— THIRTEEN —
HAUNT The Park was a family affair.
Even if his brother hadn’t been the park ranger in charge, Rafe would probably still have signed up for off-duty service for the annual pre-Halloween event. He had fond memories of making out on the hayrides in high school and never tired of hearing kids talk about how they survived the loop through the dark campground and all the scenes of gore and horror they encountered on the way.
His mother donated the hot chocolate and apple cider, and Dani was manning the table on the far side of the parking lot. When Liv had worked for his mom, she’d stood right there next to his sister. That familiar ache pulsed in his chest—regret and confusion, because it wasn’t supposed to be like this. And then the newer but still just as recognizable reaction of self-loathing. Fuck, he needed to get over himself. The notes had been his last attempt to ask for a second chance and she’d obviously passed.
Maintaining distance while he sorted his head out had been hard. Now that he was avoiding her, he caught tail-end glimpses everywhere. Her car driving away from the diner at the end of a shift. Her ponytail swishing into the bank mid-afternoon. And on Facebook, all of a sudden this morning everyone was sharing a flyer notice about a public meeting about the film shoot. And there was Olivia’s name as a local contact down in the bottom right hand corner. Olivia Minelli. He traced the letters with his eyes, over and over again. She still used his name. She was still his. Except he didn’t have a decent plan to remind her of that fact in a way that didn’t send her running for the hills.
He even thought he’d seen her here tonight, but that was wishful thinking. Liv hadn’t come to Haunt the Park since they broke up.
The detachment had been asked to provide two officers for traffic control as the fundraising night brought more visitors to the park than any other evening event of the year. As always, Dean and Rafe were the first volunteers. And as usual, both of them weren’t needed for the whole night, so they took turns riding the loop. Dean returned from his ride on the wagon just in time to nip Rafe’s melancholy in the bud.
“Your turn.” Dean nodded to a small figure bobbing along in line. She hadn’t been visible ten seconds earlier, but the queue weaved around the administrative building. His friend bumped an elbow into his side, a dull thud against the layers of his uniform. “Go join her.”
“Nah.” She’d made it clear she didn’t want to try again, and he wasn’t any closer to having a plan to win her back. Taking a break from her hadn’t brought clarity about their relationship. If anything, seeing her again tumbled him backwards by a month. He stared at her, all bundled up against the cool fall night. Why couldn’t he get over her? Their marriage hadn’t worked. It was a fool’s errand to think she’d ever give him a second chance. He’d tried the cocky bastard routine, he’d tried sweet and adorable. There was a reason nothing had worked. “She doesn’t want me.”
Dean snorted. “Man, you gotta pull your head out of your ass. Why else would she be here? Do you think she likes freezing her pretty little ass off?”
“Eyes off her ass,” Rafe groused.
“Go join her in line. Just see what happens.”
That had been his plan before—just see what happens—but he hadn’t lasted long with it. Probably wouldn’t this time, either. By Christmas, he’d be drunk and on her front lawn in a red suit.
He stared across the parking lot. She was talking to the kids ahead of her in line as they bobbed around their parents, but clearly hadn’t come with anyone. Fuck it. It wasn’t like it was a big secret that he was mooning over her. Might as well enjoy the rush of being near her again before she dashed his hopes to smithereens.
And maybe this time would be different. Wishful thinking.
He wandered in her direction, eyes on his prize the whole way, but he didn’t rush. She was bundled up in a fleece hoodie, mini mitts and a toque, but her pink cheeks and bright eyes were super cute. He wanted to kiss her—hard. Make her shriek and laugh and blush so furiously everyone would know he’d turned her on. But he wanted to loop her arm through his and just stand together, too. Be seen as a couple and go home with her at the end of the night, where he’d kiss her all over again, not stopping until she was screaming his name with her legs wrapped around his head.
He really had no self-restraint when it came to Liv fantasies. He also had a hard time remembering why that was a bad thing, especially when she caught sight of him.
Her eyes lit up and a gorgeous smile spread across her face. “Hey, you.” Was he imagining that her voice was softer, more sultry, than he’d heard in two years? She tilted her head toward the front of the line. “You want to take a ride with me?”
