He looked at his watch as he’d done every ten minutes for the last hour. He smiled in a secretive way. “It’s time to show you what I can do.”

Mike’s face fell. She knew what was coming. “I’m really hungry and I’d like to—”

“Come on,” he said. “You can last a few more minutes. You’ll like watching what I can do, I promise.”

There was no way she could get out of it, so she nodded.

He led the way through the kids’ rides to a gate that hadn’t been there yesterday. Mike was beginning to put things together and she had an idea who was behind all this: Adam’s bratty son. “Kyle put this in?” she asked.

“He did. He really is a nice guy. When he saw me with a bow, he bent over backward to set up a field for me.”

“I’d like to bend him over backward,” she muttered.

“What did you say?” He was holding the gate open for her.

“Not a word.”

“Why don’t you let me carry those?”

The ice cream was gone but her arms were wrapped around the stuffed animals like they were a shield. “No, thanks.”

With a shrug, he led the way through a line of trees to a clear spot. It was a place that for some unknown reason Papi called “the cellar.” Her mother said that someday she planned to plant peach trees on it but she hadn’t done it yet. A big, new archery target had been set up at the end. On the side were two young men. Their clothes, hair and the way they carried themselves seemed to scream “private school.” One of them was holding a compound bow. Mike knew it was quite expensive.

“These are friends of mine from school, Bradley and Arthur. And this is Michaela, Vera Exton’s daughter.”

Mike didn’t frown at the introduction, but kept smiling.

Hayes held out the bow to show her. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Let me shoot a few. Then I’ll give you some lessons.”

Mike just nodded.

“I’ll hold those for you,” Bradley said. She relinquished the plush creatures and went to stand by Hayes.

He lifted the bow, took too long to aim and shot off three arrows. They came quite close to the center of the target. Turning, he smiled in triumph.

“Wow,” she said as Bradley walked to the target and removed the arrows. “That’s really good. And your bow is certainly beautiful.”

He smiled. “Want to give it a try?”

She took a step back. “That looks a bit, uh...”

“I’d like to try,” came a voice from the side.

They turned to see the raggedy man standing there. If possible, he was even dirtier.