3
AS SOON AS BENNETT WALKED into City Hall, Nan rushed to him with a handful of messages. “Morning, Mayor. Clark—Chief Clarkson just called. He told me about your home. I’m so sorry.”
“Lot of people are worse off than I am,” Bennett said, brushing ash from his shirt. As he’d walked through the parking lot, he’d kicked up a layer of white ash covering the asphalt. More ash had rained down on him from the awning over the front door. “The way I look at it, it’s an inconvenience. But we have to get those other folks settled.”
“Are you staying at your sister’s house?”
He’d thought about calling Kendra this morning after Ivy had rebuffed him, but his sister and her husband lived in a small two-bedroom cottage. With their ten-year-old son, Logan, and two Labrador retriever mixes from the anim
