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said naughtily. "It made me want to drink a glass of wild cherry Kool-Aid. I love that stuff." Then the two of them broke into loud, uninhibited laughter, the way they used to.

Chapter 6

The moon overhead was a bright white waxing crescent, and the sky was clear. Cassie and Adam were standing by the maypole hand in hand, and she felt radiant in the yellow camisole dress her friends picked out for her. She'd found it in the dining room early that morning. Suzan had dropped it off with a note written in her loopy script: This dress screamed your name!

Suzan had also bought ties for all the guys, and they looked good, but the girls outshone them in their dresses.

Melanie was in green chiffon and Laurel in carnation-pink voile. Suzan, always voluptuous, had chosen a copper-colored tank dress for herself that was pushing the boundary of indecent exposure. Diana wore an understated ivory silk tunic.

Deborah, who rarely wore dresses, was decked out in her own way. She had on tight white jeans, a white T-shirt, and a purple leather jacket. "Have you seen Faye?" she asked Cassie and Adam.

Adam shrugged his shoulders, but Sean responded,

"She's out on the lookout for Max."

Deborah scoffed. "She hasn't given up on him yet? He's been evading her all week."

Sean shook his head. "Not a chance," he said. "Faye never backs down that easily."

"What about Nick?" Cassie asked. "Have you seen him?" Deborah's face hardened at the question. When it came to Cassie, she was extremely protective of her cousin. "I don't think he's coming."

"Why not?" Cassie asked.

"Because he's not." Deborah tried to stare Cassie down, but Cassie brushed it off. Deborah thought she was doing the right thing, guarding Nick from getting hurt any more than he already had, but she didn't understand that Cassie's intentions were good. After clearing the air with Diana, she'd felt so much better. She hoped to do the same with Nick tonight.

Diana frowned at Deborah in a way that revealed she sympathized with Cassie's predicament. "Nick may show," she said. "If he's anything, he's unpredictable." There was a moment of silence as Cassie let her eyes wander up the maypole. She admired the multicolored garlands and ribbons streaming down from its apex. Then Diana said, "Hey, Cassie, isn't that Scarlett?" Scarlett had spotted them and was making her way through the crowd in their direction. She was wearing a cornflower-blue baby-doll dress, and her long red hair was stuffed beneath a brown felt bowler hat. She waved when her eyes locked with Cassie's, and then she picked up her pace to a trot.

"Who is that?" Adam asked.

Cassie noticed a shard of fascinated curiosity in Adam's voice.

"Ooh, I love that hat," Suzan said.

Deborah nodded. She always appreciated a girl stylish enough to successfully pull off wearing an article of men's clothing. "Those boots are killer, too," she said.

Scarlett was all smiles and confidence as Cassie introduced her to the rest of the group. Her dark eyes passed over each of them individually, and she greeted everyone with the affection of an old friend.

It wasn't just Scarlett's fashion sense that was captivating, Cassie noted. It was her nature; she was immediately comfortable with everyone she met. And she was pretty. Sean's tongue was practically hanging out of his mouth when he shook her hand.

Scarlett extracted herself from Sean's grasp with a chuckle and turned to Diana.

"Good to see you again," she said.

"Yes," Diana answered, in a way that made Cassie cringe. But Scarlett flashed a white smile that showed she refused to take Diana's indifference to heart.

"The egg toss is starting," Sean said excitedly, trying to regain Scarlett's attention. "We should go cheer on Chris and Doug. The grand prize is a five-hundred-dollar gift certificate to Pete's Candy Store, and they're determined to win it."

Scarlett scanned the many booths and food trucks.

"Actually," she said, "I'm famished. And I'm dying for one of those chorizo skewers."

"I'll come with you," Cassie said. She was anxious to learn more about Scarlett and, come to think of it, she was pretty hungry herself.

The group split up then, everyone heading over to the egg-toss lawn, except for Adam and Diana, who were on their way to visit Melanie and Constance at their jewelry booth.

Cassie and Scarlett each bought a skewer and struggled to not talk with their mouths full as they walked the festival's perimeter. "So you're staying at the B and B?" Cassie asked as innocently as possible.

Scarlett nodded, chewed, and swallowed.

"Where