My Bluegrass Baby (12 page)

It was probably wrong to leave a long gap of silence to respond. But I wanted to really
consider my answer. Despite everything, I’d come to really enjoy Josh’s company over
the last few nonhostile weeks. He fit nearly all of my requirements for a good dating
candidate. He was funny, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to keep up with me, quip-wise.
He was considerate. I’d seen that much during our incarceration in the supply closet.
He was a nonsmoker. I was pretty sure I’d established that I was crazier than he was.
And he definitely wasn’t living with his mommy. He was a good person. He was a kind
person who was able to admit his faults and see right through mine. I wanted to hold
on until I figured out what exactly I felt for him. Claiming otherwise was cowardly,
and I’d like to think we both deserved better than that.

“I am,” I promised him. “I’ve wanted you since that day at the Derby when I finally
had a real conversation with you. I probably wanted you before then, but that was
only because you’re crazy hot, and I don’t want you to think I’m superficial.”

“Nice,” he snickered, nuzzling his forehead against my neck. “So we’re agreed. No
dating. No Fun Time, naked or otherwise. Until after the state fair.”

“Wait.” I held up one finger to hold off his final word. I pressed my mouth to his,
teasing it open with my tongue to claim him for my own. I was leaving my mark. These
lips now belonged to me. God help anybody who tried to poach between now and August.
“Okay.”

It was going to be a long damn time until that August deadline. “One more,” I said,
kissing him all over again. Josh’s hands shook a little as they slid around my waist,
pulling me firmly against his lap. I reluctantly broke away from him, panting. “Okay.
I’m good.”

Josh’s mouth had followed mine like a magnet, as if he weren’t quite ready for the
second round to be over. “You’re sure?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“ ’Cause we can put the decision off for a few more minutes,” he said.

“Oh, no, I have to preserve my sexy integrity,” I promised, holding my hand up in
a mockery of the Girl Scout salute.

He sighed. “I knew that was going to come back to bite me.”

In Which I Lose My Bloomers

8

Once again, I was reminded that I was not tough enough to be a woman in the days of
corsetry and smelling salts.

I pulled at the collar of the Civil War–era nurse’s uniform I was wearing, praying
for some cool air to make its way under the multitude of layers. I should not have
let Kelsey pick out the costumes for the Columbus-Belmont summer encampment. She was
clearly still a little pissed at me about the previous fall’s hoopskirts.

Still, I was rather proud of the encampment campaign Josh and I had put together under
our new ceasefire agreement. We ran with the recruitment theme for brochures, flyers,
Internet banner ads, and a radio spot narrated by one of the chief reenactors. We
picked a final shade of blue without coming to blows. We used a careful pro-con system
to determine revisions on printed materials. I’d even managed to write the copy for
the radio spot with a minimum of fussing from Josh. He added unnecessary semicolons,
but I don’t think he could stop himself from making
some
changes.

The state park coordinators had enjoyed our efforts so much that they made us promise
we would visit the summer event as a staff. Instead of, say, relaxing and enjoying
the encampment like normal people, we were there as volunteers. Our office had worked
as support staff at the fall event for so many years that it was sort of a tradition.
Our tradition was that we stayed at a motel just down the highway, worked ourselves
to exhaustion, and then made questionable late-night nutritional choices at Denny’s
each night. There was no reason we couldn’t do that in July. The event was sponsored
and run by the state park staff and county officials so we were mostly there to run
errands, answer general questions, and occasionally help out with the workshops.

Kelsey and I tried different costumes every year and had learned the previous fall
that elaborate hoopskirts did not combine well with negotiating the uneven ground
surrounding the camp. Or at least, with clumsy people. There was an incident involving
a campfire that will not be discussed under terms of the “sacred assistant-supervisor
oath.” (Kelsey insisted that was a real thing.) So this year, Kelsey had strapped
herself into the circa 1861 equivalent of a tavern wench costume, and I was a not-so-naughty
nurse. I was wearing a dark gray wool dress covered by a thick white apron with a
lovely matching cap.

On its own, the dress wasn’t terribly uncomfortable. However, Kelsey, who had her
own collection of corsets for reasons I preferred not to think about, insisted that
I be historically accurate down to the bloomers and cincher. When she found me leaning
against the pole of the canteen tent, having a claustrophobic fit and pulling at the
boning of the short “active wear” corset, she told me to suck it up.

“You know, I refuse to take fashion criticism from someone dressed as a nineteenth-century
cocktail wench,” I told her, eyeing her blowsy costume top.

That was the moment when I looked up to see Kelsey’s stunned expression, then followed
her line of sight. Josh was walking across the encampment, framed in the kind of golden
morning light Hollywood divas had written into their production contracts. He was
wearing a Union officer’s uniform, complete with saber and dark cowboy-style Hardee
hat.

