At Her Beck and Call

Jesus, Mike, you just met her.

But she was so…unusual. Unpredictable. Ferocious and shaky at the same time. And he couldn’t wait to see her again.

He dragged himself out of bed, got ready and headed in to work. He loved his drive into town. Right away, he picked up the sweet tang of prickly pear jelly stewing in the Cactus Confections vats.

The factory was located in one of three historic buildings, including a defunct blacksmith shop and what passed for a museum housed in the old post office/assay office. Sally’s Knit Hut now inhabited the old mercantile. There were federal monies available for the restoration of historic districts if he could only carve out the time to write the grant proposals.

At the town limits, Ned Langton was planting the flowers in the Welcome to Copper Corners sign. True to his word, he seemed to be almost ready for the Founder’s Day dedication.

Turning the corner, Mike watched Jeff Randolph swipe his neighbor’s Copper Corners Dispatch. Jeff refused to pay the carrier over some nonsense about too many tosses in his cholla bed and chose, instead, to irritate his neighbors. Jeff was a jerk, but he’d donated more money than anyone for Darren Goble’s reconstructive surgery after the tractor accident.

Mike loved this town and all the people in it, flaws and all. Driving down Main, he felt a renewed sense of mission. The citizens of Copper Corners had faith in him. They’d elected him for a third term, hadn’t they?

Not that anyone had expressed any interest in running against him. Not many go-getters in Copper Corners. If you wanted to make a mark, you left town.

Yeah, Copper Corners was small and people gossiped, did petty things, were selfish and sometimes mean. People in cities weren’t any better. The difference was that in a small town, like in a family, you solved conflicts, worked around warts and foibles. You didn’t give up on each other, get a new job or grab a cab out of town.

Who was he arguing with?

Autumn. She’d tilted her head at him as though he was as quaint as the little town that owned his heart. He had no regrets.

Or very few, anyway.

He passed the high school, the elementary school, the pizzeria and the downtown shops, then pulled into the town hall lot and parked in the mayor spot—not that he ever had to fight for space. Especially not this early in the morning.

He was surprised to see Evelyn’s blue Toyota Camry with its license plate border painted like lace. Autumn’s car—a silver Subaru WR X, sexy and practical, like the woman herself—wasn’t there yet.

Inside, Evelyn held the phone between her ear and shoulder while she knitted what looked to be a baby blanket. Already, Lydia and Bud must have Evelyn’s fluffy handiworks bursting out their windows and doors.

When she saw him, Evelyn stopped sewing and dropped her jaw. “Hang on,” she said to her caller. “You getting an award somewhere, Mayor Mike?”

“Of course not,” he said, feigning innocence.

“Dress slacks and a tie? And is that shirt ironed?”

“So?”

“You should see him, Karen,” she said into the phone. She was talking to her daughter, Mike knew. She leaned across her desk and sniffed at him. “That a cologne sample from GQ?” Quincy sneezed and shook himself before bounding off the desk, as if he’d gotten too big a whiff, as well.

“Heidi gave me the stuff for Christmas. Thought I should get some use out of it.” He shrugged. “You finished on the phone?” He didn’t care to participate in third-party abuse.