Bluegrass Christmas

Bluegrass Christmas
Allie Pleiter

An Old-Fashioned Christmas That's what led new believer Mary Thorpe to start over in quaint Middleburg, Kentucky. As director of the church's Christmas pageant, Mary's job is to bring the townspeople together, to remind them what the season is really about.But everyone is all riled up over one very handsome man: the man daring to run against Middleburg's popular long-standing mayor. Mac MacCarthy wants change. Mary wants things to stay as they are. Is there a happy medium? Both Mac and Mary are in for one very big Christmas surprise.

“I’m supposed to be the cure for the town, and your cockatoo now?” Mary said as she ran her fingers along the row of CDs to find some new music for the bird.

That was a pretty lousy way to look at it. “I don’t think of it like that,” said Mac.

“That’s how they put it. Something to bring everyone together. A big, splendid Christmas pageant to remind us of peace on earth, goodwill to men and such.”

“I’m sorry you got hired to fix whatever it is people think I broke.”

“I’m not sorry,” she said, handing him a Mozart disc. “But if I get sorry, I’ll make sure you’re the first to know. I think it’s sort of sweet, actually, how much people care about getting along here.”

“If people cared about getting along here, you could have fooled me,” Mac said. “There’s a town hall meeting tomorrow night—come see how much getting along we actually do.”

ALLIE PLEITER

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA

Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and nonreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in Speech from Northwestern University and spent fifteen years in the field of professional fundraising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

Bluegrass Christmas

Allie Pleiter

Better is one day in your courts

than a thousand elsewhere;

I would rather be a doorkeeper

in the house of my God

than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

—Psalms 84:10

For Christina

For who she was, who she is,

and who she will be

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

While “Mac” MacCarthy hadn’t counted on peace and quiet when he returned to his office, he hadn’t anticipated an opera-singing cockatoo, either.

December might not go as well as he planned.

Assuming the only logical explanation, Mac pushed his way through the connecting interior doors of the bakery adjacent to his engineering office. “All right, Dinah, what did you do to him?”

Dinah Rollings, owner of the Taste and See Bakery, looked up from her cash register. “To whom?”

Mac cocked his head toward the racket behind him. “I’ve got Luciano Pavarotti in feathers perched on my credenza. Very funny. Now tell me what you did to Curly so I can hush him up before cats start prowling the alley.”

With both doors open, Dinah could evidently hear the bird. Her face was half surprised, half amused. “Not bad. That’s from The Marriage of Figaro, I think. Didn’t peg you for an opera fan.”