Bluegrass Peril by Virginia Smith Page A

worshippers. Becky kept her voice pitched low as she glanced over Amber’s shoulder to be sure no one overheard. “And after lunch, he spent a couple of hours at the park with us.” A steady stream of people filed past them through the busy church hallway on their way to the sanctuary.
    She felt like a teenager giggling over a guy with her friend, but a girl needed someone to bounce things off. After Scott insisted on buying their lunch at McDonald’s, she’d been going crazy trying to decide if it was just a friendly gesture on his part, or if she’d actually been on a date.
    “How did the boys act around him?” With a hand on her arm, Amber moved her against the wall to let a group of green-robed choir members pass. “Did they seem jealous?”
    “Not at all. Except of each other. They both kept trying to monopolize Scott’s attention.” A smile curved Becky’s lips as she remembered Jamie parading each of his men out for a personal introduction to Scott. “They obviously liked him a lot.”
    Amber frowned. “That’s not good.”
    “It’s not?”
    “You don’t want them to appear desperate for male attention. That will drive him away as quickly as a clingy woman.”
    Becky hadn’t thought of that. Amber’s logic made sense, though. Neediness in any form was a guaranteed man repellent.
    “I don’t see what I can do about that.” The crowd thinned to a few stragglers, and they headed slowly for the sanctuary doors as the first strains of the organ prelude reverberated through the church. “They are desperate for male attention, poor things.”
    Amber drummed her fingers on her Bible as they walked. “The next thing to do is get him alone. Let him see that you’re a self-assured woman, totally at peace with yourself and your singleness.” She peered sideways at Becky. “You can do that, can’t you?”
    At peace with her singleness? Until a few days ago Becky would have answered, “Absolutely!” But since Scott took over at the Pasture, her decision to remain single after her divorce five years ago was wavering.
    Becky met her friend’s gaze with a hesitant grimace. “Maybe.”
    Amber’s eyebrows shot upward, but her whispered response was drowned out by the organ’s chords. As they entered the sanctuary they passed the acolyte, a cherub-faced girl in white who stood like a statue, holding the candlelighter for an usher’s match. Becky followed Amber down the center aisle to slip into a half-empty pew on the left.
    Becky placed her purse beside her feet and settled onto the hard pew. She leaned over and whispered in Amber’s ear. “Where’s Jeff? I thought he’d be saving us a seat.”
    “He got called in to work this morning. A robbery or something.”
    Becky nodded, then faced the front of the sanctuary. Something else she’d spent a considerable amount of time considering last night was whether or not to tell Jeff this morning about Isabelle Keller. The decision to report Kaci Buchanan had been a no-brainer. No matter what Scott said, Kaci’s visit to the Pasture for that earring looked suspicious.
    The choir filed into the loft from a door to the right of the baptistry. A sudden swell of the organ’s music indicated the end of the prelude. Beside her, Amber picked up two hymnals from the pew in front of them and handed one to Becky with a smile. Becky nodded her thanks and flipped the book open, her thoughts far from the morning’s worship service.
    Isabelle’s visit, on the other hand, was a perfectly natural move for a grief-stricken woman. Nothing at all of interest for the police.
    Even so, she felt a flood of relief at Jeff’s absence this morning.

     
    Scott shifted on the seat cushion as the screen behind Pastor Greg’s head changed to display his third and, hopefully, final sermon point. The man next to him glanced his way, and Scott flashed an apologetic smile. He couldn’t force himself to concentrate on the message this morning, but at least he could sit quietly