by Sandi Scott
They secured the trailer’s load and waited patiently for Ryan. In a few minutes, he was supposed to come by with one of the festival’s electric golf carts and help them pull it back to the van. They weren’t allowed to bring motorized vehicles into the area until after the festival was completely closed for the night in an hour or so, but as a volunteer, Ryan could pull their supply trailer in and out using his electric cart so they could leave a little early.
The festival had grown so fast that it was quickly outgrowing its organization. All kinds of unanticipated issues were cropping up, even though the staff was doing its best to adapt and plan ahead. Ryan had stopped by to report earlier that the organizers had finally agreed with his observation that it would be better to rent more space and have wider aisles the following year so that the vendors could get in and out more easily.
The act at the main tent sounded like they were just about to finish up for the night; a massive cheer arose before another song started. The band would wrap up with one or two encores and then most of the crowd would start to disperse.
“Mon Dieu, where’s Ryan?” Patty said. “We need to get out of here before the roads clog up.”
“He’ll be here as soon as he can, I’m sure.”
At the opposite end of their row of tents—and much nearer—a karaoke singer started up on a version of “I Will Always Love You.” The singing was perfect, and both of them stopped to listen, trying to tune out the loud rockabilly song coming from the other end of the festival.
The end of the karaoke singer’s performance was drowned out by applause coming from the main stage, and Ashley and Patty made faces at each other.
“That singer was amazing,” Ashley said.
“Someone call a record producer,” Patty agreed.
Ashley leaned from side to side, straining to try to see around the crowd inside the karaoke tent and spot the singer on the stage.
Instead, she saw a woman running out of the tent, rudely pushing her way between the other festivalgoers. It was the woman in the teal crocheted cap, and she had tears streaming down her cheeks.
Ashley guessed that the woman—who had spent most of the afternoon pacing outside the tent—had finally worked up the courage to sing only to have everyone completely blown away by the previous singer. She must have lost her nerve. The applause for the other singing was still going on.
“Poor thing,” Ashley said.
The woman in the teal cap was heading toward the mouth of the Colorado River, where a large bonfire had been set up on the beach. Dozens of people were sitting on logs or in folding lawn chairs.
Just then, Ryan drove up in a white festival golf cart, startling her. The electric engine was so quiet that neither she nor Patty had heard him over the sounds of the rockabilly band doing yet another encore number.
“Hello,” he said. “Sorry I’m late. Things are still pretty chaotic around here.”
Without waiting for their response, he backed the golf cart up to their supplies and hooked up the hitch.
“Climb in. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get you out of here before the crowds get out of the big concert, but I’ll do my best!” he said.
Ashley and Patty squeezed into the single bench seat next to Ryan, who threw his arm over Ashley’s shoulder and put the cart into gear, then trundled forward with the cart full of supplies bumping over the thick grass.
“What happened?” Ashley asked.
“What didn’t happen?” he asked, then took a deep breath. “Sorry. Well, first off there have been a number of incidents with dogs.”
“Was someone bitten?”
“Nope. Not a single person. It’s the, uh, other end of the dogs that are the problem. People aren’t picking up after their pets. And then there have been a number of thefts reported. The vendors are reporting thefts from the guests, and the guests are reporting thefts from each other.”
“Thefts from the guests?” Ashley shared a glance with Patty. “Any vendor hit hard in particular?”
“Nope. Most of the reports turned out to be nothing—items that showed up in the lost and found. There might be a couple of shoplifters working the crowd, but mostly they’re taking small items off the vendors’ tables. The organizers have promised to put more security on the festival grounds during the day tomorrow as a deterrent, but…” He shrugged.
They had reached the end of the row of tents and were passing the karaoke tent. Ashley caught a glimpse through the loose flap of the door and saw the last singer, a thin woman with straight blonde hair smiling and waving to the crowd. Sparrow Soulbrother was in there too, smiling and clapping along. She tried to snuggle a little deeper into the crook of Ryan’s arm without being too obvious about it, and he squeezed her shoulder.
