We flipped the canoe and swam it back to the dock. Ben and Sawyer sat at the end of it, legs swinging, grinning.
“Looks like you had trouble out there, ladies.” Sawyer didn’t even pretend to be concerned.
“Imagine that,” I said, my voice dryer than Marge’s toast.
“We’d help you out, but…” Ben trailed off, grinning.
“But you know we’d pull you guys in, headfirst? Good guess,” Natalie said. “But we don’t want your help.”
We swam past them to the point where we could touch and walk the rest the way to the shore where we banked the canoe and dragged ourselves up next to it, collapsing and breathing hard.
“Bold move when I had big things to consider,” Natalie called to Ben.
“Are you saying you don’t want me to transfer?” he called back, not sounding stressed.
“I’m saying I don’t like you taking that answer for granted,” she called up to the sky, too tired to prop herself up anymore.
The sound of running footsteps echoed from the dock, then Ben’s face appeared above us right before he dropped to his knees beside her.
“I knew you’d say yes, but not because I’m taking you for granted the way you think.”
She struggled up to her elbows again. “Is there more than one kind of taking for granted?”
“It’s just that I knew if you felt even a tenth for me of what I do for you, there’s no way you’d say no.”
All right, that was pretty sweet. But I wouldn’t admit it out loud.
Natalie must have thought so too because even though she tried for a full three seconds to hold onto her scowl, a smile broke free anyway, and she recovered enough to launch herself at him and cover him with kisses.
Sawyer had come up the dock at a normal pace, and he stepped onto the bank now. “Gross.”
“Super gross. I’m getting a cavity.”
“Want to go run away into the woods and do some of that ourselves?”
“Definitely.” I held out a hand so he could pull me to my feet. “Bye, lovebirds.”
They paid no attention to us. Sawyer walked me to my cabin and waited while I changed. When I came out in dry shorts and a tank top, he crooked his head toward the Moon Rock trail. “Want to go see if it’s as fun in the daytime too?”
“Race you,” I called behind me, already running for the trailhead.
We laughed and wrestled all the way up the trail, and when I beat him to the top of the rock, I looped my arms around his neck and smiled down at him standing below me. “Just so you know, none of this is going to spare you from payback.” And I swallowed his groan with a kiss.
Chapter 11
Present
Byfouro’clock,I’mexhausted, but it’s the good kind where my muscles and brain have been doing fun work.
I’d laid my traps for Natalie, Ben, and Sawyer and still had the whole day stretching ahead of me, so I’d gone to my happy place and joined Lisa in the kitchen.
She and I spent the day planning and prepping for upcoming meals. Once she’d gotten over her initial shyness with me, a little praise had gone a long way, and she’d proven to be a competent and skilled chef. She ordered her assistants around firmly but kindly, explaining counselors would work in the kitchen this week, but next week as the first campers arrived, they’d begin rotating in for KP duty.
It was exactly how we’d done it in the old days, and I’d loved it. I’d even traded lifeguard shifts for KP supervision some nights, preferring the bustle of the kitchen to breaking up water fights.
But I have two more meals to prep before I can call it good for the day. “Lisa, I noticed a picnic hamper in the mudroom at my cabin. You wouldn’t happen to have an extra one around here, would you?”
“Oh, sure. I’ll grab it for you. Going on a picnic tomorrow?”
