Kate hung the scarf back on the display. “I love it! The parade was amazing, and I loved seeing you up there driving that stagecoach. Are you going to be our driver on Monday?”

“Oh, no, honey! Waylon gets to drive that day and Paul will ride shotgun. I’ll be in the stagecoach to protect all the girls.” He winked.

“How many of these festivals have you attended?” Kate asked.

“I haven’t missed a festival since I was born back in Prohibition. Did anyone ever tell you how Bootleg got its name?”

Kate glanced over his shoulder, scanning the crowd for Waylon. “No, sir, they didn’t.”

“Well, let’s me and you go that way.” He pointed toward the left. “I saw the funnel cake vendor over there. We can have a midmorning snack and talk,” he said. “Hattie will find me a lot quicker if I’m sittin’ down. She and I have got to ride the Ferris wheel together. It’s been our tradition since we was six years old. I was scared to death to ride it, but I wanted to so bad she rode with me. Helped me out—I couldn’t be afraid in front of a girl.”

Kate followed him to the funnel cake wagon, where he marched right up to the window, laid his money on the shelf, and said, “Give me the biggest that you got. Me and that good-lookin’ blonde are goin’ to share it.”

The smell of the hot grease and sweet frying bread brought back a memory that she hadn’t thought of in years. Her father had taken her to a medieval fair somewhere close to Dallas, and they’d eaten funnel cakes. It had been a fun day, and she’d fallen asleep on the way home that evening. When she awoke the next morning, her fingers were still sticky. She’d licked the sweet sugar from them and hoped that they could go to the fair again that day. Her mother and father had both gone to work before she went down to the kitchen for breakfast and the nanny fussed about her sleeping in dirty clothing. The memory put a smile on her face and filled her with happiness.

Victor carried the paper plate carefully to the table where Kate had sat down. He placed the plate in the middle of the small table and pulled out a chair across from her.

“You can have the first bite,” he said.

Kate quickly pinched off a bite, popped it into her mouth, and then pulled a couple of napkins from the metal holder in the middle of the table. “You were going to tell me about Bootleg?”

“The lake came about in 1924, back before I was even born. Until then it was just a part of the Wichita River. Down in this area, it was far enough from prying eyes that folks who had a notion to make moonshine could use the banks of the river to do so. Didn’t want to put a still too close to the house. If you got caught, you could lose your property.” Victor told the story between bites.

When they finished the last strip of cake, he pulled a roll of bills from his shirt pocket and peeled off a five. “Go get us another one, but don’t tell Hattie. She’s going to want to share one with me later, and I sure don’t want her to know that I’ve already had two.”

Kate didn’t have to stand in line, so she was only gone a few minutes. “Tell me more about Bootleg and how it got its name.”

Victor pulled off a chunk of cake. “My grandpa was one of those bootleggers. Times got tough those days, and he found a spot on the river and started up a business. It’s what saved our home place here in Bootleg.”

Hattie sat down beside Kate, picked off a piece of the cake, and took up the story. “History has it when the community sprang up near the lake, they tried to name it Lincoln, after the past president, and then Lakeside, but nothing stuck. Everyone had called the place Bootleg for so long they all finally gave up on naming it anything else.

“Hey.” Hattie looked across the table at Victor. “You old fart. I bet you wasn’t going to own up to eating one of these before you shared one with me, was you?”

Victor held up his hands and grinned. “Busted!”

“Don’t tell me you rode the Ferris wheel without me, too.” Hattie’s hands went to her hips and her mouth set in a firm line.

“Don’t get your underpants all twisted up. I wouldn’t do that. We got to ride it together or you get scared,” he teased.

“Not me. I love the Ferris wheel.”

Waylon sat down in the fourth chair and reached for a bite of the cake. “Good mornin’, all y’all. I hear the picnic for Monday has been approved. What do I need to do or cook, Hattie?”

“You have the stagecoach ready, and me and Victor will bring the rest of it,” Hattie answered. “Right now, we’re going to go ride that Ferris wheel, aren’t we, Victor?”

“Yes, ma’am, we are.” He grinned. “And I won’t eat another bite of this cake, so I’ll have plenty of room to share one with you when we get done.”

Kate loved these two old folks and would gladly adopt them. She’d send presents on their birthdays, for Christmas, and even Grandparents Day if they’d let her call them her own.

She waited until they were out of hearing distance before she said, “We should turn the tables on those two and get them together in their golden years.”

“They are together,” Waylon said.

“I mean in one house and married.”

“Whole town has been trying to do that since before my mother died. They are happy, but they will never get married. They’re too set in their ways. Are you going to ride the Ferris wheel with me?”

“What does riding the Ferris wheel mean? That we are friends for life?” She was flirting and knew it, but right then she felt as free and as excited about the day as Gracie.

He picked up the last of the funnel cake, tore it in two pieces, and fed half to her. His fingertips grazing her lips ignited sparks that flitted around the air like fireflies. Turnabout was fair play. She quickly picked up what was left and fed it to him, deliberately brushing the back of her hand across his freshly shaven cheek.

His sudden intake of breath and the way his eyes went all dreamy gave testimony that she’d had the same effect on him that he’d had on her.

“So?” she asked.

“So what? More funnel cake?”

“No. If I ride the Ferris wheel with you, does that make us friends for life like Hattie and Victor?” She hoped he said no—suddenly she wanted to be more than friends. It wasn’t possible, but then, it wasn’t a sin to want something even if there wasn’t a chance in hell of ever getting it.

“Of course. And before I forget, here’s my part of that flower and balloon order.” He slipped a bill into her shirt pocket. The touch of his fingertips brushing across her breast sent another shock wave through her body.

She quickly jerked the money out and handed it back to him. “I didn’t sign either of our names, and it’s already taken care of.”

“But they know I was in on it.” He dropped the money into her purse. “Gracie hugged me and thanked me a dozen times for her balloons. And I pay my bills, so don’t argue with me about this, Kate.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Detective Kramer.” She dragged out his name.

Damn! Damn! Damn! Now he’d gone and spoiled the whole feeling.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not Conrad. I’m not going to take your money or stomp on your heart. Don’t compare me to him.”

She gritted her teeth until her jaws ached. “Don’t accuse me of things I didn’t do. And don’t bring up his name to me. And another thing—if you put cuffs on me and drag me to jail for something I didn’t do, that classifies as stomping on my heart. And the final thing—I’m not going to ride the Ferris wheel with you. What if a columnist or reporter or even blogger is roaming around among all these people and they see us snuggled up together on a Ferris wheel?”

He stood to his feet. “You are right about the ride, but when you come back to Bootleg next year to enjoy the festival with Gracie, this will all be done. Save me a spot next to you.”

“Who says I’ll come back?”

She picked up her purse and was about to leave when Gracie yelled from across the street, “There’s the funnel cake wagon and there’s Kate. Hey, Kate, wait for us!”