Oh, and apparently Charlie was standing next to him.

Who knew?

I waved a hand in front of Kelsey’s glazed-over eyes. No response. We were both going
to need some knee support if we were going to make it through the day. Josh was not
making this whole delayed-gratification, no-dating thing easy at all. How was I supposed
to be professional when he walked around taunting me with his hotness? He was an unrepentant
taunter.

“This is so unfair,” I whimpered.

Kelsey wiped at her chin, where I detected a trace of drool. “Tell me about it.”

Josh and I were still keeping our potential maybe-feelings for each other under the
radar. The good news was that routing all of my mental energy to the “behaving appropriately”
portion of my brain provided a respite for the creative portion, and I finally came
up with a solid idea for my state fair campaign. Ironically enough, it was based on
something Josh said about “making the differences work.” My title was “Kentucky—Not
What You Expect.” It took several all-nighters, but I had just enough time to arrange
the photo shoots for Kelsey and put a plan together before the printer’s deadline.

It seemed that kissing coworkers was the best way to reset your noggin. And all of
my mental progress was being undone by the sight of my pseudo-work-boyfriend dressed
up like something out of a historical romance.

“You promoted yourself to sergeant, huh?” I said, nodding at the gold chevrons on
Josh’s sleeves as he and Charlie approached.

“The officer’s uniform came with a sword,” he said, unsheathing the prop and holding
it up proudly. “I thought I was going to have to pull rank on Charlie to get it. But
he’s just excited to be here.”

He nodded toward Charlie, who was talking animatedly with Kelsey about the various
reenactor groups involved in the encampment. He made lots of swooping arm movements,
which I could only assume were descriptions of how the individual units would flank
each other.

“We try not to let him out this much. We’re afraid that if he realizes there is life
outside of the office, we’ll lose him to the real world,” I said.

I noted that despite Kelsey’s low neckline, Charlie kept his eyes on her face, which
made me like Charlie just a little bit more. Kelsey was smiling up at him with this
sweet, puppy-eyed expression that I never saw from my sardonic little assistant. It
made my heart ache for her. She liked him so much, and yet she stayed with her dink
of a boyfriend because she thought that was all she deserved.

For the thousandth time since they’d started dating, I mentally catalogued the ways
I could make Darrell’s death look like an accident.

“Completely clueless, isn’t he?” Josh asked, nodding at them.

“No, I’ve made it pretty clear to Darrell that no one would find his body,” I mused.

Josh’s sandy eyebrows flew up to his hairline. “Sorry?”

I shook myself out of my murderous musings, cheeks flushing. “Nothing. What were you
saying?”

“Charlie; he’s clueless that Kelsey’s nuts about him.”

I gave an unladylike snort. “I think she could bedazzle ‘Take me, I’m yours’ across
her forehead in rhinestones, and he would ask her what she meant.”

“I would get involved, but I’m focusing all of my energy on behaving myself around
you,” he said, fingertips hovering ever so close to my wrist, one of the few exposed
areas of my body. “And to be honest, Kelsey scares me.”

I chuckled. “She should.”

“And what’s with your outfit?” he asked. “It’s not that you don’t look adorable, because
you do. But you have the opportunity to dress like Scarlett O’Hara, and you go for
Florence Nightingale?”

“Florence Nightingale was British.”

“I’m just saying, Bonnie’s dressed up in some cute Little Bo Peep deal and you picked
something that would let you fade into the background,” he said, his tone disappointed.
“You don’t have any trouble standing out when we’re at the office.”

“Previous experience. We need to be able to maneuver around quickly and quietly if
something comes up.”

His bottom lip stuck out a bit, giving him a petulant look. “I was just looking forward
to seeing you all corseted up.”

I leaned in so my mouth just barely brushed his ear. “Who says I’m not wearing a corset?”

He cringed, raising his eyes heavenward. “That was mean.”

“Are you pouting on me, Vaughn?”

“Men with swords don’t pout,” he retorted.

“What do boys with plastic props do?” I asked.

“Do you always have to have the last word?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

“Stop that!” he cried.

•   •   •

While the guys led small groups along the walking trail and prevented small children
from getting too close to the bluffs, Bonnie gave regular dramatic monologues from
the perspective of the wives left behind as soldiers from both sides marched off to
war. Kelsey ended up explaining the root-beer-making process to rotating groups of
middle-school kids, but thanks to her nerd herd, she was able to give a fact-filled,
easy-to-understand explanation of the science behind the brew.

I ran back and forth between the headquarters tent and the various activity tents,
carrying bottled water and first aid kits to the staff and being a general dogsbody.
The problem with this year’s costume was that people assumed I was an actual nurse,
so I had to stay away from the medical tent or be subjected to blisters, scrapes,
and other ickiness I was not qualified to handle.

