Twenty-seven. That was the number of texts Memory had gotten between 6:00 AM and 3:30 PM when she closed the shop and headed across town to the fairgrounds where the annual snowball fight was held. She didn’t want to go. In fact, the list of things she’d rather do than compete in the snowball fight included medical procedures, trekking through raw sewage, and/or scaling steep inclines lined with banana peels. But her sister’s dares and threats were inescapable. Memory had to go. She had to participate. And she had to win.
With any luck, she’d be on the same side as Kirsten, and then it wouldn’t matter.
Memory found a parking spot and dropped her keys in her pocket. She left her phone hidden under her car seat, along with her handbag, because she didn’t want it to get smashed or wet. The forts were already up, and she could see kids practicing, running around throwing snowballs at each other. It must be nice to have endless energy.
Dak was talking to Kim from the animal shelter. He had his back to Memory, but it wasn’t hard to pick him out of a crowd. There weren’t any other guys in Christmas Falls who looked remotely like Dak.
He’d sent her a text earlier, too, asking if she was going to come, and she’d said probably so. Closing up the shop early had been hard because there were a lot of customers downtown, but Ellie was watching Anson at Kirsten’s house again, so she couldn’t keep the shop open. She’d made the painful decision to lock her doors with money burning holes in customers’ pockets.
This month was shaping up to be the best of the year, though. It wouldn’t be enough to pay for a new roof, but it might be enough for some patches that would last the winter. She hoped so anyway. She had a feeling things would get worse if she didn’t take care of it soon.
Dak glanced over his shoulder, almost turning back around again before he saw her. His face morphed into a wide smile, and he lifted a hand in her direction. Memory waved back, hoping her smile wasn’t as wide and obvious as his. Not that she didn’t want him to know she was also happy to see him, but the situation was still complicated. For the second time in as many days, she’d been pretty sure he was considering kissing her the night before, when they’d been hanging out in Lorelei’s room. Maybe if her niece hadn’t been there, he would have. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip as she tried to force the thought of what it might be like to have his lips on hers out of her mind. Now was not the time....
“Hey, Memory!” Kim said as Memory joined them. “How are you?”
“Good.” She would do her best to stay positive. “How are you doing, Kim?”
“Great, great. I was just telling Dak we’ve drawn up a plan for how to use his donation. I think it’s going to be great for some of the other communities around here as well. We can take their overflow.”
“That’s amazing!” Memory knew that Kim’s shelter was one of the only no-kill sanctuaries in the area, so taking the overflow from other communities meant she’d be saving lives.
“I know. I’m so excited. Anyway, I need to go find my son. I’ll talk to you both later.” She squeezed Dak’s arm and headed off.
“Hello.” His smile hadn’t changed from the instant he’d noticed her. “You ready for this?”
“No, not really,” she said, glancing around for her sister. Kirsten was standing across the field with Maison, Lorelei, and some of their friends from church. But she lifted two fingers and pointed at her own eyes before poking them across the way at Memory. “I sure hope we’re on the same team.”
He chuckled. “She is something else. Where’s your dad?”
“Oh, he doesn’t play anymore. His back goes out too easily. He’ll probably show up to watch.”
Dak nodded, and they both searched for something light to say. Memory came up empty. “Well, I’m glad you decided to come. We worked really hard on the forts.”
“You helped build these?” Memory asked. “Wow. Talk about taking on ownership of the town.”
Shrugging, Dak said, “Well, it’s Saturday. I didn’t have much else to do.” She smiled, and her eyes wandered for a moment as she thought of a response. He was wearing a different coat. Unlike the longer, more formal black coat he had been wearing, this one was gray and looked more like a ski jacket. Noticing her staring at it, he said, “I had to be able to move freely.”
Memory giggled, taking some fabric from his sleeve between her gloved fingers. “Is it nylon?”
“I have no idea,” he admitted. “Mom bought it on their last trip to Vale.”
“Do your parents like to travel?” She let go of his sleeve, her hand not wanting to release him and go back into her pocket.
“They do. They take three or four vacations a year, as well as work trips. When they’re working, they work a lot of hours, so they like to have fun when they can.”
She nodded. “That’s a good philosophy.”
“Do you like to travel?”
“Like to? Yes. Get to? No. There are a lot of places I’d love to go that I haven’t seen yet.”
“Someday.” He gave her a reassuring nod, and she agreed, though she doubted she’d ever have the chance to be a world traveler like his parents.
