Read the book: «Summer at Willow Lake»

Acclaim for Just Breathe and NYT bestselling author SUSAN WIGGS

“this is a beautiful book”

—Bookbag on Just Breathe

“ … Unpredictable and refreshing,

this is irresistibly good.”

—Closer Hot Pick Book on Just Breathe

“ … Truly uplifting …”

—Now Book of the Week

“A human and multi-layered story exploring duty

to both country and family.”

—Nora Roberts on The Ocean Between Us

“Susan Wiggs paints the details of human relationships

with the finesse of a master.”

—Jodi Picoult, author of Nineteen Minutes

“The perfect beach read.”

—Debbie Macomber on Summer by the Sea

Summer at Willow Lake
Susan Wiggs

www.mirabooks.co.uk

To the real-life golden anniversary couple,

Nick and Lou Klist

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Deepest appreciation to Elsa Watson, Suzanne Selfors, Sheila Rabe and Anjali Banerjee; also to Kysteen Seelen, Susan Plunkett, Rose Marie Harris, Lois Faye Dyer and Kate Breslin for their enormous stamina and patience in reading early drafts.

Thanks to Dale Berg and Mike Sack for sharing their reminiscences of Catskills camps. Special thanks to Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, and to my terrific editor, Margaret O’Neill Marbury.

Welcome to Camp Kioga

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “America’s greatest contribution to the world is the summer camp.” Anyone who visits Camp Kioga discovers this for himself. Camp Kioga is a place where dreams still live and breathe, where you can dive into the crystalline waters of a pristine lake, hike to a mountaintop and lift your eyes to heaven, gaze into the brightly glowing embers of a campfire at night, and imagine all that life has in store for you.

Camp Kioga Rules

Camp Kioga flies three flags—the official camp flag, and the flags of the state of New York and the United States—which are raised each morning at sunrise and saluted by all campers at reveille. When flags are flown on the same halyard with the flag of the United States, the latter should always be at the peak. When the flags are flown from adjacent staffs, the flag of the United States should be hoisted first and lowered last. No flag or pennant may be placed above the flag of the United States or to the right of the flag of the United States. When the flag is half masted, both flags are half masted, with the U.S. flag at the midpoint and the other flags below.

Prologue

Olivia Bellamy tried to decide what was worse. Being trapped at the top of a flagpole with no help in sight, or having help arrive in the form of a Hells Angel.

Her plan to raise the flags over Camp Kioga for the first time in ten years had seemed so simple. Then the cable and pulley snagged, but Olivia was undaunted. She had set up an old aluminum ladder and climbed to the top, only to discover she still couldn’t reach the snag. Shinnying up the pole was no big deal, she told herself—until she accidentally kicked over the ladder.

You idiot, she thought, hugging the pole for dear life. It was a long way down, and this was not exactly the Batpole. The galvanized steel was old and corroded, and if she slid down, she’d rip the skin from her hands and inner thighs.

She had just begun to inch toward the ground when a loud snort of unmuffled exhaust sounded from the road. She was so startled that she nearly let go of the pole. Instinctively, she clung tighter and shut her eyes. Go away, she thought. I can’t deal with whoever you are right now.

The blast of the engine grew louder, and she opened her eyes. The intruder turned out to be a biker clad in black leather, his face concealed by a menacing black helmet and shades. Behind the black-and-chrome motorcycle, a rooster tail of dust rose in a tall plume.

Just my luck, she thought. Here I am in the middle of nowhere, and Easy Rider comes to my rescue.

Her arms and shoulders were starting to tremble. So much for all those hours of strength training at the gym.

At the base of the flagpole, the biker stopped, dismounted and engaged the kickstand. Then he leaned back to look straight up at her.

Despite the circumstances, Olivia found herself wondering what her butt looked like from his perspective. Growing up as she had, comforting herself with food until she’d earned any number of unflattering childhood nicknames, she’d never quite gotten over feeling self-conscious about her figure.

Play it cool, she decided. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey. What’s up?” Though she couldn’t see his face, Olivia thought she detected a grin in his voice. She became sure of it when he added, “Okay, sorry. Couldn’t help myself.”

Great. Just her luck. A wise guy.

To his credit, he didn’t make her suffer. He picked up the ladder and leaned it against the flagpole. “Take it slow,” he coached her. “I’ll hold this steady.”

Olivia was sweating now, having reached the limit of her endurance. She scooted downward inch by inch, while her denim shorts rode upward. She hoped he wouldn’t notice they were giving her an enormous wedgie.

“You’re almost there,” called the stranger. “Just a little more.”

The lower she shinnied, the less he sounded like a stranger. By the time her foot touched the top rung of the ladder, she was having seriously bad premonitions about this guy. She hadn’t been anywhere near this place in years, this camp where she’d found both her wildest dreams and her worst nightmares. These days, she didn’t know a soul in the remote mountain wilderness … did she?

In true neurotic fashion, she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she hadn’t done anything to her hair that morning. She wasn’t wearing a smidge of makeup. She couldn’t even recall whether or not she’d brushed her teeth. And the denim cutoffs she was wearing were too short. The tank top, too clingy.

Climbing down the ladder, she knew with each step that what awaited her at the bottom would be, at best, awkward humiliation. In order to reach solid ground, she was forced to descend into his waiting arms, which were braced on either side of the ladder to hold it steady. He smelled of leather and something else. The wind, maybe.

Her muscles, which had been screaming in protest a moment ago, now threatened to go slack with exhaustion. She used the last of her strength to give his arm a push so she wasn’t trapped. He let go of the ladder and held up his cyborg hands, palms out, as if to show he came in peace. They were huge, in their black gloves. Darth Vader hands. Terminator hands.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

She leaned back against the ladder. When she looked up at him, the ground beneath her feet didn’t feel so safe. Nothing felt safe.

