She hugged the trunk, willing herself not to look down.
But as soon as she caught her breath, her eyes went straight to the patio, where all her beautifully displayed appetizers were spread across the tablecloth and theslate. Some of the flowers had been knocked over, and a puddle of something that looked suspiciously like puppy piddle glistened in the light of the setting sun beside one of the trellises.
Worst of all, the four awful creatures had spotted her and they were all circling the trunk of the tree, jumping up and down and barking like they wanted to do to her what they had done to her beautiful feast.
Do something, Hailey thought desperately to herself.
But she was frozen in terror. There was no way she was climbing back down, and her cell phone was back inside, charging at one of the kitchen outlets.
Just as she decided that things couldn’t get any worse, she heard voices carrying through the house.
Her heart sank as she imagined what her guests would think when they came to the farm and found this scene of horror. No one would ever work with her after word got out.
This is what it looks like when a dream dies.
14
RANSOM
Ransom pulled the truck up in front of the big farmhouse, feeling excited for Hailey and a little nervous.
“Now kids,” he said, looking in the rearview mirror. “Remember that we have to be on our best behavior today, okay?”
“Yes,” Mae said.
Travis nodded, a serious expression on his face.
“What does that mean?” Ransom asked.
“No yelling,” Mae said. “And no fighting.”
“Definitely not those things,” Ransom agreed. “What else?”
“No running?” Travis guessed.
“Great one,” Ransom said. “Mostly today is a day to be happy for Hailey and to be super polite and positive. So let’s say you try a food and you don’t like it, what would you do?”
“Don’t sayanything,” Travis said.
“Andeat it all up,” Mae added.
“You don’t have to eat it all up if you don’t like it,” Ransom told her. “But of course we won’t say anything bad about it. Okay?”
“Okay,” Mae said, sounding relieved.
“We’ll pay attention to what everyone else is doing,” Ransom went on. “And we’ll try to match them with our best manners and the volume of our voices.”
He had figured out pretty early on that it was easier to tell the kids to try andmatch the roomthan it was to constantly tell them to settle down. Just the act of paying attention to others seemed to naturally ease some of their pent-up energy.
They all scrambled out of the truck and headed up to the house. He had seen Mal and Sage arrive and head in together just ahead of them while he was talking to Travis and Mae, so he knew that they wouldn’t be the very first guests. Hopefully, the kids would get a nice idea of how to behave from the ladies’ party behavior.
“It looks so pretty,” Mae said as they entered the living room, squeezing Ransom’s hand in a way that told him she was trying not to leap all over the place and explore. “I like the pink pillows. I like the pretty curtains.”
“Hailey made those curtains herself on her sewing machine,” Ransom told her.
“Look,” Travis said, pointing to a small statue of a horse on the mantel.
“She found that at the church thrift shop,” Ransom said, smiling at how happy she had been. Now that he was seeing it on the mantel beside a small clock and a bouquet of dried hydrangea blossoms, itdidlook really nice.
