miss fortune mystery (ff) - jewel of the bayou by amy jo belford

Chapter One
     
    “Hello?”
    The church door was cracked open, but it seemed awfully dark and quiet inside. Too quiet, for a Sunday morning. It hadn’t taken me very long to walk here, but I wasn’t that early. By 10:45 a.m., every Baptist church that I had ever known would have had folks jostling for their usual places in the pews. Maybe it was something about this town. Maybe the Baptist church in Sinful, Louisiana just couldn’t draw a crowd.
    “Hello?” I called out again. I stuck my head around the door, and in the dim light I could barely make out a scene that might have come from Tornado Alley. Hymnals were scattered around at random, there were church bulletins littering the aisle and, unless I was crazy, it looked like someone had abandoned a pair of bright green pumps beneath the pew just ahead of me.
    The sunlight at my back was making it hard to see what was going on, and I squinted as I stepped inside. I could smell those churchy smells – a little bit of dust, a little bit of wood polish – and I picked up a hymnal and took a look. Yep, it was Baptist, all right, so I was in the right place even if no one else was here to join in a song.
    Which is when I heard something rustling up by the pulpit.
    Now, I may be a big girl, but that doesn’t mean that I can take all comers. Whatever had cleared out this church hadn’t left any survivors as far as I could tell, and for all I knew the giant alligator, or something even worse, was just itching to take a bite out of the next sweet, innocent thing to go poking around.
    I watch movies. I know how these things work.
    But there’s no accounting for curiosity, and before I thought better of it I found myself quietly moving down the aisle, listening for something other than the sound of my own feet. The rustling seemed to be coming from down on the floor, and I wondered if it was the sound of church bulletins blowing around in a breeze. Which might have made more sense if the windows weren’t shuttered, but still. I’d grab at any explanation that didn’t involve an alligator.
    “Hello?” I said once more, and I hated the quaver I heard in my voice. You’d think I’d be ready for any surprises, as the only girl growing up with four brothers who loved a good practical joke, but something about the silence was making me nervous.
    Which is probably why the massive hulk chose that moment to rise up right in front of me.
    “Hiii-yah!”
    As I yelled, I threw the hymnal in my hand at the shadow looming above me and heard the slap as it made contact. Lightening reflexes, that’s me.
    I heard the shadow bellow, which was followed by a loud crash, which was followed by a few words that made it pretty clear I wasn’t yelling back and forth with the pastor.
    My eyes were adjusting to the light and I could see now that, whatever it was, it was grabbing its nose with one hand and pulling the buds out of its ears with the other. And if he wasn’t a giant, he was at least seven feet tall.
    Well, maybe six foot something.
    Six foot of something worth looking at, I could tell. The dark suit he was wearing couldn’t hide those broad shoulders, and I could make out a head full of sandy blond hair that looked like it usually wasn’t so carefully combed into place.
    And I knew for a fact that he had a deep, husky voice.             
    “What’d you do that for?” he said. His deep, husky voice was slightly muffled by the hand he held over his nose.
    “What did I do that for? Why wouldn’t I do that! Who are you, anyway, scaring people on a Sunday morning!”
    I was a tiny bit excited, but it was going to take a few moments to get my heart back into my ribcage after it had jumped up into my throat. Not that there’s anything wrong with a rush of adrenaline now and then. It’s just that it had been a while since I’d felt anything like it. And, honestly, it felt good. Maybe I was missing my brothers and their surprises more than I thought. Maybe I