by then. The after-school program worked out nicely for now, in these last months of her pregnancy, but she would be eager to return to the challenge of full-time teaching once the baby was born.
The rain poured down outside. After living these past few years in southern California, she wasn't used to rain. The novelty had worn off in this last day or two of wading through rivers of mud. She wondered if Noah had finished his ark yet.
Or if Axell had recovered from his snit. She'd thought he'd been coming around yesterday until Headley had arrived. He'd even managed a smile or two. She didn't know why it mattered if she dragged a smile or two out of a stuffed turkey like Axell Holm. But he looked at Constance with such pain and suffering and obvious love that her heart went out to him anyway.
She had no business offering her heart to anyone but Matty and the infant in her womb. Arching her aching back, Maya wondered if she'd been working too hard as Axell had declared. The baby wasn't moving much today. It was due in two weeks, and she still didn't have a crib.
She needed her CD player. A good rousing song would lift her spirits. Or a chant, to soothe her nerves. Maybe she should brave the weather and go see Axell. Planning the grand opening had to be more entertaining than polishing gnomes.
But Axell had barely spoken to her last night when he'd arrived to pick up a sleepy Constance. And she didn't have an umbrella or the energy to walk even the few yards over to the restaurant in this downpour. She was restless and jumpy and not much in the mood to deal with her "silent" partner.
Selene had promised to get to the bottom of the drug-possession scam and to stave off the gossip as much as possible, since it affected the school as well as Axell. She just couldn't promise to do more than that. Her influence was more social than political, although she'd promised to give some thought in that arena, too. Maybe Selene could finance Axell's campaign for mayor...
The door chimes rang, and Maya looked up eagerly at this new distraction. A stranger in a dripping raincoat closed his umbrella and looked around. Nobody good ever wore raincoats. Maybe he'd come to repossess Cleo's counter. She didn't think there was much else left of any value.
Wincing at the ache in her back as she stood up, Maya greeted the new arrival. "May I help you?"
The man removed his hat to reveal a balding head and a reasonably jovial expression. "Miss Alyssum? I'm Fred Carpenter, the building inspector."
Maya hid a bolt of anxiety behind a vague smile. "A carpenter to inspect buildings! How lovely. What do you inspect them for? To see if they're buildings?"
He looked a little startled. "For safety, mostly. After the collapse of the facade down the street, the mayor wants to prevent what could be a tragedy next time."
"You're quite right, of course," she agreed with a modicum of relief. Inspections were a good thing. She was turning paranoid. "I was so upset at almost losing everything I owned, I didn't even think of what could have happened. By all means, inspect away. Would you like some tea?"
"Oh, you were the tenant in the old Shafer building? Shame, that." He shook his head at her offer of tea and wandered to inspect the freshly painted plaster walls. "Most of these old buildings have no insulation and weren't meant for modern heating and air-conditioning. The constant expanding and contracting of the joints from heated interiors and cold weather, or vice versa, puts a tension on the materials used back then."
Maya didn't like the sound of that, but in her experience, authority figures always put a bad light on things. Rifling through a box of bumper stickers she'd found in Cleo's storeroom, she giggled over one reading Wear short sleeves, support your right to bare arms! and tried to pretend the man didn't exist.
The inspector turned to look at her as if she were crazed, so she held the sticker up for his inspection. He harrumphed and looked a little less jovial. "I'll need to take a look at the wiring. Is the circuit box in the back?"
Maya shrugged helplessly. "If that's where they put those things. I'm sure Axell will have kept it up-to-date. If it were up to me, the wires would have crumbled into dust."
He gave