Page 29 of The Pumpkin Pact
Cole’s right on my heels. “Sound cut?”
“Or got cut,” I mutter, dropping to my knees at the spider box. The breaker’s been tripped—deliberate, by the look of the bent toggle. Vernon’s perfume of teakwood and litigation still hangs in the air.
“Watch my back,” I bark. Cole squares up, scanning the crowd like we’re back on patrol while I reset the breaker, trace cords, and pray the band doesn’t lose the crowd completely.
I slip away, circling to the other side of the stage, and spot Vernon hunched over the sound system on that side, hands buried in the cables, face twisted in frustration like he’s losing a fight with the wiring.
“Need help with something?” I ask, voice low and sharp.
He jolts up, smacking his head against the underside of the stage with a dull thud, eyes snapping up. “Rowen.” His smile oozes back into place, oily and too smooth. “Just checking the equipment. Safety first.”
I step closer, blocking the glow of the lanterns. “Funny. From here it looks a lot less like safety and a lot more like sabotage.”
Up front, Harper doesn’t hesitate. She grabs the bullhorn from the lost-and-found table, climbs two hay bales, and projects like a general. “Technical hiccup! Don’t panic—we’ve got cider, we’ve got raffle tickets, and in sixty seconds you’re getting music again!” She launches into a raffle draw on the spot, voice bright and fearless, pulling laughter from a crowd that could’ve turned restless. The woman could charm a riot line.
By the time I slam the breaker back and Cole yells “Clear!”, the speakers thrum back to life and the band rips intoMonster Mashlike they’re avenging a fallen comrade, and the square erupts in applause. Harper beams down from her hay bale like she just won a war.
My fists clench at my sides, cold and precise, every tendon tight like a drawn wire. I dial my voice down to the blunt, measured commands the Army taught me and let it land between us. “Don’t touch another wire. Walk away now, or you’ll answer to me.”
For a second, something ugly flickers in his eyes. Then the smile returns. “Enjoy your evening, Captain.” He says it like a slur, like the title itself is dirty. Then he strolls off into the crowd, leaving the cables behind him.
A few minutes later, I catch Vernon on the far edge of the crowd, phone in hand, lips curved in a slow, satisfied smirk. He doesn’t look rattled by the recovery—if anything, he looks pleased. Like every stumble is evidence for his case. He mouths something toward me across the lantern glow ‘compliance’. Then he melts back into the festival, leaving my pulse hammering.
I exhale, jaw tight, and glance back toward the square where Harper is laughing with a few town council members, lanternlight haloing her hair. She didn’t see Vernon crouched at the wires and didn’t hear the warning I gave him.
Chapter 9
Harper
Festival day smells like sugar and smoke, the good kind, the kind that seeps into your sweater and lives there until spring. Main Street thrums like a jukebox. Kids with painted noses sprint past my knees. A dad carries three turkey legs and the haunted look of a man who lost a bet. The gazebo glows under its net of orange lights. Lanterns bob above the walkways like patient moons.
Exhaustion has moved into my bones with a security deposit. Exhilaration pays the rent. I float on caffeine, adrenaline, and the sight of neighbors spending money on something that is not a condo brochure. Every jar on every table pings with coins. QR codes light up phones like tiny fireworks. The square looks like the internet’s idea of autumn, and I want to frame it.
Dex moves through the crowd at my elbow, a steady wall in flannel. He steers me around stroller wheels and extension cords, fingers pressing at the small of my back like a private compass. The touch should feel like theater. It doesn’t. Each brush sends a line of heat up my spine and sits there glowing.
“Hydration,” he says, sliding a water bottle into my palm.
“Hero,” I say, chugging. “What is our fire risk, sir, on a scale of one to Beatrice with a pumpkin spice candle?”
“Three,” he says. “But I confiscated her matches.”
“You’re a saint.”
“I prefer outlaw,” he corrects. “I stole them from a retired librarian’s booth. I will never know peace again.” He gives me a mock-shocked look, and I laugh.
We walk the loop together. The kids’ tent bursts with crayons and chaos. The maple-cotton-candy guy spins sugar clouds the size of planets. A grandmother in a witch hat hustles me for two extra raffle tickets with a wink that could start a small war. I buy four. The high school band warms up with a jazzy version of Monster Mash that offends no one and confuses many.
Every time someone waves a camera, Dex laces our fingers on instinct. Every time our arms brush, the town leans in. The act has turned into muscle memory. My brain pretends to protest, but my body doesn’t.
“You need food,” Dex says.
“I had a donut hole,” I say.
“You inhaled two powdered ones an hour ago,” he says. “That doesn’t count.”
He returns with a paper boat of hot cider donuts and a cup of chili from Mel’s. We share them like a couple who plans to go to IKEA on Sunday. I take a bite of the donut. He watches my mouth with a look that belongs in a dimmer room.
“Stop,” I say, voice a little thin.
