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  I looked heavenward. “They’re friends, and they’re men, not boys. Definitely not boyfriends.”

  Aunt Eva waved away my objection. “Whatever. Carol can judge for herself. She knows Paint and Andy. They were on Zack’s team in high school. When does our star arrive?”

  “Right after lunch. We’ll swing by on our way home from the airport. Give you a chance to say hi before tonight’s madness.”

  Once Carol left, I peppered Eva with questions about what Zack was like before his rise to celebrity status. My aunt started his thumbnail bio when he was a teen and badly hurt in a car wreck.

  “It was touch and go whether he’d survive,” Eva recalled. “Carol had just lost her husband to cancer. Not sure she could have handled Zack’s death. He’s her only family.”

  Eva said Zack began his pro career as a third-round draft pick and spent a decade as a back-up quarterback, shuffled among three teams via trades.

  “You know all the recent drama. When the Aces’ veteran quarterback tore his rotator cuff early last season, Zack stepped in red hot. Took what had been a lackluster team to the Super Bowl. He felt kind of crummy that his success came at a buddy’s expense.”

  “Well, the press sure loves him,” I commented. “Good looking, single, and his Southern drawl doesn’t hurt one bit.”

  Eva nodded. “Too bad the media includes some dodgy tabloids and loony bloggers. Carol says they drive Zack nuts. Make him feel like a hunted animal.”

  TWO

  “That’s perfect,” I hollered to Paint. “Let Mr. Goblin hover right there.”

  David Paynter—Paint to his friends—scooted forward on his stomach. His muscled arms dangled from the hayloft as he adjusted Mr. Goblin. When visitors rounded this corner in our Udderly Haunted Barn of Horrors, they’d run into our macabre, eye-level ghoul. I could hear the screams already.

  Watching Paint’s capable hands at work, I had a fleeting wish he’d tug on a few of my strings. I’d had the pleasure of enjoying his talented fingers and inviting lips up close and personal. With regret, I now kept such temptations at bay. Paint’s devilish dark eyes met mine. His face lit up in a wicked grin as he brushed his black hair off his sweaty forehead. Hard to resist.

  “Hey, how about my contribution?” Andy asked, pulling my mind from one temptation to another. Andy had posed a scarecrow just outside one of the stalls. The stuffed female dummy’s angry pout made me laugh.

  “Whoever made the mask nailed it,” I said. “An excellent—if somewhat cruel—caricature of our paper’s illustrious owner.”

  “Mollye’s the artist,” Andy answered. “Snapped a picture of Allie Gerome in mid-rant at an Ardon County Council meeting. She played with the image on her computer, enlarging the bags under her eyes and adding a hint of purple to the woman’s double chin.”

  I chuckled. “A bit unfair. She doesn’t look quite that horrid. But I feel no guilt given her paper’s vicious smear campaign against Aunt Eva.”

  Mollye’s mask coupled with a long-pronged pitchfork made the one-time goofy scarecrow look truly scary. It appeared ready to spear anyone who ventured near.

  Duct tape in hand, Andy strolled out from behind the effigy, giving me another male hunk to admire. Emerald eyes and curly blond hair. Broad shoulders. Andy Green, our veterinarian, boasts lips more addictive than sweet tea. I felt quite certain his bedside manner would prove just as appealing. Too bad I’d never find out.

  I briefly dated both Andy and Paint last spring. I’d never believed a woman could fall for two men at the same time. Only I’d gone and done precisely that. How could I choose one of them? They’d both risked their necks to save my hide.

  Besides, they’d been best friends forever. I wasn’t about to come between them. All of which explains why I spent most nights alone at war with my libido.

  After Andy and Paint rescued me from a psychopath, we had a long conversation. I admitted I was attracted to both of them but would date neither. I said I wanted the three of us to be good, good friends, without benefits. At least not the benefits they had in mind.

  Unfortunately, I regularly fantasized about said benefits.

  “Any other scary stuff to hang or are we done?” I asked, enjoying the decorating task far more than I expected.

  Andy brushed hay off his jeans, and my eyes lingered a minute too long on his well-formed derriere. “We’re finished,” he said. “Think we cleaned out the Halloween supplies at all the area stores. Only thing left was a full-sized skeleton down at Roses.”

