idiot. I’d just bought a coffee from Chris Donovan, our Faire’s Queen, and I hadn’t even noticed. In my defense, though, it wasn’t like I talked to her much during rehearsal. She was one of the ones in charge, so something always had her attention. Also, she looked different in this light, not to mention more professional; here she wore her blond-white hair up in a twist and had on a twinset and pearls instead of a faded T-shirt.
I smiled as I took the coffee. “Thank you, Your Majesty.” I bobbed a quick curtsy, which made her laugh.
“I’m just Chris here.” She took my money and made change from a small cashbox under the counter. “You’re April’s sister, right? How are you enjoying Faire so far?”
“It’s . . .” I dropped the change into the tip jar while I struggled with this question. The people who were into it were very into it, I’d noticed, and I didn’t want to insult her by telling her that deep down, I still thought it was a little silly. “It’s interesting. Just seems a little intense.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s a fund-raiser, right? But we’re spending a lot of time getting accents right, learning history . . . are people going to care that much?” I held my breath, waiting for her to frown and tell me I didn’t understand. She wouldn’t be too far off the mark.
Instead she considered my question. “Short answer? Not really. But at the same time, yes. It’s a fund-raiser, sure, but it’s grown over the years into a pretty big event. We have talent coming from all over the country to perform. It’s not one of the big Faires by any means—we certainly have nothing on the Maryland Renaissance Festival.”
My eyes widened. “There’s another one?”
Chris laughed. “Oh, honey, there’s tons of them! Maryland’s one of the biggest in the country; they even have permanent structures they keep up year-round. We’re small potatoes—tiny potatoes, even—compared to them. But we do our best and take it seriously, and so we’ve gotten a reputation as a solid smaller Faire. And of course there’s the educational aspect. The kids participate in a living history project where they can demonstrate their knowledge to paying patrons while wearing period costumes, and it doesn’t feel like learning.”
“Wow.” I took a sip of coffee. “I have to say I didn’t think of it like that.”
“It’s all right.” She shrugged. “Not everyone does. And you’re new around here, so you haven’t seen it grow gradually like we have. Sometimes I remember the early years, when the whole thing took place on the high school football field.” The bell over the front door chimed, signaling a new customer in the shop, and she came out from behind the counter to head to the front of the store. “Very different than being out in the woods.” She continued our conversation as she walked, so I followed.
“The woods?” I remembered now how Stacey had mentioned the site at one rehearsal, and I had no idea what she was talking about, or where I was going to be spending the rest of my weekends this summer. “We’re going to be in the woods?”
“Ohhhh. You haven’t seen the site yet?” Chris chuckled when I shook my head. “Can’t wait to see what you think.”
“What who thinks?” A new voice came from the front of the shop and as I rounded the corner behind Chris I bit back a sigh. Simon. Great. I took in his jeans and button-down shirt and wondered if he owned a pair of shorts. Unlikely. He didn’t even dress down at rehearsals on Saturdays. But he wasn’t wearing a vest, so this had to be a casual day for him.
He blinked when he saw me, his dark brows drawing together in a frown, so he was obviously as thrilled to see me as I was to see him. His green shirt was open at the throat, and I could see the neckline of a white undershirt in the V. This man wore a lot of layers. Clothing as armor. What was he protecting?
If Chris noticed any tension between us, she blissfully ignored it as she gestured in my direction. “I was telling Emily about the site. She didn’t know we were going to be out in the woods.”
“Oh.” He raised an eyebrow. I hated people who could do that. Mostly because I couldn’t. “What do you think?”
“I think it sounds great.” I would have crossed my arms,