Bluegrass Christmas. Allie Pleiter

someplace where I could figure out all this faith stuff. Someplace easier than Chicago. This isn’t looking easier.

      Mary smiled as the faint strains of Pavarotti’s tenor voice singing “Ave Maria” reached her ears. She wondered if Mac found it an improvement over the Mozart aria. It was hard to think of that bird crooning a ballad. Too bad it wasn’t summertime; she’d have been able to hear Curly through the open window.

      Then again, maybe it was better all the windows were shut. She wasn’t entirely sure Curly the cockatoo was up to the high note at the end of the song.

      Laughing at the thought of the bird straining to hit the note, his creamy neck extended and his feathers fluttering, Mary reached for the mail that had been forwarded from her old Chicago apartment. She sorted through the envelopes until she spotted the familiar gray stationery of Maxwell Advertising. She’d forgotten, until now, that she had one more bonus coming. She opened the envelope and slid out a substantial check. How ironic that her “swan song” had been her most lucrative project ever. God had given her enough resources to take whatever job she wanted, wherever she wanted. And He had brought her here. Maybe, for now, she could trust that, despite the growing complexities.

      Mac shut the door to his office with a fierce thunk and walked briskly toward Deacon’s Grill. A piece of pie couldn’t really do anything about the storm of aggravation he carried around, but it couldn’t hurt, either. At least a warm cup of coffee might soothe his annoyance. “Peace on earth, goodwill toward men?” Today felt more like “profits on earth, bad will toward any consumer.” No wonder Ma had asked him to handle the procurement of one of those idiotic Bippo Bears for his nephew, Robby. Finding the fuzzy blue singing bear proved to be more like warfare than Christmas shopping. Not counting the two trips to two separate malls yesterday, Mac had just spent three hours on the phone and Internet in search of a Bippo Bear. He sat down on his counter stool at the Grill with such force that the thing rocked under his weight.

      Gina, no stranger to diner psychology, read his body language and immediately swapped out the ordinary sized stoneware mug at the island for a much larger one she produced from under the counter. Gina was smart. “Regulars” who obviously had a bad day were quickly given what she called a “comfort cup.” That was Gina’s entirely-too-female term for “the really big mug of coffee.” He accepted it gladly, needing the hot beverage too much to care that it announced his disgruntled mood to the rest of the diner. He was pretty sure his entrance had already done that, anyway.

      “And a Merry Christmas to you, too, sugar,” Gina said as she slid the sugar container in front of Mac withholding the cream pitcher. Apart from baking the best pies around, Gina also had a great memory for customer preferences. “Rough going on the campaign trail?”

      Campaign? Who had time for a campaign when Christmas shopping was sucking half his day into the trash can?

      Gina’s reference to the mayoral campaign halted Howard Epson in his conversation. Mac hadn’t even noticed Howard as he came in, he was so annoyed. Epson and his wife were sitting in their favorite corner booth with Mary Thorpe of all people, probably advising her on the mayor’s expected role in all holiday ceremonies. Divine drama aside, he was sure Howard took pains to stay a highly visible mayor during the MCC’s Christmas season.

      Mac swallowed a gulp of coffee, telling himself to back down off his soapbox. Howard could get to him so easily these days. They’d chalked up a lot of reasons to dislike each other over the years, some of which everyone knew—Mac had a long, checkered history of behavior Howard disapproved of—and some that were more private.

      Years ago, when Mac was a senior in high school, he’d pulled a prank of sorts that ended up with Howard in the crosshairs. Actually, to call it a prank was making it too deliberate—it was more of an impulsive reaction. A stupid, angry gesture that ended up damaging church property and Howard’s car one night. The whole town had seen the wreckage, but no one had ever discovered Mac was behind it. When God and the passing years finally granted Mac some maturity, he’d still never found it in himself to fess up to the deed. Howard would surely blow it way out of proportion, and Mac had convinced himself it was one of those secrets best left buried. Not that it hadn’t nagged at him over time, but lots of stuff about Howard bothered Mac—civic and personal. It was one of the reasons he felt God had asked him to run for mayor; to prove he was better than the angry kid he once was.

      Mac caught sight of one of Howard’s campaign brochures on the place setting next to Mary. She was surely getting a suggestion or two about the proper way to vote. At Gina’s mention of the campaign, Howard inclined his balding head slightly toward Mac and stopped his words midsentence. Even the French fry on the way to his mouth had been stilled halfway. Mary Thorpe caught Mac’s glance for a split second before looking down into her pie.

      “No,” Mac answered Gina’s earlier question clearly enough for Howard to hear. “The campaign’s going fine.” He tried not to emphasize the word too much. “As a matter of fact, it’s a pathetic stuffed animal that has me riled up. I’ve just wasted half the morning trying to find something called a Bippo Bear for my nephew. Evidently even the secret service couldn’t get their hands on one of these if they wanted to—and don’t you know, it’s the one and only thing Robby wants for Christmas.”

      “A what?” Gina asked, flipping open her order pad and pulling a pen out of from behind her ear.

      “A Bippo Bear. It’s blue and sings to you and can’t be found for love or money. Already. And it’s still early December. What is it with these toy people? Don’t they realize they have to make enough of these things to go around? Do they enjoy disappointing kids and making parents crazy?”

      Drew Downing looked up from his sandwich a few seats to Mac’s left. “Bippo Bear? I saw something on the news last night about those.” Drew used to host a church renovation television show until an episode had brought him to Middleburg and introduced him to the love of his life, hardware store owner Janet Bishop. The man knew a thing or two about the power of advertising. “I saw one go for a hundred dollars yesterday on an Internet auction site. This year’s must-have toy, it seems.”

      “Why does there have to be a ‘must-have’ toy, anyway?” Mac complained in a cranky voice. “My nephew doesn’t even like stuffed animals. I’ll spend two weeks tracking down one of those things and he’ll play with it for two hours before he tires of it.”

      “Oh, yeah,” remembered Gina, “it’s that commercial that’s on eleven hundred times a day. How could I forget?” She began to hum a few bars of the annoying little Bippo Bear song.

      The one Mac had been forced to listen to for forty minutes while on hold with the toy company in a misguided attempt to locate a Canadian retailer. While he thought going foreign to be a smart alternative, the cheerful customer service representative at the Bakley Toy Factory informed him that he was her sixtieth such call of the day.

      “Mary,” came Howard’s voice over his angry thoughts, “are you all right? Your pie okay? You look like you swallowed your fork all of a sudden.”

      Mac glanced over and Gina raised her head from her order pad. Middleburg’s newest resident did indeed appear a bit ill, but Mac doubted it was anything Gina fed her. Howard had probably just said something insensitive, as he was known to do when he became overly focused on impressing someone new.

      “Oh, no,” Mary protested loudly. “It’s wonderful pie.” Mac recognized the forced cheerfulness she’d used when telling him it was “okay” that a maniac bird attacked her in her living room.

      “Hi, Mary.” Mac waved and she waved back, but it was a weak, wobbly gesture. “Hello, Howard,” Mac said more formally.

      Howard had become extremely formal with Mac since he’d announced his candidacy. “Good afternoon, MacCarthy.” Howard had begun calling him Mr. MacCarthy or just MacCarthy whenever they met now. He didn’t even turn around, just twisted his head half a turn in Mac’s direction and puffed up as though they were on podiums debating issues instead of just eating in the same diner.

      “Apple as usual, Mac?”