Chapter 19
The Christmas Stroll was busier than usual, and Bennett made slow progress along Main Street, stopping to answer questions from locals and visitors. The decorations committee, headed by Nan and Arthur at Antique Times, had hired a couple of enterprising college students to wrap sparkling lights around palm tree trunks and to line the palm fronds. Against a starlit sky and the ocean’s foamy tide, the palm trees swayed in a light breeze.
The effect was simply magical.
A young couple stopped him. “Hello, Mayor,” they sang out. “How is your holiday shopping going?”
“Hello, Megan. Hi, Josh. A little slow this year. How’s your work on the new house?” Bennett stopped to hear about the progress on the bungalow they were renovating that he had found for them as their real estate agen
