“I will.” Harmony took a steadying breath. “Speaking of blessings, I’d better get this service started.”
She left the sheriff’s side in a happy daze. “He’s clean,” she whispered to herself. “Real clean.” Her intuition had been right—she wasn’t falling for the devil’s spawn, after all. Next time she had her doubts about anything, she’d listen to her instincts.
Harmony breezed past Damon, hitched herself just high enough on her tiptoes as she passed by to whisper in his ear, “Dinner at six-thirty. Inside. Dress nice.”
It would be the first time since the day he’d arrived that she’d invited him to dine in the kitchen. Not knowing if he had a record or not had hardened her resolved to wait before taking the chance. Now, she knew.
The glimpse of his shock slipping quickly into pleasure lingered in her mind as she took the pulpit with true excitement coursing through her. She was finally beginning what she’d come to Mysteria to do. Her smile was contagious: a chain reaction reflected by the happy faces of the townswomen. But when her gaze settled on Damon, who stood in the doorway a few careful steps outside the church, she felt a bolt of pure energy. How could he not be heaven sent?
Harmony raised her hands and belted out a hallelujah. Her heart, filled to bursting in more ways than one, was in every single syllable.
At dusk Damon showed up at her front door with a thick bouquet of wildflowers. He’d showered and combed his hair. Although he had only work clothes to wear, he’d ironed them and she decided that no matter what he wore, everything or nothing at all, he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. And tonight he was all hers.
“Thank you,” she sang out, taking the flowers. “They’re beautiful.” The heat in his eyes was especially intense as he took in the sight of her in the red-hot form-fitting sheathe dress she’d bought on impulse in town after the service was over. Sometimes even a pastor had to break the rule of resting on Sundays. “You look very nice tonight, too, by the way.” She came up on her toes and planted a kiss on his cheek. A nun’s kiss. She wanted more, she thought as she stepped back.
Damon’s whiskey-gold gaze glinted, as if he sensed her inner battle. “You have the devil in your eyes tonight, Damon of Mysteria,” she said, imitating his accent.
He looked suddenly troubled. “Sorry, lass. I dinna mean to.”
“It’s just an expression! You can be so literal, at times.”
He flashed his famous smile, one tinged with relief. “Aye, and tonight you’ve got a bit of the devil in ye, too, I see.”
“Sit, make yourself at home,” she told him while she wedged the flowers into a water-filled glass vase and placed them on the kitchen counter because already the little eating table was half-filled with plates. On the stove in a cast-iron pan, four bone-in country ham slices, each a quarter-inch thick, sizzled in butter. While she finished cooking, she chattered from nervous excitement. The artificial barrier she’d erected between herself and Damon, one held in place by her lingering worries that he was a criminal, had crashed into so much dust. “So, how about that attendance at church today, huh? It’s a miracle! A real miracle.”
“Nay. Take credit where credit is due, Harmony. Word about your church has spread far and wide. ’Twas only a matter of time.”
“Hmm. I’d like to believe it. But where were all the men?”
Damon’s smile faltered. “Were there no males present?” he asked innocently.
“Except for you and Bubba, that crowd was a hundred percent female, and don’t pretend you didn’t notice. It doesn’t make sense. But I guess it’s not gracious to look the Lord’s gift horse in the mouth.”
Especially not with Daddy coming. A robust church community was a source of Faithfull pride. She couldn’t let her family down.
Oh, but they’d be impressed with Damon, though, she thought happily. He was such a gentleman, so much like her brothers. And when all-seeing Great-grandmother Eudora stepped through the front door, one look at Damon and she’d see him for what he truly was!
Oh, yes, things were looking up. Yes, indeed.
She tried to forget about the strange gender imbalance at church and instead focused on the pleasure of cooking and Damon’s company.
With a spatula, she flipped the ham steaks. “I’m fixing us ham and red-eye gravy. A Faithfull family favorite. Ever tried it?”
“Nay, lass. But I canna wait.” Damon closed his eyes and inhaled the aroma. Even from the stove, she could see the shudder that rumbled through him.
She couldn’t help laughing. “In all my life, I can’t say I’ve ever had more pleasure cooking for anyone.”
His smile was brilliant, as if he savored her compliments as much as he did his food.
She bustled about the stove, crashing pots and pans onto the burner as she hummed to the music playing on the stereo. Damon watched her with an affectionate, amused gaze that made her heart beat even faster. “My mama made me and my sisters help her with Sunday supper since we were little girls. We’d turn up the radio and listen to our favorite songs. Sometimes we’d dance more than we’d cook, and Mama would scold us.” Harmony gave her butt a defiant little shake. Her tight, red-sheathed butt.
The look on Damon’s face sent heat shooting up and down her spine.
It was almost like being a teenager again, except that the voice of reason she battled was her own.
She turned back to the stove and heard a loud scratching noise behind her. Damon growled, “Trolls—be gone!” Then there was a splash, a prolonged sizzle, and an abbreviated squeak.
Nine
Whirling around, she caught Damon just as he sat back in his chair. He looked shaken and was trying to hide the fact.
Harmony’s brows went up. “What was that? What just happened? What did you mean by a troll?”
Damon flushed. She’d never seen his face color like that before. “’Twas a . . . mouse,” he explained. “We call them trolls in Scotland.”
“Oh.” She pondered that. Then she glanced around her clean kitchen, the spatula gripped in her hand like a weapon. “Where’s the mouse? I haven’t had a problem with mice before.” That’s when she saw the puddle. And on the table, Damon’s empty glass.
“I chased it off,” he explained. “They dinna like water.” As if he were reloading a six-shooter, he refilled his glass from the pitcher on the table.
Harmony stared at the puddle. “That’s weird.”
“What is?”
“The water’s smoking. No, that’s steam.”
“Condensation.”
“Hmm. Well, it is a little humid tonight after that thunderstorm.” Before she could get to the puddle with a dish towel, it had evaporated. Humidity wasn’t the problem. But she wasn’t sure what was. Except that there had been a mouse that Damon called a troll that had disappeared as quickly as the puddle he’d made on the floor.
Keeping her eyes open for rodents, she mixed brown sugar, a half cup of brewed coffee, and a cup of water for the gravy, stirring until the sugar dissolved.
From behind, she heard Damon’s chair scrape backward.
Delighted barking from outside told her that the puppy had given chase to whatever it was. “Damon, I don’t
