“I’m supposed to be the cure for the town, and your cockatoo now?” Mary said as she ran her fingers along the row of CDs to find some new music for the bird.

That was a pretty lousy way to look at it. “I don’t think of it like that,” said Mac.

“That’s how they put it. Something to bring everyone together. A big, splendid Christmas pageant to remind us of peace on earth, goodwill to men and such.”

“I’m sorry you got hired to fix whatever it is people think I broke.”

“I’m not sorry,” she said, handing him a Mozart disc. “But if I get sorry, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know. I think it’s sort of sweet, actually, how much people care about getting along here.”

“If people cared about getting along here, you could have fooled me,” Mac said. “There’s a town hall meeting tomorrow night—come see how much getting along we actually do.”

ALLIE PLEITER

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA® Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and nonreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in Speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fundraising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

Bluegrass Christmas
Allie Pleiter

Better is one day in your courts

than a thousand elsewhere;

I would rather be a doorkeeper

in the house of my God

than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

—Psalms 84:10

For Christina

For who she was, who she is,

and who she will be

Contents

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

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

While “Mac” MacCarthy hadn’t counted on peace and quiet when he returned to his office, he hadn’t anticipated an opera-singing cockatoo, either.

December might not go as well as he planned.

Assuming the only logical explanation, Mac pushed his way through the connecting interior doors of the bakery adjacent to his engineering office. “All right, Dinah, what did you do to him?”

Dinah Rollings, owner of the Taste and See Bakery, looked up from her cash register. “To whom?”

Mac cocked his head toward the racket behind him. “I’ve got Luciano Pavarotti in feathers perched on my credenza. Very funny. Now tell me what you did to Curly so I can hush him up before cats start prowling the alley.”

With both doors open, Dinah could evidently hear the bird. Her face was half surprised, half amused. “Not bad. That’s from The Marriage of Figaro, I think. Didn’t peg you for an opera fan.”

Mac looked quizzically at his smirking neighbor. “You didn’t do this?”

She raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“Gil?” Mac named his best friend who, while no fan of opera, had been known to love a good joke.

“Haven’t seen him.”

“Cameron?” Dinah’s new husband didn’t seem the type, but as a former New York City native, Cameron might have opera in his background. And pranks.

Dinah shot him an incredulous look. “Not a chance. Look, Mac, I don’t know who might have…”

At that moment, Pavarotti—the real one—belted out the aria in question from the stairway between their businesses’ doors. And Curly, Mac’s yellow-crested-cockatoo-recently-turned-tenor, joined in.

The second-floor apartment had been empty since Cameron and Dinah got married. Evidently, it wasn’t unoccupied anymore. Opera music flooded the hallway when Mac opened the door that led upstairs.

Dinah came to the door. “Okay, maybe I do know who could be…”

Curly chose that moment to chase his avian muse, leaving his perch in Mac’s office to bolt up the stairway in a squawking white streak of feathers and falsetto.

Mac took the stairs three at a time, ruing the fact that repairmen at his house necessitated that Curly spend this week at the office with him. Curly almost never bolted, but when he did, he went full out. Nothing good could come from this. Mac was a few steps from the top when he heard the shriek.

Taking the last risers in two strides, Mac looked in the apartment door to find a blond woman cowering behind a music stand, holding what looked like a conductor’s baton as if it were a broadsword. The operatic waltz blared from a set of speakers on either side of the room, and Curly stood ducking and bobbing in time with the music from atop a bookcase to Mac’s right.

“What is that thing?” she said over the loud music. Actually, shouted might have been more accurate. Shouted with great annoyance. Curly wasn’t a small bird, and he looked like an invading white tornado when he flew anywhere. Mac could only imagine how frightening, at first sight, it was.

“That’s Curly,” Mac introduced, feeling ridiculous as he yelled above the orchestration. “He won’t hurt you. He seems to get a kick out of your music.”

Her eyes were wide. “It’s not mutual. Get him out of here.” She seemed to realize how harsh she sounded, for a split second later she nervously inched over to the stereo and turned down the volume before adding “Please.”

“Aww,” Curly moaned as the music quieted down. That was pretty tame considering all the smart-aleck replies Mac had taught the bird over the years.

Dinah burst through the doorway behind Mac. “Mary! Are you okay?” She went over to her, while Mac called Curly down off the furniture. “I’m sure that’s not the welcome you were expecting.”

She had every right to be annoyed. Mac’s own ma could get spooked by Curly on occasion, and she knew what to expect from the feathered comedian. Curly had the good sense to look sorry for his actions, putting his head down and trying to hide under Mac’s arm. “I’m okay, I think,” Mary said shakily. She was a pale thing, with ice-blue eyes and hair only a shade sunnier than Curly’s snow-white coat. “No damage done, unless you count my nerves.”

Dinah took her arm. “Mary…it’s Thorpe, isn’t it? Mary Thorpe, this great ferocious beast is Curly. And this is Mac MacCarthy. Sorry you had to meet under such goofy circumstances.”

“I’m really sorry about this. Curly’s usually more civilized, and he’s hardly ever in my office. And he’s never gone bananas over…um…whatever you were playing…before. I didn’t even know you were up here.”

“It’s okay,” she allowed, but it didn’t sound like she meant it.

“Curly,” Dinah addressed the guilty bird, “you just scared the pants off Middleburg Community Church’s new drama director.”

Serves Mac right for skipping church to go to a special service with Gil and the guys from Homestretch Farm last Sunday. Gil ran a unique reform program on his horse ranch, and occasionally “the guys”—as the juvenile offenders were known around town—visited churches in their old neighborhoods. Still, Mary didn’t look like the kind of person Mac thought would be leading drama at MCC. Actually, he didn’t even know MCC was planning a dramatic performance. Since his decision to run for mayor against “lifetime incumbent” Howard Epson, hadn’t Middleburg seen enough drama without having to make more? Not that anyone could be judged by how they weathered a cockatoo air strike, but this Mary seemed a little small and frail for the job. Mac had seen herds of mustangs more compliant than the MCC congregation. “Brave soul. Sorry you had Curly here for a welcoming committee.”

At the mention of his name, Curly poked his head up and gave Mary a wolf whistle. Dinah laughed. Mac rolled his eyes and thought about getting a dog.

“Are you an opera buff?” Mary asked Curly, putting the baton thing down.

“Not until today,” Mac replied. “I’ve never seen him do that before. He usually just bobs around when I play Bill Monroe.”

Mary gave him a blank look.

“Bluegrass music. Curly’s more used to that than…”

“Mozart?” she offered. She shrugged. “I give him points for good taste.”

“And bad manners,” Mac added as he nodded at the bird. “Say goodbye, you rascal.”

“Bye bye,” Curly squawked, winking one large black eye.

“I’m really sorry again. Welcome to Middleburg. I’ll keep Curly under tight surveillance for the rest of the week until the repairmen are gone at my house.” Mac shifted Curly to his left hand and extended his right.

She shook it. Her fingers were small but very strong. “I’ll turn down the volume so he isn’t tempted again.”

Mac glared at Curly. “Tonight we bring your other cage over here. No more free flying around the office for you, bud—repairmen at home don’t buy you a license to make trouble here for the neighbors.”

“Happy Birthday, by the way,” Dinah announced as they made their way downstairs. “Park your bird and come on over for some mint chocolate chip biscotti. You need them.”

No one ever really needed anything from Taste and See, but Dinah was very good at making people think they did. The woman’s trademark enthusiasm had only doubled since she had married Cameron Rollings, who used to live in the apartment Mary now occupied.

“My birthday’s not for another twenty-nine days, Dinah.”

“It’s December first, so it’s the first day of your birthday month. Close enough.”

Mac furrowed his eyebrows. “You’re not going to say that every day from now until the thirtieth, are you?”

“Whassamatta?” Dinah teased, reviving her native New Jersey accent. “The passing decade getting to you?”

Sure it was, but that’s not the kind of question he was going to get into with armchair therapist-baker Dinah Rollings.

“No,” he said, applying a smirk. “Turning thirty is not fatal. Not yet.”

