the one you should be asking permission from.”
Teague sighed. The mayor, Peter Strunk, had only been in office since November. In the true spirit of Vermont, where nobody really wanted government if they could avoid it, the people had elected a mayor who wasn’t likely to interfere in much of anything. The problem with a wishy-washy leader, though, was that he was…well…wishy- washy.
“Look,” Teague said, “there’s no reason this has to be so complicated. I just want to put up some banners on Main Street for a few hours. Not even a whole day. I’ll put them up myself. I’ll take them down myself.”
“I know, you said all that.” Peter had the hen-pecked look he got when he had dinner with his wife. “That’s not the issue. I think your idea is charming. I have no objections to it at all. I can’t see what harm it would do-”
“So all I need is your permission.”
“But the things I’m in charge of-the things a mayor is supposed to do-there’s nothing about this kind of thing.”
“Mayor,” Teague said patiently, “I’ve asked everyone else. I started with a cop, who sent me to the sheriff. He was gone, but at the office there, somebody said I had to go to the courthouse to get a permit. Then I went to get a permit, but they said they gave permits for things like parades and all, but for an individual request like this, they didn’t know. The bottom line is nobody seems to be able to give me a yes but you.”
“But I’m not sure…”
Teague stood up. “I know you’re not sure.” He pulled on his jacket, which he’d never thought he’d have to take off-but who’d have guessed he’d waste almost two hours in the mayor’s office? “So the deal seems to be this. Maybe I can’t get a ‘yes’ out of anyone, but no one’s given me a ‘no’ either. So I’m doing it. If somebody uncovers that this is a major felony I’m guilty of, then put me in jail-but don’t do it until Saturday, okay?”
“Just hold on, there. I know there have to be safety regulations-”
“I’m sure there are. But I think I’ll just go with common sense, rather than waste another whole day trying to figure them out. You have a good day, now, Pete.”
Bureaucracy. It was enough to make a man want to move to Alaska. Teague bolted down the courthouse steps and slugged his hands in his pockets against the sharp-shooting wind. Forecast had been for a clear day with no wind. Naturally, it was snowing hard and the wind was fierce as a temper.
He’d missed the whole afternoon’s work, but he figured he could make that up by working late tonight. He just had to pick the projects where the owners were gone or on vacation. And although this day had been totally frustrating so far, he glanced at his watch-he still had a good hour of daylight left.
He parked his truck at the far edge of Main Street’s business section. Traffic wouldn’t quite qualify as rush hour-there was no rush hour in White Hills-but just before dinner, lots of vehicles were cuddled tight at every light, and most of them were crabby. Moms who’d been kid-caring all day, dads who’d just put in nine hours straight, everybody tired of slushy roads and dark evenings. When Teague carted a ladder from the back of his truck, a couple of people honked a hello at him, but no one paid him much attention.
The three main shopping blocks of Main Street were gussied up with old-fashioned gas lights. Before Christmas, the lampposts had been decorated with wreaths and lights, but every season there seemed some excuse to string a banner across the road. It was a challenging job for one man to do alone, particularly when he had to stop traffic now and then to accomplish it. But, hell. If a guy had to risk breaking his neck for a woman, the woman should at least be worth it, right?
And Daisy, his heart had indelibly told him, was totally worth it.
He knew she had feelings for him…maybe not love yet? So he hadn’t won her heart. So they had some problems. But he knew some of her built-in walls now. She had a fear of being ordinary-so obviously he had to find ways to show her that he was never going to treat her as ordinary in a million zillion years. And she had a fear that living in White Hills would doom her to boredom…so he had to find ways to show her that a small town didn’t have to be staid.
Suddenly cars started honking. Two pickups stopped. One burly old-timer in a fur cap came barreling out of his truck, looking ready for a fight and furious as all get-out. “What the hell are you trying to do, Teague? Kill yourself?”
“Hey, Shaunessy. No, I’m just having a little trouble-”
“You’re having more than a little trouble. You’re stopping traffic. You’re working on a ladder in a high wind. Now, whatever the hell you’re trying to do, let’s just get it done so we can all go home.”
“Exactly,” the bearded man behind him echoed, “what I was thinking.”
A couple more townspeople followed up behind him. He’d done work for a lot of them, of course. And although Vermonters could be stubborn and independent, they tended to pitch in when they saw someone in big trouble. It’s not as if he would have given up if he’d had to do this totally on his own.
He wasn’t giving up. Not on Daisy. Not until he’d tried every last thing he could conceivably think of first.
But it was possible-even probable-that trying to string three sets of banners across Main Street without some help would have taken him all night and then some.
When the townspeople saw what he was doing, he saw a lot of rolled eyes and private grins. But they helped.
Two hours later the job was done.
Then it was just an issue of waiting for Daisy to wake up in the morning and see what he’d done.
The next morning, Daisy rushed over to open the top oven. The smell of char scented the air. An entire tray of croissants was more black-topped than the highway. She pulled out the tray, smacked it on the counter and waved off the smoke in exasperation.
It wasn’t as if she’d never had a baking snafu, but it was one thing to have a bad-hair day, another to have two nonstop mean days in a row. And that wasn’t even counting bad hair.
Teague was the problem, of course. She tossed down the oven pads. What was going
Last night, of course, she’d left town before dinner, driven the back roads to investigate the present she wanted to give him on Valentine’s Day. Her heart lifted, just thinking about it-except that worry almost instantly replaced elation. Nothing exactly
But she knew it was. Inside, outside, and every-other-way wrong.
“Daisy!” Harry hollered. “There’s another one.”
She charged out from the kitchen and found another beaming face at the counter, waiting for her with a little wrapped package, blue and white, with a red bow. “I just brought you a little something, dear!” It was the grandmother with the plaid jacket.
“That’s very kind,” Daisy said with total bewilderment. In the last hour-since seven that morning-three other people had brought her gifts. She knew all of them, in the way everybody knew each other’s faces in White Hills, even if they weren’t personal friends. But the first present had been a bar of honeysuckle soap, and the next had been some vanilla sugar scrub.
The grandma in the plaid jacket had wrapped up an oversize loofah. Overall, Daisy was starting to wonder if she was suffering from deodorant fade-out, since all these people suddenly seemed to feel she needed grooming and cleaning products.
“That’s so kind of you,” she said again. “But you didn’t have to give me anything.”
“Of course I didn’t, dear. But we’re all enjoying having you back home in White Hills so much. And your mom and dad and family aren’t here right now, so it just seemed like you might need a gift today.”
“Today?” Daisy repeated.
The older lady patted her hand. “We all know,” she whispered, and then turned around.
Daisy wanted to question her-what exactly did
Harry showed up in the doorway. “Phone call for you in the office. And if this keeps up, I swear I’m dragging my brother in from his vacation. I don’t like working this hard. It’s against all my principles.”
“I’ll help, I’ll help, and I promise, I’ll get off the phone lickety-split.” But her heart was soaring higher than an