He was huge, his bulk enhanced by all that leather, including chaps. A biker in chaps over faded Levi’s, the leather worn to softness in all the most interesting places. She eyed the ripped T-shirt visible through the half-open jacket. His battered boots appeared as though they belonged to a man who actually worked in them. Except for the chains. She could see no earthly purpose for that bit of bling, except that it was sexy. Oh, God. It was.

“Thanks,” she said, quickly stepping out from between the guy and the ladder. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.” In his mirrored glasses, she could see her own reflection—flushed cheeks, wind-tossed hair. She wiped her hands on her shorts. “What, um …” She fumbled. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe all this fresh air and sunshine had muddled her brain. She adopted a neutral tone and decided to play it cool. “Can I help you?”

“I think it’s the other way around. You left a message on my voice mail. Something about a construction project?” With that, he peeled away the sunglasses, then unstrapped the helmet and took it off.

Oh, God, Olivia thought. I wanted it to be anyone but you.

He removed the gloves, keeping his eyes on her as he tugged them off, finger by finger. He squinted. “Do I … have we met?”

Was he kidding? she wondered. Did he really not know?

When she didn’t respond, he turned away and expertly raised the flag. Immediately, the wind filled it like a sail.

Watching him, Olivia forgot to move. To breathe. To think. With one look at those heartbreaker eyes, she was hurled back in time, the years peeling away like pages from a calendar. She wasn’t looking at Easy Rider. She was looking into the face of a man, but in those ice-blue eyes, she could see the boy he was so long ago.

And not just any boy. The boy. The one who owned all the firsts, every significant milestone of her troubled and painful adolescence—the first boy she’d ever loved. The first she’d ever kissed. The first she’d ever—The first to break her heart.

Her whole body flared to life with a fiery blush. Maybe that was why the term “old flame” had been invented. Somebody always got burned.

“Connor Davis,” she said, speaking his name aloud for the first time in nine years. “Fancy meeting you here.” Inside, she was thinking, I want to die. Let me die right here, right now, and I’ll never ask for another thing as long as I live.

“That’s me,” he said unnecessarily.

As if she could forget. The promise of the boy he had been was fulfilled in the man standing before her. He would be twenty-eight now, to her twenty-seven. Lanky height had filled out with solid breadth. His cocky grin and twinkling eyes were still the same, though the GI Joe jawline had been softened by a day’s growth of beard. And he still—Olivia blinked, making sure she wasn’t seeing things—yes, he still wore a tiny silver hoop in one ear. She herself had done the piercing, thirteen years ago, it must have been.

“So you’re …” He studied the back of his left hand, where it appeared that he had scrawled something in purple ink. “You’re Olive Bellamy?”

“Olivia.” She prayed for him to recognize her the way she had recognized him, as someone from the past, someone important, someone who’d had a life-changing impact on his future. God, someone who’d risked getting sent home from camp for piercing his ear.

“Yeah, sorry. Olivia.” He studied her with blatant male appreciation. He clearly misinterpreted her look of outrage. “Didn’t have a piece of paper handy when I checked my messages,” he explained, indicating the purple ink with which he’d scrawled a message on his hand. Then he frowned. “Have we met before?”

She gave a short, harsh laugh. “You’re kidding, right? This is a joke.” Had she really changed that much? Well, okay, yes. Nearly a decade had passed. She’d lost a ton of weight. Gone from nut brown to honey blond. Traded her glasses for contacts. But still …

He just stared at her. Clueless. “Should I know you?”

She folded her arms, glared at him and summoned a phrase he’d probably remember, because it was one of the first lies they’d ever old each other. “I’m your new best friend,” she said, and watched the color drain from his tanned, handsome face.

His gorgeous blue eyes narrowed and then widened in dawning wonder. His Adam’s apple rippled as he swallowed, then quickly cleared his throat.

“Holy shit,” he said in a low murmur. His hand went up in an unconscious gesture and touched the little sliver hoop. “Lolly?”

CAMP KIOGA CODE OF CONDUCT

Everyone is expected to participate in all planned activities as defined by the camp schedule and to be in regulation dress. Counselors are responsible for ensuring that campers participate in all sessions of the planned program activities, unless excused by the camp nurse or the director.

One

Summer 1991

“Lolly.” The tall, lanky boy hiking up the trail behind her spoke for the first time since they left base camp. “What the hell kind of name is Lolly?”

“The kind that’s stenciled on the back of my shirt,” she said, flipping a brown pigtail over one shoulder. To her dismay, she felt herself blushing. Cripes, he was just a dumb boy, and all he’d done was ask her a simple question.

Wrong, she thought, hearing a game-show buzz in her head. He was pretty much the cutest boy in Eagle Lodge, the twelve-to-fourteens. And it hadn’t been a question so much as a smart remark designed to rattle her. Plus, he said hell. Lolly would never admit it, but she didn’t like swearing. Whenever she tried saying a swearword herself, she always stammered and blushed, and everyone could instantly see how uncool she was.

“Got it,” the kid muttered, and as soon as the trail curved around a bend, he passed her with a rude muttering that was probably meant to be an “Excuse me.” He trudged on, whistling an old Talking Heads tune without missing a note.

They were doing a pairs hike, the first activity of the season. It was designed to familiarize them with the camp layout, and with another camper. They had been paired up as they’d gotten off the bus, while their duffel bags and belongings were being sorted and taken to their cabins. She had wound up with the lanky boy because they had both been last to disembark. She had folded her arms across her chest and sniffed, “I’m your new best friend.”

He’d taken one look at her and shrugged, saying with an air of false nobility, “‘Barkis is willing.’”

The show-off. Lolly had pretended not to be impressed to hear him quoting from David Copperfield. She had also pretended not to see the way some of the other boys snickered and elbowed him, ribbing him for getting stuck with Lolly Bellamy.

He wasn’t the typical Kioga camper, and as someone who had been coming here since she was eight years old, she would know. This boy, a first-timer, was rough around the edges, his hair too long, his cargo shorts too low-slung. Maybe he even looked a little dangerous, with his pale blue eyes and dark hair, a combination that was both cool and disconcerting.