Mac had barely settled at his desk when he saw his mother press her face against the glass window of his front office. She yanked open the door and stood in the entryway, one hand on each hip, a look of utter disgust on her face.

“I can’t take much more of this nonsense,” she said as Mac’s father filed in behind her. “Land sakes. If one more person looks at me sideways just because you up and ran for mayor…”

Mac stood up. His mama was in the room, after all. He had manners, even if his bird didn’t. “I sort of thought all the ruckus would die down when the holidays got here.”

Pa walked over to sit in the guest chair of Mac’s office. “If you ask me, it’s just gotten worse.” He shook his head in a combination of disbelief and amusement. “Y’all know what you got into?”

“Yep.”

He did. God had hounded him for months. He had very good, very personal reasons for taking this unconventional step. He was no stranger to wild ideas like this, anyway. As a matter of fact, Mac preferred to shun the norm whenever possible.

Which often drove his mama nuts.

Ma waved her hands in the air. “As if this campaign weren’t enough. Now there’s this Christmas pageant. I thought they were just off their rockers thinking that hiring some Christmas drama director would help mend fences. You know Howard’s already announced that he’s gonna be in the play, don’t you? You’ll have to as well, to keep Howard from getting the upper hand.” She blew out a breath and shook her head. “This won’t be a distraction, it’ll be a disaster.”

As far as Mac was concerned, it already was.

Mary Thorpe stood in the empty sanctuary of Middleburg Community Church and whispered a prayer of praise. I’m here. Oh, Lord, it’s amazing, what You’ve done. I’m here. The place was just what she’d envisioned; a steepled white church with a blue door on a rolling hillside with an old organ and wooden pews that had seen decades of worship. It even had a preschool attached—something she loved. This afternoon, she’d heard a tiny-voiced rendition of “Jesus Loves Me” that made her heart bubble up in happy relief. This is it. A real Christmas.

She inhaled. The place was infused with a wholesome, old-fashioned atmosphere. She ran her hand across a chipped, aged music stand and thought of the soprano soloist catfight she’d witnessed at her previous part-time job as the second chair violinist at a Chicago opera company. Not to mention the near nuclear-level war between coworkers at her other temporary job at an advertising agency, and thought “no more.” She picked up a battered hymnal from a nearby pew. From now it’ll all be “Peace in the Valley.” It’s perfect.

“Are you ready?” Pastor Dave Anderson’s voice broke her reverie as he came up the aisle beside Mary. “Most folks were reluctant to do this drama at first, but Sandy Burnside, Howard and the other church elders convinced them.” Anderson folded his arms across his chest and inclined his head toward Mary. “Still, y’all ought to be warned—they’re an opinionated bunch, my feisty flock.”

Mary tossed her blond ponytail over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips. “You haven’t seen the MidAmerican Orchestra String Section. Opinionated doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m ready to handle this.”

“You know,” the pastor amended, handing her a dozen copies of the nativity script they’d agreed upon, “I think maybe you are.” He winked and crossed the sanctuary to his office.

Mary sat down on the pew and smoothed her hand over the stack of scripts. Middleburg was everything she’d prayed for. Her new address—Ballad Road—charmed her, dotted with shops and diners. And all the streets had musical names! Walking here, she had passed a quaint park with a sign that read “Tree Lighting, Wednesday, 7:00 p.m., Bake Sale to follow.” Tree lighting. Bake sales.

God, in His wisdom, had led her to the middle of nowhere. The absolutely perfect place to disappear.

Chapter Two

This Sunday was just like his last Sunday at MCC; half the congregation avoided him in the church parlor after Sunday service. Dodging a sour look from Matt Lockwood, Mac focused his attention on Mary Thorpe. “Dinah told me you took cream and sugar,” he explained, handing her a cup of coffee.

“She’s nice. My apartment smells fabulous every morning, but I may put on ten pounds before New Year’s.” Mary smiled and waved to another member of the congregation. “They are an interesting bunch. Hey, I hear you’re one of the reasons I’m here. Well, you and Howard Epson. The campaign and all. I thought I’d seen seriously dramatic local politics back in Chicago….”

Mac shrugged. “I’m not asking him to stop being mayor. I’m just asking to be a choice. We haven’t had a choice for mayor since I was in high school. I think I’d do a great job, but if Howard wins, I’ll actually be okay with it.”

Mary took a sip of coffee and seemed to consider him.

Okay, it was sort of a cheesy speech, but that’s really how he felt. He didn’t want to start talking like a politician just because he ran for mayor, but lately stuff like that just jumped out of his mouth. “No really,” he went on, not liking how she narrowed her eyes, “if people still want Howard, then that’s what Middleburg should get. But they should think about whether they still want Howard.”

“Speaking of what the people want, you do know you’re both supposed to be in the production? Pastor Anderson told you, didn’t he?”

“Oh, I’ve heard. I think I can manage something along the lines of third shepherd from the left.”

She looked a bit tense. “Um, it’s more involved than that. You’ve got a starring role. You’re Joseph.”

While Mac didn’t like the idea of playing such a large role, he was sure Howard would be even less pleased. “And what about my worthy opponent?”

“Oh, we found the perfect part for him.” She offered a weak smile. “He’s God.”

Mac stood in the barn at Homestretch Farm, having just finished a hearty Sunday dinner with Gil and his wife, Emily. After the meal, Gil had invited Mac to join him as he took care of a few things around the farm. That usually meant Gil had something on his mind, and Mac wasn’t that surprised when Gil cleared his throat and sat down on a hay bale. “Emily said you got in another row with Howard at the diner.”

Mac bristled. “You’d think I’d decided to do something life-threatening the way he and other folks talk. Everybody’s always groaning about Howard, so why am I the first person willing to do something about it?” Mac had amazed even himself by how defensive he’d become on the subject. Running for Middleburg mayor did not qualify as a suicide mission. Still, when he announced his candidacy a few weeks back, people looked at him as if he’d just thrown himself on the end of a spear. They still did.

Gil fiddled with the large ring of keys he always carried. He had a habit of clanking them against his wedding ring. “You’ve showed me ads for four new cars in the last three months. New cars start catching your eye when you get antsy.”

Mac rolled his eyes. “You’ve been reading Emily’s magazines with all those quizzes or something. Wanting one new car does not constitute a midlife crisis. Pre-midlife crisis, rather,” Mac corrected, as his grandfather was now in his late nineties and still remarkably sharp. He leaned back against a hay bale. “What are you getting at?”

“You like to stir up trouble, Mac. Always did. And a man with a weird bird and a fast sports car could just be scouting the next diversion.” Gil looked serious.

“Meaning?” Mac knew lots of people who changed cars every two years.

“Are you running for mayor because it’s what you want, or just because it’ll get under everyone’s skin?”

Mac was fully aware of his tendency toward shock value. He certainly could have thought he’d heard the Lord tell him to run for mayor when it might just be his appetite for ruffling feathers.

The truth was, actually, that Mac had been feeling restless. “Okay,” he admitted to Gil, “I’m…how’d you put it? Antsy. But running for mayor isn’t about that. I sat on this a long time. God’s been after me for months, and yeah, I wasn’t so sure it wasn’t just me looking for a new thrill at first.” It was something larger than that, something harder to explain. As Mac stared down the barrel of his thirtieth birthday, it felt as if life was sucking him into the expected routine. As if everyone else had figured out who he was supposed to be except him. He had no desire to “settle down” at the moment, but lots of folks—Ma chief among them—viewed him as simply staving off the inevitable. Predictability and inevitability chafed at Mac like he’d seen one of Gil’s unbroken horses react to a bit in their mouths. If staying “unsettled” got under everyone’s skin, they’d just have to get used to it.

“Only you,” Gil said, “would think of running for mayor as ‘a thrill.’ Couldn’t you just buy a horse or find a girl or something?”

Mac groaned.

“Relax, MacCarthy, I’m just pressing your buttons. I’m not out to trash your freewheeling, nonconformist lifestyle. Not that your mama hasn’t asked me—repeatedly—to yak at you about the virtues of marriage. I just mostly want to know you’re in the right place about this.”

“That’s just it. I’m not in the right place. I’m supposed to be someplace else.”

