Bluegrass Christmas. Allie Pleiter

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…”