  I nodded. “Glad you passed on it. Hope I never see another skeleton on this farm.”

  My residency at Udderly Kidding Dairy began the same week Tammy, our pot-bellied pig, unearthed a skeleton. That would be a real, used-to-have-skin-attached-to-it skeleton. It was quickly identified as Aunt Eva’s unlamented missing husband.

  I heard footsteps and turned.

  “What a sorry sight for these eagle eyes.”

  The open barn door framed the owner of the sultry baritone. My first impression was a very fit specimen of the male persuasion. His T-shirt, tucked into jeans slung low on narrow hips, strained to mold to his solid chest and prominent biceps. Red highlights danced in his ginger hair creating a halo effect. The newcomer stepped forward and a sunbeam spilled through a crack in the barn spotlighting his face and an angry scar that zig-zagged from ear to chin to throat before disappearing under his T-shirt collar.

  Not a question in the world. Zack Strong.

  The words “Inside Straight” marched across his chest. According to Aunt Eva, Zack’s Sin City Aces teammates awarded him the custom shirt after a tabloid questioned his sexual preferences. Sure, he was a pro football player, but he was also thirty-four, unmarried, liked to cook, and refused to divulge any details about his love life. Zack’s mom told Eva that the quarterback found the insinuations amusing despite their potential to scare off some endorsement opportunities. He was less amused when scandalmongers ambushed him in men’s rooms.

  Paint scrambled down from the hayloft. “Eagle eyes? How come you didn’t see that open receiver in the third quarter? You cost me points in Magic Moonshine’s fantasy football league.”

  Zack shrugged. His smile fleeting. “I did it to spite you, of course. Heard through the grapevine you’d made a bet. Meant I had to blow the pass.”

  Andy deserted his stuffed dummy to walk over. “You finally admit it. I suspected it all along: your sole ambition is to screw your friends.”

  “Yeah, you and all the other crazies. At least I now know it’s bad juju to talk back. Just stirs up the idiots.”

  Paint and Zack grasped right hands and pulled each other into a practiced hug/chest bump. I watched the reunion of the old high school buddies unnoticed and apparently forgotten behind a hay bale and yards of gauzy fake cobwebs.

  Once the ritual male back-slapping and phony insults ended, Andy, bless his heart, remembered me. “Zack, you haven’t been introduced to Udderly Kidding’s newest and prettiest resident. Meet Brie Hooker, Eva’s niece.”

  I stepped out from behind my straw bunker to shake hands with the quarterback I’d heard so much about, but had only seen on television. Strong chin. Piercing blue eyes. White teeth. The jagged scar only served to point up his otherwise flawless features.

  Moldy Munster. Did all the thirty-somethings in Ardon County have to look so delectable?

  I answered my own question as soon as I recalled a sampling of the less-attractive masculine population. I still shuddered remembering the night Paint escorted me to a biker bar. Bloodshot eyes. Greasy hair. Beer breath. Ugh.

  “Brie, delighted to meet you.” Zack’s huge hand engulfed mine, erasing all thoughts of greasy bikers.

  “Glad you could make your mom’s party,” I said. “Carol is always bragging about you.”

  “If Mom had told me more about you, I’d have come home sooner.�
� Zack continued to hold my hand.

  “Hey,” Paint said. “Back away, Sport. No horning in on your old buddies. Andy and I have staked our claims on Brie. She just hasn’t decided yet that I’m the most desirable. Only a matter of time. You don’t stand a chance.”

  I figured Paint was kidding, sort of.

  “What do you think of our haunted barn?” I waved my hand around at the ghoul-infested beams decked out in cobweb finery. Giant hairy spiders lurked in every other web. Come nightfall, all our decorations would look far less hokey. Especially after we added sound effects.

  In one corner I spied a particularly realistic web. Then I watched the absolutely genuine spider occupant harvest a trapped fly. Made me think of Mabel, the farm’s quite healthy, very robust black snake. If she made an appearance tonight, I hoped any city folk would assume she was rubber and not try to hurt her. She kept our mice population near zero.

