I blinked. “Four?”

“Four. So you and Stacey are doing double the work of last year. No wonder you’re frantic. You need more staff at the bar.”

“Four.” I shook my head in wonderment. So when I’d told Simon—well, bitched at Simon—we’d been doing the work of six people, I hadn’t been far off. Go, me. “How did Stacey not notice this? Doesn’t she do this every year?”

Chris pushed at one corner of the bookcase until it stood a little more at an angle away from the wall and nodded in satisfaction. “We can put the cookbooks and self-help back on this shelf, I think. Do you want to grab those?” As I went to retrieve the boxes she asked for, she raised her voice so it would carry to the other side of the shop. “Stacey’s a great girl. She’s fantastic in character, and she’s so good at mingling with guests and being part of the whole Faire atmosphere. But she’s less than fantastic at organization.”

“That’s putting it mildly.” I stacked two boxes on the metal dolly and wheeled them back to the empty bookcase.

“So I have a feeling she didn’t put it together that fewer wenches means short staff. Cookbooks on this side, self-help over there.” She took the top box off the dolly and started unloading books. “I’ll talk to someone this week. Maybe if they can move a few more volunteers over there, you’ll be able to breathe more easily.”

I wanted to make a breathing-in-a-corset joke, but I was too tired, and the offer made me too grateful. “That would be fantastic.” I stretched up onto tiptoe to place books, but even then I was too short to reach the top shelf. I needed a stool. “Anything that gets Simon off my back would be very much appreciated.”

Chris laughed from the other side of the bookcase. “Trouble in handfasted paradise already? I thought you two crazy kids were going to make a go of it.”

“Ha.” I slapped two more books onto the shelf. “He dislikes me as much as I dislike him.”

Chris hummed, a noncommittal sound. “I’m sure he doesn’t dislike you. He’s just . . .”

“An asshole?” But it was an automatic response. I was used to my knee-jerk reaction to Simon being irritation, but it had been a while since I’d truly felt that way about him.

The hum became a choked laugh. “Intense. Sometimes. Sean was the outgoing one, so Simon’s always been a little quieter. I’ve known him for most of his life, so I’m used to him. He wasn’t always this . . .”

“Intense?” I supplied her own word this time. She was right. That was a much better descriptor for Simon.

“Exactly. Especially when it comes to Faire. He’s so protective of it . . .”

“Because of his brother.” I finished the sentence for her.

“In any case,” Chris continued. “Simon can be an acquired taste. Like strong espresso.”

I liked strong espresso. It was dark. Rich. It exploded on your tongue and flooded your senses, waking everything up. Then I remembered Simon’s kiss, the staged one at the handfasting. Followed by the kiss on my hand, when his eyes had shared unspoken secrets with me. The thought of espresso mixed in my mind with Simon, and I wondered how he would taste against my tongue instead. What would a real kiss with him be like? Would his touch flood my senses? Could a buttoned-down guy like that overwhelm, overpower?

I suppressed a shiver and grabbed more books. But I blew out a long, slow breath as I stacked them, willing my body to calm down. My thoughts had gone in a completely inappropriate direction, and I couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t have time to wonder about the Ren Faire Killjoy and what his kiss might taste like.

* * *

• • •

The next Saturday morning I rounded the corner to the tavern and stopped in my tracks.

Stacey stopped alongside me. “What the hell?”

What the hell, indeed. Instead of only Jamie as our red-shirt volunteer, we had two more. Three people in red shirts, setting up the bar and getting ready for the day. The tavern had gotten an upgrade.

“Chris.” A wave of relief washed over me as I said her name.

Stacey looked behind us, around us. “No, I don’t see her.”

“I mean Chris did this.” I gestured to the additional volunteers. “I told her this week how insane everything was, and she said you had a lot more wenches last year, and so we needed more volunteers to make up the difference.”

“Oh, yeaahhh.” Stacey drew out the last word for about five seconds. “I didn’t even think of that.”