Gil raised an eyebrow. Mac had been in Middleburg his whole life.

“Not geographically. Ever heard of a metaphor? I’m restless on the inside. Things don’t feel comfortable any more. Or too comfortable, I don’t know. I don’t want to fade into the landscape here. Fall into some predictable rut. I really want this. I think I’m the guy, Gil. You know I’ve got a lot of ideas, and I think it’s high time Middleburg even remembered they had a choice when it comes to a mayor.”

“Sounds like a campaign slogan to me.”

Mac was growing irritated by the fact that every time he voiced a well-phrased or complex idea, someone said “sounds like a campaign issue” or “that could be your campaign slogan.” Middleburg’s mayoral race wasn’t large enough to even warrant a slogan. He didn’t want to be the kind of guy whose civic agenda could fit on a bumper sticker.

“There are lots of ways to stand out in the world that doesn’t cause so much trouble.” Gil folded his arms across his chest. “You’ve hashed this out? Seriously?”

By “hashing something out,” Gil meant praying over it. Seriously. Gil Sorrent took his job and his faith very seriously. It’s what had made him able to withstand the tremendous pressures and setbacks of the criminal rehabilitation farm he ran. It’s what made him the kind of man who didn’t mince words and never let down his friends. “Yes,” Mac replied, and he had. He’d felt like he’d wrestled forever with this decision to run. His ability to shake things up had led him down a few wrong turns over the years, and this seemed like a chance to finally channel that “talent” into something useful. To make his mark on the world before he slid into the bland predictability of…gasp…middle age. Shaking up was a far better choice than settling down, and this was a perfect opportunity to shake up for the good of Middleburg.

Gil took his answer at face value. Their friendship had lasted long enough to put sugarcoating or lying out of the question. “And you’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Gil sat back in the hay. “Well, you’ve actually got the personality to pull it off. Mostly. Emily’ll burst out laughing the first time she has to say ‘Your Honor’—I’m glad I don’t have to.” Emily and Gil had been on the city council before they’d married, and Gil had been the one to step down because spouses couldn’t both remain in office.

“Maybe my first official duty will be to change that silly protocol.” Mac gave his friend a nudge. “It might be worth it just to hear you say “Your Honor’ to me. Who knew I’d have to run for office to get any respect from you?”

Gil stretched a foot out in front of him. “I haven’t said I’d vote for you yet. Howard’s a bit hard to take sometimes, but he does a halfway decent job.”

“You complain about Howard all the time. We spent half your time on the council fighting Howard.”

“That’s just it. When you’re mayor, who will I have to complain to?”

“Maybe you won’t have to complain at all. Have you considered that possibility?”

Gil grinned. “Not in the slightest.”

Mary waved back at yet another person as she made her way up Ballad Road toward her apartment, half spooked and half amazed by how quickly she’d come to feel at home. So many people believed in God here. And not just the Sunday kind of belief. These were day-in, day-out believers. It was the perfect place for her to grow her shaky new faith.

Almost from the time she had committed her life to Christ, Chicago had begun to vex her. Her earlier jobs—however enviable—felt hollow and unsatisfying. Her own parents had trouble understanding how anyone could leave an orchestral position and freelance ad agency work to lead a Christmas drama, but it was just too hard to be a new Christian in her other world. That verse about “rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God” kept running through her head. A fresh, humble start felt so much easier.

She stopped at the window of an adorable shop called West of Paris. A charming blue glass vase caught her eye. A housewarming gift for myself, she thought, picturing it with a few sprigs of holly on her tiny dining room table. She couldn’t pull off a decorated tree this Christmas, even if her mom and dad came as planned, but the vase seemed just enough of a luxury to suit her mood. As she entered, a wave of wonderful scents and music-box Christmas carols washed over her.

“Merry Christmas,” greeted the woman behind the counter. “I’m Emily Sorrent, we met at church. You’re Mary, right?”

Mary was still adjusting to strangers calling her by name. “That’s me.”

“Must be hard to be in such a new place for the holidays. Away from home and family and all. Are you settling in okay?”

Mary imagined such a new start might be a challenge around Christmas—for other people. For her, it was the best present of all. “Just fine. It’s so peaceful here.”

Emily smiled. “Peaceful? Are you sure you’re in Middleburg? I haven’t seen our little town so worked up in years. No, Ma’am, ‘peaceful’ is not a word I’d use to describe Middleburg these days.”

“That’s okay. People used to think the big city orchestra where I worked was glamorous, but I wouldn’t ever describe it that way, either.”

Emily got a funny look on her face and turned away for a moment under the guise of arranging some holiday ornaments. Mary couldn’t figure out what she’d said wrong. Maybe being new in town wasn’t all fresh starts and clean slates. “I saw that blue vase in the window,” she offered, changing the subject. “I think it would be perfect for my dining-room table.”

“It’s made by an artisan in Berea,” Emily described, brightening. “That color is his trademark. Look, here’s an ornament he made in the same style.” She held out a brilliant blue sphere with a sparkling gold center. “For your tree.”

“Oh,” Mary interjected, brushing her off. “I don’t think I’ll get a tree up this year.”

Emily looked surprised. “No Christmas tree? You can’t be serious?”

Mary took in the store, and realized there must be six fully decorated trees in Emily’s shop alone. The woman took her holiday decorating very seriously. Even for a retailer.

“There’s just me. I’d never be able to lug a tree up all the stairs to my apartment, and I own about three ornaments, besides. Christmas was my busy season in past years, and I never really had time to do all the trimmings. I’ll just take the vase, thanks.”

Emily crossed her arms over her chest. “No, you won’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t know where you came from, but if you’ve never had a real Christmas, Mary Thorpe, it’s high time you got one. And I am going to start you off. You can buy the vase, but it just so happens I’m running a special today. Every vase purchase comes with a free Christmas ornament. And I happen to know a whole bunch of big burly guys who will gladly lug your tree anywhere you want it. MCC’s new drama director will not be too busy to have her own Christmas if I have anything to say about it. And I’m on the church board and the town council, so you can bet I have something to say about it.”

Mary could only smile. “Okay, I’ll think about it.” She’d just effectively been commanded to have a happy holiday, and she couldn’t be more pleased. She took the ornament and spun it in the sunlight, enjoying the blue and gold beams it cast around the room. “Dinah warned me about you.”

Emily winked. “Oh, honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Chapter Three

Curly was singing.

This was a bit hard to take, especially because the bird insisted on singing the same piece of music he’d learned from Mary Thorpe’s stereo earlier. Even an extra dose of sunflower seeds had failed to quiet the cockatoo. Mac looked up from the drafting table a third time, then let his forehead fall into his hand. “Enough, bird. You were funny once—and not really funny at that—but you’re singing on my last nerve.”

“Yep!” Curly squawked, and Mac regretted—for the umpteenth time today—teaching the bird to agree with everything he said.

There was only one thing for it. Maybe the sheer repetition of the aria had stomped out his neurons, but Mac was relatively certain the only way to stop this bird from singing the same thing over and over was to give him something new to sing. And while the Kentucky Fight Song might have been a masculine choice, Mac also knew that would wear even worse than the opera.

He felt like a complete idiot walking up the stairs to Mary Thorpe’s apartment with Curly doing the bird equivalent of humming—a sort of half whistling noise accompanied by a comical head bob—on his shoulder. He didn’t, however, have Mary’s phone number, and he was sure in another hour he’d be incapable of putting a sentence together. “Behave yourself for both our sakes,” he told Curly as he knocked on the door.

She opened the door cautiously, trying not to broadcast her alarm at seeing Curly. “Hi there,” she said too kindly, forcing her smile.

“Do you think,” Mac spoke, finding the words more idiotic by the second, “we could teach Curly something else? I’m living with a broken record here and it’s driving me nuts.” On a whim he looked at the bird and stated, “You need a bigger repertoire, don’t you, boy?”

“Yep!” Curly squawked, nodding.

“No offense to your opera,” Mac confessed, “but I don’t think I could take even my favorite song nonstop like he’s been doing.”

