“So this Kayla,” Rebecca said slowly. “You two have spent a lot of time together?”
“Enough for me to know I’ve met an angel on earth.”
“It sounds to me like there might be more than just a friendship between you two.”
I laughed. “Always the reporter, huh, Rebecca?”
“Always the bachelor, huh, Lukas?”
I chuckled but didn’t answer.
“It’s been good talking to you,” Rebecca said. “We’ll be in touch soon. Say hello to your sister for me.”
We ended the call and I left my spot in the chair to join Kayla on the bed. She didn’t move as the mattress groaned under my knees. I settled down beside her, wrapping her up in my arms and pressing a kiss to her cheek.
She moaned softly and mumbled that it hadn’t been long enough.
“We can stay like this as long as you want,” I whispered.
No part of me wanted to return to the real world after this weekend. Now that my interviews with Rebecca Mills were done, I should be done with my collaboration with Kayla, but I wasn’t ready to give that up.
Or give her up, for that matter.
There was genuine fear in me that if I didn’t work with Kayla anymore, we would start to drift apart. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d fallen in love with her.
Madly in love.
Kayla didn’t need to know my interviews were finished. Not yet. For now, we would exist in our happy little bubble, and we’d move on to whatever the next thing was back in Seattle.
Together.
Chapter 30
Kayla
The college campus had been transformed into a spooky Halloween town for the night of October thirty-first. The lawn in front of the main campus building swirled with low-lying fog that curled in eerie tendrils. Smoke machines had been donated by the college theatre company to use for the special evening and it added that final touch of spook the event had been missing.
Tables and booths were set up with different stations in the Halloween town. One side of the lawn was definitely scarier than the other and tailored toward the older or braver kids. The other side was friendlier with smiling pumpkins, goofy ghouls, and friendly vampires.
Deep purple lights glowed around tables, and orange lights flickered inside carved pumpkins. Halloween music played from speakers mounted on light posts and rigged up by the lighting and sound team from the theatre company, who’d had a huge hand in making this event come to life. Good Fellow’s had worked tirelessly with the students to ensure a night of carefree fun with safe activities, plenty of candy, and good old-fashioned scares.
The turnout was better than I expected.
Over the years, I knew parents had become increasingly less interested in taking their children door to door for old-fashioned trick or treating. There was a lot of trust being placed on strangers on a night like that, whereas at Halloween town, there was accountability. I’d had to pay an insurance company from my non-profit and there was an ambulance parked at the far end of the lawn just to be safe.
I had worked to put this event on for the past six years, and of all of them, this year definitely drew the largest crowd. It was a ticketed event, so proceeds went to Good Fellow’s, but over the years, I’d pretty much barely broke even. This year, with some luck, I’d make some profits.
By seven thirty, we had nearly two hundred kids passing from table to table and participating in games or showing off their courage to their siblings and friends.
Lukas was supposed to arrive any minute, and as I stood in the purple glow cast by one of the tables, I searched the crowd for him. He’d promised to dress up but refused to tell me what his costume was. I’d told him to be on the lookout for a fairy princess.
My ensemble was complete with a pink sparkly dress, glittery fairy wings, and a princess crown. I’d curled my hair the way a princess might and pinned sections of it back. Little bobby pins with flowers were poking out of my locks, and tons of little kids stopped to talk to me and get some pictures. The bottom of my dress was already stained green by the grass from crouching down for so many pictures.
I spotted a man striding through the fog toward me across the lawn as I smoothed out my skirt and waved goodbye to the little girl who’d just stopped with her parents to say hello to me. He was dressed in what appeared to be a pirate costume. He was too far away for me to tell for sure. He walked with a committed swagger and the low-lying smoke on the lawn rippled around his knees. I realized that he was walking straight toward me.
He was ten feet away when I realized the sexy pirate was Lukas.
He flashed me a dashing smile that stretched his cheeks, which were painted dark brown to mimic a beard. “My lady,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “Aren’t ye a pretty lass?”
I giggled. “Oh no, the voice is so bad.”
“Nonsense, ye scallywag!” He pumped his eyebrows before muttering in his usual cadence. “I’m at least selling it, aren’t I?”
“You and I clearly have very different definitions of ‘selling it.’ I will admit though that you look quite handsome.”
He gestured down at himself—at the loose white shirt, the brown vest, the ballooned pirate pants, worn boots, sash, scabbard, and black flag with a white skull and crossbones dangling out of his pocket. “This is what does it for you? Really? Poor hygiene and knee-high boots on a man?”
I nodded earnestly.
