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She held out her hand. “Can you come outside with me?”
I took it and followed her out into the main dining room. Where there had been only spooky decorations and flickering glass before, now there were a few dozen lit jack-o-lanterns crammed on every available space. People had glasses of punch and were still talking amongst themselves as if they hadn’t just rearranged my entire place.
“What’s going on?”
“You’ll see.” She kept pulling me through the restaurant to the front door.
“I can’t leave my own party, kiddo.”
“Sure you can. Don’t worry, Rylee and Dahlia said they’d take care of it.” She walked faster, and I hurried to keep up.
There were more pumpkins with crazy faces set around the front entryway. Some obviously had been done by children, but others were crazy impressive. I spotted some of Dahlia’s handiwork as well.
We took a left onto the sidewalk and Gideon’s big steel gray truck was parked at the curb with him leaning against the side panel. There was another cluster of lit pumpkins around the tree right beside his truck. When he spotted us, he straightened.
“Hey, Mace.”
“Hi.”
Dani pulled me over to him and did a literal handoff. Gideon took my hand.
“What’s going on?”
Gideon laced our fingers. “You need to come with me.”
“I don’t need to do anything.”
His jaw tightened. “No, you don’t. But I’m asking you to come with me.” He ruffled Dani’s bangs. “You going to be all right with Rylee for a little bit?”
She nodded and turned to wave at Rylee in the doorway of The Haunt.
Rylee waved back.
“So, she’s in on this?”
Gideon shrugged. “Maybe.”
Dani wrapped her arms around my waist and held on tight for a moment, then ran back to Rylee. “Say yes!” She called out and waved.
I looked back at Gideon. He’d bowed his head and his shoulders were shaking with repressed laughter. “That kid.”
“She’s a pretty great kid.”
“I know it.” He opened the car door, but didn’t release my hand. Instead, he helped me climb in.
“What the heck is going on?”
He finally let my hand go. “We’re going to take a little ride, and we’re going to have a talk.”
“Sounds ominous.”
He shook his head. “Only you would say that.” He closed the door and went around to the driver’s side.
We didn’t say anything for the first few minutes. When he started driving out by the lake, I gave him a sideways glance. “Are we going to talk?” I frowned as more jack-o-lanterns seemed to dot every corner we passed.
“I love you, Macy. I’m not sure you actually understand that, but I do.”
“Holy crap.” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, h
