“Can you make him stay?”
She looked thoughtful. “I guess I could misplace his ticket.”
“Please do,” Beth Ann said. She raced back to his cabin and took the note off of the box, and wrote another one.
She’d leave him the message in his cabin, and leave a message on his phone. And if he still left without talking to her, well…
Then she’d have her answer.
EIGHTEEN
The next day
Beth Ann sprayed pink glitter into a fairy’s hair. The pigtails sparkled bright pink, and the mother seemed almost as excited as her daughter.
“She looks so cute,” the mother squealed. “I love what you did with her curls.”
They’d been carefully stiffened with styling wax and pomaded into bouncy spirals that made others stop, stare, and then pay five dollars to have their child’s hair fixed as well. Next to her, Brenna painted faces on squirming children, her cave-girl costume and Bettie Page hair surprisingly adorable. She’d cut her purple bangs in a thick, straight fringe across her forehead, just like Bettie Page, and the result made her impish face even more charming.
“Do you do birthday parties?” the fairy’s mother asked her. “She has a birthday in two months and I’d love to have a makeover party for the little girls. It’d be so cute.”
“I haven’t in the past, but I can,” Beth Ann said easily, slipping a now-glitter-covered card out of her costume’s bodice and handing it over. “Just give me a call.”
“I will,” the woman said, collecting her daughter with a smile. The little girl waved, her hair full of sparkles and curls and the plastic tiara that Beth Ann had fitted into the curls. She did look cute, Beth Ann thought proudly. The Halloween Festival was full of little girls with sprayed hair from her booth—it had been a bigger success than she’d imagined. That was the fourth birthday party invite that she’d gotten—she’d turned none of them down.
She looked over at Brenna, who was helping a child down from her chair. “I’m going to go check on Miranda and see how she’s doing,” she said, wiping her hands with a towel.
“Got it, boss,” Brenna sang out. “I’ll hold down the fort.”
Beth Ann slipped away, crossing the bustling festival in the town square. The costume contest would be in a few hours, and judging from the people dressed up, it’d be just as much of a success as the fund-raising booths were. The crowd today was massive, easily double the size of normal Bluebonnet shindigs. The Halloween festival was a big deal in the area, though, and she wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that people from nearby small towns had stopped in to join in the fun. People in costumes crowded the town square, both adults and children. She passed by a pumpkin pie booth, smiling at the person seated there, and a booth where they served cider. At the far end of a row, Lucy was taking tickets for the cake walk, and Beth Ann raised an eyebrow at the sight of Lucy’s helper. It was a tall, skinny man in a fur loincloth and cape. His goatee was so long that it had been rubber-banded. The infamous Lord Colossus? Heavens, what did Lucy see in that man? She made a mental note to drop by and ask Lucy if Colossus had brought a shirt.
On the far end of the square, past a long row of booths, Beth Ann heard a splash. She headed there, pushing past the long line of people with camera phones held up. Over in front of the dunking booth, Miranda held up a beanbag and shook it. “Who’s the next person that wants to give Casanova Croft a dunk?”
“You can’t dunk me,” Dane yelled from inside the booth to the next person that stepped up—a young boy of no more than eight. He wiped water from his eyes, his white hockey helmet streaming water down his face. Clearly he’d been dunked recently. He pointed at the first person in line. “Hey, you. Your aim sucks. Why don’t you try to slap shot—”
The beanbag hit the target. There was a cranking whoosh, and then Dane slid into the water, to the cheers of the crowd. He emerged a moment later, his hockey helmet askew, rivulets of water cascading down his cheeks. He grinned and mock shook a fist at Miranda.
His fiancée laughed and turned back to the line of waiting people, her poodle skirt flaring. “Who’s next?”
As Miranda took money and handed off the next set of beanbags, Beth Ann moved forward to chat with her friend.
“How’s it going, Wonder Woman?” Miranda drawled with a smile at the sight of Beth Ann. “Your ass is doing admirable things to those star-spangled panties.”
“You look pretty cute yourself,” Beth Ann said with a grin, adjusting her costume. She wore a red Wonder Woman bodice and the blue panties that were covered in stars. A bit chilly for October, but the day was warm and sunny, and she didn’t mind it. To complete her costume, she wore a pair of plastic red boots that pinched her feet and a gold headband. She didn’t dye her hair black, however. Instead, she simply curled it until it was big and bounced around her shoulders in a mass like Lynda Carter’s hair from the TV show. Close enough. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Colt today, have you?”
Miranda shook her head, taking money from another person that stepped up, and handing them beanbags to throw. “Not a sign. He might not be back from his campout yet.”
Or he might not be coming at all, Beth Ann worried, but said nothing. She smiled tightly, trying not to think about it. “Well, just let me know if you see him, honey.”
“Will do,” Miranda said with a salute, and turned back to her line. “Okay, who’s the next person that wants to teach Casanova Croft a lesson? One dollar gets you three beanbags, and all donations go to the Bluebonnet Public Library!”