She opened the door a bit more. He could see she’d gotten much farther in her unpacking, and the small apartment was starting to look like a home. “Haven’t you taught…” she inclined her head toward the feathered occupant of Mac’s right shoulder.

“Curly.”

“Curly any other songs?”

Curly bobbed a bit at the mention of his name. “No, actually. I didn’t know he could sing until you moved in. Seems bluegrass doesn’t interest him, but whatever it was…”

“Mozart,” she reminded, a hint of a smile finally making its way across her features.

“…catches his fancy. So,” Mac continued, daring to bring Curly off his shoulder to sit on his forearm, “you got any more Mozart for Curly to learn? A CD of something quiet and background-ish to get me through these last two days?”

Mary opened the door wide, raising one eyebrow. “Mozart didn’t write elevator music.”

“There’s got to be something. As long as it’s not the 1812 Overture, it’ll be an improvement.”

“I’m not in the habit of giving singing lessons. Not even to humans.”

Curly started in on the aria again.

“I’ll pay you. Another ten minutes of this and you can name your price.”

Mary looked at the bird. “Hush up, Curly.” She had a teacher’s voice—gentle, but you knew she meant business.

Wonder of wonders, Curly hushed. Now Curly gets cooperative? Where was all that avian obedience ten minutes ago? “Whoa,” Mac reflected, turning Curly so he could look him in one traitorous black eye. “Teach me that first.”

Mary shrugged, as if she didn’t have an answer to that, and motioned Mac and Curly into her apartment. Mac was right—she had settled in. The place looked more lived-in than the months Cameron Rollings had laughingly called it his “bachelor pad.” She went to her bookcases, traveling through her CD collection with dainty flicks of her finger. “I’m thinking he needs voices, so none of the chamber music will do—that’s all mostly instrumental. Oh,” she noted and plucked a CD from the shelf, “this might work.”

She inserted the disc into her player and a soft, high, female voice lilted out of the speakers. Curly cocked his head to one side. Mary looked at Curly and sang along, conducting with her forefinger. Curly began inspecting Mac’s watch.

“I’m thinking that’s a ‘no.”

Mary pulled another selection and popped it into her sound system.

The same tenor voice as Curly’s previous obsession came over the speakers, but this time Pavarotti was singing Italian songs. The kind guys in striped shirts sang as they pushed boats through Venice. Not very hip, but still better than opera. Mary walked up to Curly and began singing along, conducting with her fingers again. This time Curly took notice, swooping his head around to match the movement of her hand. She caught Mac’s eye, and they both nodded. “I suppose technically I have you to thank for my job, since part of my job description is to take everyone’s mind off the mayoral conflict. This lesson will be on the house.” She sang a few more bars as the chorus came around again, and Curly began making noises. “Future lessons from the tonic for Middleburg’s mayoral malaise might cost you.”

“Very catchy, but I don’t think it’s the civic disaster they’re making it out to be.”

“For what it’s worth,” Mary said over the swelling music, “neither do I.”

“There will be no more lessons. The floor guys will be done with my house by Friday. After that, Mr. Music here stays home.” Pavarotti launched into another song, a Dean Martin number Mac recognized from his ma’s record collection. “Who knew my bird has such questionable taste in music?”

“Curly has very good taste, actually.”

When she looked at him, he realized he’d just insulted her CD collection. Just hitting them out of the ballpark here, MacCarthy, aren’t we? She didn’t say so, but it glared out of her eyes just the same; better taste than you, evidently.

“Could I make a copy of that CD?” he said sheepishly.

“Music is copyrighted material, Mr. MacCarthy. I’m sure you wouldn’t take kindly to my Xeroxing your latest blueprints and passing them around, would you?”

“Okay,” Mac conceded slowly, feeling like this conversation had started off badly and was slipping further downhill fast.

She softened her tone as she handed him the CD. “But you may borrow this one for the moment. If Curly needs further…inspiration…I’m sure you can find your way to a copy. An original copy, bought and paid for.”

“Absolutely. You got it.” Mac took the slim plastic box from her, and Curly put his head up to it, rubbing against the corner in a disturbingly lovesick gesture. “And, well, I’m sorry you got hired to fix whatever it is people think I broke.”

“I’m not sorry,” she commented, opening the door for them to go, “but if I get sorry, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know. I think it’s sort of sweet, actually, how much people care about getting along here.”

“If people cared about getting along here, you could have fooled me,” Mac observed. “There’s a town hall meeting tomorrow night—come see how much getting along we actually do.”

“Pastor Anderson,” Mary began.

“Dave,” the older man corrected.

“Dave,” she said, still not entirely comfortable with the concept of calling a member of the clergy by his first name. Up until this summer, she’d seen people like Dave Anderson as almost a different species. High, lofty souls who didn’t bother with the likes of “sinners” like herself. Not that she thought of herself as a sinner. She was pretty proud of all her accomplishments then. Back before she’d realized “achievement” didn’t always translate into “happiness.”

It was, in fact, happiness she was speaking of—at least to Dave. “You know, Dave,” she continued carefully, “I’m worried about how much people are expecting out of this Christmas drama.”

He smiled. “You’ll do fine. Actually, when you think about it, you can’t help but do fine. You’re our first drama coordinator, so folks don’t have anyone to compare you to. You can’t help but improve us. And they like you already—I can tell.”

How to say this? “It’s not the drama I’m worried about. It’s the…well, the result you’re looking for. Don’t you think town unity’s kind of a high expectation for a little church drama?”

Pastor Dave sat back in his chair. “That’s because you’re expecting it to be a little church drama. It will be church, it will be drama, but I guarantee it won’t be little. Complications might be just what the doctor ordered in this case.” His eyebrows lowered in concern. “I want you to pour your creative energies into making this as all-consuming as possible.”

“Aren’t there more direct ways to resolve the town’s conflict?”

“I suppose there would be—if the town was willing to admit they had a conflict. Most of them want a big Christmas extravaganza to make them feel good. Just you and I and a few other wise folk realize they need something to agree on to take their minds off the many disagreements.”

“What about Mac and Howard?”

The pastor chuckled. “I think Mac knows he stirred up a hornet’s nest. He enjoys it—always has been one to whip things up a bit. I think Howard feels the conflict, but he’s likely to read it all wrong. He feels attacked because I think he’d much rather change on his own terms, not on those of someone like Mac.”

“But Howard was bound to retire someday.” Mary leaned one elbow on the corner of Dave’s desk. She was still sorting out the complexities of “simple little Middleburg.”

“I’m not so sure Howard’s caught on to that truth yet. He’s been mayor for so long he may not remember how to be anything else. We’ve got sixth-graders who’ve never known Howard as anything but mayor. You have to respect that.”

“All things considered, I’m not so sure a Christmas pageant is the way to cope. We’re sticking a tiny bandage on a great big wound here.”

“Miss Thorpe, you ever been a parent?” He got up from his chair and walked over to his office windows overlooking the preschool. “Ever given a toddler a bandage?”

“I’m sure I have at some point.” Mary didn’t really see where he was heading.

“They believe it makes things better. A child may get stitches for a nasty gash, but they won’t calm down until somebody puts on a bandage. It’s the stitches that do the real healing, but they still need the bandage. You and I know it’s an illusion, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.” He grinned and pointed at her. “Some of my best work is done with Band-Aids.”

Mary blinked. “I’m a diversionary tactic?”

He walked toward her. “Would it make it easier if I said you were a coping mechanism?”

This had started out as a simple job. A calmer life serving an undiluted purpose, a chance for Mary to get away from the agenda-laden world of professional music and advertising. Suddenly she had more agendas than a diplomat and a goal so complex and obscure she could no longer say what it truly was. “I’ve got a headache just trying to make sense of this.” She looked up at him. “Can I have a Band-Aid?” It was supposed to be a joke, but Mary couldn’t quite muster the confidence to pull it off.

“Take two rehearsals and call me in the morning,” Pastor Dave joked.

Mary sat in her living room that afternoon, trying to make sense of it all. How many people thought of the drama as just a nice holiday event? How many of them were aware of its secondary goal of unifying the community? How to balance the two? Lord, I prayed for hours over this job. I asked You to take me someplace where I could figure out all this faith stuff. Someplace easier than Chicago. This isn’t looking easier.

