Stifling a yawn, Holly stood beneath the lamppost on Main Street, watching men pile ladders onto the bed of a horse-drawn wagon. The crew supervisor waved as he drove away.
Nelson Parker had done her a huge favor by sending his workers to decorate the town. He offered to help only if she agreed to attend the Christmas Ball with him.
The invitation had come as no surprise, thanks to her matchmaking aunt. Aunt Daisy had invited him to Sunday dinner on several occasions in recent weeks and always made sure he and Holly had time alone.
Holly could hardly fault her aunt for her scheming ways. Nelson was everything a woman could want in a beau. He was educated, successful, and not bad to look at. His vast property holdings, including the Haywire Grande Hotel, made him one of the few who hadn’t been adversely affected by the drought.
No question, she was one lucky woman. The problem was, she found him boring. She hated thinking of him that way, but she couldn’t help it. All he ever talked about was business, business, business. Last week, he’d cornered her in Gordon’s General Store and talked for a solid forty minutes about a real-estate deal in the making.
Maybe her aunt was right; maybe Holly was simply being too picky. But she had hoped that when the right man came along, he would make her heart sing, not glaze her eyes over.
Sighing, she breathed in the fresh morning air and let her gaze wander. Main Street had been turned into a Christmas wonderland. So as not to interfere with business, Nelson had arranged for his men to work through the night. Now bright-red bows hung from every lamppost and decorated each shop door.
Bunting had been draped on the false-front buildings and homemade bells dangled from corner boards and cornices. Members of Holly’s quilting bee had helped plaster paper snowflakes on storefront windows.
It had taken weeks of hard work to get ready. Just collecting supplies had taken more time than she cared to admit. The hardest job was having to beg for donations from merchants who could barely make ends meet.
Haywire had been hit by hard economic times. Holly hoped that making this the best Christmas ever would give the town’s residents something to smile about.
Decorating and rehearsals were the least of it. There was still plenty of work to be done.
Monday, she planned to have her students write letters to Santa. Last year, some of her pupils had written letters on their own, and that had turned into a disaster. She felt a pain in her heart each time she recalled the disappointment on her pupils’ faces as they stared at the sole child in her class whose Christmas wish had come true.
This year, Holly was determined that every child writing to Santa would get his or her wish. That was turning out to be a harder task than she’d imagined, but she had no intention of giving up.
Now, she felt a surge of excitement as the first light of dawn moved across the town like a rising tide. She could hardly wait till shop owners, businessmen, housewives, farmers, and ranchers arrived and spotted the bright decorations. If that didn’t bring a smile to their grim faces, nothing would!
* * *
Tom turned over and almost fell on the dirt floor. Again! The cot was too short, too narrow, too hard. Now that Mrs. Greenfield had tossed him and his dog out of the boardinghouse, he’d had no choice but to bed down at his blacksmith shop.
It was only the third night spent sleeping there, but already his body protested. His neck hurt, his shoulders ached, and his mood took another turn for the worse.
He flopped over on his back and stared at the dawn-lit ceiling. Morning had finally arrived.
He’d tried talking the stubborn landlady out of evicting him and had even offered to double his rent. Just as she’d looked about to give in, Holly’s grandfather had started howling again, and Winston had gone wild. That got them both tossed out, bag and baggage.
It wasn’t only the size of the cot that bothered him—or even that he was without a decent place to live—but that the town never slept. Somewhere around midnight, a group of rowdy cowboys had raced down Main Street shooting off pistols and yelling.
A little after 1:00 a.m., Tom had been awakened by a drunk singing at the top of his lungs. There were other sounds, too.
Wagon wheels, horses, and a persistent owl had kept him awake, as did a series of mysterious thumps that he couldn’t for the life of him figure out.
Unfortunately, Winston thought it his responsibility to sound an alarm at the slightest disturbance. The dog needed a muzzle, earplugs, something…
A sliver of sunshine crept through the cracks of the double doors. Sitting up, Tom swung his feet to the floor. Winston lifted his head and looked all droopy-eyed.
“Serves you right for keeping me awake all night,” Tom muttered. Groaning, he stood and rubbed his sore back. The only good thing was that he lacked a mirror and couldn’t see how bad he looked.
He still hadn’t made up his mind what to do about the shop. An uncle on his mother’s side had suddenly died, leaving Tom the sole heir. He’d decided to check out the town before making a decision on whether to keep or sell the business. So far, he’d not been impressed with either Haywire or its residents. Still, owning his business, even with the inherent headaches, sure beat having to work for someone else.