There was no way he was imagining that, not with the way her lower lip plumped out and she glanced up at him under her eyelashes. He stepped into line with a quick thanks to the couple behind them, who both gave him knowing winks—even if he didn’t recognize them, they definitely knew him and Liv.
They crawled ahead a few more feet, then the queue paused again. His heart beat fast and sure in his chest. His Olivia had just flirted, hardcore, with him. He hadn’t said anything, just walked over, and instead of being cheeky or combative, she’d suggested…well, hell, his mind filled in all the possible ways they could ride each other. Like a technicolour X-rated slideshow, snapshot memories of all the various ways they’d loved each other slammed through his head.
He slid his arm around her waist, sneaking his fingertips under the edge of her sweatshirt to press against her bare skin. He needed to remember that he was in uniform and had to return to work in half an hour. This wasn’t going to end with him hauling her over his shoulder and driving ten over the speed limit back to their house for a ride. They were going on a wagon covered in hay bales and excited, impressionable children.
He absolutely should not lean over and brush his lips against her temple, knowing it would make her shiver. He did it anyway because full restraint was a lost cause. So while he was there, Rafe decided to play with fire. Just a little bit. Just enough for his fingers to feel the pinch of the flame as the match burned. He wouldn’t use the match. Just light it and then blow it out.
“I’m surprised to see you here tonight, Liv. I didn’t think a slow, bumpy ride in the dark was your kind of thing.” He whispered the words against the outer curve of her ear and was rewarded with another shiver. Of course, it was also cold as hell. He shouldn’t assume…
She slowly turned her face towards him and smiled again, a simple curve of her mouth that tugged at something dangerous low in his gut. Really low. He gave silent thanks for the dark cover of night and a navy uniform as his erection started to swell. She knew what she was doing, the minx, because she kept her voice low and for his ears only. “As long as we keep our clothes on, I’m game for pretty much any kind of ride you want to take with me.”
How much trouble would he get in for causing a public scene and abandoning his post? Rafe couldn’t be sure he cared. But then her first words slid through his lusty haze. Clothes on? “Wait, what?”
Her face fell. “Weren’t we teasing each other? I thought…your comment about the bumpy ride…”
He kissed her forehead and pulled her close, pressing her hip into his pelvis. Hopefully it just looked like a hug, but between his gun on one side and his stick on the other lay proof of what her words did to him. She twisted and gasped against his chest and he quietly laughed. “This is so not the place for this conversation.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come tonight.”
Jesus, he couldn’t resist that. He squeezed her waist and ducked his head again. “I think you should come every night.”
“Haunt has been a once a year—oh.” She stilled, then turned her face even more towards him. “Who says I don’t come every night?”
Blood pounded through his veins, racing for his cock at the breathtaking image of Liv getting herself off. His tongue felt thick and useless in his mouth and he gave up any hope of responding. She’d most definitely won that round.
Smirking in knowing victory, she pushed away from him, but it was okay because she found his hand and wove her fingers into his and pulsed her hand reassuringly.
They moved forward again, silently this time. Even when he found his voice again, he wasn’t going to ruin the perfection of the moment. It was hot and heady and everything he couldn’t figure out on his own.
It felt like a first date.
A really, really good first date. So he didn’t say anything, just held Liv’s hand and savoured the warm press of her hip against his thigh. She didn’t say anything either. Probably didn’t want to risk goading him into saying something even more outlandish. Which he would, if it made her laugh or turned her on—or even better, did both at the same time. She might have landed a direct shot, but dirty teasing was his specialty when he wasn’t blindsided by it. He’d have another chance soon enough.
Two wagons came in back to back, and the line leapt forward by forty people. Pretty soon it was their turn and they found a hay bale at the back of the wagon. Rafe sat first, secretly hoping Liv would choose to nestle into his side. He wasn’t disappointed. He wrapped his arm around her and rested his cheek on the soft fleece of her hat.
The driver snapped his reins and off they went, the wagon bumping and swaying gently into the night. In the distance, spooky music promised a scary good time, and the kids in front of them were bouncing in anticipation.