“How did sales go?”
Ashley groaned. “Both good and bad.”
He tensed a little. “Oh?”
“We didn’t have anything stolen, thank goodness,” Ashley said. “I mean, maybe a couple of little kids walked off with a cookie that their parents didn’t pay for, but that miiiight have been because Auntie Ashley sneaked them one under the table while winking at their parents. The good news is that we’re both almost completely sold out. I didn’t think the supper rush would be so big… and then they all came back for dessert.”
“That sounds good,” Ryan said.
“Yeah, except for that now I have to stay up all night baking to be ready for tomorrow.”
They had almost reached the parking lot parallel to the bonfire on the beach and were driving around the bonfire to avoid the people and the heat. Ashley wrinkled her nose. Ugh. It was like a skunk had sprayed around here. Two security guards were walking slowly over to the bonfire. A group of people were playing drums in a circle off to the side. Sparrow would fit right in.
As the security guards reached the edge of the crowd, they stood with their arms crossed, shaking their heads. They nodded to each other, and one of them spoke briefly on a walkie-talkie.
The other one bellowed out, “Folks, what do we have here? What is that smell?”
Ryan stopped the cart, grumbling under his breath. “Sorry, ladies, I have to check this out.”
Ashley hopped out of the cart with him and trotted to keep up as he strode toward the beach. Ryan was over six feet tall and had a stride to match. Ashley’s shorter legs had difficulty keeping up with him.
“Patty!” she called back. “Watch the stuff!”
Patty waved in reply, then settled back in the seat. She was familiar with Ashley and her curiosity.
Most of the people on the beach were already leaving quickly—not running, but definitely not hanging around to see exactly what the security guards wanted to do. Another orange-shirted figure was coming quickly toward the bonfire as well. It was the hunky guy Ashley had seen earlier with the woman at the ATM.
Ashley caught up to Ryan just as he and the other volunteer stopped to talk.
The bonfire was blasting them with heat. From the parking lot, a police siren gave a short whoop, and then the police car’s lights came on, throwing red and blue light flashes across the scene.
Both doors opened on the patrol car, and two officers came out and started walking over.
“Well, Coyote,” Ryan said to the other volunteer. “I think this is the perfect ending to a day full of the unexpected, am I right?”
The other man laughed ruefully. “Oh, man. What a day. We need more volunteers. Do we really have to do this all over again tomorrow?”
“We do,” Ryan said.
Ashley said, “You could always stop by our tent tomorrow and pick up some treats. I’m sure there will be some extras for such hardworking, noble citizens as yourself.”
Ryan laughed. “Throw in a cup of coffee and I’m yours.”
Ashley smiled and her heart gave a lurch.
Before she could say anything, Ryan added, “Ashley and her friend Patty are at the Seagrass Sweets tent, Coyote. And you really should take her up on he
r offer—if you don’t mind getting hooked on pastries, that is.”
Coyote straightened up a little and looked at her directly. Because he was between her and the bonfire, his face was completely in shadow. “Ahhhh. You’re the girlfriend. Nice to meet you, Ashley.”
She gaped at him. Ryan had told him that she was his girlfriend? She was caught between shock and delight and embarrassment—her face felt hot, and she knew she must have a completely idiotic look on it.
Coyote held out a hand. She shook it and winced at how hard his grip was.
“Yes,” she almost stammered. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Coyote Johnson. Likewise.” He turned his head to the side, and suddenly Ashley realized that Coyote may be older than his baby face led her to believe; maybe only a year or two younger than Ryan.
Trying to beat down the blush she felt rising in her cheeks, Ashley asked Coyote, “Do you live in Seagrass, or are you just here for the festival?”
“I’m just a visitor, but not for long.” he said. “In fact, if all goes well, I‘ll get a call from the bank this afternoon and then first thing tomorrow morning I’ll be signing the final papers to buy a house over on Meadowview Road where I’ve been renting for a while.”
