Page 20 of Lavender Lake
“I remember,” he said. “That was hardly a spanking. Doubt your ass is red like it needs to be.”
“Should we pull over? And you can give me the spanking you think I deserve?”
“You’d lose the bet. You do remember the bet, don’t you?”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I said as I shook my head. “You would. You’d be the one to put your hands on me on purpose.”
“Yet, you’re the one asking for it.”
“Guess we’re at a stalemate then.”
Twenty minutes later, Bowman and I drove into Huckleberry Hill. The main drag was Silver Street, with cute little retail shops, a bakery, and of course, The Diner.
“There’s no way you grew up here,” he stated.
“Uh yeah, I did.”
“It looks like a movie set. It’s the epitome of small, charming mountain town.”
“Why do you think I left?” I said, a pang flitting through my chest. “There was nothing to do here. There’sstillnothing to do here.”
I’d left for other reasons too . . .
He maneuvered the truck into a parking spot.
“There has to be stuff to do here,” Bowman said after we got out of the truck and shut the doors.
“If you’re not old enough to drink at the Copper Mule—the only bar in town—then you either eat at The Diner or grab a pastry from Sweet Teeth. Not into food? There’s the bank with one teller who loves to gab, or if you need to go shopping, you hit up General Mercantile, which has everything from tractor parts to raw milk. Lots to do in this town, I’m telling you.”
“What about festivals? Towns like these always have festivals and seasonal activities.”
“Oh, right. We do have those,” I agreed. “Spring there’s the Mushroom Festival. In summertime, it’s the Huckleberry Festival. Autumn is the barn dance and belly basket auction. Winter we have the Snow Queen pageant, sledding on Maple Mountain, ice skating on Lavender Lake, and fondue at Sweet Teeth.”
“What’s a belly basket auction?”
“You’ve heard of the time-honored tradition of women making baskets full of food and having men bid on them?”
“In this century?”
I arched a brow. “Well, we do it differently here. Instead, men make baskets and women bid on them.”
Bowman opened the door to The Diner and held it for me. I went inside. The smell of fried food hit me and my stomach growled in adoration.
“Salem Powell!”
A smile greeted my lips. “Mr. Bixby.”
His face was ruddy from the heat of the back kitchen and his balding head had a sheen of sweat. He wiped his hands on his apron as he came around the counter and enveloped me in a bear hug.
“Good to see you, honey. How’s your dad?”
He pulled back and stared at me with solemn brown eyes.
“We just came from the hospital,” I said, my throat tight. “He had brain surgery. Now we’re just waiting a few days, and then they’ll try to wake him up.”
He nodded. “Lucy told me about the surgery.”
“How did—Muddy?”