Mayor Charles was back with his air horn. Even though Memory saw him coming with it, she still jumped when it sounded. Dak chuckled and put his hand reassuringly on her arm as the mayor began his announcement. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys. It’s time for the buff draw! Come on over!”
The mayor’s secretary, Barbara, a woman with poofy blonde hair and glasses that took up half of her face, stood beside him holding a large burlap sack. As people stepped over to her, she opened it wide, her smile mirroring the bag.
“Ready?” Dak asked, his hand still on Memory’s arm.
“I was born ready,” she muttered. Dak laughed loud enough that a few people turned and looked at them, and Memory hid her proud smile at cracking him up as she headed for the bag.
“Purple!” Kirsten shouted, holding her buff up and looking around. A few of the other purple players congratulated her on joining their team. Memory noted a lot of the purple team were men. Tall, strong men who probably ran at least five miles a day. Lorelei drew purple, too, but Maison came up with a red buff. Kirsten laughed and pointed at her husband. “I’m going to smash you in the face with a snowball.”
Maison narrowed her eyes, but Memory didn’t hear what he said. Barbara was holding the bag out for her. With a deep breath, she reached in and pulled out a buff, not wanting to look at it.
“Red,” Dak said before she could see for herself. “It’s red.”
“Son of a nutcracker!” Her eyes flickered to her sister who had been too busy taunting Maison to notice until then. When she did, Kirsten burst out laughing and making threats at her sister as well.
Dak reached in, and Memory prayed his buff would be red, too. There was no way she could win if he was on the other team. When his hand came out, she was relieved to see he was grasping a buff the same shade as hers. “Thank God,” she muttered.
He patted her on the back. “See, we’re gonna be fine. We can take her.”
“I don’t know. Lorelei’s fast. And she’s too cute to pop in the face with a snow brick.”
Dak glanced around. “We’ve got some cute kids. We’ll send them in first, as a screen.”
Not knowing whether he was serious or not, she laughed, wondering if that would work. They’d have to think of something.
After everyone had a buff, Mayor Charles gave the teams five minutes to talk and strategize. Dak jumped right in with the group as if he knew everyone and felt completely comfortable discussing the best way to race down the field and take the purple flag. Memory wasn’t listening. She was scouting out the areas where they could find the most snow to make ammo. The only times she’d ever won, she’d been one of the people to hang back and make snowballs while other people ran up and threw them.
“Sounds like a plan.” Dak clapped and said, “All right, everyone get a hand in here now. Go big red on three. Ready?”
Memory stuck her hand in on top of everyone else’s, but she had no idea what she was supposed to do. He sounded like a professional athlete to her. Dak counted to three, and everyone else shouted, “Go big red!” They all broke away clapping and fired up while Memory was still pulling her hand away.
“Don’t sing, don’t skate, don’t shout chants. Got it.” Dak’s hands were on his hips as he puzzled over her.
“Sorry. No, I do. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.” Memory glanced around at how all of her teammates seemed to be getting into positions in various parts of the field. “What am I supposed to do?”
He chuckled. “Weren’t you listening?”
“No, not really. I was thinking about where to make the most snowballs.”
“I see. Well, that’s good because that’s what you’ll be doing. Over there.” He pointed to an area where a group of other people wearing red buffs around their arms were talking and pointing to the ground. “But if the purples get close, you’ll have to engage.”
“You mean throw snowballs at them? Yes, I know.” She smirked at him. “And what are you going to be doing?”
“Me?” He pointed at his chest with his thumb. “Oh, I’m going to be getting that flag.” He winked at her and patted her shoulder as he turned to walk toward the front of the group.
Memory’s eyebrows shot up. She wanted to see that. But she also didn’t want to get busted in the face with a snowball from her sister’s wickedly powerful arm. “Good luck.”
He turned and smiled at her but didn’t say anything more. A green line was painted across the snow to show the halfway point, and he stopped with his toes right next to it, as close to the other team’s flag as he could get.
The purple team was arguing, not strategizing. Memory accidentally caught Maison’s eyes. Her brother-in-law was standing about halfway between Memory and Dak, off to the side, and he shook his head slowly, knowing his wife was involved in whatever disagreement the enemy was having. With any luck, the purple team would cripple themselves with arguing, and the red team could infiltrate their fort and get their flag before they knew what hit them.
“Ready, Memory?” Nancy, a woman from church, said at her elbow. “We’re going to make as many snowballs as we can, as fast as we can.”
Memory looked Nancy in the eye. “I was born ready.”