Through gaps in the trees, she could see people walking in pairs or foursomes, chattering away. It was only the first day of camp, yet already, kids were figuring out who they were going to be friends with this year. Lolly already knew they had ruled her out, of course. They always did. If it wasn’t for her cousins, she’d be up a tree, for sure.

She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, and felt a dull thud of envy in her gut as she looked at the other campers, who already seemed totally at ease around one another. Even the new ones, like the lanky boy, seemed to fit in. Fresh off the camp bus, they strolled side by side, yakking away and laughing. Some of the girls wore their camp hoodies slung nonchalantly over their shoulders, their innate fashion sense evident even with the regulation clothes. Most of the boys had their Kioga bandannas tied around their foreheads, Rambo style. Everybody strutted about as though they owned the place.

And of course, that was kind of funny. None of these kids owned Kioga. But Lolly did.

Well, in a way. The summer camp belonged to her nana and granddad. Back when she was in the Fledglings, the eight-to-elevens, she used to lord her status over the other kids, but it never really worked. Most kids didn’t give a hoot about that.

The tall boy found a hickory stick and used it to beat at the underbrush or to lean on as he walked. His gaze darted around watchfully, as though he expected something to jump out at him.

“So I guess your name is Ronnoc,” she said at last.

He scowled and shot a glance over his shoulder at her. “Huh?”

“Says so on the back of your shirt.” “It’s inside out, genius.” “It was just a joke.”

“Ha, ha.” He stabbed the hickory stick into the ground.

Their destination was the summit of Saddle Mountain, which wasn’t exactly a mountain, more like a big hill. Once they finally reached the top, they’d find a fire pit with log benches arranged in a circle around it. This was the site of many camp traditions. Nana once said that in the days of the first settlers, travelers would make signal fires at high points like this one in order to communicate longdistance. It was on the tip of Lolly’s tongue to share the bit of trivia with her partner, but she clamped her mouth shut.

She had already made up her mind not to like this kid. Truth be told, she had made up her mind not to like anybody this summer. Her two favorite cousins, Frankie—short for Francine—and Dare, usually came with her, and they always made Lolly feel as if she had actual friends. But this year, they were driving to California with their parents, Aunt Peg and Uncle Clyde. Lolly’s own parents didn’t do that kind of traveling. They only did the kind you could brag about afterward. Her parents pretty much liked anything they could brag about—trips, real estate, antiques, artwork. They even bragged about Lolly, but that was a stretch. Especially now, after sixth grade, the year her marks went down and her weight went up. The year of the divorce.

Now, there’s something to brag about, she thought.

“We’re supposed to learn three things about each other,” said the boy who had no sense of humor, the boy she didn’t want to befriend. “Then when we get to the top, we have to introduce each other to the group.”

“I don’t want to know three things about you,” she said airily.

“Yeah, well. Ditto.”

The getting-to-know-you fireside chat was always tedious, which was a shame, because it didn’t have to be. The little kids were best at it because they didn’t know which things to keep to themselves, and which to share. Lolly was a perfect example of that. A year ago, she’d blurted out, “My parents are getting a divorce” and had dissolved into tears, and her life had been a nightmare ever since. But at least back then, her admission had been genuine. In this age group, she already knew the introductions would be totally boring or phony or both.

“I wish we could skip it,” she said. “It’s going to be a complete drag. The younger kids are more interesting because at least they’ll say anything.”

“What do you mean, anything?”

“Like if their uncle is being investigated by the SEC or their brother has a third nipple.”

“A what?” Lolly probably shouldn’t have brought it up, but she knew he’d bug her until she explained. “You heard me,” she said.

“A third nipple. That’s total BS. Nobody has that.”

“Huh. Bebe Blackmun once told the whole group that her brother has three.”

“Did you see it?” he challenged.

“Like I would even want to.” She shuddered. “Ew.”

“It’s bullshit.”

She sniffed, determined to appear unimpressed by his swearing. “I bet you have an extra one.” She didn’t know why she said it. She knew the chances of him having three nipples were zip.

“Yeah, right,” he said, stopping on the trail and turning. In one graceful motion, he peeled off his T-shirt right there in the woods, in front of her face, so fast she didn’t have time to react.

“You want to count ‘em?” he demanded.

Her face lit with a blush and she marched past him, staring straight ahead. Idiot, she thought. I am such an idiot. What was I thinking?

“Maybe you have three nipples,” he said with mocking laughter in his voice. “Maybe I should count yours.”

“You’re crazy.” She kept marching.

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“I was just trying to make conversation because you’re totally, one hundred percent boooring.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “That’s me. Boooring.” He sashayed around her, mimicking her walk. He hadn’t put his shirt back on but had tucked it in the back waistband of his cargo shorts. With the First-Blood headband and the shirt hanging down like the back half of a loincloth, he looked like a savage. Very Lord of the Flies.

He was a total show-off. He—

She stumbled over a tree root, and had to grab for a nearby branch to steady herself. He turned, and she could have sworn she’d seen his arm flash out to keep her from falling, but he quickly resumed walking without touching her. She stared at him, not to be rude or nosy but this time out of concern.

“What’s that on your back?” she asked bluntly.

“What?” Mr. Lord of the Flies scowled unpleasantly at her.

“At first I thought you forgot to bathe, but I think you have a really huge bruise.” She pointed to the back of his rib cage.

He stopped and twisted around, his face almost comically contorted. “I don’t have any stinking bruise. Man, you’re kind of creepy. Extra nipples and now phantom bruises.”

“I’m looking right at it.” In spite of her annoyance at him, she felt a small twinge of compassion. The bruise was healing. She could tell by the way the color bloomed in the middle and faded at the edges. But it must’ve really hurt when it happened.

His eyes narrowed and his face turned hard, and for a second, he looked menacing. “It’s nothing,” he stated. “I fell off my bike. Big deal.” He whipped around and kept going, hurrying so that Lolly had to rush to keep up.