Josh and his sword were a big hit with the kids. It was fortunate that he’d read up
on the location’s history, allowing him to construct believable stories when they
stopped him to ask what it was like in the “old” war. Eventually, the kids were giving
him referrals, telling their playmates to find him and ask for a story. Bonnie was
so impressed that she planned to ask him to join her on her next Daniel Boone Trail
traveling exhibit. I wished her luck with that.

It was a long, exhausting day, but it was a lot of fun. It was nice being an assistant
rather than running the show. And I learned new things about Kentucky history, which
was always a plus. While I had known that both Lincoln and Confederate president Jefferson
Davis were born in Kentucky, I’d had no idea they were born within a hundred miles
of each other, in LaRue and Christian counties, respectively.

The only problem was the corset. I was expected to wear it all day and then attend
the bonfire dance that evening, but I didn’t anticipate how much the new style would
cage in my poor aching ribs. I hated this confined, squeezed feeling, like being strangled
by a really weak python. My plan was to make a polite effort at dancing a few before
we made our excuses and headed back to the motel for some well-deserved grease-based
late-night breakfast. At the moment, I could barely move enough to do the electric
slide, much less a reel.

Most of the reenactors were sleeping in period-appropriate tents nearby and wandered
back to our area after their own cookouts. The crowd had thinned considerably to just
the reenactors and the hard-core enthusiasts. The more experienced reenactors led
us through basic dances and floor patterns while the band warmed up their fiddles.

The dance was an informal affair, the dance floor consisting of a hard-packed dirt
circle surrounded by rough-hewn pine benches. For lighting, we had Mason jar lanterns
strung around the perimeter. The lanterns’ battery-powered LEDs weren’t period accurate,
but the state’s liability officer would have had a stroke if the staff had strung
tiny fireballs just above the guests’ heads. We all seemed a little worse for wear,
tired from our long day out in the sun. But I figured that the people of the time
period were probably rumpled and less-than-perfectly groomed, so it just added to
the authenticity.

I’d taken a few period-appropriate dance classes over the years, because that was
Ray’s twisted idea of a team-building exercise. He’d found a guy who taught folk-
and square-dancing classes professionally and invited him to boss us around for two
days. For months, when an employee acted out, all Ray had to say was “Virginia Reel”
and they’d straighten right back up.

And for the record, those YouTube videos were entirely Kelsey’s fault. I didn’t even
see her set up that tripod.

Josh was out of his element, but didn’t seem to care. He stepped out of turn and went
the wrong direction more than once, but he also laughed his head off the entire time.
The fiddle player knew what he was doing, playing lively tunes that kept the feet
moving. The closest we got to a slow jam was going to be the occasional waltz. I took
pity on poor unpartnered Charlie, who had lost Kelsey to some burly older guy in buckskin
pants. Charlie lost his footing twice and nearly took me down with him before he finally
decided to sit out. I made my way over to the refreshments table, where the organizers
were serving tart, ice-cold hard cider in Mason jars. I’d had two glasses before my
wallflower time was cut short and Josh pulled me to his side.

“Help me,” he whispered frantically, blue eyes darting wildly around the dance floor.
“That woman in the pink dress keeps pinching my ass!”

I looked over his shoulder to see a rather horse-faced woman in period costume eyeing
Josh’s backside hungrily. When she realized I was looking at her, she sneered at me.
I stifled a snicker. “Well, what am I supposed to do about it?”

“I told her you were my wife.”

I set my jar of cider aside. “Why is it that every time things get rough, we let people
believe that we’re a couple?”

“Because you always have that exasperated look on your face when you’re near me, which
makes it believable. Please be my human shield, one more time?” he begged, pressing
my hand to his chest. The brass buttons of his uniform glinted dully in the battery-operated
lights. And I could smell the clean scent of his cologne wafting up from his collar.
Over his shoulder, I could see Ray watching us, mouth pressed into an inscrutable
expression. My lips twitched upward, but I tamped them down into a stern, straight
line.

“This is the last time,” I told him. He gave me one of those million-watt boyish grins,
took my arm, and we were flying.

Josh clutched my arm as we wove through the other couples, bobbing and ducking under
the bridges formed by joined arms. The cider must have had a bit more kick than I
thought, because I went from sober to giddy and dizzy within a few minutes. The music
grew louder, beating a happy tattoo inside my head as I threw myself into the movements
with abandon. I tripped on my skirt a few times and Josh had to brace my elbow to
keep me from face-planting in the dirt. He took a more proactive approach, looping
his arm around my waist and holding me close. Rather than the polite clasp of hands,
he laced his fingers through mine, his thumb resting across my wrist. Could he feel
my pulse racing? Could I play it off as the exertion of dancing in seven layers of
clothes?