“What do we do?” Tara shrieked.
Run.
She wanted to run.
But her daddy would’ve skinned her hide six ways to Sunday if she didn’t own up to her own messes.
“Get on up in the Jeep. I’m gonna go make sure nobody’s hurt. And don’t touch my pumpkins.”
Kaci might have been thirty-four years old, and her daddy might’ve been gone too many years already, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t still scared to death of her momma. So she set across the field, praying everything was fine.
Lance couldn’t getthe blonde off his brain.
The whiskey he’d been nursing helped marginally. So did shooting the shit with his buddies about today’s pumpkin-chucking contest. As did patting Gertrude, a stuffed wild boar they kept in the unofficial squadron bar.
Pony lived on the outskirts of town next to the fairgrounds. He had converted his backyard shop to a man cave and then opened it up for all of them to use. The building had water and electricity, and they all pitched in to keep it stocked with chips and liquor.
And the wooden bar tucked along the back wall kept taking Lance back to the night that he should’ve gotten married. To the sassy, intriguing blonde who’d been frank about wanting to use him to make her ex jealous.
To that moment he’d given in to weaknessand thought he could be the kind of guy who made out with a woman without knowing her name.
She was more than a nameless woman, he’d discovered today.
In full daylight, she’d been undeniably gorgeous. Those blue eyes sparking, those pink lips pouty, and she’d knownallthe right ways to show off her assets.
She’d also been batshit crazy.
He shook his head and blinked at the flame glowing in the darkness. Pony touched it to the crumpled newspaper beneath the logs in the fire pit, and an old, familiar crackle joined the song of the night insects. A few of the guys had brought out one of Pony’s homebrew kegs, and most of them were kicked back around the circle, taking in the stars overhead.
Allison hadn’thatedcamping, but she’d always preferred doing it from the comfortof a hotel room. Nothing stopping Lance from sleeping under the stars tonight if he wanted to.
He didn’t regret that they hadn’t gotten married.
He regretted that they hadn’t parted ways sooner.
An oddthumpsounded somewhere in the darkness.
“That you, Thumper?” Pony said.
Juice Box snickered and thumped his leg like that danged cartoon rabbit. “Feel better if you get some, old man. Already told you I’ll let you have that blonde from today, but if you don’t want her…”
“Life lesson number seventeen,” Lance said to Juice Box. “Don’t go for chicks who call you cheaters.”
Which was advice he needed to take for himself.
The fire was growing, flames licking at thewood, popping and fizzing. Pony lifted his glass. “How ’bout that trophy?”
They all lifted their own cups and agreed their catapult had been a thing of beauty.
Damn good to be number one.
At something, anyway.
The bonfire was picking up steam, crackling and glowing merrily in the moonlight.
He inhaled a deep lungful of night air and campfire smoke. Would be a beautiful night to fly. Get up there in the sky with the stars, forget about life and love and women for a while.
Juice Box straightened beside him. “Whoa, did you see?—”