Rafe knew the feeling. “So…”
She smiled up at him. “So?”
“I’m surprised to see you here tonight.”
She looked at him for a long moment. There was more in her eyes than she was willing to say out loud, and his heart thumped against his chest. Shut up, hope, there’s no place for you here. Except it felt like there really was. “We might want to use the park at night. This is easier than asking Tom for an after-hours tour.”
We, huh? “So the job is going well, eh?”
She nodded. “Yeah, actually—“
The driver slowed the wagon to a stop and Liv cut herself off to listen to his opening spiel.
When they started moving again, Rafe decided a real conversation could wait until they weren’t going to be interrupted every few minutes. He cleared his throat. “Are you giving candy out on Tuesday?”
Liv nodded. “I bought a giant bag of Snickers and another of Rockets.” His favourites. “If you come over, I might give you some. If your costume is decent, of course. I have standards.”
He chuckled. “What if I wore one of my uniforms?”
She smoothed her hand over his knee. “Hmm. Not very original. I’d like to see a French maid costume, or maybe a tiny red devil dress.”
He didn’t say anything. Most of his responses weren’t hayride-appropriate. She laughed gently against his side. They reached the first station and his brother Tom stepped forward. He wore his park ranger shirt, but his pants were a ripped-to-shreds replacement for his usual ones, and his face was made up in the most gruesome way. He made an excellent monster. “Turn back,” he warned in a booming growl. “No good lies ahead.”
The driver of the wagon laughed, an unexpected interaction that made even Rafe jump a little. The driver gestured to the people sitting behind him. “You think your zombies are any match for these soldiers?”
Oooh, zombie warfare. Tom had changed the show this year. Liv squeezed his knee as the kids in front of them huddled closer together.
Tom stomped around the wagon, shining a flashlight here and there, muttering threats of death and destruction as he moved. Finally he stepped back into the shadows of the woods, yelling a final warning as he faded into the darkness. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, good people of Pine Harbour.”
With a jerk, the wagon started again, this time with a lot more nervous chatter as they headed around the bend in the dirt road. Murmurs turned to screams as they encountered the first wave of zombies, moaning and groaning at them from the side of the road. The actors followed them to the next bend, then faded back to their staging position.
The driver kept the suspense levels high as they encountered more zombie stations, and then he jerked the wagon to a stop when his radio crackled to life.
This time, it wasn’t zombies that came out of the woods, but two of Tom’s fellow rangers. They leapt onto the wagon and urged the driver to go again. They gave everyone on the wagon instructions to stay seated no matter what, then made a big production of giving the driver a map for a short cut. He begged them to stay with them and get out safely, but they said there were other wagons of innocent people in the park they needed to find. He slowed to a stop, they jumped off, and then he made one final turn.
Into what looked like a wall of zombies.
The wagon moved forward agonizingly slowly, and all around them, actors banged on the sides. Their hands were wrapped in what looked like torn clothes covered in blood, and as they moaned and gnashed their teeth at the wagon, Rafe thought this was probably the best Haunt the Park ever.
Mostly because Liv was practically in his lap, but the entertainment factor was pretty high, too.
When the wagon burst into a clearing on the far side of the administrative building, everyone cheered and a few people close enough clapped the driver on the back.
The unloading zone was at the opposite end of the parking lot from where they got on. Before they disembarked, the driver turned in his seat. He scrubbed his face with his hands and waited for everyone to give him their full attention. “Listen, folks. I know this is going to be hard to do, but you can’t tell anyone else what we saw in the woods. The park rangers will make sure we clear the park safely, but if we tell anyone over there—” He gestured to the crowd waiting for their turns. “It will just cause panic.” And then he winked, which caused everyone to laugh. “Now, if you want to head in the direction of Butterfly Hall, you’ll find hot chocolate and apple cider, courtesy of Anna’s Kitchen, and a really excellent silent auction. There’s also colouring tables for the kids, and zombie face-painting for a dollar.”
As they were at the back of the wagon, they were the last ones off. The group headed for the main doors of Butterfly Hall, but Rafe had other plans. He had a few minutes before Dean would be looking for him. He intended to make the most of them.