Page 14 of Mistletoe Dreams
He didn't think a grown adult was supposed to obey his parents, but they were definitely supposed to honor them. That was what the commandment said.
Still, following his comment, the crowd laughed again.
"All right then. You'll be co-chairs with Dr. Hannah on the combined committee of health and safety, as I just explained. Both of your committees are new, and we have no precedent."
Noah seemed to stare at him across the crowd. "You and Dr. Hannah know each other, correct?"
"Yes. We've met," Ben said immediately, to try to head off any weird introductions that would make everyone uncomfortable.
"All right. I'll need you up here at the front at the end of the meeting as well. We'll discuss whether or not you need any extra assistance and what that might look like."
Ben figured there were probably other things involved, such as what the budget was going to be and whether there even was one.
He wanted to sarcastically thank his mother, but honestly, he was happy to help out with his hometown. After being in the city for so long, he was grateful to be back and definitely wanted to do his part to keep things moving. He knew small towns didn't thrive on their own. It took people willing to head up committees and do a lot of work behind the scenes in order to bring in visitors and tourist dollars to keep the downtown businesses thriving and to keep the town bustling and healthy.
Without those people, the town would die.
Noah had started talking about something else when two things happened simultaneously. The first was that Ben remembered that Mason had disappeared. The second was the fire alarm went off.
"Is there a fire?" some woman said from near the front of the building.
After that, pandemonium broke out as a third of the crowd jumped up and tried to run for the door. There were too many people in the large community room for that many people to be able to make a break for the door. Several people got shoved aside, and it seemed like chaos for a while.
Ben noticed a lady to his left get knocked down, and whoever ran into her didn't even seem to notice as they continued to rush to the door.
As Ben stood, looking to see where the fire was, he noticed that Dr. Hannah had knelt down beside the lady while Cassie stood in front of her, blocking people from stepping on her.
Seeing that was taken care of, Ben continued to scan to see where the fire was. But he didn't even see smoke. Or smell it.
And then he noticed his son standing over by the fire alarm, a smirky grin on his face.
His heart sank. He should've known Mason would do something to retaliate for being forced to come. After Mason had been unable to provide any kind of solid alibi for that morning when he had asked whether or not he had vandalized the gazebo, Ben had felt like it was best to not leave his son alone.
The gazebo had been vandalized sometime between when Ben left the house and within an hour after he arrived on duty at the sheriff's office.
"It was a false alarm!" he called out in his loudest voice, even as he started to move through the crowd to reach his son.
Mason wasn't even trying to run, and Ben knew he would have to take his son in and file misdemeanor charges on him.
"I can handle this," Gordon said from beside him, glancing at Mason before looking back at Ben.
Ben knew that he should excuse himself, since he was too invested and would have a conflict of interest. After all, he didn't want his son to have this on his record, but there was no getting around it.
"I appreciate it," he said.
Gordon jerked his head and walked over to Mason, where they spoke quietly, before Gordon grabbed a hold of Mason's arm and led him outside.
In the meantime, Noah had regained control of the crowd again, and people had started making their way back to their seats. Ben walked to the back room and stood against the wall, his arms folded across his chest, and fought the urge to leave and go somewhere where he could hide. It was embarrassing to have his son create chaos. Although in all of the excitement, he wasn't sure if anyone had actually seen that it was his son who'd caused the problem. He owed Gordon for getting him out so quickly.
But he definitely couldn't expect anyone to keep this under their hat. The whole town was going to know. And if they were able to figure out for sure if Mason had been the one to deface the gazebo, that would be added to his list of sins.
"Sorry about the interruption, but I think we’re done anyway. Thank you all. Sorry about the inconvenience," Noah said as he tapped the gavel and set the hammer down.
Ben glanced over to where his mother had been sitting. She was back in her place and seemed like she was just fine. At least she hadn't gone running for the door, and Ben had made sure she was okay before he'd walked away from her.
While he was looking that direction, his eyes caught on Dr. Hannah, who was also back at her seat, although the lady who had fallen was now sitting beside her. She appeared shaken but okay.
"If I said that you needed to meet with me after the meeting, please come to the front," Noah reminded everyone.
