Chapter Twelve

Adeline kept her gaze pinned on Jessie, trying to catch a subtle movement or look that would give her a clue as to who Jessie had chosen as the winner. She desperately hoped it was her. Eli Hunt’s ego was already much too big. Today, she’d been surprised by it, actually.

There had been several times since Eli had arrived in town when he’d seemed almost embarrassed that everyone knew who he was. And when he’d done things like fix the front door of the bed and breakfast, or erect a barrier marking Jessie’s spot on the beach, or even his failed attempt at mopping Adeline’s floor at her store—he’d seemed…nice. Normal. Someone Adeline could relate to.

Not this guy, though. The one who relished the attention from his fans. Eli currently wore a cocky grin, like he’d already declared himself the winner. He glanced over his shoulder at Eliza, who was back at the window with her sign, and he winked at her. That sent Eliza into a frenzy, and Adeline wanted to use her parchment paper to whack him upside the head.

Adeline took a deep breath through her nose, forcing herself to focus on the feel of the air moving through her lungs. This was not her. She was not a violent person. She focused on that until she had regained some sense of control. Her attention returned to Jessie.

Please, don’t let him win.

“This was a very tough decision,” Jessie said. She nodded to Eli. “Your cake was exquisitely designed. I could see the attention to detail, and it captured both the romance and the holiday element. It was the type of cake that you could easily sell in a high-end bakery.” Eli’s grin grew, and Adeline inwardly groaned. How had she thought she could compete against the actor when the judge was as starstruck as the rest of the town? But then Jessie continued. “It was too bad the cake itself was inedible, which is kind of a big deal.”

Eli’s smile faltered as Jessie’s attention turned to Adeline.

“I was surprised by the lack of design on the outside of your cake, but I suppose you don’t typically decorate your truffles, only giving them a unique flourish so you can distinguish the flavors.” Adeline’s heart sank. She’d tried, she really had. She had thought the chocolate-dipped strawberries were a nice touch, and romantic. They were also red, giving it a holiday vibe. But they had kept sliding everywhere. Maybe because her cake had still been a bit warm, and the buttercream frosting hadn’t stayed put like it had needed to. “However,” Jessie said, “the cake was delicious and, might I say, rivals even mine.”

Adeline perked back up, now hanging on to Jessie’s every word. Was it possible that it would be Eli Hunt parading up and down the beach in a chicken costume?

“I understand that you have a unique…uh…prize for the winner. Or maybe it’s a prize for the loser, if you’re into that sort of thing,” Jessie said, and everyone gave a small laugh. “I’m pleased to announce that the residents of Starlight Ridge will have the opportunity to see…both Eli Hunt and Adeline Baker as…well, there’s no good way to say this…as chickens. On Sunday, they will need to wear the outfits from sunrise to sunset.” One of the spectators in the doorway whispered something to her. “Oh, I guess that’s tomorrow. All right. Tomorrow it is, then.”

Both Adeline and Eli stared. “What?” they exclaimed together.

“Y-you were supposed to choose a winner,” Adeline spluttered.

“I did,” Jessie said with a smile that said she’d expected this reaction. “Eli’s decorating skills were superior, and your baking skills outdid his by a mile. But both talent sets are important. If a cake doesn’t look good, no one will eat it. If it doesn’t taste good, they will spit it out, achieving the same result. It was only fair that you both win for your accomplishments and lose for your failures. And since the loser was supposed to wear the outfit, you both get to.”

She folded her arms and nodded, like she was impressed with her own logic.

Adeline’s gaze whipped to Eli, who looked as shocked as she felt. His lips moved, but no words came out. The spectators, on the other hand, were loving it. They were laughing and catcalling, and yelling things about how they couldn’t wait.

“Gobsmacked,” he finally said. “Absolutely gobsmacked.”

Whatever that meant. Must have been a British thing. “But…but I don’t have two costumes,” Adeline protested. Her father hadn’t been that cruel.

Jessie’s eyes sparkled with a mischievous glint, and Adeline knew she was in trouble. “You might only have one. But so do I.”

The chance that Jessie happened to own an adult-size chicken costume was too ridiculous. She wasn’t the chicken suit type of woman. Of course, neither was Adeline.