Mary smiled as the faint strains of Pavarotti’s tenor voice singing “Ave Maria” reached her ears. She wondered if Mac found it an improvement over the Mozart aria. It was hard to think of that bird crooning a ballad. Too bad it wasn’t summertime; she’d have been able to hear Curly through the open window.

Then again, maybe it was better all the windows were shut. She wasn’t entirely sure Curly the cockatoo was up to the high note at the end of the song.

Laughing at the thought of the bird straining to hit the note, his creamy neck extended and his feathers fluttering, Mary reached for the mail that had been forwarded from her old Chicago apartment. She sorted through the envelopes until she spotted the familiar gray stationery of Maxwell Advertising. She’d forgotten, until now, that she had one more bonus coming. She opened the envelope and slid out a substantial check. How ironic that her “swan song” had been her most lucrative project ever. God had given her enough resources to take whatever job she wanted, wherever she wanted. And He had brought her here. Maybe, for now, she could trust that, despite the growing complexities.

Mac shut the door to his office with a fierce thunk and walked briskly toward Deacon’s Grill. A piece of pie couldn’t really do anything about the storm of aggravation he carried around, but it couldn’t hurt, either. At least a warm cup of coffee might soothe his annoyance. “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men?” Today felt more like “profits on earth, bad will toward any consumer.” No wonder Ma had asked him to handle the procurement of one of those idiotic Bippo Bears for his nephew, Robby. Finding the fuzzy blue singing bear proved to be more like warfare than Christmas shopping. Not counting the two trips to two separate malls yesterday, Mac had just spent three hours on the phone and Internet in search of a Bippo Bear. He sat down on his counter stool at the Grill with such force that the thing rocked under his weight.

Gina, no stranger to diner psychology, read his body language and immediately swapped out the ordinary sized stoneware mug at the island for a much larger one she produced from under the counter. Gina was smart. “Regulars” who obviously had a bad day were quickly given what she called a “comfort cup.” That was Gina’s entirely-too-female term for “the really big mug of coffee.” He accepted it gladly, needing the hot beverage too much to care that it announced his disgruntled mood to the rest of the diner. He was pretty sure his entrance had already done that, anyway.

“And a Merry Christmas to you, too, sugar,” Gina said as she slid the sugar container in front of Mac withholding the cream pitcher. Apart from baking the best pies around, Gina also had a great memory for customer preferences. “Rough going on the campaign trail?”

Campaign? Who had time for a campaign when Christmas shopping was sucking half his day into the trash can?

Gina’s reference to the mayoral campaign halted Howard Epson in his conversation. Mac hadn’t even noticed Howard as he came in, he was so annoyed. Epson and his wife were sitting in their favorite corner booth with Mary Thorpe of all people, probably advising her on the mayor’s expected role in all holiday ceremonies. Divine drama aside, he was sure Howard took pains to stay a highly visible mayor during the MCC’s Christmas season.

Mac swallowed a gulp of coffee, telling himself to back down off his soapbox. Howard could get to him so easily these days. They’d chalked up a lot of reasons to dislike each other over the years, some of which everyone knew—Mac had a long, checkered history of behavior Howard disapproved of—and some that were more private.

Years ago, when Mac was a senior in high school, he’d pulled a prank of sorts that ended up with Howard in the crosshairs. Actually, to call it a prank was making it too deliberate—it was more of an impulsive reaction. A stupid, angry gesture that ended up damaging church property and Howard’s car one night. The whole town had seen the wreckage, but no one had ever discovered Mac was behind it. When God and the passing years finally granted Mac some maturity, he’d still never found it in himself to fess up to the deed. Howard would surely blow it way out of proportion, and Mac had convinced himself it was one of those secrets best left buried. Not that it hadn’t nagged at him over time, but lots of stuff about Howard bothered Mac—civic and personal. It was one of the reasons he felt God had asked him to run for mayor; to prove he was better than the angry kid he once was.

Mac caught sight of one of Howard’s campaign brochures on the place setting next to Mary. She was surely getting a suggestion or two about the proper way to vote. At Gina’s mention of the campaign, Howard inclined his balding head slightly toward Mac and stopped his words midsentence. Even the French fry on the way to his mouth had been stilled halfway. Mary Thorpe caught Mac’s glance for a split second before looking down into her pie.

“No,” Mac answered Gina’s earlier question clearly enough for Howard to hear. “The campaign’s going fine.” He tried not to emphasize the word too much. “As a matter of fact, it’s a pathetic stuffed animal that has me riled up. I’ve just wasted half the morning trying to find something called a Bippo Bear for my nephew. Evidently even the secret service couldn’t get their hands on one of these if they wanted to—and don’t you know, it’s the one and only thing Robby wants for Christmas.”

“A what?” Gina asked, flipping open her order pad and pulling a pen out of from behind her ear.

“A Bippo Bear. It’s blue and sings to you and can’t be found for love or money. Already. And it’s still early December. What is it with these toy people? Don’t they realize they have to make enough of these things to go around? Do they enjoy disappointing kids and making parents crazy?”

Drew Downing looked up from his sandwich a few seats to Mac’s left. “Bippo Bear? I saw something on the news last night about those.” Drew used to host a church renovation television show until an episode had brought him to Middleburg and introduced him to the love of his life, hardware store owner Janet Bishop. The man knew a thing or two about the power of advertising. “I saw one go for a hundred dollars yesterday on an Internet auction site. This year’s must-have toy, it seems.”

“Why does there have to be a ‘must-have’ toy, anyway?” Mac complained in a cranky voice. “My nephew doesn’t even like stuffed animals. I’ll spend two weeks tracking down one of those things and he’ll play with it for two hours before he tires of it.”

“Oh, yeah,” remembered Gina, “it’s that commercial that’s on eleven hundred times a day. How could I forget?” She began to hum a few bars of the annoying little Bippo Bear song.

The one Mac had been forced to listen to for forty minutes while on hold with the toy company in a misguided attempt to locate a Canadian retailer. While he thought going foreign to be a smart alternative, the cheerful customer service representative at the Bakley Toy Factory informed him that he was her sixtieth such call of the day.

“Mary,” came Howard’s voice over his angry thoughts, “are you all right? Your pie okay? You look like you swallowed your fork all of a sudden.”

Mac glanced over and Gina raised her head from her order pad. Middleburg’s newest resident did indeed appear a bit ill, but Mac doubted it was anything Gina fed her. Howard had probably just said something insensitive, as he was known to do when he became overly focused on impressing someone new.

“Oh, no,” Mary protested loudly. “It’s wonderful pie.” Mac recognized the forced cheerfulness she’d used when telling him it was “okay” that a maniac bird attacked her in her living room.

“Hi, Mary.” Mac waved and she waved back, but it was a weak, wobbly gesture. “Hello, Howard,” Mac said more formally.

Howard had become extremely formal with Mac since he’d announced his candidacy. “Good afternoon, MacCarthy.” Howard had begun calling him Mr. MacCarthy or just MacCarthy whenever they met now. He didn’t even turn around, just twisted his head half a turn in Mac’s direction and puffed up as though they were on podiums debating issues instead of just eating in the same diner.

“Apple as usual, Mac?” Gina interjected. Her tone of voice seemed to imply that all conflicts could easily be solved with the right slice of pie. “I’ll even heat it up for you, how’s that?”

“Perfect.” He settled more peaceably onto his stool and inhaled the rich aroma rising out of his wonderfully enormous coffee mug. “I refuse to let a stuffed blue bear steal my holiday.”

“Good plan,” Drew Downing offered. “But I know what you mean. My sister e-mailed me yesterday, and she wasn’t too subtle about asking me what strings I could pull to get my hands on one of those for her daughter. The old ‘Can’t you do this ’cause you’re famous?’ ploy.”

Mac smiled. While Drew still made occasional appearances for his former Missionnovation television show, Mac had taken to ribbing him about his “has been” status. And really, Downing had just walked head-on into another teasing with that remark. “You’re just not famous enough anymore, sport,” he taunted, digging into the pie Gina had just placed in front of him.

