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“When I heard the rumor you offered to help with a bunch of stuff at the town meeting, I laughed for a solid twenty minutes straight. Totally didn’t believe it. But you’re wearing a necklace and making balloon arches, you pussy-whipped bastard.”
This coming from a man currently picking a piece of lint off his black T-shirt with the wordsPeter, Peter, Pumpkin Eaterprinted on the front. Somewhere around here, his wife is wearing a matching one that just saysPumpkinon it. Considering Marcus is probably the one who coordinated this matching outfit, the argument I’m having in my head right now is probably pointless.
“Fuck off,” I mutter, glaring down at the black beads around my neck with a happy jack-o-lantern hanging off the bottom against my sternum. “Sidney got all these stupid Halloween-themed Mardi Gras beads for everyone to wear, and I didn’t make the damn balloon arch.”
I just stared at Sidney, panting like a dog when she bent over repeatedly and then stretched up high above her head over and over again for an entire hour whileshemade it.
Preparing for this pumpkin carving night took me all of ten minutes. I ran to the market followed by the bakery, and then I tossed a bunch of boxes of donuts with a few jugs of apple cider on a table I set up in the side yard of the Gore House and called it a day.
Sidney lost her mind when she got here and saw what I’d done. She immediately sent me to Callie’s coffee place to borrow a few industrial coffee urns to heat up the cider, and while I was gone, she got started on transforming the side yard of the Gore House into a Halloween carving party nightmare.
Or a dream, depending on who you ask.
She re-set-up my food table with an orange table cloth and Halloween shit decorating it and somehow arranged all of the donuts into a pumpkin-shaped donut tower. Aside from the giant balloon arch filled with all different-sized balloons in orange and black that she built on either side of the fence gate, she made candy bags for all the kids and strung orange and white lights under all the canopies I set up over all of the picnic tables spread around the yard for carving stations. She even borrowed a few bales of hay from the farmer next door, found even more Halloween decorations from somewhere, and set up some kind of photo-op area next to the tractor parked in the yard, with all the pumpkins loaded into the wagon attached to the back.
Every time I watched her hustling around the yard, humming to herself with a grin on her face, my fucking chest got tight, imagining that we lived here and we were hosting the event together, like a sentimental ass.
“I thought you were gonna tell her how you feel,” Marcus reminds me.
“I did.”
Sort of.I didn’t want to come ontoostrong and freak her out.
“Well, do it again. Tell her everything, and stop skipping the good parts.”
Silence stretches between us for a few minutes, and I know he’s right. Making these off-handed comments to her isn’t working, and I don’t like the idea that I’m fucking with her head.
“Pretty nice of the new owner to let us still use the property this year,” Marcus finally muses, casually picking the label off his beer bottle. “Heard they already replaced all the plumbing, gutted the kitchen, and installed a new furnace and hot water tank.”
“The people of Harvest Grove sure don’t miss anything, do they?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t sayeveryoneknows what’s going on.” He raises an eyebrow at me, and I just shake my head at him. “Gotta wonder what the rush is, don’t you?”
“The rush about what?”
Marcus lets out the loudest, most blood-curdling scream I’ve ever heard, flying up out of his chair and spilling his beer when Callie suddenly appears behind him.
I’m saved from this conversation by the scary, ninja-like wife as Marcus quickly flings an arm around her shoulders and starts steering her in the other direction. “Did you see they have pumpkin donut sticks filled with cream cheese? Your favorite! Let’s go get one!”
Turning back to glare at me as he ushers her away, he silently mouths, “I will kill you,” before smiling back down at his wife as they walk across the yard, keeping her preoccupied with donut talk.
Glancing over at Sidney, smiling and happy and giving hugs to everyone who crosses under the balloon arch, I take a deep breath.
Okay then. I guess now I’mreallygoing to stop fucking around.
Chapter 10
Sidney
“My hero.”
“Where the hellhave you been?”
The moment of Zen I was feeling pops like a balloon when Ford stomps up the porch steps, the irritation in his deep, gruff voice interrupting the quiet night as soon as he sees me hiding in the shadows. I knew he hadn’t gone home yet when I snuck back here and up onto the porch ten minutes ago, since his SUV was still parked in the driveway. I’d just hoped to have more time to myself, trying to get my thoughts in order.
Turning my head away from the view in front of me to look at Ford, my hands grip tighter to the porch railing in between the jack-o-lanterns that have been placed all along the top of it. Standing a few feet away, wearing one of his many flannel shirts that makes me want to press myself against him, his hands are clenched down at his sides, and he’s breathing fire as his eyes make a quick sweep of me.
The tenseness in his shoulders visibly eases a bit when he sees I’m fine, and my stomach flops, remembering past Octobers.