“Look, I didn’t mean to make you mad.”

“I’m not mad at you,” he barked at her, and walked even faster.

That was quick, she thought. Her first enemy of the summer. There were sure to be many more to follow. She had a knack for bringing out dislike in people.

Even though Connor said he wasn’t mad at her, he was mad about something. There was fury in his taut muscles, his sharp movements. Big deal, so he hurt himself riding a bike. Usually when you fell off a bike, though, the casualties were elbows and knees, maybe the head. Not the back, unless you went tumbling down a hill and slammed into something really hard. Unless you were lying about what really happened.

She was both intrigued by and disappointed in this boy. Disappointed because she desperately wanted to dislike him and not have to think about him again, all summer long. And intrigued because he was more interesting than he had a right to be. He was kind of edgy, too, with that too-long hair, low-slung pants, high-tops repaired with duct tape. And there was something in his eyes besides the usual stupid boy stuff. Those same ice-cube eyes that had read David Copperfield had probably seen things a girl like Lolly couldn’t even imagine.

They hiked around a hairpin bend in the path, and a loud, steady rush of water greeted them.

“Whoa,” Connor said, tilting back his head to look at the hundred-foot waterfall. It gushed from some unseen source high above, tumbling over rocks, droplets turning to mist on impact. Everywhere the sunlight shone through, rainbows glowed. “That’s awesome,” he said, his cranky mood apparently forgotten.

“Meerskill Falls,” she said, raising her voice over the roar of the falling water. “One of the tallest in the state. Come on, you can get a good view of it from the bridge.”

Meerskill Bridge had been constructed in the 1930s by a government work crew. Dizzyingly tall, the arched concrete structure spanned the gorge, with the falls crashing wildly below. “The locals call this Suicide Bridge because people have killed themselves jumping from it.”

“Yeah, sure.” He seemed drawn to the cascade, which misted the trail on either side, cultivating a carpet of moss and lush ferns.

“I’m serious. That’s why there’s a chain-link fence over the top of the bridge.” She scrambled to keep up with him. “It was supposedly put up, like, fifty years ago, after two teenagers jumped off it.”

“How do you know they jumped?” he asked. The mist clung to his dark hair and his eyelashes, making him look even cuter.

Lolly wondered if the mist made her look cute, too. Probably not. It only fogged her glasses. “I guess they just know,” she said. They reached the bridge deck and passed under the arch formed by the safety fence.

“Maybe they fell by accident. Maybe they were pushed. Maybe they never existed in the first place.”

“Are you always such a skeptic?” she asked.

“Only when somebody’s telling me some bullshit story.”

“It’s not bull. You can ask anybody.” She stuck her nose in the air and marched to the end of the bridge and around the bend without waiting to see if he followed. They hiked along in silence for a while. By now, they were seriously lagging behind the rest of the group but he didn’t seem to care, and Lolly decided that she didn’t, either. Today’s hike wasn’t a race, anyway.

She kept stealing sideways glances at him. Maybe she would experiment with liking this guy, just a little. “Hey, check it out.” She lowered her voice to a whisper as the path skirted a sloping meadow dotted with wildflowers and fringed by birch trees. “Two fawns and a doe.”

“Where?” He craned his neck around the woods.

“Shh. Be really quiet.” She beckoned, leading him off the path. Deer were not exactly rare in these parts, but it was always amazing to see the fawns in their soft-looking spotted coats and their big, shy eyes. The deer were in an open glade, the little ones sticking close to their mother while she browsed on grass and leaves. Lolly and Connor stopped at the edge of the glade and watched.

Lolly motioned for Connor to sit next to her on a fallen log. She took a pair of field glasses from her fanny pack and handed them to him.

“That’s awesome,” he said, peering through the glasses. “I’ve never seen a deer in the wild before.”

She wondered where he was from. It wasn’t like deer were rare or anything. “A fawn eats the equivalent of its body weight every twenty-four hours.”

“How do you know that?”

“Read it in a book. I read sixty books last year.”

“Geez,” he said. “Why?”

“ ‘Cause there wasn’t time to read more,” she said with a superior sniff. “Hard to believe people hunt deer, huh? I think they’re so beautiful.” She took a drink from her canteen. The whole scene before them was like an old-fashioned painting—the new grass tender and green, the bluestars and wild columbine nodding their heads in the breeze, the deer grazing.

“I can see clear down to the lake,” Connor said. “These are good binoculars.”

“My dad gave them to me. A guilt gift.”

He lowered the glasses. “What’s a guilt gift?”

“It’s when your dad can’t make it to your piano recital, and he feels guilty, so he buys you a really expensive gift.”

“Huh. There are worse things than your dad missing a piano recital.” Connor peered through the binoculars again. “Is that an island in the middle of the lake?”

“Yep. It’s called Spruce Island. That’s where they’ll have the fireworks on the Fourth of July. I tried swimming out to it last year but I didn’t make it.”

“What happened?”

“Halfway across, I had to call for help. When they dragged me to shore, I acted like I was almost drowned so they wouldn’t accuse me of doing it to get attention. They called my parents.” This, of course, was what Lolly had wanted all along. Now she wished she hadn’t mentioned the incident, but once she started talking, she couldn’t stop. “My parents got a divorce last year and I figured they’d both have to come and get me.” The admission hurt her throat.

“Did it work?” he asked.

“No way. The idea of doing anything as a family is finished, kaput, out of the question. They sent me to this therapist who said I have to ‘redefine my concept of family and my role.’ So now it’s my job to be well-adjusted. My parents act like a divorce is all fine and not such a big deal in this day and age.” She hugged her knees up to her chest and watched the deer until her eyes blurred. “But to me, it’s huge. It’s like being swept out to sea, but nobody will believe you’re drowning.”

