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Keith didn't even bother trying to find a spot close to the fair's entrance—they were about six hours too late for that. The Harvest Festival attracted people from all over the county, and for the past few years, it had even started to catch on with hipster families in Lexington. It was barely recognizable as the glorified 4-H-show-with-funnel-cake Keith had grown up with. Cal muttered something along the same lines as Keith pulled his truck in line next to a tall yellow flag.

“Remember where we parked,” Libby reminded them. She turned to Mal. “Last year we were walking around for about two hours trying to find Cal's truck. We eventually had to get a ride home and come back the next day when all the other cars were gone.”

“Who are all these people anyway?” Cal grumbled. “This used to be a day for the
town
, not for rich people from Lexington. Come down here in their
SUVs
. ‘Let's go look at the rednecks!'”

“Oh, Cal, you are
not
a redneck,” Libby said, patting him gently on his red neck. “Let's go see if my pie won this year.”

Mal's mouth watered just remembering. She'd woken up to the smell of apple pie baking. When she'd come, drooling, into the kitchen, Libby was pulling two pies out of the oven to sit on the windowsill—one for judging, one for the family.

As Mal helped her push the table and several chairs in front of the sill (Peanut was a pretty good jumper), Libby explained that because of the long summer, she had some raspberries left, and by some miracle (her words), the deer hadn't eaten all the pears off the tree in the side yard, so she'd experimented with an apple-pear-raspberry pie. It wasn't the sort of thing that usually won pie contests, but for the past couple of years, Libby said, the judges were looking for something more exciting than the same old flaky crust and traditional homemade insides.

“If those rich people from Lexington would stay out of this, a man would be able to get a decent piece of apple pie, none of this fancy-fruit concoction stuff.”

Of course, Cal had eaten two pieces of the “fancy-fruit concoction” for breakfast.

Libby laughed as Cal got out of the truck and opened her door. Keith was just reaching for Mal's door when she shoved it open, hitting him in the nose.

“Oh! Sorry! I didn't see you!”

“I'm fine,” he mumbled.

Mal was just looking toward the entrance to the fair, which seemed to be about sixteen miles away, when the tractor acting as a shuttle bus pulled up. It was pulling a wagon full of hay and passengers that rocked and creaked even when the tractor wasn't moving. Cal hoisted Libby up, who laughed and swatted his hands at her waist. Keith looked like he was about to toss Mal in behind them, so she blurted out, “I'll walk.”

Keith paused, looked at the mostly full hay wagon, shrugged, and started to walk with her.

The shuttle was hardly an express, and as Keith and Mal strolled along, the tractor barely kept up with them. The driver—who was chewing straw, Mal was pleased to see—kept turning around to yell at the kids to keep their hands in the wagon. They looked like the fancy Lexington people Cal disliked so much—Mal recognized their expensive kiddie footwear as a popular brand in the DC suburbs.

They walked much as they had the night before, Keith with his hands shoved into his pockets, both of them silent. Mal tried not to let it get to her. She had never been to a real country fair before, just those suburban ones where they close off a couple of streets and put rides on the courthouse lawn. This was on, like, fairgrounds. In a cow field.

It was a good thing one of them was paying attention. Keith grabbed her arm and steered her around the worst of the danger.

“Keith? Keith Carson, how are you?”

Mal looked up to see a well-past-middle-aged man reach out of the wagon (to the consternation of the driver) and shake Keith's hand.

“Dr. Monroe. Not bad, you?”

“I'm fine, I'm fine. This Luke's girl?” he asked, indicating Mal.

“Yes, this is Mal. Mal, Dr. Monroe.”

“Mal, nice to meet you. Luke's a lucky man.”

“Me, too,” said Mal. “Well, the lucky part.”

“Mal, this is my daughter, Billie.” He indicated a pretty redhead across the wagon. She waved.

“Hi! Hi, Keith. Katie here?”

“Yeah. 4-H.” Billie nodded in what Mal assumed was understanding. They were speaking Hollow Bend shorthand.

