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To Suzannah, a friend who believed in the good in me and taught me so much about courage and dignity.

And especially…to my niece Crystal Howell Smith. Hope this helps to ease your pain.

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.”

Rosemary Brinson read the familiar words of Ecclesiastes and took comfort in the sure knowledge that God was watching over her, and that a new season was on its way.

Today would be different. Today was a new beginning, Rosemary decided as she gazed out her kitchen window, toward the tall spire of the First United Methodist Church of Alba Mountain, Georgia.

Today the steeplejack was coming.

Everyone was talking about Kirk Lawrence, the man Rosemary had personally hired, sight unseen, to come to the little mountain town of Alba to restore the fifty-foot-tall steeple of the one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old church, as well as renovate the church building itself. The small-town gossip mill had cast Kirk Lawrence to heroic proportions. From what Rosemary had found while doing phone interviews and research on-line, the man could leap tall buildings with a single bound, provided he had a good pulley and a strong rope and cable, of course.

In spite of her pragmatic, levelheaded approach to hiring the steeplejack, Rosemary couldn’t help feeling the same excitement as the townspeople. She’d last spoken to Kirk Lawrence two days ago, and she still remembered the way his lyrical accent had sent goose bumps up and down her spine.

“I’ll be arriving sometime, probably late afternoon, on Monday, Ms. Brinson. I’ve studied the plans and the photographs you sent me, and I do believe I can have your church looking brand-new in a few weeks. I look forward to taking on the task.”

“Please, call me Rosemary,” she’d stammered, in spite of trying to sound professional and all-business. “And you’re sure you don’t need a place to stay?”

“No, I have my trailer. I’ll be comfortable there.” A slight pause, then, “It’s home, after all.”

Home. A travel trailer with another trailer full of equipment attached to it. What kind of home was that?

“The kind a wandering soul likes to hang out in,” she reminded herself now as she finished her toast and mayhaw jelly. “Apparently, our steeplejack likes to travel light.”

She was still amazed that the church board had agreed to let her use such an unusual, yet highly traditional, means of doing the work on the steeple. The old-timers had balked at first, but once Rosemary had convinced them that a steeplejack would be much more thorough and less expensive than cranes and scaffolding, they’d reconsidered and voted to back her.

“We have you to thank, Rosemary,” the Reverend Clancy had told her yesterday as she’d closed down the church day care attached to the educational building across from the main sanctuary. “We’da never raised all that money without you in charge of the committee. You sure know how to get things done.”

“Only because I wanted this so much, Preacher,” she’d replied. “This church means a lot to this town, and to me. We have to preserve it.”

This morning, as she stood sipping the last of her coffee before heading off to her job as director of education for the church school, she had to wonder why she’d poured her heart into renovating the old Gothic-designed church.

Maybe it was because she’d been christened there as a baby, as had her older brother, Danny. Maybe it was because Danny had married his high-school sweetheart there, and Reverend Clancy had christened Danny’s new daughter, Emily, within the peaceful confines of the spacious sanctuary, illuminated all around by beautiful stained-glass windows. They’d been members of the church all of their lives, after all.

Maybe it was because Rosemary had sat there, through her mother’s funeral last year, and somehow, she’d survived a grief so brutal, so consuming, that she wanted the church that had held her in its arms to survive, too.

Or maybe she’d taken on the task of renovating the old church because she needed to stay busy at something tangible, something worth fighting for, something that would bring about hope and rebirth, instead of despair and death.

Pushing away thoughts of the past year’s unhappiness, Rosemary turned around to find her father staring at her with the dull, vacant look she’d come to recognize and dread.

“Coffee, Dad?” she asked as she automatically headed for the cabinet by the sink to get a cup. “Your toast is on the stove. Would you like a scrambled egg with it?”

Clayton Brinson stood just inside the kitchen door, his bloodshot gray eyes wandering over the bright, sunny kitchen as if in search of something, someone. He wore old, worn khaki work pants, left over from his thirty years as a line supervisor at the local manufacturing company, and a once-white ribbed undershirt that stretched across the noticeable paunch hanging over his empty belt loops. His sparse salt-and-pepper hair stood out in stubborn tufts on his receding hairline, its determined stance as stoic and firm as the man who refused to comb it—the man who refused to accept that his wife was dead and gone, the man who refused to even get dressed most mornings, who blamed God and his daughter for the death of his beloved wife, Eunice.

“Toast and coffee, girl,” he said in a gruff, early-morning voice. “How many times do I have to tell you, that’s all I ever want for breakfast?”

Rosemary didn’t reply. She was used to her father’s cold nature and curt remarks. It was, after all, part of the punishment, part of the penance she must endure. That she must endure was an unspoken agreement between the shell of the man to whom she’d once been so close and the shell of the woman she’d become.

