“What’s your plan for the rest of the day, Reverend?” Mark draped a wrist over the steering wheel and looked at Alex.

Alex leaned back in the seat and tried to relax. His experience with Jonas had strung taut every nerve and fiber of his body. He didn’t know how Jonas withstood the pressure.

“I’d thought about going to All Saints. The organist said she’d meet with me to go over my music choices. She is also the one who prints the Sunday bulletins, so we can cover that at the same time. She told me she planned to be at the church until three.”

Mark nodded and backed out of his parking place. As they drove, they passed tall grain elevators that punched into the cerulean sky. They were country skyscrapers that towered above every other building and sat in stark relief to a sky so blue that if he’d seen it in an oil painting he would have called it overdone and unrealistic. After a mile or two, Mark turned north onto a gravel road that cut through the countryside.

“Where are we going?” Alex asked when he realized that they were leaving Grassy Valley by a new route, one that headed away from Hilltop rather than toward it.

“All Saints. This is a back way. Maybe we’ll even run into Alf Nyborg. He spends a lot of time over there mowing and doing repairs.”

Alex nodded and noticed out the window a massive gray barn and elaborately ornamented Victorian that was equally void of paint. “Is that place empty?” A hand-painted No TRESPASSING—KEEP OUT sign sat crookedly at the end of the drive.

“No, it just hasn’t seen a coat of paint in twenty years,” Mark said. “That’s the Bruun place. Brunie and her sister Bessie have spent their entire lives there. Never married, either one of them. Now Brunie takes care of her sister. Bessie hasn’t been well for years. The sign is Bessie’s handiwork. She’s not much for having company.”

Alex took it all in and watched the countryside go by. “Gandy told me about Alf. According to her, Alf eats, sleeps and breathes All Saints’ business, and probably isn’t much interested in my input.”

“It’s true.” Mark slid his sunglasses into place and gave Alex a brief smile. “He isn’t partial to teamwork. Are you worried?”

“I’ve spent most of my adult life dealing with students—some of them recalcitrant, others just not interested in learning. That never stopped me in the classroom, and it shouldn’t here. I’ve always made it a policy to treat my students with respect, firmness and love. I’ll treat Alf and everyone I meet the same way whether they like me or not.”

“I think you’ve got it, Reverend. He’s an unhappy man who sometimes takes it out on others. If anyone ever needed respect, firmness and love it’s Alf Nyborg. If you can make peace with him, you’ll be halfway to home base.”

Alex could see a church spire in the distance, thrusting its way upward toward the sky, when Mark slammed on the brakes. Alex caught himself on the dash, glad he was wearing a seat belt. He’d expected sudden traffic stops in Chicago, but here…

“Sorry about that. There’s a moving party going on.”

Alex looked out the window to see a gray-and-black mother tabby carrying a tiny kitten across the road by the scruff of its neck. She disappeared into the long grass at the side of the road and then rapidly reappeared without the baby. She ran back across the road, went into the grass on that side and emerged shortly with another kitten.

“She’s relocating her family,” Mark explained. “Mama cats do that sometimes if they decide their babies are in danger. I had a cat birth a litter on the seat of my tractor once. Next time I looked she’d moved them somewhere safer. It turned out to be inside a pair of Carhartts I’d left lying on the floor.”

Mark laughed at Alex’s confused expression. “She’d left them inside the work clothes I use when it’s particularly cold. I was glad those kittens grew up before bad weather set in.”

“This place is a mass of little miracles,” Alex said, feeling oddly sentimental. “I see now that all those years in academia took me too far away from nature. I’d forgotten that milk comes from cows and bread exists because of kernels of wheat.”

“Well, if you consider those things miracles, hang on, because you’re in for a lot of them.” Mark put his foot on the gas pedal and nodded toward the horizon. “Here we are.”

A half dozen cars were parked around the church, and the front doors stood wide open.

“Something is going on.” Alex said. “It’s nice to see the doors open.”

Mark turned onto the drive that circled the church and parked. “Do you want me to come with you or would you rather meet your flock alone?”

“Come, of course, the more the merrier.” What Alex didn’t say was that he was feeling the need for a second calm head and clear mind. But maybe he was growing mountains out of molehills. Just because he’d heard very little positive about the situation at All Saints, that didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

“One would hope,” Mark muttered as he pulled the key from the ignition and swung his long legs out of the pickup.

The front door opened onto a foyer lined with coat hooks. Beyond it was a nave considerably smaller than Hilltop’s, and there were no stained-glass windows, which changed the atmosphere entirely. The light was sharp and piercing, creating an almost sterile mood. A small but beautiful altar graced the front of the church, and short pews lined either side of the aisle. An elaborately hand-carved pulpit hovered majestically to the right of the altar.

“That’s a beautiful piece,” Alex said admiringly.

“Alf Nyborg’s grandfather carved that pulpit.”

“Really?” Alex was impressed. “It’s a masterpiece.” The panels circling the platform depicted scriptural scenes in much the same way as the windows of Hilltop did.

“Hello, can I help you?”

Neither of them had heard the small woman ascend the stairs from the basement until she literally popped up in front of them.

“Hello, my name is Alex Armstrong, and I’m your new pastor. It’s good to meet…”

The small woman, who appeared to be in her mid to late thirties, stared at him wide-eyed. “You?”

Slightly disconcerted by the greeting—or lack of it—Alex plowed on. “Yes. And your name is?”

For a moment she seemed to debate whether or not to reveal it to him. Then she came down on the side of politeness. “Amy Clayborn. Welcome, Reverend Armstrong.” Her head swiveled from side to side as if she were looking for someone. “Mr. Nyborg isn’t here right now. He’s probably the one you should be talking to. I could call him.”

Did he speak for everyone? Alex wondered wearily.

“No need. I’m sure we’ll meet soon enough. We noticed several cars outside. Am I interrupting something? Or could I introduce myself to those who are here?”

There was that deer-in-the-headlights look again. Then Amy blinked, met his eyes and smiled. “It’s just our quilting ladies. We meet every week, sometimes twice.”

Ah yes, Gandy had mentioned a quilt competition, Alex thought. It wasn’t easy to recall everything she chattered about.

“I would be delighted to meet them.”

“Come, then.” Amy turned and started down the steep stairs to the basement. “Mind that you don’t knock yourself silly on the ceiling.”

Alex immediately saw what she meant. Just like the steps at Hilltop, the stairs appeared to have been built for people less than five feet high. An outcropping of wood midway down the stairs would injure anyone who inadvertently ran into it. He hunkered down and followed Amy’s receding back. When he didn’t hear a clunk or a yell, he assumed Mark had navigated the passage as well.

Laughter filtered up from the basement and cheerful chatter that seemed to focus on someone’s upcoming wedding. But when Alex arrived at the bottom of the stairs, he was met with seven pairs of curious eyes…and complete silence.

As he scanned the room he took a census. The youngest woman appeared to be in her twenties; the oldest, deep into her eighties.

Suddenly, he felt like he was walking in knee-deep mud.