At first, she thought he’d stopped listening, because he didn’t say anything. He stayed quiet, the way Dr. Schneider did during their therapy sessions. Then Connor said, “If you’re drowning for real, and nobody believes you, then you sure as hell better figure out how to swim.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

He didn’t look at her, as if somehow he knew she needed to get herself together. He kept peering through the binoculars and whistling between his teeth. Lolly thought she recognized the tune—”Stop Making Sense” by Talking Heads—and for some reason, she felt fragile and vulnerable, the way she had when they’d dragged her from the lake last year. And worse, she was crying now. She didn’t recall the precise moment she had started, and it took all her strength to force herself to quit.

“We should keep going,” she said, feeling like an idiot as she crushed her bandanna to her face. Why had she said all those things to this boy she didn’t even like?

“Okay.” He handed back the field glasses and hiked to the path. If things were awkward before with this kid, her breaking down and crying ensured that being his friend was impossible now.

Desperate to change the subject, she said, “Did you know that every single counselor on the staff is a former camper?”

“Nope.”

She was going to have to do a lot better in the gossip department if she wanted to impress this kid. “Counselors have secret lives,” she said. “Not everybody knows, but they have these wild parties at night. Lots of drinking and making out, stuff like that.”

“Big deal. Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Well, how about the fact that the head cook, Gertie Romano, was going to compete in the Miss New York State pageant, but she got pregnant and had to drop out. And Gina Palumbo—she’s in my bunkhouse—told me her dad is an actual mafia boss.

And Terry Davis, the caretaker—he’s, like, this huge drunk.”

Connor whipped around to glare at her. His shirt fell to the ground with the abrupt movement. She picked it up. “Hey, you dropped this.” There was a smear of ketchup on the front of it, and a small label sewn in the back that read, Connor Davis.

“Davis,” she said, realization prickling over her like a rash. “Is that your last name?”

“Nosy, aren’t you?” he remarked, grabbing the shirt and yanking it on over his head. “Of course it’s my last name, genius, or I wouldn’t have a tag that says so on my shirt.”

Lolly forgot to breathe. Oh, cripes. Davis. As in Terry Davis. Oh, cripes on a crutch. “So, is he,” she fumbled, “is Mr. Davis, the caretaker, any relation?”

Connor strode away from her. His ears were a bright, furious red. “Yeah, that’s him. My father. The ‘huge drunk.’”

She bolted into action, following him. “Hey, wait,” she said. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t know … didn’t realize … oh, man. I never should have said that. It’s just some gossip I heard.”

“Yeah, you’re a real comedian.”

“I’m not. I’m horrible. I feel horrible.” She had to run to keep up. She was covered in guilt, like slimy sweat. Worse. You didn’t say stuff about people’s parents. She ought to know. Her parents were pretty awful, too, but she’d be offended if anyone other than her said so, and that was a fact.

But how could she have known? What were the chances? Everyone said Terry Davis didn’t have a family, that no one ever came to see him, so the last thing she was expecting was that he had a son. Still, she should have kept her big fat mouth shut.

Terry Davis had a son. Amazing. In all the years the quiet, melancholy man had worked at the camp, she had never known. All she knew about him was that his father and her granddad had been in the Korean War together. Granddad said they’d met while bombing something called the Han River, and that Mr. Davis had been a hero, and for that reason, he would always have a place at Camp Kioga, no matter what. Even if he was, as she’d so stupidly said, a huge drunk. He’d been a fixture around the place, living alone in one of the staff cottages at the edge of the property. Those cottages provided housing for the cooks, caretakers, groundskeepers, drivers and maintenance crews, all the invisible people who worked around the clock to keep the place looking like a pristine wilderness.

Mr. Davis was a loner. He drove an old work Jeep, and often looked tired, prone to having what she’d heard her grandfather call an “off” day.

“I’m really, really sorry,” she said to Connor.

“Don’t feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t. I’m sorry I said that about your dad. There’s a difference.”

Connor jerked his head, tossing a wave of dark hair out of his eyes. “Good to know.”

“He never said he had a kid.” The minute the words were out, she realized her mistake was getting bigger and bigger, every time she opened her mouth. Her jaw was a backhoe, digging deeper with each movement. “I mean, I never—”

“He didn’t want me coming here for the summer, but my mom got married again and her husband didn’t want a kid around,” Connor said. “Said three’s a crowd in a double-wide.”

Lolly thought about the bruise she’d seen. This time, she remembered to keep her mouth shut.

“A double-wide trailer doesn’t have much space for three people, but I guess you wouldn’t know about that,” he added. “You probably live in a mansion somewhere.”

Two mansions, she thought. One for each parent. Which just proved you could be miserable whether you lived in the 800 block of Fifth Avenue or in a Dumpster. “My parents have been sending me away every summer since I was eight,” she told Connor. “Maybe it was to get me out of the way so they could fight. I never heard them fight.” Perhaps if she had, Lolly reflected, the divorce might not have been such a shock.

“When my mom figured out I could come here for free on account of my dad working here,” Connor explained, “my fate was sealed.”

In her mind, Lolly put together the facts, like a detective. If he was coming here for free, that meant he was a scholarship camper. Each year, under a program her grandparents had founded, needy children were brought to the camp for free. They were kids who had rough family lives and were “at risk” although she wasn’t quite sure what “at risk” meant.

At camp, everybody dressed the same, lived and ate and slept the same. You weren’t supposed to know if the kid beside you was a crack baby or a Saudi prince. Sometimes it was kind of obvious, though. The scholarship kids talked differently and often looked different. Sometimes their bad teeth gave them away. Or their bad attitude. Or sometimes, like with Connor, a kid had this hard, dangerous look about him that warned people he didn’t need a handout. There was nothing needy about him at all, no hint that he was “at risk.” Except the hurt in his eyes when she had called his father a drunk.

“I feel completely cruddy,” she reiterated. “And horrible. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You’re right. You shouldn’t have. Crazy-ass girl, no wonder you go to a shrink.” He stabbed his stick into the ground and sped up. It looked as though he wasn’t going to say another word to her. Ever.

