Page 41 of Mistletoe and Mischief

“I just saw someone,” Ned yelled. “There’s someone inside.”

Linc had seen her, too.

“Why isn’t she answering the door?” Mel asked loudly, as if the two of them had some secret insight into this stranger.

“Wouldyouanswer if King Kong was trying to get inyourfront door?” Linc asked. Apparently Mel hadn’t figured out that most people responded better to more sensitive treatment.

“Okay, fine,” Mel shouted after several long minutes. “Be that way, lady.”

“She just doesn’t want to answer the door,” Ned shouted back.

Mel ignored that and proceeded to the next house.

“Knock more quietly this time,” Linc instructed.

Mel ignored that, too. Walking to the door, he pushed the buzzer, then turned and glanced over his shoulder. This house seemed friendlier, Linc thought. A large evergreen wreath hung on the door and lights sparkled from the porch columns.

Again no one answered.

Losing patience, Mel looked in the front window, framing his face with both hands. After peering inside for several seconds, he straightened and called out, “No one’s home here.”

“You want me to try?” Ned asked Linc. Mel wasn’t exactly making friends in the neighborhood.

“Do you think it’ll do any good?”

“Not really,” Ned admitted.

A piercing blare of sirens sounded in the distance, disrupting the tranquility of the night.

Mel hurried back across the street. “Everyone in the neighborhood seems to be gone. Except for the lady with those pink things in her hair.”

Despite their efforts, they obviously weren’t getting anywhere. “Now what?” Ned muttered.

“You got any ideas?” Linc asked his two brothers, yelling to be heard over the sirens.

“Nope,” Mel said with a shrug.

“Me, neither,” Linc said, not hiding his discouragement.

They sauntered back to the truck and climbed inside. Linc started the engine and was about to drive away from the curb when two sheriff’s vehicles shot into the street and boxed him in.

The officers leaped out of their cars and pulled their weapons. “Get out of the truck with your hands up!”

12

Mary Jo hadn’t intended to spill her heart to Grace, but the older woman was so warm, so sympathetic. Before long, she’d related the whole sorry tale of how she’d met and fallen in love with David Rhodes. By the time Mary Jo finished, there was a pile of used tissues on the table.

“You aren’t the only one who’s ever loved unwisely, my dear,” Grace assured her.

“I just feel really stupid.”

“Because you trusted a man unworthy of your love?” Grace asked, shaking her head. “The one who needs to be ashamed is David Rhodes.”

“He isn’t, though.”

“No,” Grace agreed. “But let me repeat a wise old saying that has served me well through the years.”

“What’s that?” Mary Jo asked. She dabbed tears from the corners of her eyes and blew her nose.

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