Page 7 of Mountain Man's Corn Maze Cutie
“You’re welcome.”
“And I’m sorry. About what I said in there. I didn’t mean to imply that you were excessive.”
I looked down at her, taking in the way the sunlight caught the gold in her hair, the way she was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
“What did you mean?” I asked.
She finally looked up at me, and something in her expression made my pulse quicken. “I meant that you’re thorough. Dedicated. And that’s not a bad thing.” She paused, then added softly, “It’s actually pretty attractive.”
Before I could respond to that, Taylor was approaching us with Oliver in tow. “I can’t thank you both enough. When I couldn’t find him, I just panicked.”
“It’s okay,” Cecelia said. “The important thing is that he’s safe.”
As we watched them walk away, Oliver turning back to wave at us before disappearing into the crowd, I realized that Cecelia and I were alone again. The tension that had been building between us in the maze was still there, humming in the air between us like a live wire.
“So,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I guess I should get back to my booth.”
“Probably.”
But neither of us moved.
“Cecelia,” I said, and she looked up at me with those green eyes that had been driving me crazy all day.
“Yeah?”
I opened my mouth to say something—what, I wasn’t sure—but then closed it again. Whatever this was between us, it was dangerous. She was here for a week, and then she’d be gone. I didn’t do temporary, and I sure as hell didn’t do complicated.
“Nothing,” I finally said. “I’ll see you around.”
I turned and walked away before I could do something stupid. Like ask her to dinner. Or tell her that she’d been the only thing on my mind since the moment I laid eyes on her.
But as I headed back toward Ashe’s booth to collect my sign, I could feel her watching me go, and I knew one thing. I was suddenly looking forward to the rest of this festival.
3
CECELIA
Insomnia sucked, especially when it came while traveling.
It wasn’t like I could just leave my bedroom and hang out in my living room, watching whatever show I’d been streaming. Of course, I could do that very thing from my bed in my room at the inn, but this restlessness had me practically bouncing off the walls. I needed to get out of here, get some fresh air, maybe clear my mind.
And that was how I ended up in my SUV, driving around town in the middle of the night. Most of my stuff was still at my table at the grounds where the Harvest Market was taking place. Supposedly, Wildwood Valley was a small enough town that criminals didn’t dare set foot here, but mostly, I just didn’t want to haul all my stuff back into my SUV and pull it back out tomorrow.
So I’d crossed my fingers that it was all still there. Maybe I should go check on it. Yes, I definitely should.
By the time my car pulled into the oversized patch of dirt they called vendor parking, I’d just about convinced myself that was all I was doing. It wasn’t the corn maze calling me, begging me to find a way to get closer to the hot mountain man running it.
No, I was just doing a quick security check.
I’d barely passed the entrance when I spotted it up ahead—a large truck. Gigantic, actually. The kind of truck mountain men drove.
There’d been no other vehicles around when I parked, so I’d assumed I had this whole place to myself. What if that was security? No big deal. I’d just tell them I was checking on my booth.
And that’s exactly what I did. I made a beeline for it, trying to ignore the fact that the truck was just feet away. I couldn’t help but glance over to make sure nobody was inside.
My booth was exactly as I’d left it. They’d provided tarps, and I’d covered mine. As if a determined criminal couldn’t just lift it and grab some things. But criminals didn’t want popcorn. They wanted money and assets they could sell. At the very least, they’d take my retro popcorn maker, but I’d gotten it at a steal, so I wouldn’t mind replacing it.
I should leave, but what I really wanted to do was head into the corn maze. It was the kind of move an idiot in a horror movie would make. That truck could belong to a mass murderer, for all I knew.
