Page 8 of Second Chance for the Grump

“Yes, but…” I turned, ready to argue why our presence was necessary at the fall festival, but my sentence cut off as I got my first look at her. It took my eyeballs a few seconds to process, and then my brain worked to catch up. “Maisey.”

She grinned and spun in a circle. The black tulle made her skirt swish around her. “Isn’t it adorable?”

The woman who, moments earlier, I’d declared as the love of my life—confessed in my head only—wore all black, from a long sleeve black shirt to her fluffy black tulle skirt. She had a black cauldron in one hand and a big floppy black witch hat in her other hand.

“You’re a witch.”

Her grin grew. “Yeah, but a good one. You can tell because my skirt is happy.”

She gave her body another twist and ran her hand over the tulle.

“You’re a happy witch?” Was that a thing?

Maisey nodded. “For the kids, you know. We don’t want to scare them.”

“Wait, there’s going to be kids? Where?”

Maisey raised her hands and let out a deep sigh. “At the fall festival. That’s where all the kids hang out today.”

“But why do we have to be around the children?” Her earlier details were spotty, and now I had to wonder if she’d left me a little clueless on purpose because she knew I wouldn’t agree to this.

“You don’t like the outfit?” she asked, her smile almost turning into a frown.

I took her cauldron from her. “No, I love the dress. It’s the children I’m worried about.”

The dress made her look fucking hot, and if I wasn’t fully in the game for getting this problem with her ex solved, I would have already started on our my “get back together with Maisey plan.” But I didn’t want her to choose me under duress. I had to fix her problems and then win her over.

Maisey laughed again. Damn, I missed that sound. “The children will love you. Especially once they see you in costume.”

“Excuse me?”

She reached into the cauldron and pulled out a shoestring with two sand-colored horns attached. “You’re going to be my demon. A good one, of course.”

“You want me to wear this?” I took the horns from her. “On my head?”

She shrugged. “I’m going to the Fall Fest to read a book to the children at the library. If you want to come with me, you have to have a costume. If you don’t like the horns, I can give you a set of kitten ears.”

I tightened my grip on the horns. “The demon horns will do.”

“Thought so,” she said, sounding a little smug. No, actually she sounded hella smug. Why did that turn me on?

We were half a block away from the library when she dropped the next tidbit on me.

“Oh, one little thing I forgot to mention,” Maisey said as she stopped right on the other side of the crosswalk. “The daycare is sponsoring today’s story time. That’s why I’m reading the book. If my dad or sister comes today, don’t tell them Charlie is missing.”

I grabbed her hand as she turned away. “Maisey, you still haven’t told your family about Charlie?”

She kept walking, pulling me forward. A man with hay sticking out of his arms and legs watched us as he crossed the road. His cornstalks matched the ones the town had tied around all the light poles. They really got into this festival thing.

“It’s too late to argue about it now, Rowan,” she said as she pulled open the door to the Maple Library. “Just play along.”

“Wait,” I whispered as we walked into the building. “Did you purposely wait to tell me this now so I couldn’t yell at you?”

She shrugged at me before greeting the two older women behind the counter with a huge smile.

Maisey Ryston was an evil genius. Why did that make me want her even more?

The three women chatted as the door to the library continuously opened and closed, letting in small, giggling, costumed children. I’d fallen asleep some nights with bullets flying overhead that scared me less than this.