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She wasn’t going to put it quite like that. Honestly, that wasn’t exactly what she was thinking. She was thinking more along the lines of that it had turned out her cousin had a huge crush on him, and she thought they could really hit it off if they spent time together. So she was going to kidnap him and trap him in a shed with her cousin so they could have the opportunity to get to know each other.
But she just did her best imitation of a simper and nodded, blinking her best features again and trying to look at him like she admired him and knew that he could do it.
She heard from somewhere that men were suckers when a person thought they could help.
But Peter didn’t seem too eager to run off with her.
“Please? We’re supposed to get a really bad snowstorm, and I’m afraid she’ll die if we don’t take care of her now.”
There was a cat in the shed, and it was pregnant. She hadn’t wanted to lie, so she’d borrowed the cat that they’d found living in the barn when they’d cleaned it up in preparation for the dance. She was just stretching the truth since it wasn’t in labor. Stretching it out of shape, for the most part.
But she tried to push that aside. She was doing a good deed for her cousin.
“I guess I might as well. Even if I really have no clue of what I’m doing.”
“Don’t farmers deal with animals all the time?” she asked, blinking again and grabbing onto his arm as he pushed off from the wall. She didn’t want to lose him. Thankfully, they were close to the back door, and she guided him that way.
“I’m not—”
“Careful,” she said as she skipped out of the way of an unruly dancer. Really, the community should have dances more often. The folks in Strawberry Sands were so out of practice that they got a little wild with their dance moves.
He put his hand on her back, and she appreciated how he steadied her, but she skipped away as soon as she could. She didn’t really like people touching her, especially strangers. It was true that she was doing this for her cousin, but it was probably also true that someone ought to stage an intervention for her. She was pretty hopeless.
But not tonight. Tonight was all about Norma Jean finally finding the man of her dreams. She’d always wanted a cowboy, and this cowboy came complete with hat, boots, and that plaid button-down shirt that made her cousin’s heart flutter like a butterfly’s wings.
It didn’t do much for Sally, but that was fine, since this wasn’t her guy.
“My car is right here,” she said, guiding him to the closest space in the parking lot. She managed to snag it when the old ladies who stayed with Kristin and her husband had left early.
Sally had been looking for such an opening and had grabbed her car and moved it to that spot immediately.
She was glad she’d taken the time, because she wasn’t sure whether she would get Peter to walk the whole way across the parking lot or not. He seemed very reluctant.
“How far away did you say the shed was?” he asked again as she guided him to the passenger door and opened it for him. He didn’t duck down to sit.
“It’s on your farm. Right at the edge. Eleanor and I used to play in it when we were little.”
For some reason, when she mentioned Eleanor’s name, the man’s eyes twitched. Maybe it was because he knew her through his brother being business partners with Eleanor’s sister’s husband.
That connection was rather dubious, and it took a little bit for Sally to wrap her head around it all.
But that was the way small towns were. Everybody was related to, or at least knew, everybody else.
After another moment’s hesitation, he ducked his head and sat down in the car.
She breathed a sigh of relief. Now, all she had to do was lock him in the back room of the shed.
It was more like a cabin.
There was a woodstove, and she’d made sure that there was plenty of wood there. Just in case her plan came to fruition. She’d also dropped off a care package with romantic things like candles, matches, and two blankets. She’d thought about only providing one, so they’d be forced to share, but finally decided on two because she didn’t want to be liable if they didn’t get along and one of them froze to death. She’d also provided drinks and food.
She hurried around the front of the car and tried to keep up a stream of steady chatter the whole way to the cabin. It was a fifteen-minute drive that she tried to make in less than ten minutes. She was afraid that he would realize how ridiculous it was for her to be asking about a cat she couldn’t possibly have checked on for hours.
She thought he was probably getting suspicious by the end of their trip, so she blinked her eyes at him again.
“All right. We’re here!” she said cheerfully, then remembered that she was supposed to be worried. “I hope Fluff, er, Fluffers is okay.” She hadn’t thought to name the cat. Well, she just did.
The man sighed, checked his phone again, and then he followed her lead as she opened her door and got out.
