"What do you want to do now?" Trixie asked as the couple stood outside the door of her parents room, still gathering their wits about what had happened.

"Well, you know if you go downstairs we're in for the Spanish Inquisition, right?"

Trixie knew he was right. "But if we stay up here, we'll have to stay in the hallway." She giggled at her father's rules. "Every room up here has either a bed or a shower."

Jim's face paled. "That was extremely embarrassing."

"I think he did that on purpose." She smiled at the thought of her father and the near-death meeting they had had.

"Do you want to just go downstairs and get it over with? At least maybe if we hand ourselves in they'll be more lenient."

Trixie nodded. "I doubt it would do us any good if they had to hunt us down again."

Jim made a face at the thought. "Well, technically, they wouldn't have to hunt us down, because if we did go anywhere, we'd have to give a full report to your parents."

Trixie's eye glittered. "But the rest of them don't know that."

Jim chuckled. "So do you want to go downstairs?" he asked.

Trixie nodded, though she looked a bit indecisive. "Let's just get it over with."

And so, with a squeeze of the hand, they started downstairs, Trixie walking first and Jim after her.

They didn't exactly know what they were to expect, but almost everyone that lived in the Manor House, Crabapple Farm, and surrounding one mile radius crowded in their living room was not it.

Trixie buried her face in her hands when the chatter stopped and everyone looked up at the descending couple.

"Hey guys," Dan called out, sitting on a chair, though his tone wasn't purely welcoming, even though it was quite amused. "How are you?"

They both shook their heads in dread. "So we have to do this?" Jim asked, looking at all the faces staring back. His parents, Di's parents, Tom and Celia, Regan and Miss Trask, all the Bob-Whites, and Dr. Ferris, who, despite how he was acting, wasn't just there to check on his patients.

"Of course you do, Jim," Mrs. Wheeler said, shaking her head. "And after that I'm sure you're going to have some… private conversations with other people."

Dan grinned as the couple begrudgingly took a seat on a couch by the staircase. "Speaking of private conversations, I see you've managed to make it out of Mr. Belden's alive."

"Yeah," said Regan, trying not to smile. "How was that?"

"Well, I lived," Jim said with a small smile.

"Barely," Trixie added.

"Wait," Dan said, "You both had a conversation?"

Trixie shook her head. "We both had two conversations."

The group laughed.

Trixie began. "First I had to go… explain stuff to my parents. Then—"

"How was that?" Di asked, trying not to smile.

Honey nodded. "I would've loved to see the expression on your Dad's face when you told him you wanted to date Jim."

Trixie squirmed, blushing. "Well, actually, I didn't tell him that I wanted to date Jim. I asked them if I would be allowed to date someone, and even though I tried not to tell them who it was, Jim's name just kind of… slipped out."

"As it often does," Mart said, earning a glare from his sister.

"Well, after that, Jim had to go in. I'm really not sure how that went." She looked expectantly at the boy sitting next to her.

"I'm not sure mortifying quite covers it," Jim mused, earning laughs, and knowing nods, from Mart and the rest of the males who had been through the same thing.

"Well, then he made us both go in for… ground rules."

That earned quite a roar.

"Lemme guess," Dan said. "No sex till your 50?"

"35," Trixie said blushing, "but close."

"And what," Mart said, "bring her home by nine or your dead?"

"Ten," Jim said. "He's not heartless."

Brian chuckled. "Not entirely, no."

Mr. Lynch spoke. "All men are relatively heartless when it comes to their daughters and a boy," he said, and Mart nodded earnestly, exchanging a nervous smile with his girlfriend's dad.

"Well, we know that your conversations went well," Honey said, somewhat impatiently, "but we want to know about how you guys got together!"

Lots of people nodded.

"The only thing we know is that Dan and Dr. Ferris caught you kissing when they came back to treat Jim's copperhead bite," Di said, looking at the couple and then to Dan and Dr. Ferris.

The doctor chuckled. "Well… I must admit that her method of making sure the patient didn't fall asleep was quite effective, but if she does that with every copperhead bite she treats," he looked amusedly at the couple, "well, Jim you're in trouble."

The couple turned red as everyone laughed.

"So what," Dan probed, looking at Trixie. "You realized Jim might die and decided to reveal your true feelings?"

Trixie looked indignantly at him. "No," she said. "Not even close."

"Then what?" Honey asked, looking expectantly at her best friend and brother, "That wasn't your first kiss, then?"

Seeing them both squirm, Di's eyes widened. "It wasn't, was it?"

Trixie gave them an apologetic smile. "Uh… not really, no," she said, blushing.

Everyone looked at them eagerly, waiting intently for an explanation.

"Uh," Jim blushed, not knowing what to say. "When we were at the lake this morning, we uh…"

"That's why you guys were acting so weird!" Di mused. "We were wondering what the problem was."

"Problem?" Dan questioned. "This is more like a finally-you-guys-have-come-to-your- senses moment. I wouldn't necessarily call it a problem."