Drew caught onto the game and cracked a wide grin. “Hey, I still rate. I still have fans. My Web site got six hits last week.”

“Wow. Maybe I should ask you to endorse my candidacy.” Mac thought he’d said it quietly enough to escape Howard’s hearing, but the man seemed to have radar for that sort of thing, and Mac saw his head incline slightly in his direction again.

Drew caught the exchange. “I’ve stayed a star as long as I have because I know which battles not to get into.”

“You’re a Middleburg resident now, you’ll have to vote soon enough.”

“A gratefully private matter, Mr. MacCarthy.” Drew poured more cream into his own coffee. “God bless democracy.”

Mac leaned in on one elbow. “Why do I get the feeling if Howard wins, you’ll tell him you voted for him, but if I win you’ll say I had your vote?”

Howard wasn’t even pretending not to listen now. He’d turned halfway around to face Mac and Drew, his attention openly on the conversation.

“Eat your pie, gentlemen,” Gina cut in, brandishing the pie-cutter knife she was holding. She tilted the spatula in Howard’s direction. “All of you.”

Drew straightened in his chair. “Don’t anger the pie lady,” he declared as if he and Mac had been caught passing notes in class.

“Good policy,” Mac whispered back loudly, glad to have enough humor to still make a joke. Honestly, his short fuse was way too short lately. He needed to remember to get out more. The combination of year-end workload and campaign tasks on top of his new commission as Bippo Bear procurement agent had gotten to him fast. I’m going to need an easy nature and a mile-long fuse to be mayor, he told himself. That’s a tall order for the likes of me. Are You listening, Lord?

Chapter Four

It couldn’t be. I mean, yes, it was Kentucky, and it wasn’t like they didn’t have snakes in Illinois, but they didn’t take up residence under the kitchen sink. That was the beauty of living five stories up in a city. The wildlife stayed in the wild. Mary stood very still, both hands vise-locked onto the broomstick she now pushed against the cabinet door. Nothing, no one could get her to stop holding that cabinet door shut and keeping that lethal creature inside. Mary heard something shuffle behind the door and swallowed a scream.

Think. You’re a smart girl, think.

No coherent thought came to mind.

If she screamed, surely someone in the building would hear her. Did birds have good hearing? Would Curly be able to hear her even if Dinah or Mac couldn’t? The scene of Curly getting Mac’s attention, “Lassie, what do you mean Timmy’s stuck down the well?”-style, flashed absurdly through her head. Town newcomer saved by vigilant cockatoo. It’d be out over the Internet in seconds, along with a photo of herself being loaded, pale and shaking, into a Woodford County ambulance. Sunflower seed reward for snake-killing bird.

Not helpful, Mary. Think. Think rationally.

I can’t think rationally, there’s a python under my sink.

You don’t even know if it’s venomous. There are perfectly harmless snakes, her rational side argued.

It will eat you in one gulp, her terrified side rebutted, very successfully.

“Mac!” she yelled, trying for some ridiculous reason to sound calm. When no reply came, she tried “Dinah!” After half a minute and another sinister sub-sink shuffle, Mary cried, “Curly!”

Nothing.

Well of course he can’t hear you, it’s winter and the windows are shut. A building as old as this must have thick walls. Lord Jesus! I haven’t even had a year as a Christian, I can’t be ready for Heaven yet! Save me!

The floor. She could use the floor. Forcing in a deep breath, Mary tried to mentally compare the floor plan of her apartment with Mac’s office below. She’d only seen it once, but it was enough to be reasonably sure that his office was directly below where she was standing. If she just thumped, it would only sound like she was moving things. It had to sound deliberate. Somewhere, out of the dark trivia-hoarding recesses of her brain, Mary retrieved the Morse code for SOS. Three short beeps, followed by three long beeps, followed by three short ones again. While the concept of long beeps didn’t directly translate into foot-stomping, Mary guessed she could come close enough. If that didn’t work, she could still reach the toaster and begin throwing it on the ground until Mac was convinced the walls were caving in up here.

Tap-tap-tap. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. Tap-tap-tap.Mary dug her heel into the floor to produce the loudest possible staccato taps. Lord Jesus, please let Mac know Morse code and not let him think I’m an amateur flamenco dancer. She repeated the sequence again.

Curly noticed first. Mac looked up from his papers, only barely noticing an unusual noise. Mary sure was doing a lot of banging around up there. Rhythmic, too. Exercise?

Tap-tap-tap. BANG-BANG-BANG. Tap-tap-tap. Curly came down off his perch in the window to stand on Mac’s desk lamp. “Your new friend is a bit odd,” Mac remarked, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “Even for city folk.”

The succession of noises repeated again, louder. Folk dancing? Some jumpy new Chicago fitness fad? Morse code? Mac reached for his calculator, chuckling.

Until the bangs repeated.

Morse code? He knew Morse code. He knew the signal she was banging out, or knew it once. Mac stared at Curly, trying to pull the information out of the back recesses of his memory until…

Tap-tap-tap. BANG-BANG-BANG. Tap-tap-tap. SOS. That was Morse code for SOS.

No way. That was absurd.

The series of bangs came faster and louder now. Quite clearly three short taps followed by three more big bangs followed by three more short taps. SOS. Or something too close to it to ignore. But really, how many people knew Morse code, much less stomped it on their floors? Still, he’d never forgive himself if something really had been wrong and he’d dismissed it. Dashing up there would make him look like a complete idiot—if she was fine. “You think?” Mac said to Curly, pushing back his desk chair.

Curly was already flying toward the door. “Yep!”

He stood at the door, hands poised to knock, and listened for another set of stomps. He’d almost talked himself out of knocking, sure she would find his visit an example of overdone small-town meddling, when he heard the moan. It was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a calm sound. At that point, knocking was no longer needed. Mac flung Curly off his forearm and twisted Mary’s door handle, pushing the door wide open and sprinting inside.

“Oh, Lord Jesus, save me from that thing! Who’s there?”

Mac followed her voice into the kitchen to find Mary Thorpe impaling her cabinet with a broomstick. Throwing all her slight weight against that door as if an 800-pound gorilla were hiding under her sink. It was comic—in an alarming kind of way—until whatever it was behind there made a considerable racket. Then it wasn’t so funny.

Mary shifted her weight, pressing harder against the broom handle, and squeaked “Mac! It’s in there!”

“What’s in there?” Mac said as calmly as he could while scanning her kitchen for heavy objects. He strode to her and took the broomstick, keeping pressure against the door.

She bolted away from him the minute he had a grip, backing into a corner on the other side of the kitchen, her chest heaving. “I don’t know. I only heard it. I sure wasn’t going to open the door and introduce myself.”

Mac worked himself closer to the cabinet, hand-overhand down the broom handle until he held the door shut with his boot. Nothing pushed back against him, but things were definitely moving around in there. A constant, steady rustle rather than an irregular scurrying. Mary Thorpe had a snake in her kitchen. Not exactly the warmest of Kentucky welcomes. “It sounds like you’ve got a snake in there,” he confirmed, trying to keep his tone conversational, as if kitchen snake visits were commonplace. They weren’t rare, but it was unusual to get one on the second floor in December.

“Ooo,” she winced, hunching up her shoulders and squinting her eyes shut. “I knew it. Snakes. I hate snakes. I mean I really hate snakes.”

Mac started searching for something forklike to trap the head. Somehow he didn’t think Mary Thorpe would take kindly to having her carving fork used to skewer a snake. “It’s probably a harmless milk snake. They like buildings.”

“Probably harmless?” Unconvinced didn’t do her tone of voice justice.

“There just aren’t that many that can hurt you around here. Be thankful it’s not a skunk in there.” Mac looked at the cabinet again. Don’t let it be a skunk in there. “Is your phone hooked up?”

“Yes.”

“Is it cordless?”

“Uh-huh.” Her shoulders softened the smallest amount.

He looked her straight in the eye, giving her his best remain calm, things are under control voice. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Go get your phone, and we’ll call Janet at the hardware store to bring over a snake catcher. She’s thirty seconds away, so we’ll have whatever it is out of your kitchen in ten minutes flat.”