Clayton had always been a hard, distant man. Strong, hardworking, a good father and husband, he’d never fully understood her mother’s devotion to the church. But because he loved Eunice, because she made him smile and laugh, he’d indulged her by dutifully attending services and giving money to the church. The pretense had ended with her death, though. Clayton existed these days on bitterness and loneliness, but Rosemary refused to give in or give up on Clayton. God would lead him home. She knew this in her heart. This morning, she’d asked for patience to see her father through, and guidance for herself. And she remembered how things once were.

Once, not so very long ago, her father would have bounded into the kitchen with a cheerful smile plastered on his face, to demand his eggs and grits. Once, her mother would have been standing at this window, admiring the spire of her church down the street, thanking God for the new day.

Eunice would have turned to lift a dark eyebrow at her husband. “Hungry this morning, Clayton?”

“Yep, and in a hurry. Got things to do down at the mill. A man’s work never ends.”

“Nor does a woman’s.”

Once, Rosemary would have come up on this scene, and she would have smiled at the good-natured bantering between her parents, before she’d gone off to school, or later, after work. Even after she’d moved out of the house to attend college, and then later to live in her own garage apartment just down the street, she could always count on finding her mother in the kitchen with a fresh-baked pie and her father humming and nuzzling her mother’s slender neck before he headed off to work.

Once, her father would have greeted her with a smile and a kiss, and a teasing, “Found a fellow yet?”

Once.

As she searched the refrigerator for the raspberry jam her father liked on his toast, she thought about the fellow she’d found and lost, and thought about the life she’d planned with that same fellow, and lost.

“Here’s your toast, Dad,” she said as she set the plate in front of him. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

“And don’t be late today,” he called without looking up. “Twelve noon, girl.”

“I won’t. I’ll be here at five till.”

She escaped the house, her breath coming deep and long to take in the fresh air of the coming spring. The nearby foothills were near bursting with it, their greens as fresh as mint, their white dogwood blossoms as delicate as fine lace. A new beginning. A new season.

This morning, this fine new spring morning, Rosemary Brinson looked to God to show her what her purpose was, and asked Him to help her find a new season. She needed a time to heal.

Then she looked up at the towering, ornamental spire of her church and reminded herself—today would be different.

Today, the steeplejack was coming.

In spite of herself, she couldn’t wait to meet him.

Kirk Lawrence turned his rig off Highway 441 to follow the Welcome sign to Alba Mountain, Georgia, population ten thousand. He couldn’t wait to get started on the renovations for the First United Methodist Church of Alba Mountain. As always, he felt the hum of a challenge, felt the rush of adrenaline a new job always brought, felt the nudge of a new town, with new faces, calling to him.

Alba had called him just as he was finishing work on a two-hundred-year-old church in Maryland. Alba, or Alba Mountain, depending on whom you were talking to, was a small town on the southern edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, just about seventy-five miles north of Atlanta. Alba, homesite to some of his own Scotch-Irish ancestors, the highlanders of north Georgia, who’d come from Europe centuries ago to find a new beginning on these rugged foothills and mountains. This would be interesting, to say the least.

Kirk loved to wander around almost as much as he loved his work. The work he could trace back to his great-grandfather, Ian Dempsey, on his mother’s side, in his native Ireland. The wanderlust…well, he supposed he’d gotten that from some nomadic ancestor, or from his American father who’d come to Ireland for a vacation more than twenty-five years ago, and stayed to marry a local lass. Or maybe the need to keep moving was all Kirk’s alone, since he’d grown up in a small village in county Cork. It really didn’t matter. He liked his life and he liked his work, and all was right with his world.

A voice echoed in his head as he searched the street names for Crape Myrtle Avenue.

“And you’re sure you don’t need a place to stay?”

Rosemary Brinson. Rosemary. Pretty name. It meant unspoiled in Latin, but it could mean several different things in modern society. This particular Rosemary had a slow, soft southern accent that flowed through the telephone like a warm summer rain. Kirk was anxious to put a face to that voice, anxious to meet the woman who’d fought a whole congregation to get him here, because she believed in doing things the right way.

“Well, Rosemary, me darlin’, so do I.”

That much they had in common. And that would be all, as far as Kirk was concerned. No, Rosemary, he didn’t need a place to stay, because no one ever really expected him to stay. Kirk had just enough singleminded intent to know that he’d come here with one purpose, and one purpose only. He was a steeplejack. He repaired steeples, working quickly, accurately and artistically, to make something lasting and beautiful out of wood and mortar and stained glass and stone.

God had given him the talent, and his grandfather had given him the technique, or so his mother still reminded him. He didn’t take either for granted.

And he had one very important rule. Never get involved with the townspeople, or their problems or their plans. He wasn’t a healer, after all. Just a fixer. He simply liked to restore things to their proper beauty.

