“Are you serious?”
They nodded.
“I’m going to cry,” I warned them.
They moved closer and put their arms around me. Once they had pulled me into a hug, I cried, “This is the nicest thing anyone could possibly do. Thank you.”
“You’re the one putting in all the work here, Adele,” Eden pointed out. “We’re just doing what we can to help you reach your goal.”
“But you don’t have to do any of this,” I noted.
Pulling back a touch to look at me, Piper stroked her hand up and down my back as she insisted, “No, we don’t. But we also aren’t the type of people to sit back and do nothing. It’s just not who we are. So, I’m sorry, but if you and Riggs are going to stay together, you’re going to have to get used to stuff like this.”
I nodded my understanding. “I’ll try my best.”
“Good. Now, we need to get back inside before there’s a mutiny over donuts and produce.”
Laughing as I wiped away my tears, I said, “Okay. Thanks again.”
Riggs’ sisters smiled at me before turning and walking away.
I did my best to pull myself together and quickly added two more raffles to the list. For the next hour or so, I had quite a few people come up and ask me about what I was selling. I had put together a flyer explaining the goal of the organization and was pleasantly surprised to see how many people were willing to shell out a few dollars for a chance at a few prizes when they knew the money would be going to a good cause.
The big-ticket items were the concert tickets, the year’s supply of produce, the year’s supply of donuts, and tickets for a family of four to one of Pennsylvania’s most popular attractions, Hershey Park. I’d been there several times myself and loved it, so I’d personally donated the prize.
Throughout the morning, I’d had a few breaks between patrons. It gave me an opportunity to look out at everything happening around me. Riggs wore many hats while he worked. At one point he was driving the tractor that gave kids and their parents a hay ride down to the pumpkin patch. Another time, I saw him bend down to help up a little girl who’d fallen at the hay mountain. When another kid had struggled with the apple cannon and got it jammed up, he was there to fix it. Several times throughout the morning, my eyes met his. But it was the time he winked at me that it had happened.
Perhaps it had been happening for a bit now, but it wasn’t until that very moment that I realized what it was. When it hit me, it rendered me motionless. In fact, I was so caught up in what I was feeling then that I hadn’t noticed my best friend had arrived.
“Adele?” she called.
I struggled to tear my gaze away from Riggs who was standing quite a distance away talking to an elderly couple.
Kacey took one look at my face and asked, “Is everything okay?”
I swallowed hard and admitted, “I’m falling in love with him.”
Unfortunately, Kacey didn’t have a chance to respond because a crowd of people had lined up at our booth.
And because there was no way she was going to be able to manage the crowd on her own, I had no choice but to forget the words I’d just admitted to her and get back to work.
Adele
“It looked like it was busy here all weekend.”
My eyes met the man in front of me. “It was,” I confirmed. “Thank you so much for letting us do this, Riggs. I don’t know yet just how much money we made, but it was a lot.”
“You’re welcome. Do you need me to help you with anything?” he asked.
I shook my head as I looked at Kacey. She also shook her head.
“We’re good here. I was just going to chat with Kacey for a few minutes if that’s alright,” I noted.
Riggs jerked his head in the opposite direction and suggested, “Why don’t the two of you head up to the house? You’ll be more comfortable there. I’m going to finish up a few things here with Leo, Sam, and Layne. I’ll be up in a little bit.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he answered, digging his hand into his pocket. He pulled out a ring of keys, slipped one off, and held it out to me. “Here’s the key so you can get in. I didn’t set the alarm, so you’ll be fine to go in without the code.”
“Okay.”
With that, Kacey and I gathered up all of our things and loaded everything into her car. I still didn’t have my car since I hadn’t gone home. Part of me was going to suggest that Kacey could take me home, but I felt like I hadn’t seen Riggs all day. I knew he’d feel the same and would want to spend some time with me before I left.
Once Kacey and I got up to the house, we collected all of the raffle entries, money, and the rest of our supplies before we went inside. A few minutes later, we were seated at the table off the kitchen with everything spread out in front of us.
“You take half of them, and I’ll take the other half,” I declared, splitting the labeled bags of money up between the two of us. Each bag had been marked with the name of the raffle it was for as well as the date. The money would all eventually come together, but we wanted to keep them all separate initially just to be able to track which items were the most sought after. That information would go a long way in helping us to decide on future prizes.
I’d opened the first one and was just about to start counting when Kacey ordered, “Adele, stop.”
I froze and looked up at her.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“We need to talk,” she stated.
I knew this was coming. I didn’t exactly know why I’d tried to just jump right into my next task when the reality was that I needed to talk to my best friend. From the minute I told her yesterday that I was falling in love with Riggs, we hadn’t had a moment alone to talk about it. Either there was a constant flow of people at the stand entering for their chances to win, or Riggs or another member of his family was around. By the time Kacey left yesterday evening, we hadn’t talked about it. Of course, considering that I spent the night at Riggs’ place, I couldn’t exactly call my best friend on the phone to talk to her about it either. Today was even busier at the festival, which was great for the charity but not for dealing with matters of the heart.
“Talk to me,” she urged.
I shook my head and thought about Riggs for a moment. My eyes welled up with tears just thinking about him and the idea that I might not have ever met him if it hadn’t been for Kacey’s crazy ideas.
“I’ve never known anyone like him,” I started. “Honestly, he’s everything I never knew I needed or wanted in a man.”
“Needed?” she repeated.
Nodding, I confirmed, “Yeah. Needed. But there are so many different reasons for that.”
“Like what?”
I took in a deep breath and blew it out before I said, “Well, for starters, he understands my schedule. I think it helps that his isn’t exactly typical either. Riggs doesn’t ever make me feel bad about the work that I do. He doesn’t expect me to drop what I’m doing to suit his needs; he just finds a way to work around my schedule. That’s what happened on Friday. He wanted to come over and see me for a bit, but he confirmed that I’d gotten all my work done before just wheedling his way over.”