Christmas Recipe for Romance novel · Chapter 14 of 24
Chapter 14: No Ground
Mabry came up Mill Lane at nine that morning with a clipboard in one hand and the fire chief in the other.
She had him by the sleeve.
"Tell her," Mabry said at my door. "Say it to her face."
The fire chief took off his hat.
He is a tall, kind, nervous man who taught me to swim at the town pond, and he looked at my kitchen floor.
"Hattie, the diner holds forty people by code."
"I know."
"If you serve two hundred inside it, I have to close it."
"We're serving them in the street."
"Main Street needs a vote from the select board," he said. "They meet tonight."
"And Barton sits on the select board," said Mabry, "and the chair golfs with him, and the vote is already counted."
She put the clipboard on my table and began ticking items off with a pen.
"The green, closed for a skating rink. The church lot, because Pinecrest paid for the new roof and the pastor won't look me in the eye."
"The Grange hall is booked on the twenty-fourth for a winter retreat, deposit paid Monday."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Christmas Recipe for Romance are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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