by Sosie Frost
“Can you?” He looked away. “You talk to that zoning lady?”
I tensed. “Yeah.”
“Is she giving you the barn?”
“Nope.”
“So what the hell happened?”
I sighed. No sense lying. “I fucked her.”
Tidus stared at me. “Jesus Christ. You do realize you’re the luckiest son of a bitch in this damn family, right?”
Yeah, I’d heard that before. But it wasn’t like fucking Micah would spontaneously heal a busted back and plunk a barn onto the property. Especially now that I needed to prevent the meeting from starting.
It was easier to get into the woman’s panties than to save them.
The crowd grew restless. Dave waved his flag and shouted at Bonnie Horsden, the only member of the council who could still hear, and yet even she ignored her brother.
“It ain’t right!” Dave called to her. “Bonnie-Mae, you know that ain’t right. A man’s gotta defend his property. It’s why we fought the Brits four hundred years ago!”
“Sit down, Davie.” Bonnie waved a hand. “No one’s taking your birdfeeders.”
“Pry ‘em from my cold dead hands!” Bobbie Franklin roared, heaving his girth up and his chair back. It crashed into Mrs. Miller’s casted leg, still recovering from the mishap at the library’s Martial Arts Wednesday. “Ain’t no city-slicker gonna tell me who I can feed in my backyard!”
Raymond Adamski agreed, though his enthusiasm might have been exaggerated by the swig from his flask. At least he didn’t hiccup as he shouted at the mayor. “This is tyranny! Tyranny has come to Butterpond wrapped in suet!”
Tidus grinned, elbowing me before calling out. “Heard they’re gonna take bird baths too!”
This incited the crowd into a mouth-foaming frenzy.
“You’re gonna start a riot,” I said.
Tidus checked his phone. “Good, take the streets and hit Renegades on the way to Barlow’s grocery store. Let loose the birdfeed.”
Mayor Desmond didn’t have a gavel. He pounded a shoe then tossed it at Councilman Rasiola as he fell asleep in his chair.
“People!” Desmond shouted. “Look. We’re not discussing birdfeeders tonight. The issue is tabled.”
“Shouldn’t be an issue!” Dave held up his constitution. “We have rights!”
“If you check the agenda, we’re talking Sawyer County Fair tonight,” Desmond said. “Okay? No birdseed. Just the festival!”
“Bad news.” The Widow Barlow tapped her cane against the floor and shivered despite her thick shawl and the thermostat set to ninety goddamned degrees. “That fair, those carnie folks…”
“Agatha,” Desmond sighed. “The festival workers are here every year.”
“Yeah. They come in…and more people leave with them.” The old lady creaked in her chair, surveying the crowd with eyes shadowed by glaucoma. “They’re taking the children.”
Desmond sunk his head into his hands. “No one is kidnapping children at the county fair.”
“Kids go missing, Mayor! Every year!”
“Which kids, Agatha? We go through this every September. Which kids are missing?”
“All those runaways, snatched up by the carnie folk. It’s not right. Dangerous.”
“Don’t you think I’d know if kids went missing?” Desmond pointed at Sheriff Samson. “Tell her, sheriff. For Christ’s sake—every damn time we hold this fair…”
Sheriff Samson leaned close to his microphone, tapped the bulb until it shrieked with feedback, and then addressed the widow.
“To my knowledge, no children have been kidnapped by the carnies at the county fair.”
“Oh, you know…” Agatha pointed a wavering finger at him. “You know. Hiding the truth!”
Tidus shouted out. “First the birdfeeders! Now the kids?”
And the audience began anew, launching to their feet in outrage. I patted his shoulder.
“Think you can keep ‘em whipped up for me?” I asked.
“Got nothing else to do.”
“Good.”
I kept to the wall, searching the crowd as a frantic Micah darted into the meeting hall. She huddled close to the dais as a hail of constitutions pelted her feet. She caught my gaze, gesturing with a tense shrug as she aimed for the pile of folders meticulously stacked in the center of the podium.
