Under the Lights by Shannon Stacey Page A

get instructions from Alice Dubois, who had volunteered to oversee the street fair. Her instructions amounted to explaining to him what she wanted and telling him to go do it, so he’d rounded up the boys and gotten to work.
    It had taken them almost two hours just to lug all the booths and tables the town used for Old Home Day out of the storage area, and then they needed to be sorted into the locations Alice had marked on a very badly hand-drawn map before being assembled.
    Now he was trying to finish off the assembly of the town’sancient dunking booth—which Alice had warned him hadn’t been used in years—by himself, because he was a sucker and had finally let the boys go dig up a late lunch.
    And they didn’t have one of those lightweight plastic jobs you could rent for parties. No, Stewart Mills wasn’t going to spend money when they had an almost perfectly good monstrosity from the sixties made up of heavy wood and metal.
    When he’d finally gotten it placed according to Alice’s map, he realized the only way to fill the tank would be with buckets by hand, which would take about two months. After looking around, he found a water spigot, probably used to water the town square if need be, and moved the damn thing so they could use a hose, which he borrowed from the hardware store.
    He’d finally gotten the trigger mechanisms to work properly and was up on a ladder, trying to hang the old sign that advertised it was a dunking booth, just in case it wasn’t obvious. The sign wasn’t really necessary—especially since the thin wood it was made of was drying and splitting, and he was having to work around that—but he had fuzzy memories of the tank being used a time or two when he was a kid, and he liked the old sign.
    When he paused, turning his head to stretch his neck, he saw Kelly across the town square, and it looked as though she was looking for somebody. It probably wasn’t him, since they hadn’t spoken at all since she’d stormed out of Coach’s kitchen.
    One the one hand, he hoped it
was
him but, on the other, she was in uniform. Official police business was rarely fun.
    Through the corner of his eye, he watched her approach.Maybe it was a combination of the boots, vest and weight of her belt, but she seemed to walk with an extra-sexy sway when in uniform.
    When she stopped at the bottom of the ladder, he smiled down at her. “Good afternoon, Officer McDonnell.”
    She put her hands on her hips and squinted up at him before adjusting the brim of her hat. “I should write you a citation for being disruptive in public.”
    â€œUnless Stewart Mills got a noise ordinance along with all those shiny stop signs, this is feeling like harassment.”
    When she smiled, he felt a rush of relief. Wednesday night had ended so badly, he hadn’t been sure how things would go the next time they bumped into each other. Besides the fact that he didn’t want to explain to his hosts why he and their daughter weren’t speaking, he liked talking to Kelly. He didn’t want a kiss—even one that had shaken the hell out of him—to ruin the budding friendship he thought they had.
    â€œMrs. Clark bumped into Mrs. Davidson, making her drop her eggs, which led to a verbal altercation. According to the complaint, it was your fault.”
    â€œI’ve been on this ladder for an hour, Officer. I’m innocent.”
    She waved her hand in a gesture that made him look down at himself. Okay, so he was a bit of a mess. He’d taken his T-shirt off a while back and tossed it to the ground. And, because he didn’t have his tool belt, the hammer and various other tools hooked on his pockets were dragging his jeans down a little. He swiped at the sweat coating his chest and looked back at Kelly.
    Just in time to see the way she was looking at him beforeshe put her cop face back on. Understanding dawned and he