Fine, she thought. She’d blown it, the way she always did with other kids. And he was probably going to make sure the whole world knew it. He’d probably tell everyone she was all freaked out about her parents, in therapy. He would probably say he’d seen her cry. She had made an enemy for life.

She trudged onward, feeling more sweaty and cranky with every step she took. You’re an idiot, Lolly Bellamy, she told herself. Each year, she came to Camp Kioga with ridiculously high expectations. This summer will be different. This summer, I’ll make new friends, learn a sport, live my own life, just for one single season.

But once things got under way, reality set in. Simply leaving the city didn’t mean leaving discontent behind. It came along with her, like a shadow, expanding and contracting with the light.

She and Connor Davis were the last to reach the summit. Everyone else was gathered around the fire pit. There was no fire because it was plenty hot and sunny. The campers sat on huge old logs. Some of the logs had been there so long they had seats worn into them.

The head counselors of Eagle Lodge this year were Rourke McKnight and Gabby Spaulding, who fit the Kioga mold perfectly. They were cute and perky. Each had attended Kioga as a camper. Now in college, they embodied what Nana and Granddad called the Kioga “esprit de corps.” They knew the camp rules, CPR, several key Algonquin words and the tunes of every campfire song known to man. They understood how to talk a camper out of feeling homesick. Among the Fledglings especially, homesickness was a dreaded epidemic.

In the olden days, homesickness wasn’t a problem because the cabins had been rented by families. That was how camp used to work. As soon as the school year ended, the moms and kids would move into the bungalows, and each weekend, the dads would come to join them, taking the train up from the city. That was where the term “bungalow colony” came from. A colony was a group of bungalows set close together. Often, Nana had told her, the same families returned year after year. They became close friends with the other camp families, even though they never got to see each other except in the summer, and they looked forward to camp all year.

Nana had pictures of the olden days, and they looked like happy times, frozen in black-and-white photographs with deckled edges, preserved in the black-paged camp albums that went back to the Beginning of Time. The dads smoked pipes and drank highballs and leaned on their tennis racquets. Nearby were the moms in their kerchiefs and middy blouses, sunning themselves in bent-willow lawn chairs while the kids all played together.

Lolly wished life could really be like that. Nowadays, of course, it couldn’t. Women had careers and a bunch of them didn’t have husbands.

So now the bungalows housed the counselors—scrubbed, enthusiastic college kids by day, party animals by night. Last summer, Lolly and three of her cousins, Ceci, Frankie and Dare, had sneaked off after lights-out and spied on the counselors. First there was the drinking. Then the dancing. A bunch of couples started making out, all over the place—on the porches, in the lawn chairs, even right in the middle of the dance floor. Ceci, who was the eldest of the cousins, had let loose with a fluttery sigh and whispered, “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to be a counselor.”

“Yuck,” Lolly and the younger cousins had said in unison, and averted their eyes.

Now it was a year later, and Lolly seemed to understand that fluttery sigh a little better. A kind of electricity danced in the air between Rourke and Gabby. It was hard to explain to herself but easy to recognize. She could totally picture them together in the staff area, dancing and flirting and making out.

As soon as a head count verified all were present, Rourke took out a guitar (there was always a guitar) and they sang songs. Lolly was amazed by Connor’s voice. Most of the boys mumbled the words and sang off-key, but not Connor. He belted out “We Are the World,” not really showing off, but singing with the matter-of-fact self-confidence of a pop star. When some of the kids stared at him, he would just shrug and keep singing.

A few of the girls gaped openly, slack-jawed. Okay, so it wasn’t Lolly’s imagination. He was as cute as she thought he was. Too bad he was such a jerk. Too bad she’d blown it with him.

Then it was time for the introductions, which were as boring as she’d feared. Each partner was supposed to stand up and offer three facts about the person with whom they hiked up the mountain, the idea being that strangers who shared an adventure could wind up friends.

Cripes, she thought, she and Connor hadn’t bothered to learn anything about each other except that they were enemies. She didn’t know where he lived except in something he called a double-wide, if he had any brothers and sisters, what his favorite flavor of ice cream was.

There were no surprises in this group. Everybody went to the most exclusive schools on the planet: Exeter, Sidwell Friends, the Dalton School, TASIS in Lugano, Switzerland. Everybody had a horse or a yacht or a house in the Hamptons.

Big fat hairy deal, she thought. If the most interesting thing about a kid was what school he went to, then he must be a pretty boring person. It was slightly interesting that the kid named Tarik attended a Muslim school and that a girl called Stormy was home-schooled by her parents, who were circus performers, but other than that, totally yawnworthy.

Nearly all of the other factoids were equally tedious or boastful, sometimes both. One kid’s father was a publicist who had A-list celebrities on speed dial. Another girl had her diving certification. People came from families that won prizes—Pulitzer, Oscar, Clio. The kids flashed these credentials as if they were scouting badges, undoubtedly making stuff up in order to top each other.

Listening to everyone, Lolly came to a conclusion—a lie worked better than the truth.

Then it was her turn. She stood up, and she and Connor glared at each other through narrowed eyes, silent warnings leaping between them. He had more than enough information to humiliate her if he wanted. That was the thing about telling somebody something private and true. It was like handing him a gun and waiting to see if he’d pull the trigger. She had no idea what he would tell the group. All she knew was that she’d given him plenty of ammo to use against her.

She went first. She took a deep breath and started speaking even before she knew what she was going to say.

“This is Connor, and it’s his first time at Camp Kioga. He …” She thought about what she knew. He was here on scholarship and his father drank. His mother had just remarried and his stepfather was mean, which was why he had to go away for the summer. Lolly knew that with a few words, she could turn the gun on him. She could probably turn him into a kid nobody would want to be friends with.

She caught his eye and knew he was thinking the same thing about her.