In full view of the entire town.
“Why are we so worried about carnies?” Rachel McTillerson leapt to her feet, grabbing Micah’s arm before she could reach the files. “I talked with Ms. Robinson two weeks ago about my booth at the fair. Yet there she is—Betsy Debois! Still claiming that she will be the representative for Itsy Bitsy Glitzy Charms and Accessories, when clearly, my application was filed first!”
“I’ve had that booth for years, Rachel!” Betsy hustled up the aisle to claim her rightful place, smack-dab at the bottom of the pyramid scheme. “I am the official Itsy Bitsy Glitzy Charms and Accessories vendor for Sawyer County!”
“Well, look out world…” Rachel had gained confidence after the birth of her second child. Her husband, Frank, tenderly beckoned her back to her seat with a polite murmur. “Momma’s got mouths to feed and charms to sell!”
I edged towards the double doors, sneaking out into the hall as a few stragglers hurried into the meeting.
Mayor Desmond attempted to separate the women without squirting them with his water bottle.
“Last I heard,” he said. “The festival grounds were a thriving feral cat colony.”
Micah’s professional authority rang through the raging voices, quieting those bickering from their seats. “The County Fair Committee’s focus this week is on clearing the cats and signing all vendors who want to be a part of the festivities.”
Tidus started shit with the wrong woman. “She hates birds and cats!”
“Yeah!” Dave waved his flag with a new vigor. “Micah Robinson—bird hater!”
The crowd roared with a new enthusiasm. We were never getting our barn.
Fuck it. I had a clear shot for the fire alarm. I went for it, slamming the handle and stepping aside as the alarm system clattered an old metal bell and blended it with an ear-piercing siren.
The windows shook. The floor rumbled.
And one hundred elderly, drunk, and patriotic townsfolk stampeded from the meeting room in a blind panic.
The doors flung open, and canes smacked into knee caps. The meeting packed into the narrow hallway funneling to the exit. A stream of foaming carbon dioxide bubbled over the screaming residents as a toasted Raymond Adamski had found an unattended fire extinguisher and presumed to help.
The fire extinguisher sent a plume of frost into the air, terrifying the old ladies who nearly tripped over torn flags as they clamored for the exit. A fight broke out on the sidewalk. Representatives from the Itsy Bitsy Glitzy Charms and Accessories Company gouged eyes and yanked hair to declare their booth’s rightful station at the fair.
All-in-all, one of Butterpond’s more productive meetings.
I winced as someone clawed my arm, more nails than fingers. Micah jerked me down the hall and tossed me into her office. I grinned as she slammed the door.
“Let’s see ‘em,” I said. “I think I deserve a quick flash.”
“I’ll do no such thing.”
Micah shoved the cinnamon red panties into her purse with a shattering sigh. Her chair caught her as she plunked down, though she made a face as she attempted to cross her legs, a messy reminder of our indiscretions.
She clenched her jaw. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
This meeting had been more pleasurable than most. “Just offering my services for round two.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“And you’re already out of your panties.”
“No thanks to you.”
A source of pride. I smirked. “I created a distraction.”
“Yeah…” Micah snuck a peek out of her window and glanced over the crowds lining the sidewalk. “A
nd you only committed a felony to do it.”
“Any worse than what we committed before?”
“That was lunacy, not a crime.”
I surrendered. “Fine. Look. I saved your job. Now give me my barn.”
Micah spun, her eyes wide. Disbelieving. “Are you kidding me?”
“We had a bargain.”
“You heard them out there! They hate me!”
“Only because you hate birdfeeders. Apparently.”
“It’s a long…very frustrating story involving a Hitchcockian amount of crows. But it’s not important. You want to know the truth?” She met my gaze, the ice fracturing for only a moment. “I’m not going to last in Butterpond long enough for you to get your barn. The people hate me.”
“Why don’t you treat them like you treated me earlier?”
