Page 15

Now I knew how gently he could hold my face in one rough hand.

I knew how his beard felt against my skin and how easily I had moved closer when he touched my waist.

And I knew I wanted him to do it again.

Preferably when neither of us had a haunted house opening in a matter of hours.

A little after noon, I bought a turkey sandwich from one of the food trucks testing its lunch service for the festival. Duncan emerged from beneath the Human Assembly frame long enough to get a hot sandwich of his own, and we ate near the open loading doors with bottles of water balanced beside us.

Outside, Fall Fest was transforming by the hour.

Children weren’t there yet, but music had started playing near the main walkway while vendors finished decorating their booths. Quilts and knitted shawls hung from display racks. A worker was testing one of the axe-throwing lanes across the grass, and farther down the path someone had erected a sign directing people toward the corn maze.

The smell of cider drifted through the open doorway whenever the wind changed.

Duncan followed my gaze toward the festival grounds.

“Sienna’s been talking about this weekend for a month.”

“I’m guessing the costume tent moved considerably higher on the list yesterday.”

He laughed quietly. “The rollers moved higher too. I spent enough time getting them into her hair that I’m going to be personally offended if she comes home with it in a ponytail.”

I could picture him standing behind Sienna with those large hands trying to arrange pink foam rollers in sections of dark hair.

The image did something soft and dangerous to me.

“How did they turn out?”

“Better than I expected. She made me take a picture before school because she said they’d probably fall by lunch.”

“Smart girl.”

“She also informed me that if I’d used smaller sections around the front, they would have lasted longer.”

I laughed. “She’s learning fast.”

“That’s what worries me.”

The words were dry enough to make me smile, but there was affection beneath them.

He checked the time on his phone before taking another bite.

“I’m picking her up after she finishes at the costume tent with Mary-Kate and Lori. I’ll bring her back here for the last part of the afternoon, if that still works.”

“Of course. We’ll keep her in the prep area and away from anything operating.”

Duncan nodded, apparently satisfied, and we went back to eating.

It should have felt ordinary. Instead, sitting beside him with festival music outside and sawdust on both of our clothes, listening to him talk about his daughter while we shared the first real pause of the day, felt unexpectedly intimate.

It wasn’t romantic in the obvious way; that would have been easier. This was something quieter.

By the time Duncan left to collect Sienna, the moving head was installed, Research and Quality Testing was almost fully dressed, and my revised schedule had gone from terrifying to merely aggressive.

I used his absence to walk the complete guest route twice.

The experience finally held together.