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SHE SET DOWN HER BOW, the music from her violin and his voice still ringing in the sanctuary.
He stared at her. Intently. So focused. As if his gaze on her face was what kept the breath flowing in and out of her lungs.
She didn’t want to speak. Didn’t want to break the spell their music had cast over the room, the entire town of Orchard Grove.
The only noise she could hear over her pulse in her ears was the echo of the refrain he’d just sung.
He took a step closer to her. She could feel his energy, his strength. How could someone with this level of musical genius live in a desert like this? How did he keep his inspiration from drying up like the Orchard Grove riverbed?
How had he composed a piece that would stretch and challenge her voice while still accentuating her strengths?
And the violin solo. She’d never had a piece written specifically for her, never even dreamed of a composer granting her that honor.
Singing with Miles that last time at the school had left her breathless, panting, confused.
Now, she felt more at peace than she had in her entire adult life.
This was what she had been meant to do. To create beautiful music, music like this. How had she lost sight of that for so many months? How had she survived in Orchard Grove before she met Miles and experienced the beauty of his creative expression?
He’d done far more for her than write a simple song. He was the key that had unlocked her voice, held captive her entire life. His encouragement had shattered all the lies her mother told her about how she could never sing, could scarcely even hold a tune. He’d found her voice and handed it to her in a golden box, and as if that weren’t enough, he’d helped her heal from the musical dry spell that had kept her separated from her beloved violin, her Dmitry.
How could she ever repay him?
“So you’ll come to my studio and record with me?” he asked. So hopeful. Endearing.
The teenage boy at his first boy-girl party, asking Katrina to dance, terrified she would turn him down.
She couldn’t do that to him.
She wouldn’t.
The truth was she wanted to record with him. Wanted to push her musical abilities to new limits, discover what it meant to be freed from these constraints that had kept her silenced for so long.
“Sure,” she answered and watched his face melt into joy. The feeling was contagious, and she had to stifle a giggle. “I’d love to.”
He swiped his screen to get it to the beginning of the piece. “All right. Well, then, let’s get to work. We have a lot to practice.”