Page 11 of The Sugar Maple Inn

The logrolling setup was professional-grade: a debarked pine log floating between two docks. “If you don’t know already, Trust Fund Thor,” Jake said, “you both stand on the same log, try to knock the other person off by spinning it with your feet. Rules are simple. Stay on longer than your opponent, you win. Fall in, you lose.”

Grace kicked off her boots, rolled up the bottom of her jeans and stepped onto one end of the log. Reese stripped down to his sage-gray T-shirt and took the other end. They faced each other across about six feet of pine, testing their balance.

“Don’t go easy on me because I’m a girl,” Grace called out to him.

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

Jake dropped his hand and they started. Grace was better than Reese had expected. Way better. She had this fluid way of moving with the log instead of fighting it, adjusting to his rhythm while trying to impose her own. The crowd was getting loud, cheering for both of them.

“Come on, Grace!” a dark-haired woman with a British accent called out.

“Yeah, show the rich boy how it’s done!” the tall, muscled man with his arms wrapped around the Brit added.

“Don’t let her psych you out, dude!” a skinny man who’d been serving behind a food truck called out. “Solace Springs girls know how to mess with your mind.”

“This is better than going to the movies!” Caleb called out, actually chewing on cinnamon popcorn as he said it.

Three minutes in, Reese could feel his legs starting to burn. But he was used to that, used to riding the pain, almost enjoying it. Grace looked like she could do this for hours, too, but there was a slight tightness around her eyes that suggested she was working harder than she wanted to let on.

He shifted his weight, found his balance and used Grace’s momentum against her. She overcorrected, wobbled for a split second and went in backward with a splash that sent water flying everywhere.

A win!

When she surfaced, she was cursing. “Damn it!”

Reese jumped off the log and offered her a hand out of the water. But she refused, splashing her way to the shore. Reese couldn’t help but notice how her honey-colored sweater clung to every curve, the wet fabric outlining the lean strength of her waist, the slight flare of her hips. The cold water had done exactly what cold water does, making her breasts impossible to ignore beneath the soaked wool. Christ, she was all compact curves and fierce determination, every inch of her body broadcasting a kind of athletic grace that hit him like a punch to the gut.

She looked like trouble. She looked like everything he shouldn’t want.

She glared at him, wringing out her sweater hem.

“It’s not over yet, Grace!” the British girl said as the dark-haired guy behind her gave Reese a cold look.

“All right, folks,” Jake called out, gesturing to two huge barrels of water, each brimming with floating apples. “Next challenge. Double Bob rules! First one to grab three apples with their teeth wins. No hands, no cheating, no mercy.”

Reese eyed the barrels like they were enemy territory. “That’s it? Bite fruit?”

“Don’t underestimate it,” Jake said. “Looks easier than it is. Plus locals have been training for this all their lives.”

Grace tied back her wet hair. “Yeah, locals like me,” she said, competition in her eyes.

That spark in her eyes caught him in the chest. He grinned. “Guess I’ll have to represent the outsiders, then.”

Abe smirked. “Just don’t embarrass yourself, city boy. Last year’s champ was eight.”

Reese rolled up his sleeves. “All right then, let’s do this.”

The crowd started the countdown—“Three, two, one!”—and both of them plunged face-first into the freezing barrels.

Grace was out first, triumphant, an apple clamped between her teeth. She spat it neatly into the bucket beside her and went straight back under. Reese surfaced a second later, sputtering lake water and cursing under his breath, earning a wave of laughter from the crowd.

“Come on, billionaire!” the muscular dark-haired man with the Brit shouted. “Where’s all that drive now?”

Reese gritted his teeth and went in again, snagging two in quick succession. He wasn’t losing this to a small-town waitress with a killer smile and zero mercy.

Grace surfaced beside him, soaked, breathless, apple number two in her teeth. For a split second, Reese forgot about the crowd and the damn apples. All he could see was her, flushed and determined, water trickling down her neck. He didn’t even notice when she went in for number three, too hypnotized by the sight of her peach of a butt bending over.

“Three!” she shouted as she emerged with another apple, muffled but victorious.