Page 36 of The Rebound Play
I give her a mock salute. “All part of the service, ma’am.”
She looks between Keira and me before she leans in toward me. Of course, she’s almost half my height, so I’ve got to lean right down to meet her.
“What’s going on with you and Ms. Johnson over here? Word on the street is you’re giving her nephew some hockey lessons.”
“Benny’s a great kid,” I reply, evading her real question. “He’s got a lot of potential. I’m just trying to give him a head start.”
“Be that as it may, people are wondering why you’ve singled Benny out and not some other children. Ice hockey has become very popular in this town since you made it into the National League, you know. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to be the next Dan Roberts. Which got me thinking that perhaps you had some hidden agenda, if you know what I mean.” She raises her brows at me in question.
So, the townsfolk are talking about me and Keira. They’re more on the money than I care to admit, but without having even had a conversation about how I feel with the woman in question, I’m not exactly going to spill the beans for Mrs. Nelson.
“I think I’ll just have to leave you guessing, Mrs. Nelson, because right now I’m here to carve a pumpkin.”
“You are? Oh, goodie.” She claps her hands together in delight. “Perhaps we could auction off your work of art? Raise some more money for the kiddies?”
I think the last time I carved a pumpkin, right here at this fall festival, it was an unmitigated disaster, the creative gene some members of my family seemed to have inherited clearly passing me by without so much as a glance my way.
“Let’s just see how it works out first, shall we?” I straighten up just as she grabs my sleeve and says urgently, “You be sure to treat our Keira right. She’s very important to us, here in Maple Falls, you know. No funny business. No messing her around. Got it?”
If only she knew.
“Got it,” I reply with a smile.
A few moments later, I’ve talked Keira into carving, and sitting side by side, we work on our respective pumpkins with people dropping by to say hello to both of us. More than one comment is made about how it’s like old times seeing Dan and Keira together, to which I simply smile and nod, throwing furtive glances Keira’s way and catching her smiling.
Hope is beginning to build a sandcastle in my heart by now.
Keira eyes my creation. “What’s yours meant to be?”
“Once I saw a pumpkin carved as a jack-o’-lantern with a part of the pumpkin hanging out of its mouth as though it were a tongue.”
“Where’s the tongue?”
I pick up a piece of pumpkin I carved out already and hold it up. “One tongue.”
“That’s a new one,” she comments.
I eye her pumpkin. It’s fair to say in a carving competition she would win hands down. She’s carved an owl into the skin, complete with eyes, and has begun carving what looks like a tree. “Creative, but then you were always better at everything than me.”
“With one notable exception.”
“You mean dancing?” I tease.
Keira was so good at pretty much everything at school, with a perfect grade average and involvement in a bunch of extracurriculars, like the school paper. Physical stuff was less her thing, right down to dancing.
“I can dance,” she replies indignantly.
My lips quirk. “Of course you can.”
She shoots me a look, although I know it’s in good humor. “At least my dancing is better than your singing. Need I remind you?”
I hold my hands up in the surrender sign. “I was never going to be a singer.”
“And I was never going to be a dancer.”
“I guess that makes us even.”
“I guess it does, Dan Roberts.”