Read Outside The Lines for Free Online Page A

said, extending the word by several syllables to form a question as she belatedly recovered her wits. “What’s that?”
    “The Brentsville Hospital Carnival For A Cure.” He pulled a crisp, dark blue folder from the laptop bag he’d propped over the bar stool next to him. “I’m the event coordinator, and Mac’s is the catering restaurant. I came to see Serenity so we can get a tentative schedule set since it looks like she and I will be working pretty closely together for the next six weeks.”
    Jules white-knuckled the edge of the apron around her waist, her heart doing its level best to vault  clean out of her ribcage. She was so far past this-can’t-be-happening, and yet…“You…you’re the event coordinator for the Carnival For A Cure?”
    “Yeah.” Now it was Blake’s turn to draw the word into a question. “Why?”
    “Because I wrote that proposal. I’m in charge of all the catering and planning for that event on our end.”
    Jules shifted her weight to stand as tall as her five-foot-nine frame would allow, her palms going slick with realization as she finished, “You won’t be working with Serenity for the next six weeks, Blake. You’ll be working with me.”
    #
    Blake attempted to read the event overview splayed out on the table in front of him four times before conceding defeat. He had the damn thing half-memorized anyway, and right now he had bigger things to worry about.
    Namely, the redhead sitting so close to him that the break room they’d taken over in the back of Mac’s Diner felt more like a sardine tin than a study space.
    “ I have to be honest,” Jules said, looking up from an identical copy of the overview in his hands. “I was surprised to see the charity fundraiser turned into a carnival this year. Usually it’s not something a restaurant like Mac’s can even think about putting a bid on.”
    Blake cleared his throat, propelling himself into business mod e. Okay, so the situation was less than ideal. But his mother was already working herself into the ground with this event, and she was becoming frailer by the minute, even though she wouldn’t slow down or admit it. If he wanted to take care of her, planning of as much of this event as possible was a moral imperative.
    Eve n if it meant being nose to the grindstone with the one woman who could still torch his composure like a five-alarm fire in a gasoline factory.
    “Right.” He cleared his throat again just for good measure. “The board wanted to do something different this year to broaden their outreach. Something that would involve the whole community rather than just a small group of contributors.”
    “Well, a carnival will definitely do the trick.” She nodded at the stack of papers covering the scuffed wooden table. “But it’s going to be a ton of work to feed these people, and the logistics are a lot different than a typical sit-down dinner.” Jules traced an invisible line over the last page of the overview. “This site map says you’ve got access to all of City Commons for the event. We’ll need to get a few trucks in there to drop off the food and equipment on the morning of the carnival. I’m assuming Brentsville PD will close off the surrounding blocks leading into the Commons?”
    “ That’s the plan, and we’ve got preliminary approval on the permit,” Blake agreed, leaning in to look at the schematic. An unexpected shot of Jules’s sweet vanilla scent hit him all at once, catapulting him back to those sleepy Sunday mornings when she’d tiptoe down to the kitchen in his apartment on the Brentsville University campus to make French toast. He’d asked her about her own kitchen those first few times, figuring she might be more comfortable with her own stuff rather than the sadly lacking cupboards in his man-kitchen. But she’d said she lived far enough from the University that it was so much easier to stay at his place. Even though it had hit him as not-quite-right, Blake didn’t want to