Mary nodded.

“So now you need to go get the phone.”

That snapped her out of her shock. She came back with the phone and a roll of duct tape. When he raised his eyebrow at the second item, she explained “Maybe we can seal him in there until Jane gets here.”

Mac allowed himself a small chuckle. “It’s Janet, and I don’t think the duct tape will be necessary.” He gave her the phone number, and she put the handset in speaker mode while she dialed.

“Bishop Hardware.”

“Hey there, Vern, it’s Mac. Is Janet around?” he conversed in a friendly voice. Vern would have a field day with a situation like this, especially given his flair for the dramatic. He’d probably play it up, making Mary think a Komodo dragon was gnawing away the woodwork under her sink, hatching little ones who would feast on Mary in her sleep. No, this was definitely a situation that called for Janet’s calm female touch. His call was right on the money, and Janet promised to be there within three minutes with the necessary equipment.

“Got a flashlight?” Mac asked, thinking Mary needed a bit of distraction while they waited.

“Um…I think so.” Her voice was still a good octave higher than normal. “Why?” she inquired from the other room.

He thought that was obvious. “We need to see who we’re dealing with here.”

She shot back into the room, flashlight in hand. “Don’t you open that door.” Just then she noticed Curly perched on the back of her kitchen chair—she’d been oblivious to his presence until then. “Hi, Curly.” She said it calmly, as if Curly’s intruder status had been stripped—he was a friend now compared to the new invader in her home.

“Hello,” Curly responded amiably.

“Mary,” Mac began, “we can’t get him out without opening the door. It could just be a tiny little mouse making all that noise.” He didn’t really think that, but it sounded better than “It will go more smoothly if I can see how many feet long the big nasty snake is before we kill it.” Said villainous creature chose that moment to push a little against the cabinet door, making Mac gulp and Mary shriek.

“Don’t you dare open that door.”

“Okay, the door stays shut until Janet gets here. No peeking.” After a tense moment, he added, “You know, you could just take Curly down to the bakery and both get a cracker or something while we take care of your little guest here.” Mac doubted the vision of a snake twitching on the end of a stick would do much for her nerves, even if he was transporting the harmless creature downstairs to release him outside unharmed as Janet would insist he do.

“I’m staying,” she countered, the bravado in her voice was a good, if unconvincing, attempt. “But over here.” She kept the kitchen table between herself and the sink.

“You know Morse code?” Mac noted, hitting on a diversionary topic while the door thumped against his shin again. Okay, maybe it was a slightly large animal in there.

“Just the important words,” she indicated, staring directly at the cabinet door. “You know, yes, no, help, SOS, pizza.”

“Pizza?”

“Sergeant Sam’s gave you four dollars off your pizza if you ordered in Morse code. College.”

Mac laughed. She didn’t look like the kind to inhale pizza—definitely more the Brie-and-salad type. “And they say our educational system is in crisis.”

“Well, before today, I thought that was a piece of useless trivia.”

“Hello?” came Janet’s voice from the still-open front door of Mary’s apartment. “Animal rescue here!”

Mac bought Mary a second cup of coffee as they sat at the little table in Dinah’s bakery. “The snake wasn’t that big.”

Mary shot him a look. “Any snake is too big in my book. Any snake in my kitchen, that is. I’m not against them in general. God’s creatures and all. I’m sure they serve a very important link in the food chain. Just as long as that food chain stays out of my apartment.”

Mac hoisted his coffee and swallowed a laugh. “You were very brave. Even Janet was twitching a bit when we finally got that thing out of there—he was a feisty one. But totally harmless. Really. He posed more danger to Curly than to you or me.”

She doubted that. All snakes had teeth, venomous or not. She wasn’t in any hurry to add “snakebite” to her list of thrilling new experiences. “How is Curly, by the way?” she asked as she changed the subject to a different species. “Expanding his playlist?”

Mac made a face. This was obviously not an improvement in topics. “Not by a long shot.” He ran a hand through his head full of unruly sandy-colored hair. “He likes whatever it is you gave him—I have a copy on order, by the way, so you can have yours back soon—and I suppose that means he may take up something from it one of these days, but…”

“But…” she prompted as if she didn’t know what was coming.

His bottle-green eyes took on a teasing expression. “Let’s just say the Three Tenors haven’t made it to a quartet.”

“Still drowning in The Marriage of Figaro?” Mary laughed at the thought of that odd bird’s fascination with operatic tenors. “Maybe we can teach him a Christmas carol and put him in the play.”

“Only if you include one of Howard’s horses, too. He’ll want equal time.”

Mary put down her cup. “Have you always been a thorn in Howard’s side?”

Mac sat back in the chair. He wasn’t an enormous man, more of a strong, lean build, but he looked too big for the bakery’s delicate chairs. He legs refused to fit under the small round table. He flexed his fingers, putting his answer together in his head. Mac’s broad, tawny hands looked as though they divided their time between paperwork and oil changes. The kind of man who could tinker with a spreadsheet just as easily as he could an engine. Evidently she’d asked a delicate question.

“’Spose I have. We go back a bit, you could say. And yeah, Howard and I clash on a regular basis. We see things differently. But I’m not out to get him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Does he think you are? Out to get him, I mean?”

Mac kicked his legs out, and Mary felt like they extended into the center of the room. The man took up space—literally and figuratively—and he was comfortable with it. “I quit trying to figure out what Howard’s thinking a long time ago. Still, I reckon Howard would’ve gotten his dander up at anyone who took him on, even if it wasn’t someone like me. That’s one of the reasons I felt I ought to be the one to run. That kind of heat don’t bother me much.”

That kind of heat. Meaning all that attention. Mary had learned a while back that men who liked attention didn’t much care if it was positive or negative attention. Her former boss, Thornton Maxwell, didn’t care if the business columns praised him or bashed him, as long as they discussed him. What was that old saying? “All press is good press.” Still, Mary wasn’t sure it was right to paint all extroverts with the same sinister brush as Thornton. Just because a guy took the lead didn’t mean he was ready to squash everyone in his path. And it needed saying that not one of Mary’s artsy advertising colleagues or cerebral music composition classmates could have dispatched that snake so calmly. Mac looked like an alligator would have posed an amusing challenge, or maybe some antlered forest beast would have ended up mounted to the hood of his truck.

If he owned one. Mary had never seen him drive anything but the shiny orange sports car that pulled into the spot in front of MacCarthy Engineering every morning. She still couldn’t quite see how that tall man folded into that zippy little car.

“So why’d you do it?” Mary prodded.

“Run?”

“Yeah. Why not just wait until he retired?”

“Howard? Retire? Doubt he would. Not that you shouldn’t like your job, but Howard loves his a bit too much. I’m not even sure he consciously knows he projects the ‘mayor for life’ thing, but I don’t think he can see himself not in charge. He doesn’t know how to follow. The man’s in charge of stuff he’s not even in charge of.” Mac finished off his coffee and pointed at her. “And you ought to keep that in mind. Your newcomer status may be the only thing keeping him from taking over the Christmas drama. And he still might. I saw him in the diner earlier—he’s just warming up on you. I give it two weeks before you’re knee-deep in Howard.”

Mary raised an eyebrow. Mac wasn’t looking humble himself at the moment, either. “Knee-deep in Howard’?”

“Okay, that sounded a bit ridiculous. But you know what I mean.”

She shot him a look.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Howard’s all bad. His motives are good. He believes he’s got the town’s best interests at heart.” Mac wiped his hands down his face, as if he still hadn’t found the words to explain what he was trying to say. “I love it here, but I get so annoyed with people for being so…predictable. People here fall into life by default. No one’s run against Howard because everybody is so used to Howard as mayor. But Howard’s so stuck in how everything’s always been that he can’t see the possibilities. I don’t want Middleburg to die off just because it’s the path of least resistance. Life should never be the path of least resistance, the expected thing.”

“And you’re the new possibility?” She hoped her skepticism for his speech didn’t show.