“Mal, I need you to do me a favor,” Dr. Monroe said, leaning out of the wagon a little. Mal stepped closer—she didn't think the wagon was up for much leaning. “Now that you're part of that family, I need to see if you can't talk this brother-in-law of yours into going back into business, letting an old man retire.”

Mal looked at Keith, who reddened, but didn't slow his pace.

“I'm sure you know he was a fine veterinarian. You still got that mutt you fixed up?”

Poor Peanut,
Mal thought.
Always “that mutt.”

“Keith used to do all the books, too. Billie gave it a try, but—”

“I prefer guts to numbers,” Billie said.

“I used to be a bookkeeper,” Mal said.
Shut up, Mal. What are you going to do, get a job? Put down fake roots with your fake fiancé?

“Well!” Dr. Monroe looked enormously pleased. “If you and Luke decide to stick around, I might have to persuade Luke to let you come work for me.”

“I think she can make her own mind up about that,” Keith mumbled.

Mal thought,
I was just about to say that.

“Now, Doc, you let that poor girl alone. We want her to stick around,” shouted Libby from the back of the wagon.

The doctor laughed, then lurched forward as the tractor came to a stop to try to squeeze more passengers on. Mal waved, then she and Keith kept going.

“I used to be a vet,” Keith said after a moment.

“Katie said.”

“What else did she say?”

“Well, she explained what you were doing in the cottage when I found you the other night.”

Keith kicked a rock out of the way, cursed under his breath.

“Listen, Keith. I know you don't like me butting into your business, and I'm trying really hard to stay out of it. In fact, I'd like to stay out of your entire family's business. But this is my first serious fair, and I want to soak it all in. So do you think we can call a truce or something? Or if you have to scowl at me, can you wait until my back is turned?”

Keith rubbed the back of his neck, then looked up at Mal. And he smiled. The wrinkles around his eyes got deeper, but his eyes blazed bright and green. He didn't look so tired anymore.

“Truce,” he said, shaking her outstretched hand.

“Whoa,” she said. “You're smiling. You should do it more often.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said, then led her around another cow pie, and kept on walking toward the fair.

 

 

The hardest part of eating food on a stick, Mal decided later, was choosing where to begin. For an hors d'oeuvre, she considered an ear of corn, but ultimately went with the pickle on a stick. Next she was tempted by the hot bologna on a stick, but every time she said it, she blushed, so she went for the chicken leg wrapped in bacon.

She thought she was going to die, and she couldn't have been happier.

“This is the best meal on a stick I've ever had in my life,” she said, leaning her back against the edge of the worn picnic table they were sharing with a very messy, very happy family of five. She stretched her legs out and gave a deep sigh.

Keith, who was washing down his lamb on a stick with a good old-fashioned corn dog, said, “I thought you'd never had food on a stick before.”

“Shh,” she said, tilting her head back and closing her eyes. “I'm too full for witty retorts.”

The little boy sitting across the table from her had been playing peek-a-boo with his corn dog, but gave up when Keith started to play. Now, though, the little guy wanted to play again with Mal, whose back was to him. So he hit her on the head. With his corn dog.

“Oh! Oh, I'm so sorry! Brayden! Look what you've done!” gasped Brayden's mother.

“Don't worry about it,” Mal said, reaching back to pat her hair, and coming back with a handful of mustard.

“Here, use some of these,” Brayden's mother said, unwrapping a wet wipe and reaching for Mal's head.

“That's OK,” Mal said, intercepting her hand. “I've got it. Seriously, it's no big deal. It's just mustard.”

“It blends in with your dye job,” Keith said. Then he clapped his hand over his mouth.

Mal looked at him, his eyes wide, looking like he wanted to pull those words back into his mouth. She knew that feeling very well. Besides, he looked so young like that, so different from his usual scowly self.

She laughed.

Not a delicate ladylike laugh that would attract butterflies, but a snorting, stomach-hurting, tears-streaming-down-the-face laugh. As soon as she could get her breath back, Mal said, “I'm glad I'm not the only one without a mental filter,” before she burst into a fresh fit of laughter.

