Page 6 of Pumpkin to Talk About

Mike gives Nicholas a fist-bump and says, “Sure, my man. If you want me to.”

“I do!” Claire pipes up. She wraps her arms around Mike’s waist and squeezes.

He rubs her back until she pulls away. “Okay, kiddo. I’ll be here.” He scrapes his palm against his chin as he watches them join their respective groups of friends and enter the school. His dark eyes slide my way, and I’m embarrassed to have been watching him that whole time. I try to avert my gaze, but I can’t. He’s just too good to look at.

I fully expect him to give me a cocky smirk, but he doesn’t. He just smiles softly, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “He was in his room all weekend reading that book,” he says. “I had to drag him outside to help me.”

“Help you with what?” I ask.

“Fixing Annie’s porch. And shutters.” He shakes his head in dismay. “Jacob hasn’t done much for a while, it would seem. But I wanted to teach Nicholas some of the handyman stuff my dad taught me, anyway, so it was a good opportunity.”

My hands land on my hips. “Did you teach Claire, too?”

“Teach her what?” He looks genuinely confused.

I let out an exasperated puff of air. “The handyman stuff. Doesn’t she deserve to know, too?” I sure wish someone had looked past the misogyny with which they were raised and taught me how to build or fix stuff around my house. As it stands, I’m building the set for the school’s haunted house next week, and I’ve got ideas as big as Dallas and no skill to execute them.

Mike regards me for a moment, his gaze turning thoughtful. “You’re right,” he says after a while. “I should have had Claire out there, too. I will. Thanks for the reminder.”

I open my mouth, ready to protest, until I realize he just said I was right. I close it with a snap. Now, I don’t know what to do.

Luckily, he comes to my rescue. “How many witches did they hang in Salem?” he asks.

My brow furrows, and I rear back a bit at the change in topic. “What?”

“Your shirt.” He points at it.

I look down. I had forgotten I was wearing my favorite Halloween shirt today. It says, Salem Broom Company, established 1692. “Oh. Nineteen.” I straighten with pride at having yet another trivial fact at the ready.

“Nope.” Mike grins.

“What do you mean, ‘nope?’” I spit out. “I can name them all, too. Bridget Bishop, Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse—”

Mike shakes his head, his grin widening. “Nope. Zero.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “How are you going to tell me there were zero witches executed in Salem? It’s basic history.”

“None of them were witches,” he says. “They were just people accused of witchcraft.”

I bite the side of my cheek to keep myself from laughing. That was a pretty good one, if I’m being honest, but I can’t let him know that. “You’re insufferable,” I say when I have my composure in check.

He purses his lips and nods. “I’ve been told that before.” Shrugging, he lifts his arms away from his sides and lets them land with a slap. “Alas, I need to get back to it. Those porch steps aren’t going to fix themselves.”

I don’t know what comes over me when he turns to walk away. Maybe it was that joke. Maybe it’s his ass in those pants. But before I can think better of it, I call after him, “Hey!”

He turns around slowly. The outside is practically empty now; the other teachers have all made their way back inside behind the children to start their classes. As Mike regards me with a question in his dark eyes, I wish I hadn’t stopped him. I should have let him walk away and out of my life like he did in high school. But the cat’s out of the bag now, I guess.

“You think you could help me with a project? You know, since you’re such a handyman?”

He takes a step closer to me and cocks his head. The wind hits just right to carry the scent of smoky cedar from his body. Of course the man smells amazing, too.

“What kind of project?” he asks.

“I have to build the set for the school’s haunted house next week. That’s why I was at the hardware store yesterday, but you saw how that turned out.” I shrug as casually as I can. “I could use some help.”

Mike chews on the inside of his lip, squinting up at the school in the mid-October sunlight. “For the kids?” he asks.

“Yeah. They do the trunk-or-treat outside, and then they come inside for the haunted house. My plan got a little… out of hand.”