Mayday (14 page)

“Can you stand for just one moment, baby?” he asked softly.

She blinked at him for a few confused seconds before rising to her feet. He settled into his chair, and then tugged her onto his lap. Burying his face in her soft hair, he pressed her as close to himself as he could.

Her body started shaking again, and he lifted his head in alarm.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She waved a limp hand, giggling against his shoulder. “Oh, God. I don't know how I'm going to face my friends at work the rest of the day. I can't believe I just spent my lunch break with the mayor's face buried between my legs. Shit. I'm such a ho.”

The giggles began again, and she nestled her face in his neck. “And to think I was all judgy about my friends fucking on top of stuffed animals in the library. Serves me right.”

“Um . . . what?” he ventured.

After one last snort of laughter, she settled down. “Never mind. That's a story for another day, especially since I have to get back to work soon.”

She pressed her lips against his in a hard, fierce kiss. Then she got up and started searching for her scattered bits of clothing.

“One question,” he asked, watching her slide her panties back up her legs. “Have I made you glad you decided not to break up with me?”

After slipping on her shoes, she walked up to his chair and tapped his nose lightly with her forefinger. “I would have been glad with or without the oral sex, sweetheart. But I can't deny it. My gladness reached new and exciting heights when you ate my pussy.”

His cock twitched at hearing those words from her sweet, soft lips. He dropped his chin to his chest and groaned. “Are you trying to kill me, Helen?”

“Maybe,” she said, and leaned forward to give him one last kiss. “Is that a problem?”

“Fuck, no,” he said. “I'll just be sure to enjoy the process.”

She unlocked and opened the door to his office, a small smile playing at the edges of her lips. “You're not the only one with a few surprises up your sleeve, Mayor. See you tonight.” And without another word, she swiveled and sashayed out his door.

He slumped forward until his head hit the desk. “Jesus. I'm a dead man.”

B
y the time Helen arrived at Central Square early that evening, several trucks from the Niceville Fire Department had already parked there. She took a moment to remind herself whether they'd promised to oversee the lighting of the bonfires tonight. If she remembered correctly, they had. But they'd promised to send a single truck with two or three firefighters to watch over the night's events. Not three trucks with lights flashing and hoses extended.

Now that she thought about it, didn't the area around one of the planned bonfire sites look . . . damp? And kind of charred?

Nearby, Wes stood talking with the fire chief. The flickering light from the other bonfires illuminated some angles of his face and threw harsh shadows over others. Even from a distance, she could read Wes's body language. Tense. Frustrated. He'd planted his hands on his hips, and his feet were braced as if he anticipated a heavy blow. The volunteers from the May Day Celebration Committee stood at a safe distance, watching the mayor and the chief with obvious caution. They didn't step forward to offer support. Not that he threw a single glance their way asking for help or backup. No, he clearly expected to handle whatever was happening all by himself.

He looked so very alone.

For that reason, she fought against her instinctive desire to back away and stay out of the issue. Instead, she walked right up to Wes's side and placed a hand on his arm. He immediately turned to face her, the grim tension in his jaw relaxing a tiny bit when he recognized the interloper.

“I'm sorry to interrupt,” she told them. “Is there anything I can do to assist, Chief Watson? Mayor Ramirez?”

Deirdre Watson turned to face Helen, tipping back the white helmet on her head. “I think we've taken care of the issue. Some of the volunteers got a little too enthusiastic with one of the bonfires. It spread to a nearby tree and started getting close to one of the historic buildings. No real harm done, though. We'll leave a truck here as planned, but make sure all of you watch the bonfires carefully the rest of the night.”

Wes didn't say another word. He simply nodded and shook the chief's hand. When she strode away, his gaze followed her, but Helen didn't think he saw anything.

“She's here,” he said abruptly.

“Who?” she asked. But a heavy weight in her gut told her the answer before he even spoke.

He turned to Helen. “Bea. She saw the whole thing. The burning tree. The flames nearing the building. The fire trucks. All of it.”

“It's not your fault,” Helen said. Her grip on his arm tightened. “Really, Wes. Shit happens. It doesn't mean you haven't done your job.”

He grunted in obvious disagreement, but he placed a hand on top of hers.

Finally, another one of the volunteers stepped forward. “Um . . . Mayor Ramirez?”

Wes schooled his face into an expression of pleasant inquiry. “Yes, Mark?”

“There might be a matter of some, um . . .” The young man gulped. “Difficulty.”

