Man With A Mission. Muriel Jensen

of a dance or a drive or a game of tennis he would stop to look at her, and always gave her the impression that if he saw something wrong, he would remedy it.

      Considering her embattled position as mayor, her ten-year-old having trouble in school, her six-year-old turning into a sometimes fun, but often worrisome wild-child, Jackie enjoyed the momentary fantasy of someone wanting to solve her problems, or at least being willing to help shoulder them.

      She saw him note the brief lowering of her defenses and quickly raised them again. She caught the bannister and pulled herself up—or tried to. The baby provided ballast that sometimes refused to move when she did.

      Hank took her elbow in one hand and wrapped his other arm around her waist—or where her waist would have been if she’d had one.

      “Steady,” he cautioned. She felt the muscles of his arm stiffen and was brought to her feet on the step. “Careful until you get turned around.”

      He held her securely until she faced the right direction, and kept his hold the rest of the way.

      At the top of the stairs in a small hallway off the home’s original kitchen, which was now the small but comfortable employee lounge, a tall man blocked the doorway and reached a hand down to help Jackie up the last step. He wore jeans and a blue down vest over a red sweatshirt. She’d never seen him before.

      “Hi, Hank,” he said as he nodded courteously to Jackie, then freed her hand. “I was just coming down to help you with the desk.”

      “Just in time.” Hank cleared the stop of the stairs, and Jackie found herself sandwiched between the two men. “Jackie, I’d like you to meet Cameron Trent,” he said. “The newest addition to my staff. He’s a plumber. Cam, this is Her Honor, Mayor Bourgeois.”

      Cameron offered his hand and Jackie took it, liking his direct hazel gaze and his charming confusion. “What do I call you, ma’am?” he asked. “Your Honor? Mrs. Mayor?”

      “Ms. Mayor seems to be the preferred greeting in the building. But Jackie will be fine outside. Are you new to Maple Hill?”

      “I’m from San Francisco,” he replied. “I came here to get my master’s at Amherst and to see a little snow.”

      She laughed lightly. There’d been snow on the ground in Maple Hill since early December. “Are you tired of it yet?”

      “No, I’m loving it.”

      “Good. Well, good luck with your degree.” She turned her attention to Hank, unsettled by their meeting and the knowledge that she could run into him at any moment from now on. “Hank,” she said, unsure what to add to that. “Welcome to the building.”

      There was a wry twist to his mouth, as though he suspected she didn’t mean that at all. “Thank you, Ms. Mayor. I’ll see you around while trying very hard not to get in your way.”

      She gave him a brief glare, smiled at Cameron Trent, then turned and walked away.

      “PRETTY LADY,” Cameron said as he followed Hank down the stairs. “Shame about her husband.”

      When Hank turned at the bottom of the stairs, surprised that a newcomer knew about Ricky Bourgeois, Cameron nodded. “I came in July to find a place to live, and his death was in the paper with a story about how his family helped establish Maple Hill.”

      Hank remembered Haley sending him the clipping. She’d been discreet about how he’d died, just said that he’d been away on a business trip when he’d suffered a heart attack. He hadn’t found out the truth until he’d moved back home.

      “You’d think,” Cameron went on, “that a man would value a classy lady like that.”

      Yeah, you would, Hank thought. Cussedness and arbitrary last-minute changes of her mind aside. He led the way out the back door to the parking area where he’d left his van.

      “Nice rig,” Cameron said. “I used to have one like it, but sold it to help pay my tuition.” He pointed across the lot to a decrepit blue camper with a canopy. “That’s mine.”

      “Whatever gets you there and back.” Hank opened the rear door of the van. “Give me a minute to get around the side of this thing and push it out to you.”

      “Right.”

      They carried the table in without incident, Adeline directing them through the office door to a spot against the wall where she’d hung a map of the city. Hank introduced her to Cameron.

      She shook his hand, studying him appraisingly. “Hank, if you’re no longer interested in Jackie, maybe we can fix her up with Cameron.”

      Cameron smiled politely, but Hank saw the panicked glance he turned his way. “Thanks, but I’m a happy bachelor,” he said.

      “Nonsense,” Adeline said. “How can a bachelor be happy?”

      “No woman in his life,” Hank replied intrepidly, knowing it would earn him retribution. “Yourself excluded, of course, but women just complicate a man’s existence.”

      “Without a woman in your life, it is just that,” she argued. “Existence, not life. Though some men never come to appreciate us.”

      “I like my simple life,” Cameron insisted.

      And Hank decided he really liked the man.

      The telephone rang as Hank placed it on the desk.

      “Hey!” he said, reaching for it. “They connected it while I was gone. Whitcomb’s Wonders.”

      “This is the Old Post Road Inn,” a panicked female voice said. “The top off one of the kitchen faucets just shot off and I’ve got water spewing everywhere. Please tell me that one of your wonders is a plumber!” Then she shouted to someone at her end of the line, “The cutoff valve! Under the stairs in the basement! The hot water one!”

      Hank held the phone to his chest and raised an eyebrow at Cameron. “Do I have a plumber? You weren’t supposed to start until Tuesday.”

      “An emergency?” Cameron asked, coming toward him.

      “Sure sounds like it. At the Old Post Road Inn. In the kitchen. Top off a faucet, water everywhere.”

      Cameron headed for the door. “I’m on it.”

      “We’ve got a man on the way,” Hank said into the phone.

      The woman groaned. “I love you,” she said, and hung up.

      “All right.” Hank turned off the phone and reached for the daily log hanging on a hook beside the map. “Business is picking up and we’re not even completely moved in.” He noted Cam’s destination and checked his watch for the time. “Any other calls?” He hung the log back on its hook and turned to his mother.

      She pushed a cup of coffee into his hand. “You should have gotten one,” she said with an air of disgust. “But you didn’t.”

      He knew the disappointed look meant he’d failed morally, somehow. But she was making some maternal point he wasn’t quite getting. He knew he played right into her hands when he asked, “What call?”

      “Your wake-up call!” she said emphatically. “What is wrong with you? How can you shout at a poor pregnant woman? And the mayor to boot! And the woman you once told me you loved more than your own life?”

      He went across the room for his office chair and carried it one-handed to the desk. “She shouted first,” he objected, realizing how absurd that sounded even as he said it. “And our love for each other died long ago. She married someone else, had his children…”

      “And was miserable every moment.”

      “I can’t help that.” He didn’t like to think about it, but it wasn’t his fault. “She chose to stay.”

      “Maybe at the time,” his mother said more quietly,