Page 51 of The Worst Possible Plan

I crouched low, ready to tackle the goat if he didn’t stay still. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was going to this length. It was just a business card. I could probably find Captain Competent’s work number online in under thirty seconds.

But he’d given it to me.

And I wanted it back.

Just as I shifted my weight to lunge, Bandit spat the card onto the hay, deciding it wasn’t nearly as delicious as he’d first thought.

I snatched it up and winced. “Great. Nice job with the goat drool, buddy.” I sighed. “Okay. I can still work with that.” One corner now bore unmistakable goat teeth. A tiny semicircle was missing. I held it up. “It has character now.”

Bandit looked ridiculously pleased with himself.

I pointed the soggy card at him. “If Sheriff Walker asks why his business card has bite marks, I’m absolutely blaming you.”

He wagged his tiny tail and gave one happy little hop.

God, he was cute. “Don’t look so proud of yourself.” I laughed despite myself. “I have a feeling you and I are going to be responsible for a lot of gray hair.”

I looked toward the festival lights again. Today hadn’t been the disaster I thought it would be. The lights were up. The vendors were ready. The animals were safe.

Tomorrow… Tomorrow Maplewood Falls would finally have its Summer Festival.

I smiled. Maybe I could actually do this.

Still grinning like a fool, I slipped Captain Competent’s half-eaten card safely into my back pocket.

Strictly for professional reasons.

My brain laughed.

12

ERIC

Ilost forty-three dollars.

I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. Forty-three dollars wasn’t exactly life-changing money. But that wasn’t the point. If I’d actually been paying attention instead of mentally replaying the last two days, I probably would’ve noticed when I was folding decent hands.

The point was I’d spent half the night thinking about a woman I hardly knew. A woman who seemed to create havoc wherever she went. That threw me off my game.

“Drive safely,” Mike called as I stepped out through the garage side door.

“I always do.” Occupational hazard. The last thing I needed was to get a speeding ticket when I was the one who usually handed them out.

Dave pointed a beer bottle at me. “Don’t let the mysterious woman keep you up.”

“There isn’t a mysterious woman.” There wasn’t. There was just a woman who seemed determined to occupy entirely too much space in my thoughts for someone I’d known less than forty-eight hours.

“There it is again.” Dylan laughed. “The denial.”

I shook my head, climbed into my truck, and pulled away before they could invent another theory. Given another five minutes, they’d probably have us engaged, arguing over baby names, and jointly renovating a farmhouse we’d never bought.

The streets of Maplewood Falls were nearly empty now. Storefronts sat dark and quiet beneath old-fashioned streetlamps, and the little town had settled into the comfortable silence that always came after the tourists went back to their hotels or the inn and the locals finally called it a night.

Most porch lights had gone dark. The cafés were closed. Even the boardwalk had quieted down, save for one young couple walking hand in hand beneath the streetlamps. They moved slowly, completely unconcerned with the time, stopping every few feet like they had nowhere else they’d rather be. I remembered what that felt like once. Or at least I remembered thinking it would last forever.

I turned toward home. My house. My porch. My quiet.

Or at least I intended to.