"Why didn't you guys tell us?" Honey wondered.

The couple blushed even more. "We… uh… didn't exactly get to talk about anything with each other, so we thought that maybe that should happen first before we had to talk with you guys about it," Jim said. "No offense, but you guys can be pretty harsh."

"That's what we're here for, Jim," Dan said supportively.

"Well, we needed to talk, so we went for the horse ride, because I needed to see Mr. Maypenny, anyway," Jim continued.

"And we talked, and then we… decided… and then, well, he got bitten by a copperhead," Trixie continued.

"Woah," Di said, "That first aid treatment must have been really awkward, then."

Trixie blushed to the roots of her hair. "I didn't really think about it. It was all a shock."

Regan spoke. "Well, Trixie, if you guys 'talked about it', then how come I volunteered to take care of your tack for you while you went to 'talk about it'?"

They blushed, and people laughed at Regan's proclamation.

"We didn't talk about the same thing," Jim said, blushing. "The first one was kind of like a 'did what happen at the lake really happen' talk. And the second one was a 'where do we go from here' talk."

"Ah," Regan said, nodding, "I see." He smiled knowingly at them.

"So… let's get this straight," Dan started. "You spend all these years saying that you have no feelings for each other, despite corsages, identification bracelets, and everyone telling you that you obviously like each other."

"Then," Honey continued, "You keep up the act this summer, except there seems to be a lot more tension between you guys."

"Now we hear that you have set aside your previous decisions and had your first kiss at the lake," Di added.

"Then went for an excursion on some fine equestrians," Mart said, "on which you had a conversation, which followed by Jim getting bitten by a copperhead."

"And then Dr. Ferris and I caught you kissing in the woods," Dan said.

"And Regan took care of your tack so you guys could go talk," Brian added, thinking back to the 'talk' which he had interrupted. "And then you had a giant 'be good to my daughter' conversation with my dad, and now you're here."

Trixie and Jim nodded at the not-so-conservative summary their friends had given. "Um, yeah, that's pretty much it," Jim said.

"Well," Celia said amusedly. "It seems like Dan was right, Trixie."

"About what?" she asked, puzzled.

Celia smiled. "You have fallen into the boy trap."

Everyone laughed as the dinner table conversation of a few nights ago came back.

"Can we leave now?" Trixie said, blushing.

"And go where?" Dan asked mischievously.

Again, Trixie blushed at the trap she had gotten herself into. Seeing that she was lost for words, Miss Trask came to the rescue.

"Let the poor things go," she said, looking sympathetically at the couple. "They've just sorted things out and they had to go through our terrible questions. They may want some time alone," she said.

Mrs. Wheeler and Mrs. Lynch both nodded in agreement. "It's not fair to keep them like this," Mrs. Wheeler said.

"You should go, dears," Mrs. Lynch said, smiling at the young couple. She remembered when she was that age, too. And, she remembered her daughter's position as well.

Jim and Trixie cast grateful looks at the three women. Then Jim remembered their dilemma. "Uh… but here comes another rule," he said, sheepishly. "We have to tell her dad where we're going and when we'll be back."

Dan grinned. "Oh, I like that rule."

Honey scoffed. "Dan!" she scolded, feeling just as she had with Brian that the couple should be given privacy.

"They shouldn't worry," Mr. Wheeler said. "If there's anything I know about Peter and Helen Belden is that they're not going to tell you where Jim and Trixie will be." He smiled slightly. "We were all teenagers once too."

"If you guys are bored," Regan said, addressing the Bob-Whites who weren't Jim and Trixie, "you could always exercise the horses."

Mart groaned, remembering something. "I have chores to do. The chickens, laundry, etc."

Brian nodded. "I have to take Bobby, Terry and Larry back to the Lynch's house."

The teens went on talking about their plans, and soon people dispersed, having something else to do, and so when things had calmed down, the only people left were the Wheelers, Lynches, Tom, Celia, and Dr. Ferris, who was giving his patients their medication. And of course, so were Jim and Trixie, who were still seated on the couch.

"Well, that was terrifying," Jim commented to Trixie.

She nodded. "At least it's over." She sighed. "I'm glad."

Jim nodded in agreement. "What do… you want to do now?" he asked, looking shyly at Trixie.

She smiled to herself at that fact that he was nervous. "Well, you need to rest your leg, so no more horseback riding for the next few days. And you probably shouldn't drive, either."

"The only places we'd be allowed would be the clubhouse, the Manor House living room, the stables, or right here," Jim said.

"Well, Honey and Di are in the clubhouse working on those new curtains." Trixie's eyes widened. "Jim, I forgot my sweater at the stables from a few days ago. Can we go get it first? Regan will skin me alive if he finds it there. Then maybe we'll be able to decide what we want to do."

Jim smiled. "Sure," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling them both up.

And so together, they walked, finally able to enjoy the freedom that they'd been waiting for, even subconsciously.