26. Jasper
JASPER
I tried dialing the last number I had for my older brother. A recorded voice came on the line saying it had been disconnected. Colin had to be the one who’d left those dogs in the barn. But why?
If what my dad read in the paper that morning had any merit to it, the dog-fighting ring Bodie had been chasing around for the past couple of years might be closer than we thought.
And I had a fairly good idea how to find out for sure.
The whole way back to the barn, I tried to figure out how to handle it.
I needed things to go well tonight. For Lacey, for Ido, for my family. There was no guarantee Colin would be back for the dogs soon. Maybe we’d make it through the Fall Festival, and I could confront my brother tomorrow. Once Delilah was safely on her way back to Dallas.
But if I knew my brother at all, I had a sinking feeling in my gut that whatever Colin had planned for those dogs would be happening tonight.
Like Dad said, there would be plenty of people around for the festival, so if there was something happening with the dogs, it would be hard to tell with all the extra activity.
I couldn’t let him get away with it. Colin had done nothing but lie, steal, and cheat. I had looked the other way once and it had cost me. I didn’t have a choice but to try to get to my brother before someone else did.
Abby wasn’t in her room when I got back to the house.
She’d be performing later on that afternoon and had probably already left for practice.
I searched through her drawer for the old phone I’d given her.
Mom and Dad wouldn’t let her have one of her own yet, so I’d taken out the SIM card and let her use it for apps.
She’d loaded an app that could track her device, and I synced it with my own phone. It would have been much easier asking Bodie for help, but I couldn’t afford the risk.
I headed back to the barn, a tiny part of me hoping that Colin had come back for the dogs in the short time I’d been gone. Then I could let myself off the hook, tell myself I’d tried but it was too late.
But there they were. I wasn’t sure what kind of temperament they might have so I picked the one that looked to be the friendliest and opened up the cage. The dog let out a low growl, its ears flattening against its head.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” I held out a cookie I’d grabbed on my way through my mom’s kitchen.
The dog sniffed at it. After a few good whiffs of my mama’s homemade snickerdoodle, the pup gave it a lick. As it cautiously nibbled, I secured the old phone to the inside of the plastic kennel. Odds were, my plan wouldn’t work. But I had to try.
“I wish I had something for all of you.” I broke off several small bites of cookie and handed them out to the other dogs. “Don’t worry. I’m going to get you out of this mess. Just hang tight until later tonight, okay?”
With phase one of my plan complete, I stood, brushed off my jeans, and headed back to my truck. No matter what my asshole brother was up to, I needed to show Delilah the time of her life tonight. I had to secure the win.
Two hours later I’d checked in with my brothers, changed into a nicer pair of jeans, and was letting my gaze drift over the gorgeous woman in the seat next to me.
She wore her sash over a deep red dress that matched the color of her lips.
I hadn’t been able to keep my eyes off her, even almost drove us off the road when she’d pulled my hand into her lap and tangled her fingers with mine.
“You ready for this?” I held her door while she climbed out of the truck. The smell of apple turnovers and simmering apple cider reached my nose.
“What’s that smell?” She turned her nose in the air and inhaled.
“That’s the scent of Ido’s Fall Festival. Get ready to have your senses overloaded. Do you want to start with apples or pumpkins?”
“What does that mean?” She wrinkled her nose, making her eyes crinkle at the edges.
“There are two schools of thought around town. You love fall for either the apples or the pumpkins. Before we go any further, I’m going to need to know which side you’re on.” It might sound ridiculous to an outsider, but that’s the way we’d celebrated in Ido for as long as I could remember.
“Which side are you on?” Her brow furrowed like she was afraid of making the wrong decision.
“I can’t tell you that.” I smiled as she rubbed her lips together.
“Apple strudel is the best. But I can’t imagine Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie.”
I lifted a shoulder. “What’s it going to be?”
“I don’t know. Can I try a little bit of everything and give you an answer at the end?”
“Why not?” I directed her to the first tent, where Jojo had set up a table holding several types of muffins, cakes, and breads.
“Help yourself to samples.” Jojo pointed to the handwritten signs. “I’ve got pumpkin bread, mini apple turnovers, and much more.”
Delilah took a sample of each. “Thank you.”
Then she moved onto the next table, where she picked up a pumpkin spice cookie and a cup of spiced cider. “You didn’t tell me the festival was all about eating.”