She watched as Wes's eyes briefly closed. When they reopened, the light from the bonfires glinted in them, making the gold spark.

“What's happened now?” he asked.

“So we were all waiting for the Maypole to arrive. It was supposed to be here at least half an hour ago,” the volunteer explained.

Oh, God. Please, no.
Now Helen closed her eyes too. How the hell were they supposed to hold a goddamn May Day celebration without a fucking Maypole?

The young man continued. “So we gave Mrs. Whipler a call a few minutes ago. You know, the older lady who was supposed to arrange for the Maypole? Anyway, she can't make it until later tonight because there's some sort of
Bachelor
special on TV right now, and she doesn't have a DVR. A Behind the Rose event, I think she said. Or maybe After the Final Rose. I don't remember exactly. But it involves lots of interviews and reunions with the cast—”

“I think we've got it,” Helen said with what she considered admirable patience. “What about the Maypole, Mark?”

“She forgot it.”

“She forgot it,” Wes repeated.

“Yeah,” Mark said. “Said she got distracted by the end of the season, especially the episodes with the fantasy suites. Kept talking about how that leopard-print bedspread wouldn't be her fantasy. She prefers cheetah.”

Helen could hear Wes's teeth grinding.

“So by the time she contacted the company, they couldn't deliver. She was going to pick it up herself instead. But then she forgot to arrange alternate transportation, since she apparently drives a Mini Cooper. Which is pretty awesome for an old lady like her. So, long story short—”

“Too late,” Helen said.

“—we don't have a Maypole. And without a Maypole, we're not quite sure what to do with the ribbons.”

“Let me make sure I understand the situation correctly,” Wes said. “We just set a maple tree on fire. We almost burned down a historic building. We have bonfires illuminating our complete lack of a Maypole, as well as ribbons with no pole to attach them to. When raising the Maypole and attaching the ribbons was ostensibly the point of this entire evening.”

“On the plus side,” Mark said, “we have free coffee and a substantial discount on sex toys.”

“Yes,” Wes said. “Mustn't forget that. Perhaps we can erect a particularly large dildo and glue ribbons to it.”

“Umm . . .” Mark blinked at Wes.

“Sorry, Mark,” Wes said, giving the young man a clap on the shoulder. “Not your fault. Ms. Murphy and I will discuss the issue and tell everyone what to do in just a minute.”

Mark hustled back to the crowd of volunteers, looking relieved. And now that Wes had pointed out her presence, Helen too saw Bea standing in the shadows. The councilwoman wore a stylish shawl-collared coat, boots, and a watchful expression. When Helen's gaze ventured her way, Bea waved. With a stifled sigh, Helen waved back.

“Well,” Helen said, “that sucks. What should we do?”

Wes's forearm felt like granite beneath her hand. “I don't know.”

“I see a few options. We can call the company and offer extra money for immediate delivery, if we still have any funds available for the celebration. Alternatively, if they won't do that, we can try to arrange transportation and ask them simply to have someone at the company available to hand the Maypole over. If that's not possible . . .” She trailed off. “We'll figure out something else.”

He turned to her. “Can you call the company? Right now, my head isn't working too clearly.”

The shadows beneath his eyes appeared deeper in the firelight, the furrows between his brows more stark. She wanted to hug him until he relaxed, but now wasn't the time, and this wasn't the place. The best—the
only
—thing she could for him at the moment was try to solve the problem.

“Sure,” she said. “Why don't you talk to the volunteers and greet folks who came for the event while I deal with this?”

“Thanks.” Without another word, he swiveled on his heel and headed toward the crowds gathering around the bonfires with cups of free coffee clutched in their hands. And quite a few discreet brown paper bags, she noticed, courtesy of Niceville Java and Intimate Emporium and the substantial discount Mark had mentioned.

Well, not entirely discreet. All those bags boasted the store's inimitable catchphrase:
Get Your Buzz On
. She shook her head, marveling at the number of sex toys that had apparently been purchased that day. Should be an exciting night for a good portion of Niceville's residents.

After getting the Maypole company's number from Mark, she found a quiet spot and made a call. No answer. So she tried again. And again. Then she attempted to track down the number of the owner of the company to see if he was answering his goddamn phone.

Fifteen minutes later, she'd put away her cell. She stood gazing at the people arriving by the minute in Central Square. She'd never seen such a cross section of Niceville's community gathered downtown. Teenagers and the elderly, people wrapped in expensive cashmere coats and some of the library patrons who usually stayed in shelters during the winter. People of different ethnic and racial backgrounds, talking and laughing.

