“The need to compete is hardwired into some people, isn’t it? So, what can I do to help get things ready?”
“You’ve already done the important part,” Hope said, nodding toward the prize tables, now empty but for the Tupperware carrier holding Maggie’s cake. “There’s not much else to do. Jack and Gabe are bringing adult-sized chairs from the cafeteria.”
“Don’t you think it would be much more fun to use kindergarten chairs?”
“I think this might be physical enough as it is,” Hope replied ruefully. She walked to her desk and pulled a blue bank bag from a drawer. “Would you like to collect our entry fee from our participants?”
“I’d be delighted to do that. I get particular joy accepting money from my children, considering it’s so often been the other way around.” Maggie accepted the bank bag, then asked, “So, what music have you chosen for this battle to come? The theme from
“Closer to
“Excuse me?”
“Rocky the Squirrel. Or maybe Alvin and the Chipmunks?”
Maggie clasped a hand to her chest. “Not the Chipmunks. Please, not that.”
“What about ‘It’s a Small World’? ‘The Barney Song’?”
The horror on Maggie’s face coaxed another laugh out of Hope. “Don’t worry. I haven’t decided just how annoying I want to be. Considering it’s a thousand bucks, perhaps I should be nice.”
At that point, Gabe, Jack, and Colt arrived with chairs. The rest of the players soon followed, one of them a newcomer to town, Richard Steele. As Maggie introduced her contractor to Hope and the others whom he’d yet to meet, Hope heard Gabi tease, “Mom, you must be overpaying him if he’s going to pop a hundred bucks to lose a cake.”
He flashed Gabi a challenging grin and said, “I smelled this cake baking all day. I’m motivated. Prepare to lose, Gabriella.”
Gabi sniffed with disdain, then handed over her ticket fee—an IOU since she never carried much cash—to her mother and took a place in front of a chair. Once the field was positioned, she remained the only woman.
Celeste Blessing, who had slipped into the room with some of the players’ wives, observed, “Be still my heart. What a breathtaking collection of men.”
“A lot of good it does me,” Gabi said. “They’re all either married or related to me.”
“Richard isn’t married,” Maggie said.
Something in her tone caught Hope’s ear, but she didn’t have time to figure out what it was because after taking a look at the men who were busy ribbing and challenging one another, she decided to change her music selection. She handed a piece of paper to Celeste and asked, “Celeste, would you read the rules for us while I cue the music?”
“Rules?” Colt Rafferty asked. “There are rules? What fun is that?”
“This is a kindergarten class,” Celeste responded. “Of course there are rules. I’ll have you know that I competed in the Musical Chairs World Championship two years ago.”
“The what?” Lucca asked.
“Shut up and listen,” Zach shot back. “I want to win my cake and take it home. I’m hungry.”
Celeste read the rules, which included such items as “There shall be no use of hands, arms or shoulders to forcefully obtain a chair, save a chair, or force another player out of a chair,” and “Only one person per chair,” and since this was, after all, a kindergarten class, “No biting.”
Once Celeste finished, Hope said, “Is everybody ready?”
The contestants nodded.
Hope smiled, “Begin walking once the music starts to play. May the best man—or woman—win.”
She clicked the Play button on her classroom sound system and the first measures of the Weather Girls’ “It’s Raining Men” blasted from the speakers.
As one, the men in the room groaned. The women laughed and cheered.
What followed was the closest thing to a brawl that Hope’s classroom had ever seen, but even as the men pushed, jostled, elbowed, and shoved, they laughed—and told their women to stop the blasted singing. The Romano siblings fought a good fight. Gabi lasted several rounds, primarily because nonfamily members hesitated when it came to shoving her around, and she took advantage of it. Her brothers weren’t that nice, and a hip shove from Zach put her out of the game.
Eventually, motivation, a little luck, and quick-as-a-minute reflexes produced a winner. To the victor, Richard Steele, went the Italian creme cake.
Afterward, Hope found Maggie Romano crying in the ladies’ room. “Maggie? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just … oh my.” Maggie tugged a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped her eyes. “Lucca laughed. Really laughed. Did you see that?”
“I did.” Hope had been hard-pressed to drag her gaze away from him.
“It’s been so long. I’m glad … so glad … that my family discovered Eternity Springs.”
Hope considered Maggie’s words as she exited the school a little while later to make the short but chilly walk home. Discovering Eternity Springs had been a blessing for her, too. This town had provided her refuge and given her friends. It brought laughter back into her life when she’d thought she’d lost that joy forever.
A form stepped from the shadows. Lucca asked, “Mind a little company on the walk home?”
Her heartbeat kicked up its pace. “That would be nice.”
“Good. Because I have a bone to pick with you.” He fell in beside her. “Disco? Really?”
A smile teased her lips, but she didn’t respond.
“If someone had bet me six months ago that I’d be playing musical chairs with a bunch of grown men while my mother and sister sang along to a bad dance tune at the top of their lungs I’d have called him crazy. That had to be the weirdest thing I’ve seen since I spied the big orange lizard puffing up for the lady lizards on a tree branch in Honduras.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t win.”
He snorted. “Which brings me to my bone. You got it wrong, Madam Judge. My cheek hit that seat ahead of the handyman’s.”
“I call ’em as I see ’em.”
“You have a lot of experience watching men’s butts?”
“It’s a pastime I can appreciate.”
“Pretty risque statement for a kindergarten teacher.”
“Hey, I’m not all apples and ABCs.”
“Don’t I know it,” he drawled, and the sound of it sent little shivers racing up her spine.
Hope didn’t know why after weeks of ignoring her he’d suddenly shown up and started flirting. She knew she probably shouldn’t let him get by with it, but both his laughter and his mother’s tears had gotten to her. That, and she empathized with him. Wounded souls needed time to heal.
Besides, he was hot, and she was lonely. Basking in his attention for the length of a five-minute walk home didn’t mean she had “doormat” tattooed across her forehead.
“So did you break your fund-raising record?” he asked.
“By a mile.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
The night’s weather called for a brisk walk, but instead, the two of them strolled toward their homes. In the eastern sky, a near-full moon rose above the mountaintops and lit the street in a silvery glow. They walked half a block and were almost to her front walk when she asked, “Have you been doing any stargazing lately?”
“Not much. I’ve put in long workdays at Aspenglow prepping for winter. Now that the cake-stealing contractor is in town, I’ll have more time. So, you want to go to dinner Friday night?”
Stepping up onto the curb, Hope tripped. Lucca’s arm shot out to steady her. “Did you just ask me on a date?” she asked.
Hope felt herself blush. Had she just blurted out that question? How embarrassing.
“I did.”
Apparently, her out-of-control mouth wasn’t done because she stupidly continued, “But … why? You haven’t
