Sandcastle Beach (Matchmaker Bay #3) - Jenny Holiday Page 0,36

then she’d woken…sort of. She’d jolted from dead asleep and dreaming into a moment of insanity when her defenses were down. He was just so handsome, and she’d been so relieved to have escaped the flowers.

She’d wondered suddenly what it would be like to kiss him, and then, to her horror, she hadn’t been just wondering, she’d been doing it.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. She really didn’t want things to be weird. What if he wanted to talk about it? She was a little surprised he’d let her go last night without making a federal case of it. What if he—

He glared at her—glared. Wow. This felt way more intense than their usual showdown-style staring.

Well, okay. At least he didn’t want to talk? She glared back. Or tried to. It was a little unsettling how much animosity was radiating from him.

“Wow, huge turnout,” Sawyer said, twisting around to look at the crowd.

“They said it was mandatory,” Eve said.

“I don’t think that’s a legally compellable thing, is it, Sawyer?” Maya asked, trying to turn the conversation to something benign so as to get the Look of Death to stop.

“No,” Sawyer said, “but it’s easier to do what they want.”

That was often the best strategy for dealing with the elderly meddlers of Moonflower Bay. Stand there and let them talk. Let it all flow in one ear and out the other like you were listening to the teacher talking in a Charlie Brown cartoon. A week ago, she would have said she was glad her own parents were a generation younger and still working and therefore not part of this crowd. Now? She fully expected her dad to join up.

Karl came to the podium, and Maya glanced at Benjamin. He was no longer looking at her. That was a relief.

Right?

Somehow, she didn’t feel any less uncomfortable without his attention.

“As you all know,” Karl said, “the Anti-Festival in the fall is so named because it’s our annual festival just for us. We have fun and raise money for local town causes. The library and the food bank have been the traditional beneficiaries of our generosity, but this year we’ve decided to take a different approach.”

Blah, blah, blah. She tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. They were in the community center so it was just acoustic tiles, but she suddenly thought of the ceiling at Lawson’s Lager House, which was an old-fashioned tin one. That would be a good idea for her apartment. There must be somewhere to get cheap fake tin ceiling tiles. She got out her phone.

“The town council has voted to fund a downtown economic development grant. At this year’s Anti-Festival, we will be awarding one Moonflower Bay business owner a one-hundred-thousand-dollar grant.”

Uh, what now? Maya’s head shot up as an excited murmur rippled through the crowd. Eve slapped Maya’s arm, but then, seeming to realize that no one was supposed to know about her financial trouble, turned it into a strange arm wiggle.

“The town is contributing thirty thousand off the bat, from our pot of money from past festivals,” Karl said. “Provincial and federal matching programs take us to ninety thousand, and my Junior Achievement kids have committed to raising the final ten thousand through their summer businesses. The winning applicant will be a business owner who contributes significantly to the economy and culture of Moonflower Bay. Please raise your hand if you’re interested in an application package.”

Maya shot her hand in the air so hard something crunched in her elbow.

A hundred thousand dollars. That would be a game changer, even more than Holden. Way more than Holden. She’d run the numbers on the best-case scenario on the expanded run of Much Ado. With the higher ticket prices she was planning to charge, she figured that after Holden’s fee, she’d have enough to catch up on her mortgage payments, keep her employees, and make a few of the most critical repairs. But if she got this grant…Wow. She could do even more. One of the things she’d had on her to-do list forever was getting a fundraising program up and running. Letters and emails and a system that let people round up the price of their tickets to make a donation. With this kind of money, she could even hire a fundraising consultant.

The question was who else was going to be applying for this grant. Who would be her competition? Who else would…Oh. Oh no.

Lawson’s Freaking Lunch.

She looked over to find Benjamin looking at her again. His arm was