To Kirk, that made all the difference.

But then, Kirk had never heard a voice quite like Rosemary Brinson’s.

And, he’d never ventured this far south before.

In spite of himself, he couldn’t wait to meet her.

Rosemary’s voice grew lower with each beat of the favorite children’s story she read to the preschoolers. All around the darkened room, small bodies stretched out on colorful mats, their little stockinged feet resting after a morning of running at full throttle on nursery rhymes and building blocks. As Rosemary finished the story, a collective sigh seemed to waft out over the long, cool, colorful nursery.

“I think you’ve sent them off to dreamland,” her aide, Melissa Roberts, whispered softly as she sat down to take over so Rosemary could take a much-needed lunch hour.

Rosemary’s own sigh followed that of the steadily breathing children. “Whew, I’m tired! They were in rare form this morning. Must be spring, giving them so much energy.”

“Or maybe they’ve picked up on all the talk,” Melissa said, her eyes wide and sincere. “You know…about the steeplejack.”

“Could be,” Rosemary said, rising quietly to tiptoe to the door. “I’ve tried to explain exactly what a steeplejack is, but they can’t seem to grasp it.”

“Just tell them he’s a superhero who climbs church steeples,” Melissa suggested, laughing as she waved Rosemary out the door. “Go on home and try to rest.”

Rosemary wished she could rest, but home wasn’t the place for that precious commodity. Bracing herself for her father’s cold reception, she started out the door of the educational building, only to be waylaid by the church secretary, Faye Lewis.

“He’s here,” Faye, a petite, gray-haired woman with big brown eyes, hissed as she hurried toward Rosemary as fast as her sneakers could carry her. “You’ve got to come and see to him, Rosemary. Reverend Clancy’s already gone home for his nap.”

“See to who?” Rosemary asked, then her heart stopped. “The steeplejack? Is he here already?”

“Oh, yes,” Faye said, her smile slicing through her wrinkled face. “And quite a handsome. devil…excuse the expression.”

Rosemary groaned, then looked down the street toward the rambling white house she shared with her father. “Why’d he have to show up just at lunchtime? Dad will be furious if I’m late.”

Faye gave Rosemary an exasperated look. “Well, just tell Clayton that you had something important to tend to. Surely the man can fix himself a sandwich this once.”

“Yes, but you know he expects me to be there right at noon,” Rosemary replied, already headed toward the main office, which, along with the educational building, was set apart from the original old church.

“Do you want me to call your father and explain?” Faye asked, a look of understanding moving across her features.

“Would you?” Rosemary hated having someone run interference with her father, but Faye was one of the few people Clayton respected and treated with a fair amount of decency. “Tell him I’ll be a few minutes late, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Faye nodded, then shoved Rosemary into the plush office reception room where a tall, blue-jeans-clad man stood looking out the wide arched window that faced the church.

Taking a quiet, calming breath, Rosemary said, “Mr. Lawrence?”

Kirk Lawrence turned around to find the source of that soft whispery voice and was at once hit with a current so strong, he wondered if there was a kinetic energy moving through the room. He didn’t need to know her name to know this was Rosemary Brinson.

Long swirls of chestnut-hued hair, curly to the point of being unruly, caught up with twin pearl-encrusted clips in a sensible yet attractive style, off a face that was oval in shape. Her face was youthful, yet aged, touched by the sun, yet fresh and new-blooming, with eyes that darkened to a deep blue underneath arched eyebrows the exact color of her hair. Her smile was demure, while her expression was…hopeful and hesitant all at the same time.

She was lovely.

“You must be Rosemary,” he managed to say as he held out a hand to take the one she offered him.

She wore a bright pink cotton top with a long, flowing floral skirt that swirled around her legs as she stepped forward. A cloud of perfume as delicate as the scent of honeysuckle preceded her touch on his hand.

“That’s me,” she managed to say through a shy smile. “It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Lawrence.”

Rosemary gave him a direct look, all the while thinking that Faye had been right. He was handsome, all right. Dark swirling hair, as close to black as she’d ever seen. When he smiled, his thick eyebrows jutted up like wings, giving him that certain appeal Faye had mentioned. But his eyes, they held Rosemary, causing her to stare at him. Their bright, clear color sharply contrasted with his tanned skin. She couldn’t decide if they were green or blue, but whatever color they might be called, his eyes were deep and luminous and…knowing. He had the eyes of an old soul, as her mother used to say.

Realizing that she was staring, Rosemary let go of the warm hand holding hers. “Did you have any trouble finding us?”

“No, none at all,” he said, wrapping his arms across his chest in a defensive manner. “I just followed the steeple.”

That brought her attention back to the task he’d come here for. “Yes, it’s hard to miss, isn’t it?”

