the door chimed. Macy perked up. Despite her dislike for Duke’s personality, Macy felt her heart sink a tad when she spied her assistant Serena Berks coming in the door. She had no idea why she would even think a man like Duke Rodriguez would come to her place of business. She didn’t know what she would have done with him if he had shown up, but then a devilish little voice nagged at the back of her mind, reminding her that it hadn’t been that long since she knew what to do with a man.
Down the hall, there came a grunting, a cursing and a sniffling. Poor Serena was dragging in a huge plastic mouse statue with all her might. At five foot two, Serena was just two inches shorter than Macy. The giant mouse, decked out in a red-and-green stitched scarf, had to have been about five seven. Serena’s bobbed red hair was disheveled around her freckled face.
Macy had hoped to find one or both of the male assistants she’d hired to help lift and cart around some of the heavier decorations. It was the peak season for exterior holiday decorating and the musclemen, Spencer and Andy, hadn’t shown up. Usually, they broke the frat boy stereotype by being reliable. But late last night Spencer had left an apologetic message about not being here this week. She prayed it was a horrible prank.
Getting up from her desk, Macy peered down the hall to where she had a view of the front door. She shook her head and hid her smile as she twisted her hair into a bun and secured it with her pencil.
“Hey,” Macy pouted. “Santa didn’t announce your presence.”
“That’s because I threatened him within an inch of his life if he called me a ho one more time.” Serena projected her voice a little louder so that it could be heard upstairs and in the backyard. “A lil’ help here!”
“We’re the only ones here,” Macy shouted as she walked back to her desk and closed her sketchbook.
The outline of the Wainwrights’ lawn was just about done. She hoped they would be happy with it. They’d better be happy. This would be the third time changing things around, and Macy’s time was precious, not to mention that her staff seemed to be dwindling for the Thanksgiving holiday.
“Here,” Macy offered, picking up the pace down the steps and into the foyer, “let me help.”
“No, you don’t have to,” Serena argued as she stood the mouse in his upright position. The unplugged giant mouse stood with a black nose, which, when plugged in, turned red. The plastic book of Christmas carols in his hand was open. From a distance no one could read the words, but up close someone had written, “Who let the dogs out?” as a silly joke.
“Where are the boys?”
Biting her bottom lip, Macy hesitated to tell Serena the truth. From the looks of her dust-covered garnet-and-gold T-shirt and jean shorts, the bookkeeper’s morning had started off rough. She must have climbed over everything in the shed just to find the mouse. Going into the storage space went above and beyond the call of duty.
At thirty, Serena had been her assistant for the last four years while she worked on her BS and now her MBA at Florida State University. She was a pencil pusher who kept up with Macy’s schedules and appointments, yet here she was doing all the grunt work. She wondered if Serena would believe that the boys had been toppled over by a giant snowball. It was highly unlikely. The weather for Thanksgiving was scheduled to be a balmy seventy-eight degrees.
“They left an apologetic message on my answering machine saying they left early for Thanksgiving. I kind of hoped they were joking.”
“No way! I thought they agreed to be here over the break.”
Macy rested her hands on her hips as she studied the mouse. “I know. But according to the message, they somehow—” she rested her finger on her chin to recall the exact way the boys had phrased it “—scored some serious tickets.” She mocked Spencer’s surfer-boy accent with air quotes.
Serena’s laugh turned into a hacking cough. She shook her strawberry-tinted head. “That’s pretty lame of them. They worked last year. They understand how this is the busiest weekend for you.”
Shrugging, Macy tried to smile, already figuring how to handle things. In a way, she looked forward to working alone tomorrow and Friday. She was prepared. Key organizational skills helped keep Macy sane. What took most grown men all day to do, she could complete in an hour. She had a few homes in the morning with light decorations. Extra hands stringing up the lights might have been nice, but Macy could handle the work; after all, she’d started this business ten years ago with no help.
The only stickler in her plans was the Wainwrights’ home, simply because they kept changing their ideas. Typically the slots for holiday decorations got booked up by the Fourth of July. Every weekend until just before Christmas, she was busy. Most trusted Macy’s ideas. A lot of homeowners’ associations even required their neighborhoods to decorate unless religion prohibited it. Doing the work on her own wasn’t a problem, especially since the kids were at her former in-laws’ house. Perhaps it would be a bit of a hassle trying to unload her truck, but she could get it done.
“Achoo.” Serena sneezed.
Panic ripped through Macy’s body. With the boys gone, she was going to have to lean on Serena more. “Are you okay?” she asked slowly.
“Just a sneeze,” Serena said, swatting the mouse on the ear. “He did this to me, stupid dusty thing...achoo!”
Macy raised her left eyebrow in question. “Maybe you ought to drink some orange juice just in case. C’mon, I believe I spotted some when I put up some leftovers last night.”
“Maybe,” Serena answered as she followed Macy. “Oh, and I forgot to tell you who I ran into yesterday while you went to the party. Remember the party I wasn’t invited to?”
“Who?” Macy asked with a sigh, anticipating Serena’s guilt trip.
The sound of their footsteps on the hardwood floors blocked out Serena’s exasperated sigh as they crossed the former living room, now a sitting room. Macy straightened a Christmas ornament on a seven-foot Fraser fir tree and kicked one of the shiny green display presents with red polka dots out of the walkway. On the other side of the stairs, across from the living room, was once Macy’s dining room, now two downstairs offices. In the back of the house was the kitchen; access was gained from the thin hallway from the offices or directly straight back from the front door and living room. Macy opened the white double-door refrigerator. Pictures of previous jobs she’d had over the years mingled with Gia’s and MJ’s old drawings.
“I saw Mr. Officer and a Gentleman.”
“Who?”
“Ugh, Lawrence, the pilot you dated.”
Macy hardly called going out with Lawrence Hobbs dating. The whole reason Macy had gutted her Victorian home was to meet clients here in the spacious waiting room or in one of the back offices, or even better, at their homes to better survey the landscape. Lawrence, on the other hand, had one reason or another to meet her at a coffee shop, café and even the park to pick her brain about decorating. Eventually, the two of them figured out that Serena should do all the scheduling. Lawrence, a sweet man, had retired from the air force and settled down in Tallahassee. At the party yesterday, someone mentioned he’d started his own private airline, albeit a small one.
“You mean the pilot you kept leaving me alone with when he came over here?”
“Yes. I think he