“She said she’d talk to someone, and I guess she did!” By this time we’d remembered to keep walking and made it the rest of the way to the tavern, stowing our baskets and introducing ourselves to our new staff.

Staff. We had staff. The idea was so delicious I didn’t know what to do.

“Where do you want us?” One of our new volunteers, Janet, was all smiles, the stereotypical soccer-mom type with a blond ponytail anchored by a baseball cap. I could tell by looking at her that she made cupcakes for her kids’ class and was damn good at it. And now she was ready to be damn good at serving beer to semidrunken Renaissance faire guests too.

“Well . . .” I cast a quick eye over the whole setup, remembering how busy we’d gotten, and where the logjams had happened. It didn’t take long for me to assign everyone to duties that would streamline everything, keeping Stacey and me front and center, maybe even out from behind the bar if all went to plan. If anyone had a problem with me taking charge, no one said anything. In fact, Stacey looked relieved that I’d put a plan into place. After what Chris had said about Stacey not being too organized I felt bad for her. Since she’d been guiding me all this time, choosing my outfit and educating me in all things Faire, I’d assumed she was in charge. But that wasn’t her personality. That wasn’t the kind of person she was.

But it was the kind of person I was. I could organize. Putting the volunteers where they needed to be was easy; in my bar days I’d managed employees all the time. This was exactly the same, only in a flashier, less comfortable outfit.

Now that things ran so much more smoothly, Faire became a whole different experience for me. For both of us. We could actually breathe—as well as we could in our costumes. We greeted patrons as they ducked into our canopied tavern; we cleared cups from tables as soon as they left. When we spotted a minstrel wandering the lane between his scheduled shows, we coaxed him inside, and he led us and the patrons in a drinking song. I didn’t know the words, but like all drinking songs they were easy to pick up, and by the end I was belting it out with the rest.

I wanted to see the Celtic music show that we could barely hear, but its start coincided with another show ending, so every time I was about to duck out to see it we’d get hit with a wave of patrons, making it impossible to get away. I reminded myself that we were only on the second week of Faire, and we had a full staff in the tavern. There was still plenty of time to see everything. Including the joust. Oh, I desperately wanted to see knights on horseback, charging at each other with lances. I knew it was all choreographed. I didn’t care.

Despite the easier time we were having in the tavern, by the early afternoon my feet had already started to ache. But the way things were now, we could take the occasional break to sit, and that made a huge difference in my outlook.

During a lull, Stacey grabbed my arm. “Come on, they’re about to start the chess.”

“Are you sure?” I glanced around the bar, but Jamie waved us off.

“Go. We’re good.”

“See? They’re good. C’mon.”

“I still don’t understand why it’s chess,” I said as we followed the path to the field. “There’s no pieces, and it’s just fighting.”

Stacey rolled her eyes, but the grin stayed on her face. “Human chess,” she said. “Human. Meaning the people are the pieces.” We reached the field, which had been turned into a chessboard. Lines were painted over the grass in a square pattern, with every other one completely shaded in with white.

“I see the board. I get that people are pieces. Where does the fighting come in?”

“When they play. You know, rook takes bishop.” She shadowboxed against nothing, her fists going pow-pow. “Then they fight.”

I remained skeptical, but we found a spot to stand in the back behind the rows of benches for the patrons. A dais was erected at one end of the field, where Chris, in full regalia as the Queen, sat with a retinue of guards and ladies-in-waiting. I didn’t see Caitlin among them, though; she was probably making the rounds with other noblewomen. Meanwhile, cast members worked the crowd, announcing the match was about to begin, beckoning people off the lane to come and watch. One of those cast members was Simon. All in black, as usual, but he’d taken off his vest—he probably didn’t wear it to fight.

He turned his head as we arrived, and my heart skittered at his surprised smile. He was about fifteen times handsomer when he smiled, becoming a completely different person from the stern, rules-driven dickhead I’d gotten to know. Since I’d only really ever seen him smile when he was in costume, it was no wonder Emma the tavern wench responded so strongly to him.