“He puts ketchup on everything he eats, even at breakfast,” she said. “His favorite group is Talking Heads. And he always wins at one-on-one.” She was guessing at that last bit, based on the fact that he was so tall, and he wore Chuck Taylor high-tops. And he seemed fast and had big hands. She was guessing at everything, as a matter of fact, but he didn’t contradict her.

Then it was Connor’s turn. “This is Lolly,” he said, her name curling from his lips like an insult.

Moment of truth, she thought, adjusting her glasses. He could ruin her. She’d shown too much of herself on the way up the mountain. He cleared his throat, tossed his hair out of his eyes, assumed a defiant slouch. His gaze slid over her—knowing, contemptuous—and he cleared his throat. The other campers, who had been restless through most of the exercise, settled down. There was no denying that the kid had presence, commanding attention like a scary teacher, or an actor in a play.

I hate camp, she thought with a fierce passion that made her face burn. I hate it, and I hate this boy, and he’s about to destroy me.

Connor cleared his throat again, his gaze sweeping the group of kids.

“She likes to read books, she’s really good at playing piano and she wants to get better at swimming.”

They sat back down and didn’t look at each other again—except once. And when their eyes met, she was surprised to see that they were both almost smiling.

All right, she conceded, so he hadn’t decided to make her a human sacrifice this time, or use her for target practice. She was torn between liking this kid and resenting him. One thing Lolly was sure of. She did hate summer camp, and she didn’t even care if it belonged to her grandparents. She was never coming back here again for as long as she lived. Ever.

INVITATION

THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE IS

REQUESTED

BY JANE AND CHARLES BELLAMY

ON THE OCCASION OF OUR

50TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY.

YOU’VE SHARED IN OUR LIVES WITH

YOUR FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE.

NOW WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN US IN

CELEBRATING

OUR GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY.

SATURDAY, THE 26TH OF AUGUST, 2006.

CAMP KIOGA, RR #47, AVALON,

ULSTER COUNTY, NEW YORK.

RUSTIC ACCOMMODATIONS PROVIDED.

Two

Olivia Bellamy set down the engraved invitation and smiled across the table at her grandmother. “What a lovely idea,” she said. “Congratulations to you and Granddad.”

Nana slowly rotated the tiered array of tiny sandwiches and cakes. Once a month no matter what else was going on in their lives, grandmother and granddaughter met for tea at Astor Court in the Saint Regis Hotel in midtown. They had been doing it for years, ever since Olivia was a pudgy, sullen twelve-year-old in need of attention. Even now, there was something soothing about stepping into the Beaux Arts luxury of elegant furnishings, potted palms and the discreet murmur of harp music.

Nana settled on a cucumber slice garnished with a floret of salmon mousse. “Thank you. The anniversary is three months away, but I’m already getting excited.”

“Why Camp Kioga?” Olivia asked, fiddling with the tea strainer. She hadn’t been there since her last summer before college. By choice, she had put all the drama and angst behind her.

“Camp Kioga is a special place to me and Charles.” Next, Nana sampled a tiny finger sandwich spread with truffle butter. “It’s the place where we first met, and we were married there, under the gazebo, on Spruce Island in the middle of Willow Lake.”

“You’re kidding. I never knew that. Why didn’t I know that?”

“Trust me, what you don’t know about this family could fill volumes. Charles and I were a regular Romeo and Juliet.”

“You never told me this story. Nana, what’s up?”

“Nothing’s up. Most young people don’t give a fig about how their grandparents met and married. Nor should they.”

“I’m giving a fig right now,” Olivia said. “Spill.”

“It was all so long ago, and seems so trivial now. You see, my parents—the Gordons—and the Bellamys came from two different worlds. I grew up in Avalon, never even saw the city until after I was married. Your granddad’s parents even threatened to boycott the wedding. They were determined that their only son would marry well. In those days, that meant somebody with social status. Not some Catskills girl from a mountain camp.”

Olivia was startled by the flicker of hurt she recognized in her grandmother’s eyes. Some wounds, it seemed, never quite healed. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Nana made a visible effort to shake off her mood. “There was a lot of class consciousness back then.”

“Still is,” Olivia said softly.

Nana’s eyebrows shot up, and Olivia knew she’d better change the subject, or she’d be trapped into explaining what she meant by that. She looked expectantly at the teapot. “Is it ready?”

They always split a large pot of Lady Grey, which carried a whisper of lavender along with the bergamot. Olivia’s grandmother nodded and poured. “Anyway,” Nana said, “you have more important things than my ancient history to think about.” Behind her chic black-and-pink glasses, her eyes sparkled and for a moment she looked decades younger. “It’s a grand story, though. I’m sure you’ll hear it this summer. We hope everyone will come for a nice long stay. Charles and I are going to renew our vows at the gazebo, in the exact spot where we first spoke them. We’re going to reenact the wedding as much as we’re able.”

“Oh, Nana. That’s a … wonderful notion.” Deep down, Olivia was cringing. She was sure the idyllic picture in her grandmother’s mind was a far cry from the reality. The camp had ceased operating nine years before and had lain fallow ever since, with minimal maintenance performed by a skeleton crew that mowed the grounds and made sure the buildings were still standing. Some of the Bellamy cousins and other relatives used the place for reunions or vacations, but Olivia suspected the camp had gone to ruin. Her grandparents were sure to be disappointed in the setting for their golden anniversary.

“You know,” Olivia said, determined to be diplomatic, “some of your friends are getting on in years. As I recall, the camp is not wheelchair accessible. People would be more likely to attend if you had the affair at the Waldorf-Astoria or maybe right here at the Saint Regis.”

Jane sipped her tea. “Charles and I discussed it, and decided to do this for us. Much as we love all our friends and family, our golden anniversary is going to be the affair we want. That’s what our wedding was, and that’s what we’ll do fifty years later. We’ve chosen Camp Kioga. It’s a way to celebrate what we’ve been in the past and what we hope to be for the rest of our lives—a happy couple.” Her cup rattled, just slightly, as she set it down in its saucer. “It will be our farewell to the camp.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“The golden anniversary celebration will be our last event at Camp Kioga. Afterward, we’ll need to decide what to do about the property.”

