Five, four, three, two, one!
They both dropped their splitting mauls and held their arms up. I wasn’t sure exactly how it would be determined who won—presumably by the amount of wood they’d chopped, but their piles looked about the same to me.
The crowd quieted while two judges picked through the wood, then conferred with each other. Finally, they brought Josiah and Levi in front of the chopped wood with one of the judges in between them. He held each man’s wrist, like it was the end of a boxing match, then raised Josiah’s arm in the air.
Cheers erupted. I let the camera dangle from the strap around my neck so I could clap and scream.
Levi smiled and shook Josiah’s hand, bringing him in for a back-slapping bro hug. It was pretty adorable. He moved off to the side where his wife and kids waited for him. They were such a cute family, it made my ovaries ache.
Josiah met my eyes and the corners of his mouth turned up in a subtle smile. A thrill swept through me and heat rushed to my cheeks.
“Here, give me the camera,” Sandra said. “I’ll hold it while you go love on your sweaty boyfriend.”
“I don’t know if he’s my—”
“Just go,” she said with a laugh.
I lifted the camera strap over my head and handed it to Sandra, then crossed the grass to meet Josiah.
He did smile then and it made my heart feel like it could burst.
I was in so much trouble.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.” I popped up on my tiptoes to kiss him. “Nice work, champion.”
“I’m surprised I kept up with him. He beat Luke again last year, so my brothers goaded me into competing this time.” He pulled his t-shirt on over his sweaty body.
I was slightly disappointed.
“Do you win something or just the honor of being the fastest wood chopper in town.”
“Oh yeah, I get pie.”
“Pie?”
He looked at me like I was weird for questioning that. “Yeah. I guess if you’ve never had Gram Bailey’s pie, you wouldn’t understand.”
“Will you share some with me so I can experience this magical pie?”
“I don’t know if I like you that much.” The corners of his mouth lifted and he slid his hands around my waist to the small of my back, pulling me against him. “Then again, maybe I do.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“Will you go out with me tonight?”
Coming out of nowhere, the question caught me by surprise. “What?”
His eyebrows drew in. “I thought that was how you asked a girl out.”
“No, that’s right, I just didn’t expect it.”
“You didn’t expect me to ask you out?” He pressed me tighter against his muscular body. “What are we doing, then? I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but I thought that was how dating worked.”
I laughed. “Sorry, you just keep taking me by surprise.”
“I told you I’m bad with people.”
“You’re not bad with people. Sometimes you’re just kind of blunt or abrupt.”
“So, yes or no. I’m not good with subtle cues, you’re going to have to be straightforward.”
Smiling, I draped my arms around his neck. “Yes. Definitely yes to a date.”
“Good. I’ll pick you up at six.”
“Sounds good.” As much as I could have stayed there all day, wrapped in Josiah’s arms, I was technically working, even though it was a weekend. “I should probably go do some interviews and take more pictures. This is kind of my first really big assignment and I don’t want to mess it up.”
He leaned down and planted a firm kiss on my lips. “Go get `em.”
Reluctantly, I stepped away, my head swimming. How was I supposed to focus on being a reporter after that?
But I did have a job to do. I went back to Sandra and she handed me the camera.
“Not sure if he’s your boyfriend, huh?”
“Yeah, well, we got off to a confusing start. I didn’t want to assume and wind up looking like a bigger dork than usual.” I put the camera strap around my neck. “Where should we head next?”
“This is your gig. You lead the way.”
I looked around at the festival in progress. Lou hadn’t given me much direction. Mostly he’d just grumbled about how no one was going to read it anyway, so I could do what I wanted.
Not exactly an optimistic attitude, but I didn’t really blame him.
Still, if I could make the piece interesting, maybe it would give us a little boost.
“People always like talking about themselves,” I said.
Sandra looked confused. “What?”
“I’m thinking out loud. If people like to talk about themselves, I bet they’d like to see themselves in print. I think that’s the problem with the Tribune. It’s trying to be something it isn’t. We put all the Tilikum stuff in the local section in the middle of the paper. We should lead with it. We’re a small local newspaper, so we should act like it.”
“If you can convince Lou.”
“I’m not going to convince him, I’m going to show him.”
“I love your optimism.”
I smiled. “Sometimes it’s all I’ve got.”
The idea forming in my mind wasn’t so much a plan—that sounded too organized—as a loose concept. But I was confident it would work. We needed to make the Tribune unique, offering Tilikum residents something they couldn’t get elsewhere. Otherwise, the readership was going to keep declining and eventually, it would have to close. Lou meant well, but he was too set in his ways. Too stuck to see the possibilities.
So I’d have to show him.
Which meant I needed to get some great photos and interview a few interesting people.
I left Sandra and set off on my journalistic quest. The games were an obvious place to start. I took photos of the log pull and got some great shots of the women’s archery competition.
In between photography sessions, I focused on simply talking to people. Who were they and why had they come to the festival? What was their favorite event? Had they found any unexpected treasures in the market?
I talked to a family of five who didn’t live in Tilikum anymore but brought their kids to the festival every year. It was one of the highlights of their summer. I talked to an elderly gentleman who’d lived in Tilikum his entire life and told me all about the feud that had once existed between the Haven and Bailey families. I chatted with a group of firefighters, with an older woman named Mavis who clearly loved looking at said firefighters, and a recent high school graduate who’d decided to stay in town and attend Tilikum College in the fall.
After stopping to take a bunch of notes in my phone—I had so many ideas—I walked to the other side of the park, toward where I’d left my car. I had plenty of material for an article about the festival, as well as some ideas for making it, and the Tribune as a whole, more interesting for locals.
The strange tingly feeling hit me again, like I’d just been touched on the back. My heart rate kicked up and I cast a wary glance over my shoulder.
Was that Colin?
As soon as I looked, a group of people walked in front of him, blocking him from view. Had it been him? I’d only seen him for a second, so I couldn’t be sure. But it had looked a lot like him, and whoever it was, he’d been facing my direction.
Was Colin here, watching me?
The people walked past, and the man was gone.
A shiver ran down my spine. I kept looking around, but I didn’t see Colin among the crowd. The park was teeming with people, but no one seemed to be paying attention to me.
Maybe it had been my imagination. Colin had a sort of generic businessman look to him. It could have been someone else and I was jumping to conclusions.
I figured I could blame my childhood. My parents had been so concerned with our image, they’d drilled a certain amount of wariness into me whenever I was in public. That was probably what was making me jumpy now.
The ghost of my father still loomed over my life.
I kept walking. It was a reminder of why I’d left my hometown. Why I’d been so determined never to come back.