Read Outside The Lines for Free Online Page B

push it. Jules had no family, and she kept her personal life close to the vest. She seemed happy to stay with him at his place, so eventually he’d just bought a skillet and some groceries and stopped asking, figuring she’d open up when she was ready.
    But she never did . And although Blake knew she’d lived somewhere off Sycamore Street, he never did see her apartment, let alone her kitchen, before she was gone.
    “Getting a few trucks in won’t be a problem. What kind of space will you need outside of actual food service?” he asked, forcing his thoughts back to the present. Dwelling on the past wasn’t going to get this event coordinated, and anyway, Jules had made it clear eight years ago that being together wasn’t part of the plan. He needed to drop it and focus on the carnival, for good.
    Jules pulled a notebook from the bag she’d slung over the back of her chair, the pages covered in extensive hand-written plans, and damn, she took this job seriously with a capital S.
    “We’ll do a lot of the prep ahead of time, but we’ll need space for safe food storage and actual cooking. Per the proposal, we can set up a portable kitchen station in the main food tent using generators and a couple of big grills. The way it’s outlined in the plan is up to code, but we’re still going to need written approval from the Brentsville Fire Department.”
    Fin ally, something for the easy column. “That won’t be a problem. If you add a list of specific equipment to the proposal, I can get the paperwork signed for you by the end of the week.”
    Surprise painted Jules’s pretty features, and she looked up from the schematic, brows raised. “ It’s Wednesday afternoon, Blake. How on earth are you going to make that happen?”
    “Do you remember my cousin , Aaron?”
    She laughed. “ He used to jump out of perfectly good airplanes as often as most people change their pants. A guy like that is a little hard to forget. Is he still crazy?”
    “Yup. Only now he funnels it into his job. Well, most of it anyway. He’s a lieutenant for the Brentsville Fire Department, over at station thirty-two.” And crazy as he might be, Aaron was also a decent guy, despite the black-sheep label both his mother and Blake’s had tried to slap all over him. “If the proposal’s up to code, he can push it through for us.”
    “Handy,” Jules said, rifling through the small mountain of papers in front of her. “ I’ll add the equipment specs right now so we can get the ball rolling there, but that should take care of the preliminaries for the main food area. We can also work the catering around some of the other carnival events, too, depending on what they are.”
    “We…I guess I should say I…I’ m still kind of finalizing that.” As long as finalizing that was synonymous with trying to come up with our big attraction with no good ideas in sight , anyway. “But we can just focus on the main food tent for now.”
    “We already did.” She rapped the now-updated proposal against the edge of the table, the medical tape on her sad excuse for a bandage curling away from her skin as she handed it over, and Blake’s fingers itched to replace the gauze.
    “Still tenacious, I see.” Damn if it wasn’t still a massive turn-on in spite of throwing him ass-first onto the hot seat.
    “And you’re still not afraid to say so.” A smile threatened the corners of her mouth. “But you’re also not helping me with the overall plan. Why don’t we talk about the other events just generally? It might give me some ideas on how better to serve the food with as little bottleneck at the main tent as possible.”
    Well, when she put it that way…“The board arranged for rides and games and face painting. You know, basic carnival stuff. Plus, they do their standard silent auction every year, with items and services donated from all over Brentsville. ”
    She scribbled out a few notes. “Sounds like fun.”
    “ I guess. It fits with the