Felicia Mason - Sweet Harmony

Kara glanced toward his crew. “Really? I find it interesting that your contribution to the night’s discussion has been based solely on your celebrity. Is it possible, sir, that you’ve forgotten—if you’ve ever known—what’s it’s like to live like a real person? I doubt you’d be able to survive a month living like a normal person. Without,” she added with a nod stage left toward his entourage in the wings, “an army of people at your beck and call.”

“Is that a challenge, Dr. Spencer?” His voice was low, measured, deliberately taunting.

is a motivational speaker and award-winning author. She’s a two-time winner of the Waldenbooks BestSelling Multicultural Title Award, has received awards from Romantic Times, Affaire de Coeur and Midwest Fiction Writers, and won the Emma Award in 2001 for her work in the bestselling anthology Della’s House of Style. Glamour magazine readers named her first novel, For the Love of You, one of their all-time favorite love stories, and her novel Rhapsody was made into a television film.

Felicia has been a writer as long as she can remember, and loves creating characters who seem as real as your best friends. A former Sunday school teacher, she makes her home in Virginia, where she enjoys quilting, reading, traveling and listening to all types of music. She can be reached at P.O. Box 1438, Dept. SH, Yorktown, VA 23692.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever:

With my mouth will I make known

Thy faithfulness to all generations.

—Psalms 89:1

For Pastor Lynn Howard,

who accepts calls from strangers in distress.

Thanks to Lee, Day and Carolyn,

who all know why.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Letter to Reader

Kara Spencer was running late. Again. She managed to live by the clock with her patients and clients, yet when it came time for her own stuff, she was always rushing around as if she didn’t own a watch.

She grabbed her satchel, locked the car door and ran toward the side entrance to Bingham Hall. She yanked on the door. It didn’t budge.

“Arrgh!”

Any other time this door would be illegally propped open by summer school students who took shortcuts to get to the assembly room. Today when she needed to take the shortcut, it was locked.

Turning, she quickly assessed the options. Was the faster route across the lawn or around the front of the building? She glanced down at her shoes. Fifty bucks, on sale. It wasn’t as if they were designer originals. She dashed across the lawn.

As she ran down the hall, she pulled from her bag a mirror and a lipstick, hoping to get at least a moment to glance at her appearance before the start of the panel.

Three minutes later she stood at the door to the main auditorium. She caught her breath, applied the lipstick and shoved the tube and mirror back into her bag.

“Dr. Spencer has yet to arrive, so we’ll start without…” she heard the MC say.

Just her luck to have a punctual moderator. Kara pushed the door open. “I’m here.”

Two hundred heads turned.

Who in the world were all these people? Kara wanted to crawl under a rock. But she held her head high and made her way down one of the side aisles.

The moderator, one of the anchors from a Portland television station, smiled. “Welcome. We’re so glad you could join us. We were just about to begin.”

Kara ignored the note of annoyance in the broadcaster’s voice.

So much for making a good impression.

The TV personality indicated a spot for her to join three other panelists.

Kara took a seat at the table, nodding at the two men who rose when she approached. She knew Cyril Abercrombie, the local newspaper columnist, and had met Evelyn Grant, associate dean of the college’s School of Philosophy and Religion, in faculty meetings when she’d taught at Wayside College. Kara didn’t recognize the other man, and couldn’t quite see his name tent on the table, but he looked vaguely familiar. His angular profile showed a strong jaw covered in part by a black goatee. From this angle he was striking in a handsome but hard way.

He leaned forward and glanced over at her. Her breath caught. Handsome wasn’t the word for it. He was dynamic in that way all men aspired to, but few actually pulled off. He could be a prince in a foreign land, or the head of a multinational conglomerate.

Clearing her thoughts, she pulled a notepad and a stack of all-purpose brochures from her satchel. They listed information on referral services in town, warning signs of depression and tips on maintaining balance at home and in the workplace. She poured a glass of water and looked up. The moderator was patiently waiting for her to get settled. Kara truly wanted to die. Instead, she smiled and nodded. The moderator turned to the audience and completed her opening remarks.

Kara glanced at her notes, trying to remember if this was the panel about the role of religion and media in today’s society or the one about psychological influences of archetypes and stereotypes. Either could fit with these players. Cyril, who had a tendency toward snide remarks, could be a pain, but his credentials were up to snuff on either topic.

Who was that third guy, though? Another therapist? She’d obviously missed the introductions. Kara pulled out the correct letter of invitation, noted that the television anchor’s name was Belinda Barbara and that she, Cyril and Evelyn were the only listed panelists scheduled to talk about stereotypes. With a mental shrug Kara settled in for an hour of discussion. She’d catch his name during the question-and-answer period if the context didn’t provide it before then.

“Dr. Spencer, I’ll ask you the first question,” the moderator said.

For the next thirty minutes Kara fielded questions from the moderator, debated with Evelyn and had a flat-out disagreement with Cyril. Nothing new there. They’d gone head-to-head in dueling op-ed pieces in the newspaper. The fourth panelist didn’t seem to have much to say, and Kara wondered why perky Belinda didn’t pull him out more.

Then, as if reading her thought, the anchor paused. “And now,” she said, “we haven’t heard from our special guest.” She flashed a six-hundred-watt smile in his direction and Kara leaned forward trying to get a better look at the guy. Why was he singled out as being special?

In her work with the women’s shelter and even when she’d maintained an active practice, she impressed upon people the unique gifts each person offered themselves, the community and the world at large.

“Mr. Ambrose, do you think you have a responsibility to portray roles that debunk stereotypes?”

Ambrose?

The lightbulb finally flashed on in her head. No wonder he looked familiar. Giant twenty-four-by-thirty-six posters of the man papered a wall in her sister’s bedroom. He had to be Marcus Ambrose, the singer and movie star. Which would explain the big audience and the two TV satellite trucks she’d passed on the way in. Kara wondered if her sister Patrice— Marcus Ambrose’s biggest fan—was in the audience.