He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and reached for his trousers. He needed coffee—the stronger the better. Following his usual morning trip to the Feedbag Café, he planned on stopping at the bathhouse and then the barber for a quick shave.
But first things first. After tugging on trousers, shirt, and boots, he called Winston to the door. “Come on, boy.”
Winston jumped up, tail wagging. Nothing he liked more than his early-morning walks.
After slipping on Winston’s leash, Tom opened one side of the double doors. Squinting against the bright morning sun, he stepped outside.
All at once he was ambushed—attacked more like it—and everything went black. Flailing his arms, he thrashed about, blindly.
“What the—?”
Yelping, Winston ran in circles, entangling them both in the leash. By the time Tom had managed to work his way free from the restraints, he was flat on his back, the dog practically on top of him.
Tom pushed Winston away, but it took longer to unravel himself from the leash and what seemed like an endless ream of fabric. The spooked dog just wouldn’t stand still, and Tom was quickly losing his patience.
He finally escaped from what turned out to be red bunting—miles and miles of red bunting. Looking up to the roofline, Tom’s jaw dropped. What in the name of Sam Hill had happened!
At first glance, it sure did seem like there had been an explosion. But a closer look revealed a method to the madness. Someone had gone to the trouble of decorating his blacksmith shop for Christmas. Bombarding it was more like it. That explained the mysterious thumps heard in the night.
A quick glance up Main Street made him cringe. Not a shop, business, or lamppost in town had escaped the onslaught.
Every false-front building was covered with bunting and dangling ornaments. Colored glass balls and shiny tin stars hung from weathered eaves. Doors were adorned with red-and-white-calico bows the size of wagon wheels.
Shaking his head in disbelief, Tom stared at the tumbleweeds dusted with flour stacked three high along the boardwalk to look like snowmen. Even the hitching posts hadn’t escaped the blitz. Red ribbon was wrapped around the rails candy-cane style, matching the town’s lampposts.
Fortunately for his horse, Blaze, the water troughs had been left unmolested. No doubt an oversight.
Muttering to himself, Tom jerked on Winston’s leash, pulling him away from the tumbleweeds. The last thing he needed was to have to yank thorns out of Winston’s coat.
He reached for the fabric wrapped around his feet. One end was still attached to the eaves. As he tried to untangle himself, the rest of the ornaments came tumbling down, burying him and his dog a second time.
Cursing beneath his breath, Tom battled a string of tin stars and silver bells. Next to him, Winston frantically jumped, barked, and tugged, making matters worse.
At last, Tom managed to pull the last of the decorations away from Winston. But somehow during the battle, the snowman had lost its head.
Winston looked at him with droopy ears, his tail between his legs. “You okay, boy?”
“Woof!” A tin star fell to the ground, and Winston jumped. Apparently, that was the last straw as Winston ran into the shop, dragging his leash behind him.
Sighing, Tom kicked the string of tin stars away from his feet. What an utter mess.
A gasp sounded from behind him, and Tom spun around.
A woman stared at him from the driver’s seat of a horse and wagon, mouth and eyes rounded. Lifting her skirts and revealing a well-turned ankle, she jumped to the ground and stormed toward him. An advancing bull couldn’t have packed more fury.
“Have you any idea how long it took to put up those decorations?” she demanded, hands at her waist. “How much work was involved?” She looked about to say more, but suddenly stopped and threw up her hands. “Oh! It’s you. The man with the lonely dog.”
“My dog is not—” He paused midsentence. Even discounting the red hair, he would have recognized those particular green eyes anywhere. “You’re the…eh…” He stopped short of saying the woman who got him tossed out of the boardinghouse. “Music director.” He indicated the heap of decorations at his feet. “Don’t tell me you did this.” It was hard to fathom that such a small package could cause such a disruption to his life.
She glared at him. “Me and a crew of hard-working men.”
Tom drew in his breath and rubbed the back of his neck. Oh, boy. Now he’d done it.
Not giving him a chance to explain that he hadn’t purposely ruined her work, she continued. “I thought it was just the singing you didn’t like. But it’s obvious you don’t like Christmas. Period.” As efficient as she was quick, she gathered up an armload of decorations and tossed them into the back of her wagon, muttering all the while.
Picking up the mountain of fabric at his feet, he tried folding it the best he could before handing it to her. “I like Christmas just fine—” he began, but she quickly cut him off before he could fully apologize.
“Never mind,” she said. “I won’t bother you again.” Having collected the last of the decorations, she hopped into the driver’s seat and drove away.
Tom watched her go. He didn’t need the headless snowman to tell him that as far as the pretty miss was concerned, his name was mud.