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Her hand was too soft. He pulled away, pretending to fix a board on a stall. He shoved it back into place.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “Are you fixing this up for the festival?”
“No, no!” he said. “We don’t want to scare the kids away from Thanksgiving forever. We’re just having them wander through the patch in the meadow under the bright light of day. They’ll pick out their favorite pumpkins. Then we’ll give out pumpkin pies and bread and cookies. The usual.”
“That’s all?” Eva made a face that by all rights, he never should’ve seen, except she’d stepped into the brightness of one of the barred windows to the side of them. “Where’s the excitement, the thrill?”
He broke into a grin. “It’s for kids, not you. We’ll save all the spider webs down here for you.”
“Ah, thanks! But seriously, even kids need a little fun… I think I can help you with improvements.”
He froze, not liking the sound of this. “What kind?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She stopped at the tube, peering up the heavy-duty plastic. “Maybe you can have the kids jump through that tube and go down that slide into the hay.”
“That’s a hay chute,” he said. He’d better correct her idealistic daydreams of the Slades gleefully sliding down the tubes before someone got hurt. “It’s not meant for playing.”
“Hmm, the hay chute doesnothave a ring to it. We should call it a farm slide or something.”
Definitely not a safe festival activity.She had to be teasing him now. “Sure,” he said, lathering the word with all the sarcasm that he could muster. “We’re hurting for money as it is, let’s just add some lawsuits to our debts when the kids from town all end up with broken arms.”
“Broken arms?” she scoffed. “I’ve never gotten a broken arm from a slide.”
“By all means, be my guest,” he said. “Why don’t you test out the spider slide for the kiddies?”
“I just might.” She hesitated, staring up at the opening of the tube above her. Fortunately, the threat of spiders had definitely gotten to her. She straightened. “Really, you’ve got to live a little. Let’s use that–that thing outside that looks like a race course, but it’s not.”
“The horse corral?”
“Yeah, we could put on some races.”
Now, he was the one almost LOL-ing. He grabbed the railing against the stall. “What? You want to kill our ponies?” That corral was tinier than most. “They’d have to take forty laps to even make the race last longer than thirty seconds.”
“We’ll use smaller animals then… like raccoons.”
She was really in love with this racing idea. “Oh, I see, yeah, the kids could put up their life savings on their prize racer,” he said. “We could make a killing. Real family friendly stuff.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s one way to fight off the loan sharks.” His stomach clenched when he realized that he’d passed on a family secret that henevershould’ve given up. “How do you think my daddy made his fortune?” she asked. “I’d turn things around for you in no time at all. Just say the word.”
He knew exactly how her family got rich nowadays—it might tempt West, but he was made of tougher moral fabric. He ignored thekindoffer. “I should’ve guessed that you were from a long line of bookies,” he muttered. No wonder she loved this gambling idea.
“Something like that.” She shrugged. “My family started out as gangsters from the prohibition era. That’s what the Trouts do! We think outside the box. I mean, c’mon! We only have a week to put this together.”
“We?”
She had really taken his momma’s suggestion to help him out seriously. He should’ve snuffed that out from the beginning. She snatched at his arm and shook him. “Yes! You need me.”
With difficulty, he did his best not to show how much her every touch scorched through him. He tried to disentangle her from his arm.
“The festival needs something more,” she said. “More pizazz or something. Maybe shooting games.”
Now he was laughing while trying to free himself from her perfumed grip. Heaven help him! She smelled like gardenias again! “You’re putting guns in these kids’ hands?” he asked. “You want to add pole dancing too?”
“Ha, Cole!” She poked her finger into his chest. “You know that’snotwhat I’m saying! They’ve got to do something more than picking out pumpkins. If I were a kid, I’d want some excitement.”
“Youarea kid…” Did he really just say that?
She bumped him with her hip. “Maybe I am at heart, that’s why you should listen to me. Anyway… let’s go back to these races. I think we’re onto something here.”