No. She refused to let this event die. She refused to waste this chance to bring together the Niceville community and revive their downtown. She refused to let all of her planning and hard work go to waste. Most of all, she refused to let Wes lose his opportunity for a future, even if that future took him from her side.

So she made another call, this one to her parents.

 

“Are you sure about this?” Wes asked twenty minutes later, standing in her parents' backyard with an ax hanging loosely from his hand. “Your parents don't mind?”

That was probably an overstatement. But she just didn't see any other choice. Wes didn't have prior permission to cut down any of the trees on public property, and they hadn't been able to talk to the appropriate authorities to get that permission tonight. And neither one of them wanted to start asking random volunteers for their trees. The fewer people who knew about the problems she and Wes were having with the May Day celebration, the better.

“Well . . .” she said. “I wouldn't say they're
delighted
we're chopping down the weeping cherry tree they planted for my birthday three years ago. But they said since it was a present to me, I could do whatever I wanted to it. Kick it. Hug it. Worship it. Or chop it down.”

“Okay,” he said. “But I owe you. Again.”

“I think you built up some credit this afternoon,” she said. “But feel free to work the debt off in trade, if you feel you must.”

A faint smile crossed his face. “It's a deal.”

Then he turned with determination to the tree and lifted the ax. “Go over near the house,” he ordered. “I need you far away when I do this. I don't have a ton of experience chopping down trees, and I don't want you to get hurt.”

She took one last look at the tree she loved. “Somewhere, Dr. Seuss is weeping beside the Lorax,” Helen muttered, retreating to the driveway.

“Huh?” Wes called out.

“Nothing!” she called back. “Just mow that sucker down without hurting yourself, please!”

As she watched him take his first few tentative swings with the ax, she tried her best not to think of the pretty pink blossoms covering the tree every spring. Her community and Wes's future were worth it. And she couldn't think of another place to get a big enough tree so quickly and legally, not at this hour.

With a crack, the cherry tree hit the ground. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw Wes standing beside it, unharmed.

“I'll cut off the branches now,” he said. “Since some of them have flowers, we can use them tomorrow. We'll bring them in the truck bed, along with the trunk.”

She wandered closer, eyeing the fallen tree. “Wes?” she asked. “Even if we open the back window and put part of the trunk inside, will we be able to fit the entire length? The tree's almost fifteen feet long.”

The ax slowed in its movements. “Good point,” Wes said breathlessly. “I guess we can only take part of it. Probably twelve feet, max, even if we have it sticking out of the back of the bed with a rag on the end.”

The image of a twelve-foot-tall Maypole flashed in Helen's brain, alongside the memory of the twenty-foot ribbons they'd prepared.
It's not the length that matters
, she reminded herself.
It's how we use it.

She sighed.
Oh, geez. It's good Mr. Skagway didn't hear that thought.

Another twenty minutes later, she and Wes hauled the tree into the outskirts of Central Square. Goddamn thing was heavy, not to mention rough. She was pretty sure she had a couple of splinters in her hand and a few cuts on her forearms, at least one of which felt deep. Probably what she deserved for not remembering work gloves or protecting the skin of her arms with the sweater tied around her waist.

It didn't matter. What mattered was getting the tree where it needed to be for the evening's activities. People had been waiting a long time for them to return with a Maypole, and free coffee and discounted silicone dongs only went so far.

Surprisingly, no one seemed to notice when they entered the open area in the middle of the square. Not that she'd expected applause or anything, but she'd figured people might have
some
reaction to the belated appearance of the Maypole.

Then she heard . . . something. Something odd. Something that made her stop and drop her end of the tree to the ground. Craning her neck to see around a few stray people, she finally saw what had drawn their attention away from her and the mayor: Frank Skagway. Not just Mr. Skagway, though. Mr. Skagway and about a dozen other people holding signs and chanting as they marched in a tight circle in Central Square.

“Two, four, six, eight! Penis trees we really hate!” they shouted. “Three, five, seven, nine! At penis trees we draw the line!”

Wes laid down his end of the tree too. “Please tell me I'm hallucinating,” he said. “Please tell me a dozen members of my community aren't protesting this event and shouting the word
penis
at the top of their lungs.”

“I would,” she said. “But it'd be a lie. Wes . . . how do you want to play this?”

His strong jaw set. “We ignore them and get on with it. I'm not giving up on our community. I'm not admitting defeat in front of Bea. And we're not chopping down your goddamn birthday tree for no reason.”