“What happened?”
Shadows flickered over the windshield as they wove further into the wooded area, the many tree branches creating a canopy over the dirt road.
“I got shut down at a city council meeting. Imagine a room full of pageant moms, many of whom were crowned Pie Princess back in their day, insisting that the tradition be upheld and that they’d do everything in their power to see that it was.”
“Whoa.”
“Yeah, not worth it.” She shrugged.
“Guess not. I, uh, head up this road here, right?” he asked while coming to a slow.
“Yes,” she said. “Then just follow it all the way back.”
“So I’ve got another question for you,” Burke said, a slight tug at the corner of his lips. “Haveyouever been crowned the Piney Falls Pie Princess?”
She shook her head adamantly. “No. I suck at pie-baking, remember?”
“Well it’s too bad men can’t enter…”
Her eyes went wide as she remembered. “That’sright!You made pies with your mom. She taught you how to bake—”
“Thebestapple pie ever.” Burke shot her a conspiratorial look. “Do you want to win the pageant?”
“Uh…I don’t think a regular apple pie is going to do that.”
He tipped his head. “Did I just call it The Regular Apple Pie? No, I called it The Best Apple Pie Ever. Regularapple pie wouldn’t win it, but trust me—thisonewill.”
“That’s a lot of confidence,” she said with a laugh.
“So what do you say?”
“I say we’re going to be at the festival until pretty late tonight if we want to stay for the bonfire.”
“Oh, wewantto stay for the bonfire.” He lifted an insinuative brow.
Justine felt her cheeks fill with heat. “That doesn’t end until eleven.”
“Which means we have the rest of the night to make the pie,” Burke said.
“You want to pull an all-nighter for pie?” she asked, unbelieving.
They were at the lodge now. Burke brought the car to a full stop before turning to fix his gaze straight on her. “Absolutely.”
“But I alreadyhavea pie.”
“A non-winning pie,” he said. “You said yourself that you’ve never won.”
“I didn’t say I enter every year,” she countered.
“Do you?”
Crap.“Yes, but I’ve never really wanted to win before. I enter because I’m in charge of the events, not because I want the title.” Except that didn’t feel as true as it might have had she been saying so last year, or even the year before. But hadn’t she just been thinking about how much she wanted to take the title from Brittany?
“Except,” Justine added, feeling the conspiratorial vibe growing between them. “This year, I actually wouldn’t mind winning.”
There went that brow lift again. “Why’s that?”
“Remember the mean girl I told you about? The one who bugged me about not having a mom?”