Colt finished shaking hands with the last member of his class and sent them on their way. Once every picture was taken, paperwork filed, and every car out of the Daughtry Ranch parking lot, he sat down on the lodge couch, rubbing his face. His knee sent up a flare of pain in protest, reminding him that he needed to be more careful with it.
Fuck, it had been a long week. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, kiss his woman, and sleep for days with her curled against his side.
That familiar ache settled in his chest again. He no longer had Beth Ann. He’d never see that sweet smile curving her mouth as she looked at him. He’d never hold her again. Hear that sexy whimper when he sank deep inside her. He’d lost everything he cared about, all over again. And this time, the scar wasn’t on his knee. It couldn’t be worked out with physical therapy and dedication. It was on his f**king heart, and it wasn’t ever going to mend.
The thought just made him even wearier.
Grant came into the room, set the camera down on his desk, and grinned at Colt. “You about ready to go to the airport, then?”
“Need to say good-bye to my dad,” he said slowly, not wanting to move from the couch. If he got up, he was really going to do it. Leave Bluebonnet behind again.
Leave Beth Ann behind.
Give up on her. On him with her. But wasn’t that what he deserved for being such a dick to her? Strange that he didn’t want to leave Bluebonnet—once, he’d never wanted to come back. But Beth Ann had changed all that. Now he didn’t want to go…but he had to. For her.
“Your dad’s at the Halloween Festival,” Grant said. “Everyone is. I just stuck around to give you a ride out to Houston.”
“Damn it,” Colt said slowly, and rubbed his hand down his face again. “I guess I’ll call the old man when I get to the airport.” Strange how that bothered him. He’d wanted to see his dad again before he left. “Where’d Brenna put my tickets?”
Grant shrugged, heading into the kitchen. Colt hauled himself off of the couch and moved to Brenna’s desk. He saw an envelope with his name on it and opened it.
Out fluttered an IOU and a note. I LOST YOUR TICKET, Brenna had written in block letters. GUESS YOU CAN’T GO.
Well wasn’t she f**king hilarious. Still, his mouth quirked at her obvious attempt to get him to stay. “She’s a shitty assistant.”
“Yes she is,” Grant called from the kitchen.
Well, he’d just have to buy a ticket at the airport.
Grant appeared in the doorway of the kitchen again, sandwich in hand. “You bout ready to go, then? I want to stop by the Halloween Festival after I drop you off, so we need to go soon.”
He was. “Just about.”
“You need to check your cabin for anything else?”
He did want to get the shirt Beth Ann had left there. He missed the sweet smell of her, and it still lingered on the shirt she’d left at his place the last time she’d been there. “Just gonna check the cabin one more time.”
“Okay,” Grant said, and grinned as he bit into his sandwich. “I’ll be right here.”
He headed out to his cabin and opened the door, staring inside. It was a mess, but he didn’t care. That was how he felt inside—all torn up and hopeless. He needed time away from all of this. The mess could wait until he got back—or he’d just ask Brenna to clean it up. He moved to the bed, searching for that pink shirt.
And stopped. There was a box on the bed, and a note. With one finger, he flipped open the folded piece of paper. His heart thudded at the sight of Beth Ann’s loopy, girly handwriting.
We need to talk, the note read. Come be my hero?
When he opened the lid, a faint smile tugged at his mouth. And he felt a sliver of hope.
He wasn’t coming. Beth Ann struggled to breathe through the crushing disappointment even as she conducted the costume contest. She smiled, announced the names of each contestant, waited for the crowd to applaud, and every moment she was dying inside a little more.
He wasn’t here. He wasn’t here.
Why was she here? She should be at the airport in Houston, begging him to stay. Asking him to talk to her so they could work this out. That she wasn’t mad anymore. That she didn’t want to lose him over one stupid lie that had turned out to be the best thing that had ever happened to her.
But she stood up on the stage, numb, and announced the costume contest winner. The man, dressed in a soup pot with the legs cut out and a mishmash of stuffed animals sticking out from under the lid—she wasn’t even paying attention to what he was supposed to be—took the trophy from a cheery Brenna. They were done. Beth Ann almost stumbled in her haste to get off the stage, rushing down the steps of the platform. Panic flared through her—she needed to get to him. Talk to him before he left. Explain how she felt—
Miranda stopped her at the bottom, seeing the look on her face. “You okay? What’s wrong?”
“I need to stop Colt,” she said, her breath catching in her throat. “I should be in Houston begging him to stay. I can’t let him go. I need to go to the ranch, see if Grant’s left with him yet—”
Her words died in her throat as she saw a black swish of cape that quickly disappeared as someone stepped in front of her. She pushed ahead, and…
There he was. Batman. Colt. A giddy, nervous laugh bubbled in her throat—a laugh of relief, of hope. He hadn’t gone yet.