” Norman stopped and thunked the side of his head with his gloved hand. “Never mind. I get it. I’ll try another way to warm you up that doesn’t involve liquid.”

Hannah smiled as Norman slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. They’d been dating long enough for her to notice that he was always toasty warm, even in the coldest weather. It probably had something to do with his metabolism, and she wished she had inherited whatever gene he had that she didn’t have.

“Here we go,” Norman said, gesturing at the skating rink with his other hand. The boom crane operator had moved the truck behind the coffee tent to hide it from view and he was currently attaching a harness to the statue of the first mayor. “Looks like old Ezekiel is about to rise.”

“If Winnie’s brother had known this would happen, he could have sculpted a statue of Lazarus,” Hannah quipped, and she was gratified when Norman laughed.

It took only moments to secure the harness and hook it to the cable that was attached to the boom. Hannah watched, along with everyone there, as the boom operator began to lift the statue. The only sound was for the powerful motor that drove the hydraulic winch. Everyone was perfectly silent, fascinated by the spectacle, as Ezekiel Jordan’s granite likeness rose from the ground.

“Stop! No!”

Hannah heard a faint voice over the roaring of the motor and she turned to see Winnie heading for the statue at a dead run. Something must be terribly wrong.

Without really planning what she was about to do, Hannah jumped to her feet and set out for the statue from the opposite direction. She had less space to cover and she passed the statue on the fly and managed to intercept Winnie several feet from her goal.

“Winnie!” Hannah panted, holding the small farmwoman so she couldn’t get away. “What’s wrong?”

“That danged fool’s taking the base! I said they could move the statue, not the base!”

“But the base is part of the statue,” Hannah did her best to explain. At the same time, she moved Winnie away from the rising statue and back toward the coffee tent. “Come with me. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

“But they can’t move the base!” Winnie insisted.

“They have to move the base. It can’t be in the shot. Ross explained it all to me. They’re going to sweep the snow over the bare spot on the ground, and no one will even know there was a statue there.”

“But

if they cover the ground with snow, how’ll they get it back in the right place?”