Page 5 of She is the Darke

Busted, she forced her gaze back to the line of kids preparing to shoot the apple cannons. Heat blared up her neck and landed in her cheeks.

That was one fine, well-built man. Good gah! Where was Rachel? The man stood at the back of the line. As the kiddos all shot their apples at the oversized targets, she texted Rachel.

Hot man in my line, no wedding ring, come scoop him up! Blue T-shirt.Send.

“Ew!” Rachel’s voice yelped loudly.

She looked around and spotted her near the beer tent. Her best friend was standing there holding a beer, her mouth hanging open and a disgusted glare aimed right at Demi.

What?she mouthed.

“That’s Tyler!” Rachel announced loudly.

Demi had never truly known what the word “horrified” was until this exact moment.

The man in the line turned and looked at Rachel, and then back at Demi. He removed his sunglasses in one of those absolutely obnoxious hot-boy moves, exposing those familiar ice-blue eyes.

Tyler looked different with all that muscle on his tall frame, and the grown-man beard, and longer hair that stuck out just right under his baseball cap. And was that…was that a sleeve of tattoos down one arm?

Her ears were on fire now, too.

“Um, uh… Ben!” She flagged down one of the new workers her mom had hired for the season, who happened to be walking by. “Cover me on the apple cannons for five minutes.”

“What? No. Your mom wants me to go do maintenance on the corn maze.”

“Ben!”

“Your mom is the boss.”

Gah, these teenagers had an attitude. “I’ll give you five bucks!”

He crossed his arms. “Pay now and I’ll cover you for five minutes, and you have to tell your mom you made me do this if she sees me.”

Tyler was out of the line now, and walking toward her. “Fine!” Frustrated, she pulled her wallet out of her back pocket and dug through the money to discover she only had twenty-dollar bills.

“I’ll take the twenty,” Ben told her. Of course he would.

“Here.” Tyler the grown-ass man handed Ben a five-dollar bill.

“I don’t need your money,” she gritted out. Ben took her station at the apple cannon, and she handed Tyler the twenty. “Take it.”

“Why are you handing me money? I’m supposed to be working for you.”

“What? That makes no sense, and what are you even doing here?” she demanded.

He handed her the piece of paper that he’d been holding. “Here’s the quote on that house.”

“That…house…” she murmured, looking at the official quote from Right Time Custom Lights. “Your dad is helping me?”

“If that’s what you want to call it, sure.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, lifting the quote in the air. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

Tyler pushed his hat off his head, replaced it, and looked around at the line of people staring at them. “Do you want to talk somewhere more private?”

“No! Yes. I don’t…I don’t really care.”

He arched his dark eyebrows, and his icy-blue eyes cooled. “Do you want help with the lights, or not?”