. Glancing around her as she got to her feet, Breena chuckled. You look like some kind of weird bird sitting in a wire nest.
Yawning and working the kinks from her neck, she put away her tools and headed back upstairs. First thing tomorrow, she told herself, you’ll finish that job.
She wanted to get on to rebuilding the old player piano she’d bought for a hundred dollars at an estate sale a month ago. It would take time to get it up to playing speed. Time, and a myriad of new innards. Patience, she knew, and hard work would turn the miserable old clunker into a sweet-singing instrument that would easily fetch ten times what she’d paid for it….
She stuffed her shorts and shirt in the hamper and, after a quick shower, stepped into her favorite sleepshirt—white cotton and covered with thousands of little black Zs.
Hershey made himself comfortable at the foot of the bed as Breena pulled back the covers. He knew the routine and curled into a comfy ball, blinking as she got onto her knees and folded her hands.
“Dear Lord, I know it must be hard, listening to my petty wishes and concerns…feeling as You do about me….” Breena paused, for this had always been the hardest part of her nighttime prayers: Should she continue in the hope that the Lord would accept her as He’d accepted her roommate, as He’d accepted all those other kids that night at the rally, or say a final “Amen” and let God have some peace? Tears filled her eyes as she fluffed her pillow and cuddled into it. Why am I so inept when it comes to praying!
Her parents had taken good care of her. Thanks to their tutelage, she knew which fork to use at dinner, how to introduce adults to adolescents, when to speak…and when not to…. The Pavans had been upstanding members of the community and taught her to be a responsible citizen as well.
But though they’d done themselves proud, feeding and clothing and educating their daughter, they had not seen to her spiritual needs.
Until Breena went away to college, she hadn’t been aware she had spiritual needs. By contrast, her roommate Melissa seemed filled to overflowing with unbridled Christian joy. When Breena asked her why she was always so happy, Melissa had said, in what Breena would soon recognize as her matter-of-fact way, “Because God loves me, of course.”
Hope had simmered in young Breena’s heart: Could God love her the same way He loved Melissa? But always on the heels of that hope came despair: Why would God love her that much? After all, Melissa hadn’t been responsible for her own mother’s death….
Everyone (except her father) had said it wasn’t Breena’s fault. But she knew better. It didn’t matter that immediately after the funeral, she’d turned her life around. Her mother was still just as dead as if she had continued pulling the adolescent pranks that had distressed her so.
Besides, what had she done lately to earn God’s love? She hadn’t worked to help feed the poor, or babysat toddlers so their parents could attend Sunday services, or visited people confined to nursing homes, as Melissa had. Why, until her roommate dragged her to Good Faith, Breena had never even set foot in a church!
“Better late than never,” had been her new friend’s advice.
Cliché or not, it made sense, and Breena began helping as Melissa went about her Christian duties. But even after months of volunteering, Breena sensed something was missing, and she shared her concerns with Melissa.
“Do you pray?” Melissa had asked. “Because the more you pray, the closer you’ll feel to God….”
For Breena, talking to the Almighty—even alone in a room—had seemed painfully awkward. He knew better than anyone what she was….
“There’s a faith rally this weekend,” Melissa had said. “Dozens of people are saved every week. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before!”
With that memory still bright in her mind’s eye, Breena punched her pillow. “Saved, indeed,” she muttered. “The only thing ‘born again’ in me that day was the knowledge that God doesn’t want me.”
Hershey, confused by Breena’s tossing and turning, walked to the head of the bed and touched his nose to hers.
“Good heavens, Hersh, your schnoz is as cold as ice!” she said, grinning despite herself. “Here it is only June, and already I know what to get you for Christmas: a nose warmer!”
He butted his forehead against hers.
Scratching under his chin, she chuckled. “You sound like a chain saw when you purr like that.”
Hershey peered into her eyes, his big green orbs reminding her again of Keegan Neil.
Taking a deep breath, Breena kissed the top of the cat’s head. Why Keegan had chosen that moment to pop into her mind, she didn’t know. He hadn’t even tried to hide his interest in her, a fact that both thrilled and depressed her. “I should have let him come with me to the reception,” she told the cat. “One afternoon, watching me in action, and he’d know how wrong we are for each other.”
She rolled onto her side and scrunched the pillow under her neck. “Keegan Neil…Keegan Neil,” she chanted. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”
Turning to her other side, Breena began reciting the twenty-third Psalm, hoping it would calm her enough to induce sleep, as it had so often in the past.
But something told her that even after she’d whispered, “ ‘and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,’ ” the name Keegan Neil—and the man—would still be very much on her mind.
A shard of bright sunlight seeped under the window shade, angled across the burgundy peonies decorating the rug beneath her bed, and slanted across Breena’s face. Throwing an arm over her eyes, she slapped the alarm’s snooze button for the second time. “It can’t be seven o’clock already,” she groaned. Monday mornings were always the worst. She had spent Sunday in her normal routine of reading the paper and drinking coffee, followed by the usual awkward phone call to her father, and then laundry and trying to straighten up to get ready for the week ahead. Occasionally she would think about going to church, but the thought of all those happy faces only made her sad.
Rear end high in the air, Hershey walked his front paws forward and indulged himself in a long, luxurious stretch. After an equally expansive yawn, he sat up straight and stared until Breena said, “Quit lookin’ at me like that.” Ruffling his fur, she tossed the top sheet aside. “It isn’t like you’re gonna starve if I don’t feed you at the stroke of seven….”
But the stubborn look on his furry face clearly said, “That’s what you think!”
Rolling her eyes, Breena gathered him close. “You’re good training, Hersh,” she added, kissing the top of his head. “If I ever have kids, I’ll have the patience of a saint!”
Gently depositing him on the black and white tiled kitchen floor, she started a pot of coffee, and as it brewed, opened a can of cat food for the tabby. “Now, I have lots to do this morning, so I don’t want you pestering me for treats till at least noon. Got it?”
Noisy chomping was his reply. Smiling crookedly, Breena headed back to her room. “If I ever have those kids,” she tossed teasingly over her shoulder, “I hope they’re more grateful for their meals than you are!”
Half an hour later, showered and wearing capri-length stretch pants and a baggy T-shirt that read “Everyone Wants to Save the Dolphins…Who’s Gonna Save the Tuner?” Breena grabbed her purse and headed for the garden center across town. Ordinarily, she shopped at Papa’s Nursery and Crafts just up the road, but the ad in Sunday’s paper claimed that the Grand Re-Opening of the newly refurbished That’s the Way It Grows was going on from seven a.m. to seven p.m. Any establishment that offered those hours and a sale deserved her business.
Leaving her mini-pickup in the gravel lot, Breena headed straight for the hothouse, determined to find something that would thrive in the raised gardens she’d built on her deck. No petunias! she cautioned herself; the ones you planted two weeks ago have already wilted. Walking up and down the aisles of colorful blooms, Breena stooped now and then to read the care-and-feeding directions of each variety.
It was as she studied the instructions for growing impatiens that a deep Texas drawl said, “I’d invite you to set a spell, but there’s not a Stetson in sight….”