Page 79 of The Hitman’s Final Job

“Too late.” She laughs. “I’ve already told three people. You’ll be busy next year.” She waves a hand at Vaughn. “Take him. He’s been very good, and he deserves a break.”

Vaughn takes my hand. ”Come on.”

He leads me away from Main Street toward a side street two blocks over. Here, the festival noise becomes background and the street is just a street, with houses on both sides, cars parked along the curb.

Vaughn stops between two large trucks parked back to back, and before I can ask what’s going on, he pulls me into a kiss.

His arm comes around my waist and his other hand is on my face. This is the kind of kiss he gives me only at home because it inadvertently leads to only one thing, and that’s not something we can do in our present location.

I want to tell him we should stop, but my brain is offline. I forget everything and kiss him back.

We break apart, breathing harden than after a session at the gym.

“What was that for?”

“Because for now,” he says, “I can.”

For now.

He’s expecting me to leave. I know he is. We agreed on the terms weeks ago, and he’s been counting down to the end of my visit since I said I would stay through the festival on the day I arrived. He thinks I have a few days left because I have to return to work.

He doesn’t know the reason I’m still here has nothing to do with my supposed work and everything to do with the fact that I can’t leave him unprotected and I don’t know who the threat is.

He doesn’t know any of it.

I’m standing between two trucks on a quiet street while the festival continues one block away, and he just kissed me like he’s making the most of the time we have left, and I don’t want to leave.

Because I love his kisses. I love the coffeepot already full by the time I wake up, and love it even more when I get to do that for him. I love the breakfast we have together while I tell him what I’m going to work on in his garden. And I love the wooden bear on the windowsill and the way he says my name in the dark and the fact I have been in love with this man for thirteen years, and I am running out of ways of pretending I can leave.

“Silas,” Vaughn says.

I’ve been quiet for too long.

“Sorry. I was⁠—”

“Thinking.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

He takes my hand, and we walk back toward the festival without him pressing. I just hope he doesn’t feel the same way about me as I do about him, because I’ll figure out a way to handle my heartbreak, but I don’t think I’ll live knowing his heart is broken too.

The prizes for the giant pumpkin competition will be announced at the main stage in the town square.

The crowd is enormous, and the sun setting behind the mountains washes the scene in golden light. Every contestant has been working toward this for months, tending to their beloved pumpkins.

Tess and Clayton are near the front, holding hands.

Kai and Atlas are right next to David and Mark. Teresa and Emilio Navarro are here too, and I spot Priya and Dom, who wave at us.

The Knot Today women—without their only gent tonight—are all in a row, still with their clipboards in hand. While the giant pumpkin competition is the big event of the festival, the winner of the dick competition must also be announced.

The person who steps up to the mic is a man who looks like he takes this competition—or any competition—far too seriously. I wonder if he’s in anyway related to Chris. He starts his speech, building to the announcement with the ceremony that the moment deserves. The finalists are named, and the weights are announced. The crowd responds to each number with growing energy.

“And the winner of the Pine Ridge Pumpkin Festival Giant Pumpkin Competition”—he holds the pause, and the tension in the crowd ratchets up a notch—“is Brenda, grown by Clayton Briggs of Briggs Farm.”

The crowd erupts with unrestrained enthusiasm. Tess and Clayton are frozen in shock for a moment before they hug each other, Clay picking up his wife and twirling her around before setting her down and planting a kiss on her lips.

Vaughn is clapping beside me, as proud of Clay as if he’d grown Brenda himself, which, considering Brenda grew on his soil, Vaughn has at least godfather rights.