Page 25 of The Worst Possible Plan

Lola pointed a finger at me. “You did. I can see it. Why, you little flirt.”

“Here you go,” came Dottie’s voice, just as a plate landed in front of me.

Scrambled eggs. Bacon. Toast. Home fries. Enough food to feed a family of four.

I stared. “I can’t eat all this.”

Dottie nodded, pushing the plate closer. “You can.”

I looked down at the plate. “You know… I think I might actually surprise myself.” After all, I’d only fed my stomach fermented grapes last night.

Movement caught my eye, and I looked over to see Sarah walking toward us, carrying a stack of fresh towels against one hip before stopping when she spotted me.

Sarah smiled at me. “The woman who survived the Great Goat Uprising of Maplewood Falls.”

I pointed my fork at her. “It’s been less than twelve hours and people are already giving the incident a title?” Wow. I wasn’t even sure I’d emotionally processed it yet, and somehow the town had already moved on to branding. Give them another day and there’d probably be commemorative T-shirts.

“Apparently, it was very memorable,” Sarah added with a smile.

I shrugged. “It was traumatic.” I took another bite of eggs.

Sarah laughed as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “So…” she said casually, standing next to our table. “How’s festival planning?”

I chewed thoughtfully, mostly because chewing gave me extra time to invent something that sounded optimistic. “I’d say we’re making excellent progress.”

Lola smirked. “That’s what I told Leo last night after round three.”

I sighed. “I now know significantly more about livestock than I did this time yesterday.”

“Well, that’s good. Right?” said Sarah.

“I know alpacas get emotionally attached alarmingly fast.” I shrugged. “One basically decided we were in a committed relationship after fifteen minutes.”

Dottie nodded. “They do.” She said it with confidence as though confirming the weather.

Sarah smiled over the rim of her mug. “You’ll laugh about it someday.”

I doubted it. “I’d prefer someday to arrive after the festival.” Preferably several weeks after.

Then Sarah asked, just a little too innocently, “Did Sheriff Walker help?”

My fork paused halfway to my mouth, and I could feel more flush rising up from my neck to my face. Wonderful. My skin had decided to answer for me. “Why?”

Sarah shrugged, but her smile betrayed her. “No reason.”

“They had passionate sex,” said Lola, grinning. “He took her in the back of his truck.”

Oh. My. God.

I looked around the dining room on instinct, half convinced one of the guests had heard her. This woman was going to be the reason I developed high blood pressure before forty.

“You did?” Sarah was smiling although the twitch at the corner of her mouth told me she knew exactly what Lola was doing.

“Ha. Ha. No. Absolutely not,” I said quickly, my face flaming. “The closest we came to intimacy was wrestling the same goat. Which, now that I’ve said it out loud, somehow sounds worse.”

Lola arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “But you wanted to wrestle him. Didn’t you? You big ol’ slut.”

I was not going to answer that. Mostly because any answer would be the wrong answer. Also because my brain, the traitor, had already started replaying Captain Competent in that fitted sheriff’s polo again.