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hire Megan to do a little painting for me downstairs.”
    “It’s fine with me,” Susanna assured her. “If Megan is interested.”
    “Absolutely.” Megan beamed. Susanna wasn’t sure if she was excited about the prospects of painting or earning money. Maybe it was both.
    “Great.” Susanna pushed a strand of overgrown bangs away from Megan’s face. “Try not to get too messy. Those aren’t exactly painting clothes.”
    “Oh, I’ll give her something to wear,” Matilda assured her.
    “Fine. I’ll be in town doing a couple errands, but I have my cell phone. Then I’ll be at home if you get done and need a ride.”
    “Or I can ride with Abuela.”
    Susanna glanced nervously to where Rose was now eyeing her, almost as if she were ready to let loose with another tongue lashing. “I better scoot.”
    “That’s right,” Rose said. “If you’re not here to work, you’re not here at all.”
    “Have fun,” Susanna called as she hurried out. As she went down the stairwell, she felt relieved to escape but also a little disappointed to be without Megan’s company. She had really hoped they’d have a mother-daughter day, but Megan had seemed so happy to stay and help. Why spoil her fun?
    Downstairs, Susanna noticed that the lights were on in the back room. Being frugal by nature, she went to turn them off, but when she saw a lot of boxes stacked back there, curiosity got the best of her. Was this some of the Christmas merchandise for the shop? She peeked inside a box that was open and was surprised to see what looked like the remainders of a garage sale carelessly heaped together. She’d heard the strange rumors that Matilda had all kinds of junk hoarded in her car and hotel room, but she hadn’t taken them too seriously.
    Susanna peeked in another open box. Same thing. Dusty, old, useless-looking items.
    Certainly this wasn’t what Matilda intended to sell in her shop. If so, what about the city’s business ordinances? A special permit was required to open a secondhand store in Parrish Springs. What would Councilman Snider say and do if it turned out that Matilda Honeycutt planned to open a shoddy little thrift store in the middle of downtown? One thing for sure—he’d probably blame Susanna. But if it was a secondhand store, why would Matilda claim it was a Christmas shop? Susanna hadn’t seen a single Christmas item in either of the boxes.
    It wasn’t that Susanna was opposed to thrift stores in general, she just hated to see Matilda getting into hot water over a permit and zoning issue. She was tempted to head over to city hall, do some research, and see if there was an easy way to smooth this thing over for Matilda. Check into a special permit. A temporary exception. Although she wasn’t even sure Matilda truly planned to open a secondhand store. Susanna hated to jump the gun on that. It would be embarrassing to get the permit process going and discover that Matilda was actually opening a Christmas shop.
    Susanna remembered there would be no one at city hall today anyway. The place would be locked up. Even though Susanna had a set of keys and could get into her own office during off hours, it would require the use of the security code, and the last time she’d attempted that—on the Sunday after her first week on the job—she’d managed to get the police and fire departments into an uproar. What a way to meet the locals! The incident later appeared in the Police Reports section of the newspaper as a tongue-in-cheek account of the new city manager waking up Parrish Springs early on Sunday morning. She wondered if Tommy wrote the Police Reports section. It was usually quite witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.
    No, she decided as she finally turned off the lights in the back room, she was going to stick with her plan—this was supposed to be her holiday! With or without Megan, she planned to enjoy this time off.
    Carefully crossing the freshly scrubbed floor, which was almost dry, Susanna