“Oh, no. He was just trying to be nice and brotherly,” she said, although her teeth ground together when she said it.
“If you say so,” her mother said. “There’s no reason you two can’t enjoy each other as friends.”
“Hmm. We’ll see,” Stacey said in a noncommittal voice. “At the moment, I need to make some copies of these posters and call in some favors from my teacher friends.”
“All right. You sound like a busy girl. Are you still going to make desserts for the Winter Festival?” her mother asked.
“That’s next week and I’ve already got it on my calendar,” Stacey said. “I’ve got it under control.”
Stacey did her best to stay busy during the next days. She didn’t want to think about Colton. She couldn’t help feeling dumped. Thank goodness, no one except she and Colton knew what had happened between them. The longer the time passed, the more she knew, for certain, that now that he’d indulged his passion for her, he was done with her. She would have felt a bit more used if she didn’t recall how much pleasure she’d experienced with him. Every once in a while, a stray image crossed her mind of the way he’d felt in her arms, the way he’d kissed and caressed her. Every time she had one of those thoughts she wanted to stomp it from her mind the same way she would stomp a spider. This was not the time for her to be thinking about her sexual needs.
Darn Colton Foster. Ever since Joe had abandoned her, Stacey had buried all her interest in sex. It hadn’t been that difficult. But being around Colton had brought those emotions back to life, and these feelings were not convenient.
Not at all.
* * *
“Colton, I need you to take my pies to Dessert Booth number three-B at the Winter Festival tomorrow,” Olive Foster said when he walked into the kitchen late Thursday evening.
Colton shook his head. “I’ve got a mile-long list of chores I have to do tomorrow. Maybe Rachel can do it.”
“Rachel is student teaching. She can’t do both,” his mother said. “You’ll only have to be there three hours.”
“Three hours,” he echoed, incredulous. “Why can’t I just drop them off?”
“Because they need people to help work the booth,” she said. “And I’m volunteering to help the handicapped at the festival.”
“You may need to help Dad if he decides to do any of the chores I have planned for tomorrow,” Colton grumbled.
His mother shot him a sharp look. “That’s a terrible thing to say about your father.”
“You know he has a problem with his back, even though he won’t admit it,” he said.
She sighed. “I’ll guilt him into coming with me. That should keep him out of trouble.”
“Kinda like you’re guilting me into working a bake sale?” he returned.
“Colton, you are bordering on being disrespectful. What’s wrong with you lately, anyway? You’ve been as grumbly as a bear with a sore paw. Are you having girl trouble?”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Colton lifted his hand. This was not a conversation he wanted to have with his mother. “Just stop, Mom. I’ll do the darn bake sale.” Hell, he would do ten bake sales as long as he never had to discuss this subject with his mother again.
After lunch, the following day, Colton loaded up his truck with his mother’s apple pies and drove to the Winter Festival. There was already a mile-long line of people waiting to get inside, but since he was a so-called vendor, he walked right in. It took him a while, but he finally found his assigned booth. He set the pies on the card table and turned around to get the second batch.
He was in such a hurry he nearly walked straight into someone just outside the booth.
“Don’t,” she said, and she sounded remarkably like Stacey. He should know since he’d been hearing her voice in his dreams every night. “Don’t knock over the cupcakes,” she said.
Colton grabbed two of the boxes that threatened to fall off the tower of desserts she carried and noticed Stacey was hauling Piper on her back at the same time she carried the desserts. “For Pete’s sake, what are you doing?”
“I brought cupcakes and pies. I couldn’t decide which to bake, so I made both,” she said, striding toward the same booth where he just set down his mother’s apple pies. Stacey frowned, then looked up at Colton. “What are you doing here?”
“My mother guilted me into bringing her pies and working this booth,” he said.
“Well, that’s just great,” Stacey said, clearly disgusted. “Just great.”
“Hey, my mother pushed me into this,” he said. “Don’t blame me.”
“I’m not blaming you for bringing your mother’s pies,” she said, but he could hear she hadn’t finished her sentence. There was more to it.
“You’re blaming me for something,” he said. “I can hear it in your voice.”
“I’m blaming you for not calling me, Colton Foster. That was pretty rotten, unless you just wanted me for a quick roll in the hay,” she said, and turned away from him.
Colton thought about responding to Stacey, but he couldn’t find the right words. So he returned to his truck, swearing all the way as he hauled in the second load of pies. How could he explain himself? He wanted her, but he wanted to be sensible. With her history, he thought they should take their time. Plus, there was a baby involved. He didn’t want to mess things up.
“Hey, Colton, you sure you don’t want to share one of those pies with us while we wait out here in the cold?” a neighbor called from the crowd.
Colton paused only a half beat. “I don’t have a fork handy for you,” he said in return.
“I don’t need a fork. I’ll just eat with my hands. I love your mama’s pies,” the neighbor called back.
Colton chuckled despite his black mood and shook his head, walking to the dessert booth he would share with Stacey. His chuckle faded as he reentered the booth and set down the second haul of pies.
“You might want to put those on the table against the wall,” she said as she arranged the desserts on the front table. “We don’t want them to know we have a lot of them. They’ll buy faster if they’re afraid we’ll run out.”
“True,” he said, and moved half the pies to the back table. “Are the cupcakes okay?”
“The frosting on two of them got smashed, but the rest are okay,” she said.
“I can eat the damaged ones,” he offered.
She shot him a disapproving glance. “We may have someone desperate enough to buy them,” she said. “We’re trying to make money for the mobile library, not stuff our faces.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we stuff our faces,” Colton said. “I just wanted to stuff mine.”
Stacey rolled her eyes and turned away, but Piper craned her head around to look at him. He couldn’t deny she was cute. She batted her big eyes at him. Colton hid his face in a game of silent peekaboo.
After a few times of peekaboo, Piper let out a gurgling laugh. It was, Colton thought, one of the best sounds in the world. He played peekaboo again, and Piper let out a joyous shriek.
Stacey