“Meadowview!” said Ashley, “That’s my street. I bet I know which house you’re buying, too. Is it that, er, quaint little beige bungalow? The one with the chicken curtains?”
She and Dizzy may have walked past the house a few times, surreptitiously peeking in windows and wondering who would be moving in.
“If by quaint you mean small and by beige you mean a formerly white house in dire need a paint job, then yessiree, that’s the one. It’s a fixer-upper, but I’m looking forward to spending a few months doing the handiwork myself. All that’s left is for the bank to approve the loan, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve got my down payment all saved up and ready.” He laughed. “Those chicken curtains, though. They have to go.”
The bungalow was in pretty bad shape; she was happy to see someone like Coyote buying it and fixing it up.
“I can’t say I’ll miss them too much… it’ll be nice to have someone put some TLC into it. And I think you’ll make a great neighbor.” She looked around—the bonfire was abandoned, but the police and the security guards were pointedly looking their way. “I’ll let you two volunteers get back to work. Please do stop by, Coyote, as a thank-you for working with Ryan.”
“Will do, ma’am.”
She started walking back to the parking lot, feeling like everyone was staring at her back. Patty had driven the golf cart over to her van and was unloading their equipment. Ashley walked faster across the sand; the faster she could get there, the sooner she could start helping. She suddenly thought about Dizzy, who she hadn’t seen all day, poor dog.
The orange glow of the fire went out suddenly, and she turned around and saw that Coyote had found a bucket, filled it with sand, and had tossed it on the burning wood. A handful of sparks floated upward, and a few coals still glowed.
She heard Coyote say, “On top of all the thefts we’ve reported, now we have this to deal with, too.” Not exactly sure what “this” referred to, Ashley kept walking across the parking lot to Patty’s van. She could hear a commotion going on behind her. Poor Ryan. He and Coyote were probably going to be up all night.
Patty’s van was parked on the far end of the parking lot; the organizers, in their wisdom, had decided that everyone working at the festival had to park past the last row of streetlights. Ashley rubbed the back of her neck as she walked. On second thought, she was regretting having gone with Ryan to the bonfire—her feet had already started to hurt from being on them all day.
“Why do I do this to myself?” she asked.
Suddenly she heard footsteps behind her. Her heart leapt up into her mouth. It was probably nothing, but Ashley always got jumpy at night when people followed too closely.
She ducked behind an SUV and looked through the windows at the opposite rearview mirror. The figure walking behind her was a woman, somewhat shorter than she was, heavier, too—it was Betty, the cook she had met earlier.
Ashley breathed a sigh of relief and straightened up. She started to step around the SUV to wave at her when she heard Betty spit out a curse, then say, “It’s him. I know it’s him. He’s going to ruin everything and then try to weasel out of it.”
Betty’s voice changed to a whine, “I can hear him already. ‘Oh, Betty, why would I do something like that here? That just brings extra attention on everybody.’”
Ashley blinked in surprise and retreated into the shadows next to the SUV. She realized Betty was talking on her cell phone and edged closer along the SUV to listen.
A second later, Betty snarled, “All right. I’ll find out what’s going on and settle with Sparrow once and for all.” Snapping her phone shut, she muttered, “Where is he?” before suddenly turning to march back toward the festival grounds. Ashley squeezed back into the shadows and tried to make herself small. She didn’t want to get involved with whatever had Betty so upset.
As soon as Betty was out of sight, Ashley shook her head and jogged over to Patty to help reload the truck. Everyone seemed to be on edge and overtired from the hard work of a full day. It was going to be a long night.
