Page 12 of Promises & Pumpkins
Inside the barn, I weaved through others, nodding and throwing out an occasional hello. By the time we got to the cooler, Harper looked like she was comfortable—like she fit in. The hesitation she had worn on her face walking in had disappeared, and the muscles in her back and shoulders had relaxed completely. Was she having fun?
I reached into one of the coolers, pulling two beers out of the ice and passing one to her. “Want that beer I promised you?” I winked.
“Definitely, yes.” Harper snatched the beer from me, and it hissed when she cracked it open. She took a long gulp and then giggled. Was she having fun? “I didn’t know cops could have things like this.”
“Things like what?” I lifted a single brow, drinking my beer while she scrunched her nose and laughed.
Harper shrugged and looked around the bar. “You know… fun!” Then she grinned. Shewashaving fun.
“Common misconception.” I nodded my head and winked. “Turns out, we’re capable of all the same fun things a ballerina-slash-cat-burglar is.”
Harper’s mouth dropped open with faux offense. “You were technically the one who broke in!” she whisper-yelled in a failed effort to stop herself from laughing. When she stopped to take a drink of her beer, I followed the movement of her lips until it closed around the edge of the can. Then I swallowed with her.
“Technicalities,” I said, but the word felt thick on my tongue. I looked outside the barn toward the fire pit that only had a few people around it. I was sure that we needed some fresh air beforethe tension between us filled the barn. “Are you hungry? If I recall, I promised you dinner.”
Harper looked around like she was confused about where we would be eating until she saw the pile of hotdogs and skewers sitting on a table by the fire. Then her face lit up like a little kid who’d never gotten the chance to burn a hot dog over a campfire before. She nodded. “I’m starving.”
“Let’s go.” She didn’t stall when I put my arm around her, and it was starting to feel a little too comfortable—almost familiar.Not enough like friends.I didn’t want to remove it when we got to the table. When I did, my side felt colder. I cleared my throat and, with it, the thought of having her tucked against me like this was more than a casual night out.
“I’ve never done this before,” she said, taking one of the skewers from me and grabbing for a hotdog.
I watched her struggle to stick the hotdog vertically at the end of the skewer instead of using both forks on the skewer to balance it better, and I swallowed back the laugh. “Never done what?”
“Roasted hotdogs.” She was making that pretty obvious when she held the stick up like she was proud of it. It would get the job done as long as it didn’t fall apart when she pulled it off later.
“Really? Never?” I thought that had been a staple part of everyone’s childhood. “What about s’mores?”
Harper shook her head, and I could see the blush darkening her cheeks in the glow of the fire. “Not real ones. My parents weren’t really the outdoorsy type, so our idea of a bonfire was the fireplace in the living room and s’mores out of the microwave.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything, huh?” I wiggled my brows, and she rolled her lips together and bit down. We reached out, holding the hotdogs barely in the fire until one of the logs popped. It made Harper jump, and she took a large step back to inspect the still-intact hotdog on the end of her skewer.
With a relieved sigh, she stepped forward again. The fire danced on her face while she slowly rotated the stick, and the more she found a rhythm, the more serene the look on her face got. It was like we were here alone—like I was the only one seeing the subtle joy radiating from her.
“That’s probably good,” I said. “Unless you want it a bit burnt.”
“Maybe I like it that way.” Was she always this stubborn? I assumed so when she pulled the hotdog back anyway, following me back to the table to put it on a bun. Steam floated off it, more visible than usual in the cool fall air, but she didn’t blow on it before she took a big bite. “Oh. Shit. Hot.” Harper gasped between words to try and cool down the bite, and I couldn’t hold back the laugh.
When she chased the bite and tried to cool her mouth down with another drink of beer, I mirrored her. “What do you think?” I asked her, even though it was just a hotdog.
“This is the best hotdog I’ve probably ever had.” She took another big bite, humming dramatically with her approval. I watched in amazement when she chewed quickly, swallowing it and quickly taking another bite. She followed it with another hum, half-rolling her eyes back, and I laughed.
“If you think that’s good, I can’t wait for you to have dessert.” Harper looked skeptical, narrowing her eyes with her mouth overly full. It wasn’t intended to be suggestive. I pointed at the bag of marshmallows and scattered stack of chocolate bars waiting to be melted. “S’mores. Remember?”
Her eyes lit up again, and I could feel her excitement running through every one of my veins. “You’re right,” she said before stuffing the last bite in her mouth and reaching for her skewer. I hurried to finish my hotdog and grabbed a couple marshmallows. “We can’t forget that!”
When the marshmallows were toasted and smashed between graham crackers that dripped melted chocolate, Harper took alarge bite. Crumbs fell to the ground, some clung to the melted marshmallow, and chocolate ran over her fingers. She didn’t care. “Oh mygod,”she groaned. “That’s so much better than making them in the microwave.”
“I told you.” I smirked at her when she glared, then decided after a quick second that she was more interested in another bite than holding the grudge. She was too distracted to notice there was chocolate on the corner of her lip. “You’ve got a little something…”
Harper instinctively leaned toward me when I reached my finger out toward her lips. She held her breath when I ran my thumb along her bottom lip, almost gathering the chocolate left behind on my thumb. Instead, when her eyes locked with mine, they had that same magnetic, unable-to-resist-it look in them, and I leaned in instead. She mirrored the approach until my lips captured hers, and I licked the chocolate from her mouth before our tongues met.
She hummed, forgetting about the rest of the s’more in her hand when she wrapped her arms around my neck. I felt crumbs tumble over my shoulder to the ground, but I didn’t care. I dropped what was left of my s’more into the dirt, folding my arms behind her and pulling her closer to me to deepen the kiss. I wanted to taste more of her—all of her. I needed every breathy whimper that was escaping her chest, and I didn’t want to share the sound with anyone else.
When she sucked my tongue into her mouth, closing her lips over it and running them up to the tip before she pressed them to mine again, I forgot there were others with us—others that saw me in a uniform and called me Captain most days.
“Am I interrupting?” Stanley cleared his throat behind us, and Harper quickly snapped away, burying her face and her embarrassment against my chest. I glared at him. He knew he was interrupting without having to ask—that was why he asked.
“What does it look like?”