“Did you know that your mother received the same costume you did?” Jessie asked. “It must have been about ten years ago.” Adeline’s stomach dropped. The timing sounded about right. “Unfortunately, I ‘won’ the costume during a round of white elephant, right after the holidays. The only rules were that you had to bring a unique gift, and it couldn’t have cost you more than five dollars.”

“And she had gotten it for free, courtesy of Dad,” Adeline mumbled. The gift that kept on giving.

It looked like this was really going to happen. Might as well make the best of it and be the most adorable chicken the town had ever seen.

Eli still hadn’t said a word, and he was a bit pale, looking like he’d gone into shock. Adeline touched his sleeve. “You okay?”

He blinked a couple of times, like he was bringing himself back to the present. The corners of his lips quirked up, but it seemed to be more out of anxiety. “Christopher is either going to hug me or kill me.”

“Who is Christopher?”

“The director of Amaretto. Let me get your opinion. Will pictures of me dressed as a chicken help the image of the movie, or will I be splashed on the cover of every magazine as the idiot that no one will be able to take seriously? Because it will be tied to the movie.”

Adeline stared. This wasn’t the confident, cocky actor that Eli had been all day. And he was no longer speaking with the British accent. This was the guy she’d met when he’d first arrived and caught glimpses of from time to time since then. Real. And raw.

She gave him what she hoped he interpreted as a reassuring smile. “You are an actor that can do no wrong. Look around you. These people who have been hanging around for hours aren’t here for me.” Eli opened his mouth, like he was about to protest, but she held up a hand. “They love me. But they made signs for you. You are the Hercules of Hollywood.” Whoa, where had that last bit come from? A bit too corny for Adeline’s liking, but it seemed to have done the trick.

The cocky smile, and the accent, returned. “The Hercules of Hollywood. I like that. Don’t be surprised if I accidentally leak the new nickname and everyone starts referring to me as Herc.”

Great. She had apparently gone a bit too far, but at least the color was returning to his face. “We’ll see what they say about your nickname after they see the pictures tomorrow.”

Adeline stood in front of the mirror, looking herself over from all angles. The chicken costume was more hideous than she’d remembered. The sleeves had been made to look like wings, chicken talons stuck out over her own feet, and a hood came down over her forehead, making it difficult to see over the beak.

Luckily, she’d found a loophole. The rules hadn’t stated she needed to leave the house, so she had made sure she had enough food for the day, and she’d already put up a sign saying her store would be closed until Monday. All that was left was to put on some Christmas music, pull out the decorations, and spend the day getting ready for the holidays. While dressed as a chicken.

Hey, it could be worse.

Or so Adeline had thought. Until two hours later, when there was a knock on her door. She stared at it from the chair she was standing on, an ornament dangling from her hand. Maybe they’d go away. Adeline determined to ignore whoever it was and proceeded with hanging the ornament from the ceiling. It was quirky, she knew, but she loved Christmas more than anything, and considering Starlight Ridge’s lack of snowfall, the holidays could use all the help they could get.

Another knock. This time the raps were quicker, and louder. It sounded urgent. Adeline released a long sigh. She’d never forgive herself if it turned out that someone had been in desperate need of her help and she’d ignored them.

She slowly stepped from the chair, but still managed to trip over her talons on her way to the door. Adeline hesitated, her hand hovering over the doorknob. When the knocking recommenced, she quickly opened it.

Davis was standing on the other side, his eyes frantic. “I promise I’ll let you play your music at any time of the day if you’ll just make them go away.”

Well, that was one way to greet your neighbor first thing in the morning. Davis tended to be on the high-strung side, but even this was a bit extreme for him. “What’s going on?”

“People. So. Many. People. In front of your store.”

It was apparent that Adeline wasn’t going to get any useful information out of the hardware store owner. She glanced down at her outfit that Davis hadn’t even seemed to register. Looked like she would be going out in public after all. The good news was that the material was so thick, she was practically wearing a blanket and wouldn’t need to try to fit a coat over the thing. Or maybe that was a bad thing, because a coat would help to cover her up a bit.

A chicken wearing an ill-fitting coat. Nope, definitely a good thing that she could go without.