“With distain?” Micah dared me to correct her. “You have no idea how hard my job is, cowboy. Zoning law automatically makes me the bad guy. But here? I’m worse. No one likes me. No one understands my job. No one sees my vision for the community. And suddenly, the entire County Fair preparation falls into my lap.”
“To be fair…” I shrugged. “I don’t think anyone actually goes to the fair.”
She wagged a finger. “Exactly my point. And exactly what I can do to save my job. I want to throw the absolute best county fair this town has ever seen. That way, I can show Butterpond that I care and that it’s worth keeping me for the next four years until my life plan dictates I need to find a better position. Do you understand?”
“I still don’t get this life plan—”
“This fair has to go well.” She bit her lip. “And you are just the man to help me.”
Oh shit. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You! Julian Payne! Everyone in this town worships you. You’re the golden boy. The one all the women want their daughters to marry. The son all the fathers wished they’d had.”
Where the hell was she getting her information?
I’d been popular maybe five, ten years ago. But that was when I was on my way to college with a full-ride and professional prospects for a future football career. Two slipped discs later, and I’d gone from golden boy to black and blue, struggling to find enough money to keep the farm alive and to provide for my family.
“You can help me,” she said. “And I can help you.”
“How?”
“If you help me with the fair—volunteer and set up booths and deal with vendors and convince the townspeople to come—I will get you the barn.”
She held her hand out for me to shake. I knew better than to take it.
“We already fucked,” I said. “Now you want a shake?”
“I’m offering you an agreement.”
A nice try. “No. You’re extorting me.”
Micah stiffened. “You nearly got me fired.”
“You’re the one who lost the panties.”
“You’re the one who took them off!”
“You’re the one who wanted it!”
“And you’re the animal who gave it!” She swore and turned away. “Fine. Forget it. I can’t believe I thought I could work with you.”
“I never said I wouldn’t do it.”
She stopped, eyebrow rising. “You mean you’ll help?”
“Look, princess. I’ll do whatever the hell you want if it gets me my barn.” My cock twitched again. “I’ll even do you again if you want.”
Micah shook her head, her hips, her everything. “I would rather forget that happened.”
“I’m not easy to forget.”
“You’re out of my mind already.”
She turned to the door, but her legs awkwardly shifted, slick with both of our mess. I laughed, catching her arm before she could get away.
“You can try to forget, but this night is going to stay with you forever.” I drew her close, amazed by how easily her body slid against mine, how readily her lips parted for me, how hard I grew for her. “You’re gonna be begging for me, night after night.”
“After the fair, I’m never going to think of you again.”
“Pretend to deny it, princess.” I denied her a kiss we both craved. “I don’t like you. You don’t like me. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be professional.”
“I am always professional.”
My fingers drifted down, brushing her soft, messy slit with a smirk. She jerked away, but not before stretching the material of her skirt further down her thighs.
“Just do me one favor?” I rapped the door before I left. “When we work this fair, remember to wear some panties.”
5
Micah
The thought of Julian Payne got me wet. But actually seeing him?
Made me nauseated.
Of course, after he’d arrived twenty minutes late to the county fairgrounds, he also pissed me off. Hardly believed his excuse.
“This?” Julian shouted from across a field of ragweed so thick it violated the Geneva Convention’s articles of biological warfare. “These are your fairgrounds?”
Like his fields were any better. “You’re late.”
“I had to park in a stream. All the spaces on the vertical cliff were taken.”
Sure. Complain about the teensy-weensy little floodplain. Just because it had the potential to randomly flash flood and deluge the field didn’t necessarily mean it would wash away the festival, destroy everyone’s vehicles, and accidentally drown three traveling circus elephants. As far as I could tell, that’d only happened once.
