Page 54 of Keepsake
“Maeve!” the voices called again, and I held my breath, straining to hear a little voice answer.
But it didn’t.
Another customer stepped up to the scales and set her apples down, but now I couldn’t seem to focus my eyes on the readout on the scale. The edges of my vision bled yellow, and the soundtrack of the market seemed distant.
“Are you okay?” someone asked from far away. “Miss? Maybe you oughta sit down?”
That sounded like a great idea. I grabbed the edge of the table with both hands and sort of eased myself downward. My ass hit the ground, and then everything went black.
“Ithinkshe’s waking up.”
When I next opened my eyes, four faces peered down at me. One of them belonged to Linda, the elderly woman who sold hand-dyed yarns at the booth beside ours. She was waving an old paper fan over my face. “Give ’er some room. Awfully hot today!”
The other three faces belonged to Zach, Leah and Maeve, who were all crouching over me.
I closed my eyes and cursed.
“That a bad word!” Maeve chirped.
“Sorry,” I mumbled, fumbling to sit up.
“Don’t rush,” Linda fussed, her surprisingly strong hand landing at my shoulder. “Or you’ll just be plunking right down again. Went down like a sack of potatoes, you did.”
But I didn’t want to lie there on the grass with people staring at me. So I grabbed the edge of the table and prepared to haul myself up.
Zach wasn’t having it. He leaned down and grabbed me off the lawn, one hand under my knees, the other at my lower back. Then I was airborne and headed out the back of our stall.
Grumpy now, I wanted to struggle, but that sounded tiring. My limbs still felt heavy, so I settled for giving Zach a stern look.
But it backfired when he gave me a sterner one. “Not a fan of you passing out like that.”
“It’s hot,” I said in my defense.
He set me down on the back of the truck. “Stay here while I get you some water.”
Water sounded good, damn it. So I did what I was told. “Who’s selling apples?” I asked when he returned, twisting the top off a fresh bottle.
“Leah and Maeve. Drink this. All of it.” The hottest young farmhand in Vermont wore a stony look on his perfect face, suggesting I shouldn’t even try to argue.
I took a deep drink and began to feel more like myself. “Where was she, anyway?” I tried to ask the question casually, but when I looked into Zach’s stormy eyes I knew I wasn’t fooling him. It wasn’t the heat that made me lose my shit a few minutes ago.
Today’s score: Fear 1, Lark 0.
“Under the table at the flower-sellers’, looking at their new kitty.” He smiled for the first time since my little incident, and it changed his face back into a more recognizable landscape. “I’m like, ‘Maeve, we’ve been looking everywhere!’ And she says, ‘Look, Zacky, kitty’s name is Cocoa!”
I laughed, and it made my head throb. Unconsciously, I lifted a hand to the back of my skull where a goose egg was forming. Zach’s smile slipped away. “Is it bad? I didn’t see you go down.”
“No,” I said quickly, though my answer would have been the same no matter what. “Can we keep this little incident to ourselves?”
He hesitated. “Griff is worried about you.”
“And that’s exactly why I asked.”
“Well…” Zach rubbed the golden whiskers on his chin. “All right. If you insist. I’m not very good at saying no to you.”
Two or three silly, flirty responses flew to mind, and yet I bit every one of them back. “Thank you,” I said instead. “Would you go sell some apples now? I feel like a heel for causing drama.”
He measured me with big, blue eyes, checking one more time for any lingering problems. “All right. There’s only fifteen minutes before we close down, though.”
