Lila’s hold tightens around my neck.
“I want to go home,” she whispers, tears clinging to her lashes.
I turn away from Candi and nearly run into Mayor Wren as he pushes through the crowd, followed by Vince, one of the guys I met on the sand court earlier.
“Max, what happened?” the mayor asks.
“Someone tampered with the safety bar. Shut the ride down.”
His expression hardens. “On it.”
“Lila’s things fell near the base. Her tote. Her wallet. A pink notebook.”
“We’ll find everything,” he promises.
I nod. Then I carry Lila away from the Ferris wheel, away from Candi with-a-fucking-I, away from the Summer Festival where my fox and I can keep her safe.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Lila
“Ibake when I’m nervous. Or happy. Or mad.” The oven timer goes off again, and I pull on my oven mitts. “Basically, whenever I have feelings.”
Max sits on a barstool at my kitchen island, surrounded by colorful cupcake wrappers, crumbs, and smears of seven different frostings. He tried to tuck me into bed when we got to my place as if I were a fragile Victorian woman overcome by emotions.
Every time I closed my eyes, the safety bar flew open, the gondola swung, and my stomach dropped as I imagined plummeting to my death.
Okay, so I am a little overcome by my emotions, but staying in bed wasn’t going to fix anything. So, I did what I always do when my feelings are too big to fit inside my body.
I started baking.
After all, the Frosting Queen competition waits for no woman. Even one who may have come close to splatting against the ground in front of the whole town.
A shudder racks through me, and the cupcake tin slips from my grip. Metal crashes against the quartz countertop.
Max pushes away from the island so fast the barstool scrapes across the floor.
“I’m fine.” I retrieve the pan and place it on the trivet with exaggerated care. “I’m completely and totally fine.”
Mr. Biscuits launches himself into Max’s path as he heads toward me, narrowly avoiding the ball of fluff only for the furry menace to wind around his ankles and nearly send Crescent Cove’s newest resident crashing into the cabinets.
“Your shadow is back,” I say.
Mr. Biscuits meows up at Max and rubs his face against his leg.
The two of them have been playing on and off since I convinced Max that the best way to work through my feelings would be for him to eat them. In the form of baked goods. Obviously.
Mr. Biscuits usually can’t be bothered to interrupt his twenty-one-hour daily nap schedule for anyone. Tonight, he met Max at the door, sniffed him once, then rolled onto his back and presented his belly for pets. Max immediately found the spot beneath his chin that turns him into a purring sack of pudding, and Mr. Biscuits has been in love ever since.
“Buddy, I need to get through.” Max steps to the right, and Mr. Biscuits moves with him.
“You’ve been chosen,” I tell him, slipping off the mitts.
“I want a cat, but not at this exact moment.”
“You can’t decline his advances,” I warn. “He’ll pee in your shoes.”
Max bends and scoops all eighteen pounds of orange fluff off the floor and murmurs something into his fur that I don’t quite catch over Mr. Biscuits’ triumphant purr.