“How else will you figure out if you’re team pumpkin or team apple?” I joked.
She was giving the question her full consideration. I could tell by the way she evaluated the samples from each table. She’d take a bite, pause, chew, pause, swallow, pause. Then repeat the process all over again.
After we’d visited the food vendors, we made our way to the activity area. Kids and adults carved pumpkins donated by Milkweed Farms while others engaged in a friendly match of pumpkin bowling.
“I helped with that.” Delilah pointed to where Lucas guided Maggie to roll the pumpkin toward the pins. When her pumpkin didn’t knock any down, she toddled over and kicked them.
“That’s my niece.” I let out a whistle. “Way to go, Mags!”
“Are you going to win me something?” Delilah tucked her arm through mine.
I should have pulled away, but I enjoyed the way her hand felt on my arm, the way I could catch that heady scent of lemons and sunshine when the slight breeze blew past her hair.
“What should we play?” I evaluated the options. “How about knocking the milk jugs off the stand?”
“Let’s see it.” She dropped my arm as we neared the tent.
I handed over the cash and the kid behind the table—Jojo’s oldest son—passed me three beat-up softballs. The first one went wide, and the second one knocked the bottle over, but not off the stand.
“So close.” Delilah groaned next to me.
I fired the last one toward the bottle and it slid to the edge of the platform before tumbling to the ground.
“You did it!” Delilah jumped up and down, her excitement contagious.
The kid brought over the basket of prizes . . . some trinkets the town probably inherited when the stationery and imports business shut down.
“This one.” Delilah held up a cheap silver-tone chain that had a butterfly dangling from the center.
“You know that’s probably going to turn your neck green.”
“I don’t care.” She leaned close. “It’s going to remind me of you.”
Warmth spread through my limbs, like I’d just taken a shot of whiskey that burned through my veins.
“Can you help me put it on?” She held her hair up and turned her back toward me.
My fingers fumbled with the tiny clasp but somehow, I managed to secure it.
“Thank you. Now, what do you think?” She spun to face me, her eyes reflecting the same king of emotion I felt toward her.
“I think you look beautiful.” I wanted to lean down and capture her mouth with mine. But I couldn’t. Not here. Not now. “You ready for the big surprise?”
“Can’t wait.” She let me lead her past the edge of the tents toward the tunnel two of my brothers had installed. One of them had used pink chalk to draw a series of hearts down the sidewalk. “What’s that?”
“Read what it says,” I prompted.
Delilah stepped close to the front of the tunnel, where a framed note was attached. “‘Welcome to the Pucker-Up Path.’ Did you have something to do with this?”
I checked to make sure no one was around, then wrapped my hand around hers. “You have to follow the hearts to find out where your next kiss will take place.”
“Really?”
I took a few steps, then tugged on her hand to get her to move closer. “Come here. This is the Pucker-Up Path picture spot number one. We’re supposed to grab a selfie, then hash tag it and post on the town’s page.”
“You up for it?” She held out her phone.
“You’re not going to post it, are you?”
“Of course not. But that doesn’t mean I can’t take them for me.” She stood in the middle of the tunnel, the twinkling lights making the highlights in her hair shimmer and the rhinestones on her tiara sparkle. “Pucker up, Jasper.”
As we touched lips, I forgot I was standing in the middle of the Fall Festival. I forgot all about the rule of not kissing in public. And whatever trouble my brother had gotten himself into was the farthest thing from my mind.
Until my phone buzzed in my back pocket. The makeshift tracker I’d installed in one of the dog crates had just moved.
Delilah
“I’ve got to go.” Jasper backed away, a smear of red lipstick on his lips.
“What do you mean you’ve got to go?” I squinted at him through a warm curtain of desire. The tunnel, the thousands of sparkly twinkle lights . . . the man couldn’t have picked a more romantic place to take me on my last night in town.
“I’m sorry. Something’s come up with one of my brothers.”
“Is everyone okay? Let me come with you.”
He peeled my hand off his arm and gave it a squeeze. “Not this time. I’ll be back before you know it. I’ve still got to take you on the rest of the Pucker-Up Path.”
“But . . .” Something was off. If one of the boys was hurt, he wouldn’t even bother with an explanation, we’d already be in the truck, heading to whatever crisis had come up.
I knew him well enough by now to tell that family came first with him, no matter what.
If he was willing to walk away from the biggest night we’d shared, whatever was going on had to be serious.