“Let me just grab some shoes,” she said.

“Aren’t you already wearing some?” Davis asked, glancing down at Adeline’s talons.

She shook her head and half-walked, half-jogged across the living room to where her actual shoes sat in the kitchen.

There was no reason there should be a crowd in front of her store. It was only nine a.m., and there was no way she’d have a bunch of customers first thing on a Sunday morning.

Adeline followed Davis to the boardwalk, but he was walking faster than her chicken costume allowed. She kept tripping over her own feet as she attempted to keep up with him.

“You need to give me a little more to go on, Davis,” she said after her fifth time tripping. Her gaze swept across the boardwalk. There was indeed a crowd of people, and not just in front of her store. They were standing on both sides of the boardwalk, all the way down.

But they didn’t seem to mirror the panic that Davis’s appearance had evoked just a few minutes earlier. Instead, there was a low rumble of excited chatter, lawn chairs set out, people looking like they were waiting for a parade. And there was music.

Adeline slowed her steps. “Davis,” she said, drawing out his name like a mom who was trying to get their kid to confess to something. “What is going on?”

He glanced at her over his shoulder as they approached her store. And he was grinning. “You are.”

Adeline stopped. Oh, no. Davis. He’d been a part of a ploy to lure her out. Everyone knew she and he were at odds so often, the only time he’d ever show up on her doorstep was if something was seriously wrong.

And their plan had worked perfectly.

She took a step backward, but suddenly Jessie and Erwin and Caleb were there. “Oh no you don’t,” Jessie said. “Once we realized you were going to hole up at home, we knew we couldn’t let you get out of it that easily.”

“A bit theatrical, don’t you think?”

“You have no idea.” Caleb smirked. “Do you realize who is here?”

She glanced at the people who surrounded her. They all had their phones out and weren’t even trying to hide the fact that they were taking pictures of her. “Yeah, the whole town, by the looks of it.”

“Yes,” Erwin said with a slight smile. “And everyone who has ever made a bet with you. You always win, but not this time.”

Those who were close enough to hear him laughed, and she heard someone say, “Hear, hear.”

Oh. So, that was what this was. Payback.

“What about Eli Hunt? He lost the challenge too, you know.”

“But this isn’t about him,” Caleb said. “Don’t you know why everyone was hoping he’d win?”

Yeah, Adeline knew. Because he was Eli Hunt. That was all he needed for people to fall in love with him. And it hadn’t been just the women who had wanted him to win. He had a presence that seemed to suck in everyone around him—leaving them wanting more. Except Adeline, of course. She was immune to his charm. Mostly.

She gave Caleb a well, duh look.

“They didn’t care about him winning, Addie. They wanted you to lose. It wouldn’t have mattered who you were competing against.”

Her mouth fell open. Starlight Ridge was her home—her family. But this felt…wrong. She’d always thought the town loved her and her quirky ways. But had she pushed things too far? If what Caleb was saying was true, maybe she had.

“I…” She tried to come up with something to say—something that wouldn’t betray how much his words had hurt.

Bree walked up at that moment, and as any best friend did, she knew exactly what Adeline was feeling without her needing to say a thing. “What did you say to her?” she demanded of her husband.

“N-nothing. We were just explaining why the entire town showed up to see Addie in her chicken costume. That’s all.”

“And I bet you made it sound completely terrible, didn’t you?” Bree turned her gaze on Davis, Erwin, and Jessie, and glared.

Adeline blinked back moisture as she asked, “So, it’s not true? Did you want me to lose the challenge?”

Bree slung an arm around Adeline’s shoulders, but it slid right off, due to the slick material of the chicken feathers. She hooked her arm through Adeline’s chicken wing instead. “Addie, everyone here loves you and would never want you to feel otherwise. You know that, right?”

That hadn’t exactly answered Adeline’s question. “At the moment, I’m not completely sure,” she admitted.

Bree tried another tactic. “Do you remember the bet you made against Jules?” She nodded to Leanne’s sister, who stood several feet away.

“I bet her she couldn’t eat an entire box of chile chocolate without drinking water.”

Bree nodded slowly. “What part did you conveniently leave out?”

“That I doubled the chile in that batch,” Adeline said, her lips quirking up. She thought she saw where this was going.