Together, they both looked out the window, up at the stark brown and gray stone of the rising bell tower that heralded the church from miles around.

“It’s beautiful,” Kirk said, meaning it. “I can see where you’d want to preserve it—those stones need a bit of cleaning and scrubbing, now, don’t they?”

“Yes,” she said, glad he understood the job ahead. “They came all the way from Dahlonega—granite with a little fool’s gold mixed in.”

“A sound combination, no doubt.” He grinned over at her. “I’ve never been to Dahlonega. Hope to see it while I’m here, and I want to climb Alba Mountain, too. I hear Georgia is a lovely state.”

She looked away from that intense set of eyes. “Not as pretty as Ireland, though, I’ll bet.”

“Ireland is a land all its own,” he admitted, “but I haven’t been there in a long, long time. My parents moved back to the States when I was in high school, and I came with them, thinking to get my college education in America. But I was a bit rebellious, I’m afraid.” He looked sheepish, at least. “I went back to Europe, and I wound up in Sheffield, England, at Whirlow College. I got my degree there, mainly because they offered the courses I needed to be a steeplejack. I worked with my grandfather until his death, then I came back to America. I haven’t been back to Ireland or England since.”

She wanted to ask why, but manners kept her from doing so. “You’ve traveled all over the place, from what I saw on your résumé.”

“I’ve seen the world.” He turned away from the window. “And now, I’ve come to see Alba. If you’d just show me where to park my trailer—”

“I’m sorry,” she said, snapping to attention. “The preacher is at lunch and I was just on my way home for a quick bite. Are you hungry?”

“Are you offering?”

Liking the way he lifted those dark eyebrows with each statement or question, she nodded. “I think I can manage a sandwich, at least. Of course, I need to warn you to save room for supper tonight.”

“Oh, are you inviting me then?”

Mmm, that accent was so pleasing to her ears. “Yes, but we won’t be alone. The entire town’s turning out for a supper on the grounds, to honor you and to officially begin the renovations on the church, sort of a celebration.”

He followed her out the door, then up the sidewalk. “I’ve heard about southern hospitality. Now I suppose I get to see it firsthand.”

“You won’t forget it. You’ll go to bed with a full stomach, that’s for sure.”

Noticing his trailer and attached rig, she pointed to a clump of trees at the back of the church grounds. “You can park there. There are a couple of camper hookups we use for visitors—campers coming through to hike the mountain trails.”

“How generous.”

“Reverend Clancy figures if we treat them right, they’ll stay for one of his sermons.”

“Ah, tricky, but effective.”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Sometimes they stay, sometimes they leave. But they’re always welcome.”

Kirk eyed the little copse of trees settled at the foot of a rounded upward-sloping hillside. Tall swaying pines and fat, mushrooming oaks made a canopy over the area. It was an inviting spot, complete with a rustic picnic table and just-budding daylilies. It would do nicely for his stay here.

Rosemary watched his expression as he took in his surroundings. Then she touched his arm. “That’s my house, over there. C’mon, I’ll fix you that sandwich I promised.”

Kirk looked up at the whitewashed wooden house standing down the street from the church. He studied the house as they approached. It had that certain charm he associated with the South—long wraparound porches, a swing hanging from rusty chains, two cane-back rocking chairs, lush ferns sprouting from aged clay pots, geraniums in twin white planters—and shuttered, closed windows.

“It’s a beautiful place, Rosemary.”

“Yes, it is,” she had to agree. “Or at least, it once was.”

She saw him eyeing the shuttered, dark windows, and she knew exactly what he was thinking.

Why would such a lovely, sunny, open home be closed up and so sad-looking?

She wasn’t ready to tell him why.

She didn’t have to. As they stepped up onto the porch, the front door burst open, and her father’s angry voice told Kirk Lawrence everything he needed to know.

“Where have you been? It’s almost twelve-thirty. A man could starve to death waiting on you, Rosemary. How many times have I told you—I like to eat my lunch at twelve o’clock! Your mother always had it ready right at twelve noon. Now get in here and get me some food.”

Shocked at the harsh tone the man had used, Kirk stood with one foot on a step and one on the stone walkway. Maybe now wasn’t the time to get to know his new employer.

Humiliated, Rosemary turned to Kirk. “I’m sorry.”

“You go on. I can wait,” he said, not wanting to intrude. “I’m really not that hungry.”

“No, no,” she said on a firm but quiet voice. “I promised you a sandwich, and I intend to deliver on that promise. Just let me take care of my father first.”

Kirk stepped up onto the porch, his gaze on the woman moving hurriedly before him. He had the feeling that Rosemary Brinson always delivered on her promises, whether she wanted to or not.

Why else would she go into that house and face her father’s wrath with such profound determination?