She wasn’t more than ten feet away when he heard his little brother snicker behind him. “A tractor ride? And we don’t have any creeks deep enough for skinny-dipping, dumbass.”
“Shut up.” Since they were surrounded by people who had nothing better to do than eavesdrop on their conversation, he made a big show of shrugging it off. “Plenty of women to wade in the creek with.”
“I’d rather find a woman selling food. Where the hell is the bake-sale booth?”
Mitch stood on his toes, trying to see over the crowd. He felt kind of bad about abandoning Josh in his pursuit of Paige, so he put her out of his head and turned his attention to finding them some food.
*
Being busy at the diner helped keep Paige’s mind off Mitch’s surprising invitation to ride his tractor, despite it being one of the more interesting propositions she’d heard in her life. Sitting on his lap, bumping across a field, was a visual to savor later.
Ava was working her regular shift, so Paige wasn’t technically on the clock. But the Whitford Historical Society was selling reusable drink bottles emblazoned with their logo to raise repair money for the Grange Hall, and the Trailside Diner was offering free water or lemonade refills to anybody who bought the bottles. It was a hot day and a lot of families were taking advantage of the offer.
Thankful she’d worn her flip-flops with the sundress rather than dressy sandals that would be killing her feet right about then, Paige refilled bottles and gave Ava a hand keeping up with the families trying to get a real lunch into their kids before they went nuts on the food vendors lining the main street.
When the initial rush was over, Ava helped herself to a glass of the premixed lemonade Paige had stocked up on for the event and leaned against the counter. “So tractors aren’t really your thing?”
She wasn’t surprised talk of her turning Mitch down was already spreading. “Or maybe Mitch Kowalski isn’t my thing.”
“Honey, those Kowalski boys are every young woman’s thing.”
“He certainly seems to think so.”
“Wouldn’t hurt you any to take a ride on the boy’s tractor.”
Paige laughed and shook her head. “Riding on tractors with boys isn’t on my list of things to do anytime soon.”
And Ava knew why, since she was one of the few people Paige confided in. More than once, she’d caught herself wishing Ava was her mother, but she tried not to think it too often. Part of making her home here was letting go of her old life and embracing the new. Resenting the choices her mom had made didn’t do anybody any good.
The bell jangled before Ava could say anything else about Mitch, and Paige was thankful for that since it was him walking through the door. As her body starting zinging and pinging and slightly overheating all over again, she did her best to look as if she couldn’t care less.
“It’s nice and cool in here,” he said, taking a seat at the counter. “Good place to sit and have a cheeseburger.”
“Did you lose Josh?” He was supposed to be taking care of his brother, which he couldn’t do while sitting at her counter.
“He overdid it, standing in line for cotton candy, so I took him home.”
“You didn’t stand in line for him?”
“Hey, I offered. He can be pretty stubborn.”
Probably a family trait. “You want fries with your burger?”
“Absolutely.”
Ava scratched his order down on her pad and went off to hand it to the kitchen, leaving Paige with no reason not to be standing there talking to Mitch. The way he looked at her made her self-conscious about the dress, and she wished she’d thrown a T-shirt over it before offering to help Ava.
“Did you get your fried dough?” he asked.
The reference to their earlier meeting made her blush. “Yes. And I went back again later for a second, even though I shouldn’t have.”
“Old Home Day only comes once a year. It’s no fun if you don’t throw willpower to the wind and gorge on carnival food.”
She may have gone back for seconds on the fried dough, but Mitch was the danger to her willpower. If she was going to ride any guy’s tractor or land his plane or play catch-and-release, it would be with him. And that was a good reason to excuse herself.
“You’ve got everything under control,” she said to Ava. “I was thinking about getting some hanging baskets from the garden club this year.”
“Go and have some fun before things wind down too much.”
She smiled and waved to Mitch as she left, and he lifted a hand in response. He didn’t smile, though, which amused her. Didn’t seem that he knew how to take rejection very well, but he’d have to get used to it.
With a sigh, Paige set off down the street. A third fried dough was out of the question, but maybe she could find some kind of decadent treat to pacify herself with. Her body might not think cotton candy or a caramel apple was a good substitute for a man like Mitch, but that was all it was getting anytime soon.