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"Do you like it?"

It's such a simple question. Nobody asks me that. They ask what it costs or when I can start. I look down at my hands, the red paint still dried in the creases of my knuckles from the banner.

"I'm good at it," I say.

He lets that sit. Then he shrugs out of his jacket, and before I can say a single word, he drapes it over my shoulders. It's heavy canvas lined with flannel, warm all the way through from his body, and it smells like soap.

"I'm not cold."

"Your teeth are chattering."

"They do that."

"Mm." He doesn't take the jacket back.

I should hand it to him. My hands grip the edges and pull it tighter instead, and I glare at the bonfire pit so I don't have to look at him while the heat soaks into my back.

"Go home, Mona," he says quietly. "Everything's still gonna be here at six."

"I've got one more lap."

"Then I'll walk it with you."

He stands and holds down his hand. I look at it. Big, broad palm, calluses along the edge. It's a hand. Just a hand. I put mine in it anyway and let him pull me to my feet, and he lets go the second I'm steady.

We walk the last lap in silence, his dog trotting between us, my flashlight bobbing ahead. By the time we reach my car I realize I haven't thought about column F in twenty minutes.

I unlock the door and turn to give back his jacket.

He's already walking to his truck.

Chapter Three

JOSIAH

The carburetor on the stage generator is full of varnish that used to be gasoline, and Mona Vega has asked me four times if I know what I'm doing.

Make that five.

"Do you actually know what you're doing?"

"Yes." I hold the float bowl up to the light so she can see the gunk crusted inside it. "Somebody left fuel in here all last winter. It turned to glue."

"Somebody." She's standing over me with her arms crossed, a paintbrush sticking out of her back pocket and a streak of blue across her forehead. "The county told me this thing was serviced in August."

"The county lied to you."

"Great. Wonderful. Add it to the list." She crouches beside me in the dirt, close enough that her knee brushes my shoulder. "What do you need?"

"Rag. Can of carb cleaner from my toolbox. And for you to stop hovering."

"I don't hover."

"You're hovering right now."

She huffs, but she gets up and goes to my truck. Sergeant follows her. He's been following her all week, trotting at her heels while she barks at vendors, parking himself under whatever table she's working at, sleeping across the doorway of the church fellowship hall while she makes phone calls. When I whistle for him, he looks at me like I'm the one being unreasonable.

It's Wednesday. I've been in Bear Creek Valley five days.