Meet Me On The Midway

“Takes too long. Sometimes I might get called in on short notice if something exciting is happening.”

Why does my sister have to be so difficult?

“Like a big fight or a gun-toting maniac,” Caroline added, grinning at her brother.

“You know I hate this,” he said.

“You hadn’t mentioned it.”

“If you lived in Bayside, you could use my truck. I walk to work in Bayside and take the ferry here. How about that?”

“Is that your final offer?”

“I’ve offered you everything I have.”

Caroline reached for his pudding parfait and Scott snatched it. He snapped the plastic lid off and gave her one of the two spoons he’d picked up.

“You’re the best,” she said.

“And you,” he said, sharing his dessert, “are driving me nuts.”

She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Who do you think watches over me in college?”

Scott sucked in a breath. Caroline only had one year left before she graduated with a criminal justice degree. She was completing her police officer’s training concurrently and, in less than a year, she would be putting her life on the line as a cop.

“You should get a dog,” he said. “A nice German shepherd.”

“I don’t need a dog. I can take care of myself. This job will be great experience and, who knows, maybe I’ll come back next year and work here so I can shoot you if you get on my nerves.”

She dipped her finger into the whipped cream part of the parfait and dabbed a dollop on Scott’s nose. “Or maybe you’ll need me to protect you someday,” she added.

Caroline glanced over at the drink machine where a tall blond woman was filling a soda cup. She waved and caught the woman’s attention as she snapped a plastic lid on her cup.

How does Caroline know Evie Hamilton? And why is she coming over here?

“Evie,” Caroline said as soon as she approached. “Sit with us.”

Evie stopped next to the table but didn’t pull out a chair. “I’m on my way to the Wonderful West to check on a guest complaint about the shooting gallery.”

“Pacifists?” Caroline asked.

Evie laughed. “No. A matter of economy. It seems our machines are eating quarters at an alarming rate. Highway robbery.”

Caroline smiled and pointed at her brother. “This is my brother, Scott.”

Scott locked eyes with Evie and his pulse throbbed in his neck. Her eyes were green like summer leaves. He had noticed them before.

“And this,” Caroline continued, gesturing at Evie, “is Evie Hamilton. She owns the place so you have to be nice to her.”

“We’ve met,” Evie said, her expression neutral.

“Was he nice?” Caroline asked.

“No.”

Evie thinks I wasn’t nice? Was I supposed to be nice about slipshod safety?

“I’m not surprised,” Caroline said. “He’s been known to be too serious. Although the whipped cream on his nose makes him more approachable.”

To his horror, Evie zeroed in on his nose while Caroline took a swipe at him with her napkin.

He had to change the subject.

“How did you two meet?” Scott asked.

“Self-defense training,” Evie said. She pulled out the chair next to Caroline and sat on the edge. “I happened to sit in on the early season orientation for the police department because the safety forces here are under my jurisdiction.”

So that was why she’d wanted to talk about the price of fire trucks. And why she’d been the one to walk through the employee dorms with him. She was not only his boss as owner of the place, she was also in charge of the safety department. His department.

“I was about to take down a guy twice my size,” Caroline said, “but I volunteered to spar with Evie because none of the other guys would touch her.”

“I can’t imagine why,” Scott said. “Who wouldn’t want to risk his job by tossing his boss to the mat?”

Not that he had much room to talk considering how difficult he was making things for Evie and the rest of the management at Starlight Point. Sparring with Evie is not the smart way to keep my job.

Caroline shrugged. “They were probably afraid of losing. Evie’s tougher than she looks.”

In build, Evie was much like his sister. Long, willowy limbs, delicate bones. He pictured one of the burly police officers grappling with her and it made him go cold, just like the feeling he got when he made the mistake of picturing his sister at work.

Evie laughed. “Let’s just hope I’m tough enough to handle kids who lost their allowance to the shooting gallery machines.”

“I hope you have a bag of quarters in your purse,” Caroline said.

“Even better. A preloaded card good for five hundred rounds of ammo. Their trigger fingers will wear out before they run out of bullets.”

Evie took a sip of her soda and settled into the seat a little more.

“I’m curious,” she said. “You two aren’t from Bayside, are you?”

Caroline shook her head. “About an hour away. We used to come here sometimes, though. School field trips and a family trip once a summer.”

“So how did you both end up working here?”

“Scott got a full-time job for the Bayside Fire Department over the winter. He’s my only family in this area since our parents retired and moved to Arizona. They think Scott keeps an eye on me so they can be happy in the sunshine.”

“Lucky for them,” Evie commented.

“I was looking for a summer job and some of the guys in my police academy class told me about working security here. I thought it would be good experience. Maybe I’ll come back and be a bonded officer next year.”