Besides, the biggest problem with the fair wasn’t the potential to flood or the weaponized allergies. The feral cat colony was a more pressing concern. A herd of wild, untamed cats had transformed the field into a giant litter box, and they were not at all pleased by our meager intrusions of one large tent, fifteen volunteers, and a representative from Byron and Sons Carnival Union. At least the cats could rest easy. I’d worked the committee for over a month, and we’d finalized absolutely no plans. According to the committee, the festival always just seemed to come together.
Well, this year? It had to be perfect.
Music. Booths. Games. Rides. Events. Awards. Shows.
Everything.
Because I didn’t have a choice.
If the fair wasn’t a success, my chances of staying employed were nil. And while my father had offered me a job—the same job that had driven me to pursue a career in government—I never thought I’d be desperate enough to plead for Julian Payne’s help.
Hell, never thought I’d be able to face him again.
Not after that night. Not after that sex. Not after the most mind-shattering orgasm of my life.
And he knew it too.
Julian greeted the committee with a one-dimpled smile and that country boy charm, no doubt just to make me squirm. Did he have to play the cowboy part so well? The ass-hugging Wranglers and bicep-squeezing t-shirt fit him perfectly.
How dare the bastard look so damn good.
And of course, the committee loved him.
Everyone did.
Darla Kaslovski would have strangled herself on her girdle for a chance to pull him into a hug. She left a splotch of thick crimson lipstick on his cheek and gave his ass a slap as he slid into the committee’s circle.
“Oh, Jules, your momma would be so proud of you right now.” Darla patted her chest. I wished she’d keep her hand there. The sixty-something woman seemed to prefer shirts she’d found on the junior’s rack—which, coincidentally, never seemed to cover her own. “I remember your momma. Elizabeth always loved the fair.”
“Yeah.” Julian attempted to wipe the lipstick away but only smeared it more. This earned Darla’s wandering thumb, squeaky-cleaning the stain from his skin. “But our family usually had animals involved.”
Tony Pescaramo, a parks board member since before the fairgrounds had grass…and the rest of the world dirt…patted Julian on the shoulder. “You’ll get there. I remember when your grandfather lost half of
his cattle.”
“To what?” Darla asked.
Tony chuckled. “Just lost them. In the barn one day, gone the next.”
Julian nodded. “Yeah, Grandad liked his drink. Hid most of the moonshine in the hayloft.”
“Must have been why the barn burned so quick,” Tony laughed.
Most everyone in the town knew something of the Paynes’ situation that I did not. I’d gathered as much as I could from the gossip that didn’t involve midnight liaisons. Julian’s parents were dead, leaving behind a non-functioning farm and one pain in the ass son attempting to rebuild. Apparently, Julian had been some sort of sports…ball…star too. Not that I understood anything about football, but after living in Ironfield, it was expected that a girl absorb some sort of archaic football knowledge. Julian would have fit in well with the gorgeous men on the Rivets, but an injury had ended his career.
Shame. He’d probably looked good in a uniform.
I gathered the rest of the committee to begin the meeting, but my stomach had divebombed to my feet. The sun prickled my skin. The business dress was not meant for sweat.
Was I the only one dying in the heat?
“Now that we’re all finally here…” I said. “Maybe can get started before we melt?”
Julian offered no sympathy. “What’s the matter, princess? That big bright ball in the sky bothering you?”
No, but he was bothering me. “I’ll be fine.”
“See what happens when you step outside?” He breathed deep, sneezed from the ragweed, and accepted a bottle of water from Darla.
“Ah, yes,” I said. “You can keep your great outdoors, cowboy.”
“I don’t mind it.” Those green eyes flashed with mischief. “But your office is a hell of a lot more fun.”
I knew he’d be trouble, but I didn’t realize he’d start it so quick. I stiffened, but Darla interceded, her voice low.
“Let’s take a little break, Micah,” she said.
I groaned. “We haven’t even started yet.”
“Let’s get everyone some water first. Why don’t you take Jules on a tour of the grounds? Show him what needs doing.” She nudged me with an elbow that somehow had a double chin. “He’s single, you know.”