“And what about Davis?” Bree pressed.

Davis didn’t allow Adeline to answer this one. “I have a notebook filled with the events, including the time and place if you’re unable to recall all of them. It goes back to when we were eight years old and you convinced me that the ocean was filled with piranhas. I didn’t go out in the water for months.”

Adeline laughed. “Okay, okay. I get it. I deserve to be wearing this chicken costume.”

“It’s not that people wanted you to feel bad,” Bree said, “but they just wanted to show you what it felt like to be on the receiving end. For once, they wanted to prank the town’s most notorious prankster. No one has been able to do it before, and who knows if we’ll manage to do it again. Give us this one moment.”

Adeline had always made her bets in good fun. It made her more lovable, and interesting, or so she had thought. Apparently, she’d been the only one to feel that way.

“All right,” she said, straightening. “I’ll walk every inch of this town, and everyone will get their photo op with Adeline, the dancing chicken.”

Bree laughed. “I don’t think dancing was a requirement.”

“No, but if I’m going to be in this thing all day, I might as well make it as entertaining as possible. No one wants to see a mopey chicken. That’s just sad.”

Bree grinned and stepped back to give Adeline room. She gestured to the boardwalk in front of them. “A dancing chicken is a happy chicken.”

“And I promise to never prank anyone, or make bets, ever again.”

To Adeline’s surprise, only Davis seemed excited by the prospect. “Promise?”

Jessie whacked him on the shoulder, but her gaze remained on Adeline. “You can’t do that. Without your bets and pranks, you wouldn’t be the Adeline we know. Just because we’d like to be able to pull one over on you occasionally doesn’t mean we want you to stop.”

Caleb and Bree, and even Erwin, nodded in agreement, their gazes warm.

So, they did love her, quirkiness and all. She grinned. “I think I can manage that.”

“It looks like I’m late to the party,” Eli said, walking up at that moment. In full chicken costume. Except, the outfit hadn’t been purchased with someone of his size in mind. It was much too tight in the chest and was riding up his ankles, so his calves were bare. He’d pushed up the sleeves to his elbows, and Adeline could tell he’d attempted to get the hood up over his head, but it had only made it halfway.

Adeline covered her mouth, trying to trap a laugh. She didn’t quite succeed, and it escaped in bursts as she said, “Oh, you poor thing.”

The phones that had been directed at Adeline swiveled in his direction.

“You really should have stayed in your trailer and hidden out for the day,” Erwin said. “No one would have blamed you.”

Oh, so they would let the Hollywood movie star escape embarrassment, but not their beloved Adeline, who they apparently loved so much.

“What, and miss out on all the fun?” Eli asked in his lovely accent, his arms outstretched. Or as much as they could. The costume was so tight, they didn’t manage to get far.

The music changed to a reggae song, and Davis groaned. “Even as Adeline is paying her dues, I can’t escape her music.”

She held out her hands and laughed. “Hey, I didn’t choose it. You can’t blame me for this one.”

“I love reggae,” Eli said, breaking out into a weird dance that didn’t go along with the music.

A laugh escaped Adeline. She didn’t understand Eli. At. All. Sometimes he was so endearing. Other times, like yesterday, not so much. But for now, she decided to just enjoy the moment. She nodded to the open boardwalk in front of them. “Want to join me?”

He grinned. “Let’s do it.”

And then he began a terrible chicken impersonation, flapping his arms to the beat of the song while making a pecking motion with his head.

“Um…maybe I should go solo,” she said, laughing.

“What, are you embarrassed to be seen with me?” he asked, acting wounded, but then exaggerating the movements even more. That was not a normal chicken.

Adeline stepped away, though her smile didn’t fade. “Uh-huh.”

But then the crowd began chanting her name, and she gave in. Her town needed this. And so she began flapping her arms and bobbing her head. Someone turned up the music, the cheering grew louder, and Adeline linked her chicken wing through Eli’s as they proceeded to do a Wizard of Oz type saunter up the boardwalk, to the delight of the crowd.

This was one of the most insane moments of Adeline’s life, but seeing the smiles was worth it. And living the moment with Eli Hunt wasn’t half bad either.