 

 

“Did I get it all?” she asked Keith a minute later. The family, with a crying Brayden, had packed up and left to go ride the Tilt-A-Whirl. (
Terrible idea,
thought Keith.) They had left Mal with a stack of wet wipes, which Keith was now using to clean lamb juice off his hands.

He looked at Mal's head. It didn't look like she had gotten any of it.

“You missed a spot,” he said, poking her head, “here.”

“Are you messing with me? I can't see the back of my head, you know.”

Keith held out his hand and she gave him the wet wipe. He pulled her head down a little, then gingerly plucked at the mustard in her hair. He felt gooseflesh go up her arm, and he tried not to think about other parts she was feeling tickled. He backed up a bit on the bench. “Got it.”

Mal leaned back against the table again and patted her stomach. “With Miss Libby's cooking and all of this cholesterol on a stick, I'm going to have to take one of those hay wagons home. I haven't eaten this much since—well, I don't know since when.”

“No dessert?” Keith asked.

Mal looked shocked. “I didn't say I wouldn't eat dessert! I'm just hinting that you're going to have to roll me to the car. Just getting you prepared for that.”

 

 

Keith laughed. He had a great laugh. The wrinkles around the corners of his eyes came out when he smiled. He was a rugged-looking guy, but when he laughed, he looked like a teddy bear.

“How about a walk around before dessert?” he suggested.

“Yes, absolutely.”

They wandered through the crowded fair in silence, Keith waving to people who called his name. Mostly guys in flannel shirts and well-worn cowboy hats, although occasionally a gal in a tight sweater would saunter up and see how Keith was doing. All the traffic had kicked up a lot of mud, and Mal marveled at the variety of sturdy-looking work boots people were wearing—even the little kids, one of whom was struggling with a giant cow (a steer, Keith corrected her) wearing a blue ribbon on its horn. Mal thought if she heard anyone ask if she was Luke's girl again, she was going to stop shaving her legs; mostly, though, she just smiled and said, yes, yes, she was Luke's girl and, no, she wasn't sure when he was getting back to town but probably soon.

There was a moment when Jimmy Dean, off-duty state trooper—and drunk—suggested that Luke was a fool but that Keith was probably keeping her warm, and if he wasn't up to the job, he, Jimmy Dean, would be happy to take over. Keith looked like he was about to sock him in the jaw. But Mal just laughed and said she would rather sleep with the dog.

Jimmy looked up at Keith, surprised. “You still got that old mutt we pulled out of the ditch?”

“He's a good dog,” Mal said, defending her new farm ally.

“I don't get you guys. Anyway, I'm going to the beer garden.”

Mal was about to suggest dessert (although a beer sounded really good, too) when someone came over and practically knocked Keith to the ground. Mal shrieked and stepped in front of him, only to get mauled by—Katie.

“Sorry,” she said, accepting Katie's hand up.

“You didn't do anything,” said Keith, glaring at Katie, and absolutely avoiding Mal's gaze. Had she just thrown herself in front of him? “She has this hilarious habit of trying to knock us over.”

“One of these days, I'll do it. Preferably in a cow pie.”

“You wonder why we still think of you as a little kid,” Keith said, pulling one of her pigtails.

“Whatever, listen. Come on over to the beer tent. The music's just starting.”

“Oh, I don't think—” Keith began, just as Mal said, “Oh! Dancing!”

“OK, let's go.”

 

 

The beer tent catered to the new younger, hipper fairgoers, and was not so much a tent as a set of arbors arranged in a large square and covered in white fairy lights. The kegs were more or less covered on one end by a large white tent, but the rest of the area was open to the sky. The space in the middle was dominated by a wooden dance floor. Situated right next to the beer part of the beer tent was a small raised stage where the band played. Keith waved to his old classmate Dylan, one of the fiddlers, who acknowledged him with a wave of his bow.

Katie led them over to a crowd of people standing with easy access to the kegs. Looked like her friends from high school.