  “Not bad.” Zack craned his neck to look at the ghoul hanging from the loft. “What’s the deal? Pay to enter or pay to exit?”

  Andy smiled. “Both. ’Course they won’t know that when they come in. Twenty-five dollars to enter. Once they’re trapped inside, we’ll demand a fifty-dollar donation to let them out.”

  Zack laughed. “Want an inside man, a reverse bouncer? I’ll be looking for somewhere to hide after the speeches end. It gets old, politely answering the same questions over and over.”

  “You poor thing.” Paint mimed brushing tears from his cheeks. “Being famous must be a real burden, especially trying to decide what to do with all that dough. What’s your contract—twenty mill? That’s like winning the lottery every year.”

  Zack’s smile disappeared. “Money’s not everything. Sometimes I wish I’d never left Ardon County. Constant pressure from lots of idiots who think they own you.”

  He shook his head as if to chase away an unsettling thought, then turned my way and smiled. “Sure as heck if I lived here I’d enter the race to woo Brie.”

  I blushed. The cell phone in my jean pocket vibrated, saving me the need to reply. I pulled out the phone.

  “Hi, Mollye, what’s up?”

  “Is Zack there?” she asked, breathless.

  “Oh, yeah.” I glanced over at the newcomer.

  Mollye barely let me finish.

  “I just got wind that Fred Baxter and Pam North may crash tonight’s wingding. Tell Zack he might want to reconsider showing his handsome hide. Things could get nasty.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Gotta go. Just tell Zack. He’ll know.”

  THREE

  I switched off the phone. “Zack, Mollye wanted to warn you that Fred Baxter and Pam North may show up tonight. She seemed to think you might want to reconsider your appearance.”

  I watched his expression drop.

  “Who are these people?”

  Zack groaned and parked his attractive posterior on a bale of hay.

  Andy gave Zack’s shoulder a brotherly squeeze. “The good ol’ days,” Andy said. “We just strung up ten ghosts and five witches to pop out and scare folks. We don’t need real ones.”

  “Who are you talking about?” I repeated. “Are they dangerous? Do I need to warn Aunt Eva and Carol?”

  Zack sighed. “Fred Baxter the Third claims I killed his son, Quatro. We were barely sixteen when our Jeep slammed into a telephone pole.”

  The words were matter-of-fact. Zack’s face told a different story. The poor fellow still lived that horror.

  His fingers feathered over the scar that careened down his throat. “I got this souvenir. My buddy wasn’t so lucky. Quatro’s dad claims I should have been jailed for homicide, and my mom should have been put behind bars for burying the truth.”

  Paint walked over to sit on the hay bale beside Zack. “Can’t believe Pam’s coming,” he said, switching the subject to the quarterback’s second nemesis. “You knew she was a head case way back in high school. But you still went out with her.”

  The corners of Zack’s lips lifted in an almost smile. “Hey, what can I say? She, eh...made up for her faults in other ways.” He turned toward me. “We broke up like once a week. Terrible, terrible fights. But the make-ups—”

  Paint snickered. “I believe you claimed Pam made your eyeballs do backflips.”

  Zack dipped his head and held a hand over his eyes in mock shame. “I was a kid. I had no prior experience with backflips.”

  “Maybe Pam wants to pick a new fight so you two can make-up like you did in the old days,” Paint suggested. “Then again she’s told everyone you’re a world-class schmuck for tossing her aside soon as you became a hot-shot athlete. I know that’s a lie. You were still a walk-on, two-hundred-pound weakling. Hadn’t even made the college starting lineup when you dumped her.”

  “Guilty as charged.” Zack shrugged. “Promised I’d be faithful. Didn’t happen. Hey, I was eighteen and discovered a whole flock of good-looking coeds who didn’t need screaming matches to put them in the mood.”

  While I found the backstories interesting, my main concern was making sure old grudges didn’t ruin tonight’s event. “The party’s private. We don’t have to let this terrible twosome in if they show up.”

  “Not an option,” Zack barked. “Can see tomorrow’s Ardon Chronicle. ‘Carol Stone Refuses to Face Constituents.’” Zack’s hand waved as he mimicked writing the headline in the air. “Barring them would only give ammunition to Mom’s opponent.

