I give him a quizzical look, but then something moves in my peripheral vision, setting off my alarm bells. I know what it is before I turn my head and lay my eyes on her.
Pastor Patty, my childhood nemesis, is coming this way.
I jump from my seat and tug the sleeve of the spaced-out Iris’s sweater.
“Mayday!” I whisper.
Iris’s eyes widen, and she looks from me to where I’m gesturing with my chin.
It’s too late. That older woman moves faster than I remember.
“Hello, Iris.”
Oh, crap on toast.
The stance in her orthopedic shoes. The thin lips set in a forced half smile. This isn’t going to go well.
The pure noxious energy makes me up and leave the tent, hiding in between the sprawling flower display next door at the plant sale booth.
I have to give these two blood relatives their space to talk, but I keep an ear out in case intervention is needed.
“What’s going on?” Finn says.
I jump, realizing the man is right up on my elbow. Stealthy.
I turn to him, and he is at attention, ready for anything. I like that. And I like that he smells like wood and spice.
Turning my attention back to the drama, I whisper over my shoulder. “That’s her aunt. Watch out, she’s a bigger ballbuster than I am.”
Finn snorts softly, and I feel the hairs rise up on the back of my neck. “She doesn’t look that mean.”
I turn and give him a look. “I have a memo from vacation bible school from twenty-one years ago that says otherwise.”
“What did you do to the poor woman?”
“Me?! What did I do?”
When I look up at him, his eyes are all sexy and squinty, and I know he’s winding me up. Hmph.
I purse my lips. Do I tell him? “I was nine years old, and she wrote to my nana saying I was banned from VBS because I was ‘putting on a wet T-shirt contest for the boys.’”
“Excuse me? At nine? I think not,” he says.
“Thank you! So my nana told her, maybe if she wouldn’t be so cheap and turn on the air conditioning, I wouldn’t have to keep going into the church kitchen to steal ice to pour down myshirt and my shorts. They had words, and that’s when my nana lost her shit, and I was invited to never come back.”
“Wow. I kinda like your nana.”
That admiration hits like a gut punch. There’s a hell of a lot more to say about Nana, but no way he’s getting that story.
“I got my revenge on ol’ Patty. I, of course, became best friends with her niece, who happened to live with her, so she got to see me every day, whether she liked it or not. And ever since, I live my life in a way that makes people like Pastor Patty turn paler than pale.”
“But you’re as sweet as can be, I can’t imagine that to be the case,” he says.
Finn’s breath wafts over the back of my neck, and I shiver.
I take this opportune moment to demonstrate. Turning toward Finn, I pull out my red lipstick from my purse and dab some on. His gaze flits over my lips. Somewhere nearby, a dog growls at something, but I don’t see it.
I mash my lips together. “How does that look?”