3
Ashley stood in line at the local coffee shop, still wearing her sunglasses. Her eyes were burning and dry with fatigue. The night before, she had pulled a lot of extra macaron shells out of the freezer, grateful that she had baked so many of them ahead of time, and filled them quickly. She had replaced the French yogurt cake with her own homemade pound cake, also frozen, but had made another mega batch each of the fresh peach and praline sauces. That left the sour cream chocolate espresso cake, madeleines, and shortbread cookies all to be replaced overnight, however, and she had been sweating buckets by the time she finished up and went home to shower and cuddle Dizzy. She did not have time to decorate all the shortbread cookies with Texas flags, so she had settled for plain white icing and star-shaped jimmies instead.
She had stayed up until about 2 a.m. baking. By the time Ashley went to bed, her mind was too wired to get any rest. When she finally fell into a fitful slumber, it seemed to last only a few minutes before Dizzy was nudging at her face with her snout, her leash dangling from her mouth.
Ashley groaned and got up and dressed, then decided she needed a treat this morning. She was going to go to the local drive-thru coffee shop just past the end of Dizzy’s normal morning-walk route and get a super-mega-strong Americano, the kind that would normally leave her so rattled that she’d start twitching all morning.
She had a feeling she’d need it.
“Hiya, Ashley,” said the barista, a teen girl named Jenny who had a pair of sunglasses on a gold librarian chain around her neck. She was leaning through the window to scratch Dizzy on the head. “A medium Americano? That’s what you usually get when you’ve been up all night baking, right?”
Ashley groaned. “Is it that obvious?”
“I saw your truck at the festival yesterday. Just a good guess.”
“Make it a large, and add an extra shot,” said Ashley. “In fact, make that two extra shots. I need a jolt of energy before the day starts.”
“A large triple Americano coming right up,” Jenny said. “That will be $3.98.”
The owner of the coffee shop, a man who lived in Houston, brought in the shop’s baked goods from someone there. Ashley was working up the nerve to ask him to stock hers instead. In the meantime, she would just keep enjoying their amazing coffee. She handed over her debit card and waited in a kind of tired daze. Dizzy’s tail swished against her leg.
“Uh, sorry, Ashley,” Jenny said. “Your card has been declined. Do you have another?”
That was weird. She was usually fastidious about balancing her accounts and making sure she had enough money to do her weekly spending. However, between the last-minute purchases in preparation for the festival and her fatigue, h
er memories of what she’d bought lately were kind of a blur. She would have to take few minutes today to gather her receipts and total up all her spending over the last few days. In the meantime, she pulled out her credit card. Embarrassed, she added a $3 tip.
In a few minutes, she felt sharper. Able to charge through her day, clearheaded and determined. How long that would last, she didn’t know.
At the festival, everything was set up, and Ashley was overjoyed to look up and see Ryan standing in front of the rows of desserts under their plastic covers, tapping a finger against his chin and slurping noisily from his cup of coffee.
“Hmmmm,” Ryan said. “What’s good?”
“It’s all good,” Ashley said. “Everything I make is pure perfection.”
“You’re just that good, huh?”
Remembering two pans full of shortbread that had burned when she’d dozed off earlier that morning before sunrise, she said, “Or else I just hide the evidence of everything that isn’t.”
Ryan’s blue eyes twinkled with mischief. “Where do you hide the evidence?”
“I eat it.”
“All of it?”
“Mostly.” If peanut butter was involved, she usually tried to slip a piece to Dizzy, plus she took things that weren’t too bad to a local homeless shelter. But where was the fun in telling Ryan that? She patted her stomach and said, “That way I know the evidence has been completely destroyed.”
Ryan chuckled. “What kind of macarons are those?”
“Chocolate, strawberry mint, mango with coconut-lime filling, passion fruit, pistachio, blueberry, and birthday cake,” Ashley recited in a rush. The last ones were yellow with a dollop of icing and multicolored sugar sprinkles.
“You have a dessert that’s flavored like another dessert?”
She grinned. “It was a last-minute inspiration so I wouldn’t have two yellows—those yellow ones with the pink middles are passion fruit. I think I’m going to keep making the cake ones. Whenever kids come by the table, they think it’s the funniest thing ever.”