“I do like honey,” she says with a nod but she turns to look over at where the dunk tank is. “That guy works for this maid service. I swear he cleaned my house this summer.”
I shake my head. “Nah. Not him. You must have him confused with someone else.”
She cranes her neck to look at Tate again and then turns back to me and shakes her head. “No, I’m sure of it. See, it’s this service my girlfriends got me for my birthday as a joke. And let’s just say it’s not his face I…”
I step closer to her and lower my voice. “Are you saying you recognized my fiancé’s…body?”
“Your fiancé?”
I try to look like I’m on the verge of tears. “Are you saying you’ve seen him without his shirt before? When? If that man has already cheated on me, before the wedding, I swear I will—”
“No. No. I think I have it all wrong,” the woman says, her voice suddenly soft and soothing. She reaches out and pats my arm. “I think he just looks like someone I know. I’m sorry. Thank you for the goat cheese and you know what, I will take a jar of that honey.”
“Great!” Daisy pipes in and hands her a jar. “That’ll be four bucks.”
She hands Daisy a five and tells her to keep the change before almost running away. I watch her go, happy she isn’t trying to return to the dunk tank. When she’s completely out of sight, I turn back to the booth and am confronted with Daisy’s judgmental stare. She crosses her arms over her chest, over the Todd Organic Farm logo on her shirt, and says. “What on God’s green earth just happened?”
I sigh and tug her across the path, away from the booth before I whisper. “That woman was about to announce Tate’s little part-time job, so I intervened.”
“Why?”
My brain short circuits for a second. Why did I do it? I did it because Tate was about to be hurt and I didn’t want that to happen. But there is no way I can confess that to my sister so I scramble to find a different reason. “Daisy, if his teammates and family find out about the maid thing, then we lose our leverage.”
There. That makes sense. Phew.
Daisy mulls that over, chewing on her full bottom lip. “Smart. He’d definitely kick us out of the booth if we didn’t have that secret to hold over his head.”
We head back to the booth. An hour later, the last of the customers wanders away and the market is officially closed. But there are at least half a dozen people still in line at that stupid dunk tank. I tell Daisy and Bobby to count the money and march over. “Market is closed. Any sales after this moment can’t be counted toward today’s total.”
Jace gives me a cool smirk. “No worries. We are out of apples to toss anyway.”
“Oh,” I frown. They had a lot of apples. We’re screwed.
“Nothing left to do but count the cash,” Jace says confidently. “It should take a while, so have a seat.”
I huff like a disappointed toddler and stomp my way back to the booth. I know Tate is watching me go. I can feel his eyes on me, but I refuse to look at him. If he’s smiling as smugly as his brother, I will have to kick him in the shins or something.
Back at the booth, I go about packing up with Clyde while Uncle Bobby and Daisy count the money. Raquel and Louise are also counting their profits. I watch Raquel out of the corner of my eye while she skims a couple twenties and tucks them into her bra. I will tell Tate about that at the end of the season but for now, her petty theft works to my advantage.
I pack a round of stuff into the SUV and when I get back to the booth Daisy motions me over.
“Four hundred and forty-four dollars and fifty cents,” Daisy whispers in my ear as she tucks the money into our metal lock box and hands it to Uncle Bobby.
“Hope it’s enough, Mags because we don’t want to lose a day here.” Bobby tucks the box under his arm as he starts to pull our loaded dolly back to his truck. “See you girls at home.”
“Here he comes.” Daisy tips her head toward the dunk tank.
I turn and walk toward him, meeting him in the middle of the path that runs the course of the booths. I do not feel the least bit confident but I am determined to fake it. I place a hand on my hip and wait. “So…what’s your number?”
“What’s yours?” he counters.
“I asked you first.”
“Okay, but this isn’t kindergarten, so just tell me your number so I can get this over with and go home,” Tate barks. “Being admired by the entire female population of Burlington is exhausting.”
“Your ego needs its own zip code,” I reply.
“Before we begin, we should set up a margin where we will call it a tie,” Tate says. “I mean do you really want to win by like one penny? I’m proposing if we’re within fifty bucks of each other, it’s a draw. Sound good?”
