Promises Under the Peach Tree by Joanne Rock

Author:Joanne Rock [Rock, Joanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

“YOU SURE YOU don’t want a hand?” Mack looked back and forth between his niece and her classmate.

The two girls had politely accepted the wagon full of spray-paint cans and twine to mark off their maze, but they seemed more than ready to be left alone to do their work.

“Won’t you have to do a lot of measuring to be sure you don’t get off track with the dimensions?” Nina studied the image of the proposed maze on Rachel’s tablet. She’d dropped by the fairgrounds to meet with the Harvest Fest committee earlier about the food and had stayed through the afternoon to help out with an assortment of chores that needed to be taken care of before the festival began on Friday. “It seems like this will take forever.”

Ally shook her head while the other girl, Rachel, stepped forward.

“I’m texting the final layout to a bunch of our friends.” She held up her phone for proof. “I superimposed a grid on the image and we’ll each take a section to work on. It should come together pretty quickly that way since all the measurements are on each portion of the image.”

“Cool.” Ally leaned closer to the girl’s phone to check it out. “What friends?”

Did Ally sound nervous, or was Mack just paranoid after the girl’s episode at work? He’d watched his mother for signs of mood shifts for so long that it was second nature. He glanced toward Nina, looking to see if she was thinking along the same lines.

And since when had he fallen right back in synch with her?

“Anyone from math class with a car.” Rachel shrugged, scrolling through screens on her phone. “You know, Brad, Davy, Ethan—”

“He’s in your phone, too?” Ally asked.

Definitely nervous. Nina glanced his way, her look telling him she’d heard the tension, too.

“Girls, the maze is going to be spectacular.” Nina passed the tablet back to Rachel. “Ally, can I talk to you for just one quick second before we go?

When Ally appeared unsure, Mack asked Rachel about the maze design to distract her. But the girl came to life, firing off references to European labyrinths and math formulas he’d forgotten as soon as he finished college. His head hurt by the time Nina and Ally were done with their private chat. Rachel Wagoner finished her lesson by telling him to look up the Hollywood Stone because of his family’s Irish connections.

As he and Nina walked away from the girls, he heard Ally asking Rachel which piece of the grid she should take so they could begin painting. His niece seemed okay today. Grounded.

He wished he could say the same about himself. He turned his attention to the woman beside him, a woman who was still tying him up in knots half the time.

He and Nina continued along the perimeter of the fairgrounds toward the manmade pond where there would be cardboard boat races over the weekend.

“You have time for me to give you a rowboat tour?” Mack pointed to the assortment of vessels along the shore of the pond.

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