An Unexpected Suitor Read Online Free PDF Page A

become increasingly alarmed at the growing gap between those who had vast sums of riches and those who struggled to get by. The same scenario was playing out around the globe. Surely God’s plan had always been that the rich would share their wealth so that no one had to suffer. How to bring that message home through a play? How to touch the hearts and minds of those very people he hoped to reach? How to deliver a play based on a message of charity and interconnection without having it come across as “preaching”?
    He forced his concentration back to the script. When he’d first thought of the concept, the lines had practically written themselves. Never before had he written an entire script so quickly. Surely God had been guiding his imagination, histhoughts, his fingers around the pen. But now the words seemed stale and lifeless and he was glad for the interruption of Jonah Lang’s slow heavy tread on the steps outside his office.
    “Got some bad news, boss.”
    Starbuck removed the wire-rimmed glasses he always wore when he was working. Jonah Lang was a glass-half-empty kind of a fellow and his definition of bad news usually wasn’t that bad at all. “On a glorious day like this?” Starbuck said with a smile.
    “Roofing materials got held up in New Bedford,” Jonah reported.
    Starbuck’s smile froze. “Because?”
    “Well, now, the skipper of the Maximus took another job and left ’em high and dry, as they say. Shipment’s been loaded but there’s nobody to captain the boat.”
    “So what’s wrong with moving the shipment to a vessel with a captain and crew ready to sail?”
    Jonah shrugged. “Busy time, boss. Everybody’s got winter repairs to get done before the season gets going and things are tight.”
    Starbuck placed his glasses carefully on the desk. “Any idea how long before the materials arrive?”
    “Week—maybe two.”
    Starbuck stood and braced his hands on the table that served as his desk. “Two weeks?”
    “That’s the company talking. Ask me, you’re looking at maybe three weeks—maybe a month.”
    “The acting troupe I hired arrives on Monday. They won’t have lodgings until that shipment arrives,” Starbuck muttered, thinking out loud.
    They could move in with those performers already in ’Sconset for the summer, he thought. Hardly room enoughin those cottages for the families already there, though. He paced his office. Hotel? It’d cost him but it was early in the season and just maybe…
    He was aware that Jonah was still talking but he’d stopped listening.
    “…little chance that Miss Nola would put them up. She’s got the rooms just sitting there,” Jonah continued and chuckled. “I must be clutching at straws, boss. The very thought that Nola Burns would put a bunch of New York theater folks up there at her place?” Now he was laughing out loud and shaking his head. “Oh, the ladies at the church wouldn’t like that.”
    He certainly had Starbuck’s attention now. “Say that again,” he said quietly.
    Jonah stopped laughing and blinked. “About the ladies of the church?”
    “About Miss Nola having rooms to let. Are you saying that Nola Burns has enough space above her tearoom to house a company of six actors?”
    Jonah scratched his balding head. “Well now, there’s four rooms on the second floor and probably another two or three on the third. Haven’t been up there in some time myself. You’ve been keeping me pretty busy and Miss Nola hasn’t called for repairs in a while, but yep, I’m thinking she’s got the space. But, boss…”
    Starbuck pulled on his jacket and slammed on his hat as he headed for the door. “Let me know the minute that shipment sails,” he said. “I’ll pull a crew of workers from the cabaret project so you can get the roofs on and the interiors painted as soon as possible.”
    “Will do,” Jonah replied as he followed him out the door and down the stairs. “Anything else?”
    “See if you can get enough tarps