  “That’s how the Chronicle’s owner uses her claws,” he continued. “She’d hint Mom was ducking questions about her ‘unsavory’ past. There’s a reason people call her ‘Alley Cat.’ Let Fred and Pam in if they show. I’ve sparred with the nastiest of so-called reporters for tabloids and blogs. I can handle anything Ardon County throws at me.”

  Zack stood. The good old days’ reunion cheer had evaporated.

  “Great seeing you guys and meeting you, Brie. Time to collect Mom and head home. She claimed my old bedroom for her campaign office. She gets a new office. I get to bunk in the closet-sized guest room. Plus I have to move all the furniture. It’s wrong on so many levels.”

  He sighed dramatically. “Talk to y’all tonight. I’m here till Sunday. Maybe we can do something fun tomorrow. Of course, my contract limits what ‘fun’ I’m allowed—no touch football, no skiing, no horseback riding. Any activity with injury potential is off limits.”

  Paint grinned. “So that’s why there are no reports of you with a lady?”

  Zack laughed. “No, I’m allowed to be with a lady as long as she’s petite, pretty and smells good.” He turned to capture me in his cobalt gaze. “Brie, if you’d like to trade these dipwads for more mature male company, I’m at your service. Day or night.”

  Hmmm. The thought of spending an evening with Zack raised goosebumps. This past year I’d been one of about a million women who enjoyed taking note of his tight honey buns every time he ran onto the football field. I conceded men their cheerleaders since their jiggling flesh got much less air time than the hunks on the field.

  Maybe it was time to move beyond make-believe. It had been nineteen months since I discovered my fiancé was cheating on me and I broke off the engagement. Maybe I’d do more than admire men on a TV screen if I weren’t so pooped most days. Between farm chores and my efforts to renovate Summer Place, the run-down mansion I eventually hoped to turn into a B&B, I had little time for extracurricular activities. Plus the only interested, and interesting, males I encountered—beside my billy goat pals—were Paint and Andy. Off-limits temptations.

  After Zack left, Paint and Andy climbed ladders to string up a big vinyl banner, Carol Strong for a Strong South Carolina, above the Udderly Kidding Dairy entrance. I directed from below, “A little higher on the left, lower on the right.” Then the guys hoisted another banner over the barn door. Halloween Thrills appeared in big letters.
Below a smaller tag line read, Scarier than an Editorial in the Ardon Chronicle.

  Though I’d have loved to quiz Paint and Andy with more questions about Zack’s past, they were substandard gossip sources. They knew the dirt, but they were his buddies and biased. Mollye, however, would know—and tell—all, including spicy rumors and whatever conspiracy theories Allie Gerome had championed on her rag’s opinion page.

  My source arrived at five o’clock, just after Paint and Andy headed home to change for our Halloween fundraiser. The men refused to give me a clue about their costumes. Their teasing smirks implied they were quite pleased with their get-ups. I could only imagine.

  Moll jangled as she hopped down from the psychedelic van she used to promote her store, Starry Skies. Mom called it a “woo-woo” shop. Starry Skies’ inventory included homeopathic remedies, all manner of herbs and oils, astrological doodads, Aunt Eva’s goat soap, and Moll’s own distinctive pottery. My friend also boosted income doing palm and Tarot readings; though she insisted her psychic offerings were strictly for fun.

  “Is that your costume?” I asked as Mollye’s brightly colored skirt swirled around her legs. Multiple earrings and bracelets added tinkling sound effects as she moved.

  “Heck no. I came straight from work. My costume’s in back. Yours, too.”

  “Little Bo Peep, right?” I figured it was kind of appropriate, though I tended goats not sheep. Why quibble over a baa or a bleat? I also hoped it would be somewhat demure. Leaving my friend to pick a costume invited disaster.

  “Nope,” Moll said. “And not a peep out of you about my substitute. Best I could do with last-minute leftovers. The previous Bo Peep must have eaten too many lamb chops. She popped out all the important seams in the costume. Would love to have seen that explosion.”

  “Leftover Liverwurst. Quit stalling. What costume horror did you get me?”

  Mollye smiled. “You like to swim, right? A mermaid seemed highly appropriate.”