Page 24 of Pumpkin to Talk About

“Your hair’s got enough gel in it to stay put through a little apple bobbing,” I assure him.

He glares playfully at me. “I’ll do it if you do it.”

“You’re on,” I tell him. Claire leads the way to the apple bobbing station. We line up, and when it’s our turn, we take our places at two barrels next to each other. Laughing uncontrollably, we each bob in the water like roosters, trying to catch the slippery apples with our teeth.

When our time is up, neither of us have caught anything, but we’re both dripping wet. They hand us towels to dry off, but Mike uses his to loop around the back of my neck. He brings me in for a sloppy, wet, wonderful kiss. It’s the first time he’s even touched me in public, and by the way everything goes quiet around us, I’m sure the entire town is going to be talking about this by the end of the night. But I don’t care. I wrap my arms around his waist and step closer.

He pulls away from me, then uses the towel to wipe off his hair. It falls in floppy waves over his face. He whines about it a little, but it’s half-hearted. He’s having too much fun to care, it seems.

With Claire placated and Nicholas ready to ride the Ferris wheel, Annie sweeps both kids off to the carnival for a while. Mike and I walk around the fair, sharing a pumpkin funnel cake and drinking from plastic cups of beer. Our shoulders brush together as we walk, and when we throw away the powdered sugar-covered paper plate from the funnel cake, he links his pinky with mine.

Mike wins me a stuffed dog from one of the carnival games before we meet up with Annie and the kids. When he thinks they’re not watching, he finds every excuse to touch me. His hand at my lower back. His knuckles brushing my collarbone. A small kiss on my temple. A brush of my hair over my shoulder.

At the end of the night, Claire is practically asleep as he carries her to Annie’s truck. He sets the little girl in the back seat. Annie eyes him up and down, then nods once to him. He takes me a few steps away and threads his fingers through my hair so he can kiss me.

It’s a kiss that feels like goodbye. Like we’re both trying to pour as much into it as we can. Annie will take him to the airport tomorrow, and that’ll be the end of it. I’ll never kiss Mike Page again, and I have to be okay with that.

When he pulls away from me, he peers into my eyes, as if I have any answers for the questions he’s silently asking. Without a word, he smiles sadly and turns back to Annie’s truck.

The whole way home, I try not to cry. But when I crawl into bed alone, I clutch that stuffed dog to my chest. It smells like smoked cedar, and I sob into its soft fur.

Chapter 15

Mike

Annie waits on the sidewalk outside my terminal as I heave my suitcase out of the bed of her truck. My flight is early this morning, so we dropped off my rental yesterday afternoon. I gave each kid a kiss on their sleepy cheeks before one of her friends came to sit with them while Annie drove me to the airport. We figured it’d be easier on them if I said goodbye at the house.

As soon as I wheel my suitcase up over the curb, Annie is on me with a fierce hug. I cradle her head to my chest and rock her back and forth. She’s not crying, though, which is a good sign. My tenacious, pain-in-the-ass sister is back on track. I’m glad I could come out and help her get there.

“I’m going to miss you, big bro,” she says into my shirt.

“I’ll miss you all, too.”

She looks up at me. “You said goodbye to Belle?”

I nod, swallowing against the lump in my throat. “Last night.”

Annie’s lips thin into a tight line. “You should call her when you get back to Indiana.”

And say what? Thanks for the fun time? You made Ironwood Flats tolerable? I miss you, and I want to come back? Nothing I say will make this any better, and we all know it. But Annie will just pester me until I agree with her, so I say, “Okay,” and leave it at that.

By the look she gives me, she knows I’m full of shit, but she lets it go. “Fly safe, okay? See you at Lindsey’s for Christmas?”

“Yep. Love you, Annie.” I kiss the top of her head, give her one more squeeze, and enter the airport.

Security isn’t too bad this early in the morning, and I find myself at my gate with about an hour to spare. Great. An hour to sit here and contemplate all of my life choices that have brought me to this miserable moment.

Instead of wallowing, I call Trevor, intending to let him know that I’m getting on the plane soon and confirm that he’ll be there to pick me up on the other end.

But when he sees me, his first thing out of his mouth is, “What’s wrong?”

“I’m fucking tired,” I say half-heartedly. “It’s early, and I barely slept.” It’s not entirely a lie. I tossed and turned all night, thinking about Belle. Leaving her was like putting socks on a rooster, as my dad used to say. The night with her at the Halloween fest was magical. The stolen kisses, the surreptitious touches, being there with her for everyone to see. She felt like mine last night, if only for a moment.

The problem is, I want more of those moments.

“Is this about that woman?” Trevor’s voice breaks me out of my reverie.

“Yeah,” I admit. “I really like her.”