“Looks like.”
“Oh, Kaci, this isn’t good.”
“It’s just fine. He’s gonna stay on his side of the base, and I’m gonna stay far, faroutside of it. It was one night. And I know better than to get involved with another military man. Besides, he was a horrible kisser.”
“You know what’s crazy?” Tara said. “I know I was a bad military wife, but every time I see a man in uniform, I still kinda want to jump him.”
“Girl, you got issues.” As if she could talk.
“I’m not the one shoving BCGs in a pumpkin.Crap. Birth control glasses.Dang it. Military-issue prescription glasses. There. That’s not too military, is it? I’m trying to quit speaking military. Did Ol’ Grandpappy really wear those?”
“Yep. And you do me a favor and give me ten minutes’ warning if you’re fixin’ to call him that to his face. I wanna be there.”
“Won’t happen. He doesn’t come to Jimmy Beans anymore.”
“Wish he’d do my office the same honor,” she muttered. She could do with seeing herex less.
“Rumor is he wants you back.”
“He had a fling with his secretary after I left and realized how good he had it with me.”
Kaci was also nearly certain he’d issued his ultimatum—drop everything and have kids now, or they were over—without actually intending to follow through on it. But even though her parents’ marriage had been cut short when she was still in grade school, she had known without a doubt that husbands and wives shouldn’t have to threaten divorce to get their way.
Also, Ron had been right when he dumped her.
She’d never loved him the way a wife should. “I ever tell you about the time he made a pass at my momma?”
“Omigod,no!”
“Said he thought she was my sister.” Kaci loaded the pumpkin into the launcher. “Thatman just wants what he can’t have. Just like they all do.”
She double-checked Ichabod, then gave him an extra crank to see how much torque the catapult could take. “Fly good, magic pumpkin,” she said.
She stepped back. “Ready?” she said to Tara.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Great.” She tugged the release mechanism.
“No, wait,wait!”
The pumpkin whizzed into the darkness and the catapult bounced, its weight thudding on the ground. “What?What?”
“Fire!” Tara pointed in the direction the pumpkin had just sailed.
An orange glow flickered on the horizon. Small, contained like a campfire, but still a fire.
Directly in Ichabod’s firing path.
“Oh,shit,” Kaci whispered.
She didn’t hear the pumpkin thud to the ground.
But she heard something else.
Voices.
Loud, surprised voices.