“Sounds corny, doesn’t it? But, well, yeah. I prayed about it for weeks when I first got the idea. Even I don’t tilt the world sideways without thinking it through. But the honest truth is that I believe this is what God wants me to do. Run, at least. I’ll leave the part about whether or not I win up to Him.”

She’d seen him at church, heard him lead prayers during services, but it was different to hear him talking about how God affected his everyday life. She was just getting used to this praying-over-decisions thing. Part of it was wonderful; she could bring the Lord of the universe in on even her smallest decisions. Another part of it was frightening, because she’d given up having the final say. God hadn’t said no to anything she’d asked Him yet, and she wasn’t sure how she’d handle it when He did.

She looked at Mac again. Most of the people she knew in Chicago had so many layers, so many overlapping hidden agendas that a simple conversation gave her a headache. Mac was just the opposite—living, walking “what you see is what you get.” It was as unsettling as it was refreshing.

Chapter Five

“I memorized a line today,” Gil bragged to Mac as they brought more wood in from the pile in Mac’s backyard. He puffed up and bellowed, “Spare not one!” into the night air. Mac had to agree with the casting; Herod was a very good use of Gil’s commanding baritone.

“I’m shaking in my boots, your majesty. And you have all of what, six lines?”

“Seven.”

“Ain’t that useful. I, on the other hand, have no less than forty-two lines to occupy my whopping load of free time.”

“Star.” It wasn’t a compliment.

“I got ’em typed out onto index cards and stacked up on my dashboard. I go over them at stop lights and while I’m waiting at the train crossing. Because that’s how much free time I have.”

Gil dumped his armload of wood into the wrought iron holder beside the enormous stone fireplace that was the centerpiece of Mac’s living room. “Rots to be you, don’t it?”

Mac dropped his own wood, then bent down to arrange a fire. “Pastor Dave was dead-on casting you as the villain. You’re just plain mean. You’ll probably scare the little kids or something.”

“Emily’s delighted,” Gil said as he settled into one of the large leather chairs that stood in front of the fireplace. Emily had wound up being Mary, and was over-the-top happy about her starring role, not to mention Gil’s. “For all I know, she put Dave up to it.”

Mac struck a match to a pile of kindling. “Who knew you had an artistic side? It’s almost unnatural.” He cast a sideways look back at Gil as he opened the pizza box that sat on the coffee table between them. “I can’t quite see you in a crown and flowing robes. This ought to be fun.”

“Speaking of unnatural, I heard you got to play hero to Mary Thorpe earlier this week. Peter Epson was telling Emily about it—said he wanted to do an article, but he was afraid his dad would throw a fit.” Peter Epson was Howard’s son and a reporter for the local paper.

“You see,” Mac elaborated as he pointed the tip of his pizza slice at Gil, “that’s exactly why I’m running. People do things—or don’t do things—way too much based on what Howard will think. Okay, Peter may be a bit of an exception, but you know what I mean. The guy’s got too much influence. And I don’t even think he goes after half of it. You might be surprised to hear I don’t actually hate Howard. Not at all.”

Gil raised an eyebrow as he bit into his own slice. “Could have fooled me.”

“Granted, he’s overblown, self-centered, backward-looking, but this ‘mayor for life’ thing has gotten so out of proportion that Howard doesn’t have to look at something before people decide how he feels about it. Okay, maybe he’s grabbed at power with both hands, but we’ve been handing him more and more over the years without even thinking about it.”

“And you’re just the guy to turn us around,” Gil guessed with his mouthful.

“I’m just the guy God asked to do the job,” Mac clarified, meaning it. It bugged him that people thought he had it out for Howard personally, when he just wanted to change people’s mind about the inescapability of Howard being mayor.

“Howard might say the same thing.”

“Enter the blessings of democracy.”

“Man, you really are starting to sound like a politician.” Gil took a swig of his soda. “But a snake charmer? Did you and Curly really pull a milk snake out of that lady’s sink?”

“The press should have been there. I was heroic. An epic battle. The thing was six feet long.”

Gil shot Mac a dark look. “Janet Bishop said it was a foot and a half at most and it took you four minutes.”

“Four very dramatic minutes. You should have heard Mary Thorpe shriek.”

“She’s from Chicago,” Gil said as if it explained everything.

“Cut the woman a little slack.”

Gil grinned. “Sounds like you already did. Dinah told me you bought her a nice soothing beverage afterward in the bakery. Charmer, like I said.”

“She was afraid to go back into her kitchen just yet. What was I supposed to do? Just leave her standing in the hallway? After all, Curly likes her.”

“Just Curly?”

“We’re not in the same place, Gil. She’s just barely getting her feet underneath her where her faith is concerned. I admit, she shows some spine, and…maybe under different circumstances…but not now.” She wasn’t Mac’s type, even with those eyes.

“Circumstances change all the time. Maybe she’s just what you need.” Gil raised an eyebrow.

“What I need,” Mac declared narrowing his eyes, “is for people to stop planning my life for me, thinking I need what everyone else thinks I need. God and I can tackle my own path just fine, so leave it, okay?”

“Yeah,” uttered Gil, drawing out the word with a sarcastic flourish, “we’ll just leave it. For the moment.”

“We’ll just leave it, period.”

Stop it, Mary scolded herself as she felt her pace slowing. There was no reason to be afraid of opening her apartment door. Nice people were behind it. Nice people who’d asked her to a local party, to be friendly. “Why is it, Mary asked herself as she caught her scowling reflection in the hallway mirror, that “nice” is so hard for you to get used to? Very pleasant people live in Chicago. You just never seemed to meet any of them. Pausing for a second to apply a friendly smile to her face, Mary put her hand on the door handle. She was about to check through the peephole when she heard Emily’s voice call out “Mary, it’s us!”

As if Emily suspected she had checked the peephole. Suddenly, instead of feeling like a smart, keep-yourself-safe city girl, Mary felt like a suspicious, overly cautious wimpy girl. It played in her head like an advertising slogan or a 1950s B-movie trailer: “She Came from Planet Mean.”

These people have been nothing but wonderful to you. You should be thanking God every second for bringing you here. She squared her shoulders and tugged the heavy wooden door open.

And saw a wall of pine needles.

Two seconds later, that wall of needles tilted off to one side to reveal Emily Sorrent, dressed fit for a Christmas card in a fuzzy white beret, scarf and mittens. Beaming. “Surprise! I told you we’d get a tree in here! Up the stairs and everything.”

The tree tilted farther to reveal a sadly resigned Gil and Mac, looking like they’d put up every inch of resistance they had to this little holiday stunt. Emily evidently was as stubborn as Dinah said. Mary didn’t think too many people in Middleburg got away with bossing Gil Sorrent and Mac MacCarthy around. Especially when it meant hauling a cumbersome Christmas tree up a narrow stairway.

Mac blew a lock of hair out of his face and craned his neck around a branch. “Can we get this thing settled before the sap starts to run?”

Gil angled the trunk he was holding in through the door while Mac wrestled the top through the arched doorway. “A five-foot tree would have done, Emily,” he noted, working to coax the tip under the lintel as pine needles showered everywhere.

“This apartment has lovely high ceilings,” Emily defended, tugging off her mittens. “A shorter tree would have looked silly.”

Gil set the trunk down onto the floor and straightened up with a groan. “A shorter tree would have weighed less, not that it mattered or anything.” His voice said it mattered a great deal, but there was still a hint of humor in his eyes as he looked at his wife.

Mary was still standing there, holding the door open, probably holding her mouth open, as well. When Emily said she would fix her up with a tree, Mary didn’t think she really meant it. It was just a nice thought, a pleasant thing to say. They weren’t friends or anything; they’d barely met, and already Emily had given her the beautiful blue glass ornament. “I can’t remember the last time I had a tree,” Mary reminisced, wishing there wasn’t quite so much astonishment in her voice. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had a tree of my own.”

Emily looked genuinely shocked, which made sense. The woman probably started planning her Christmas decorations in July if the store’s holiday abundance was any indication.

“That’s horrible. Next thing you’ll be telling me is that you don’t have a stocking to hang over that lovely fireplace.”

Mary started to say something, but Gil gave her a look and a barely perceptible head shake that silently warned, don’t get her started.

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