Olivia frowned. “Nana? Did I just hear that right?”

“You did. It’s time. We’ve got to come up with a plan for the property. It’s a hundred acres of prime real estate, and it has been privately owned by my family since 1932. Our hope is that we can keep it in the family for our children.” She looked pointedly at Olivia. “Or our grandchildren. Nothing’s sure in this life, but we hope the property won’t be sold to a developer who will put up roads and parking lots and rows of those dreadful tract mansions.”

Olivia didn’t know why the prospect of her grandparents letting go of the property made her feel wistful. She didn’t even like the place. She liked the idea of the camp. Nana’s father had received the property during the Great Depression as payment for a debt, and had built the compound himself, naming it Kioga, which he thought was an Algonquin word for “tranquillity,” but which he later learned was meaningless. After the camp closed in 1997, none of the Bellamy offspring was inclined to take it on.

Her grandmother helped herself to a cornet filled with chocolate ganache. “We’ll discuss it after the anniversary celebration. Best to get everything settled so no one will have to make a decision about that after we’re gone.”

“I hate it when you talk like that. You’re sixty-eight years old, and you just did a senior triathlon—”

“Which I never would have finished if you hadn’t trained with me.” Jane patted her hand, then looked pensive. “So many important moments of my life took place there. The camp floated my family through the Great Depression, just barely. After Charles and I married and took over, the place became a part of who we are.”

So typical of Nana, Olivia reflected. She always looked for ways to hold on to things, even when she would be better off letting go.

“That’s all in the future.” Nana’s manner turned brisk as she took out some pages she’d obviously printed off from Olivia’s Web site. “We have business to discuss. I want you to prepare the property for our gala celebration.”

Olivia let out a short laugh. “I can’t do that, Nana.”

“Nonsense. It says right here you provide expert research, design and services to stage and enhance real estate for optimum market presence.”

“All that means is that I’m a house fluffer,” Olivia said. Some of the designers in her field objected to the expression, which definitely lacked a certain gravitas. They preferred house stager or property enhancer. Fluffer sounded … well, fluffy.

The expression was fairly descriptive of what the job entailed. In the service of people seeking to display their property at its best, Olivia was a master of illusion. An artist of deception. Making a property look irresistible was usually a simple, low-cost process, incorporating elements the seller already owned, but combining them in different ways.

She loved her job and did it well, and her reputation was growing accordingly. In some parts of Manhattan, agents would not even consider listing a property until it had been fluffed by Olivia Bellamy of Transformations. The job was not without its challenges, though. Since she’d launched her own firm, Olivia had learned that there was a lot more to property staging than weeding the flower beds, painting everything white and turning on the bread-making machine.

Still, a project the size of Kioga was not in the realm of her expertise.

“You’re talking about a hundred acres of wilderness, a hundred fifty miles from here. I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“I would.” Jane pushed an old-fashioned, leather-bound photo album across the table to her. “Everyone has a notion of summer camp in their mind, whether or not they even went to camp. All you have to do is create that illusion once again. Here are some pictures taken through the years to get you started.”

The photos were, for the most part, classic views of rustic cabins clustered on the shores of a lake in a pristine forest. Olivia had to admit that there was something both peaceful and evocative about the place. Nana was right about the illusion—or maybe it was a delusion. Olivia had had a terrible time at summer camp. Yet somewhere in the back of her mind, there lived an idealized summer place, free of taunting children, sunburns and mosquitoes.

Her imagination kicked in, as it always did when she viewed a property. Despite her reluctance, she almost immediately started seeing ways to dress it up.

Stop it, she told herself.

“I don’t exactly have the best memories of my summers there,” she reminded her grandmother.

“I know, dear. But this summer could be your opportunity to exorcize those demons. Create new memories.” Interesting. Olivia hadn’t realized her grandmother had known about her suffering. Why didn’t you stop it? she wanted to ask.

“This project could take the entire summer. I’m not sure I want to be away that long.”

Nana lifted an eyebrow, high over the rim of her glasses. “Why?”

Olivia couldn’t keep it in any longer. Her excitement spilled out, along with her next words. “Because I think I have a reason to stay.”

“That reason being a Brad Pitt look-alike with a Harvard law degree?”

Deep breath, Olivia, she cautioned herself. You’ve been here before, and you’ve been disappointed. Take it easy. She couldn’t, of course. She nearly came out of her seat as she said, “I think Rand Whitney is going to ask me to marry him.”

Nana took off her glasses and set them on the table. “Oh, my dear, darling Olivia.” She used her napkin to dab her eyes.

Olivia was glad she had decided to tell Nana. There were some in her family who would react with more skepticism. Some—her mother being one of these—would be quick to remind her that at the ripe old age of twenty-seven, Olivia already had two failed engagements under her belt.

As if she could ever forget.

She pushed aside the thought and added, “He’s selling his apartment downtown. It’s my latest project, in fact. I need to check on the finishing touches this afternoon because it’s going on the market tomorrow. When he gets home from the airport, I’ll be there, waiting for him. He’s been in L.A. all week at the West Coast office of his firm. He said when he gets back, he’s going to ask me.” “To marry him.”

“I assume so.” Olivia felt the slightest flicker of unease. He hadn’t actually said that.

“So selling his place is a good thing.”

Olivia felt herself smiling all over. “He’s looking at properties on Long Island.”

“Oh, my. The man is ready to settle down.”

Olivia’s grin widened. “So you’ll understand … I need to think about your offer.”

“Certainly, dear.” She signaled for the check with a familiar, regal gesture that never failed to bring a white-gloved waiter scurrying. “I hope it all turns out perfectly for you.”

As she hurried up the stairs to Rand’s apartment near Gramercy Park, Olivia felt like the luckiest girl in the world. Here she was, enjoying the rare privilege of setting the scene for her own engagement, right down to the last detail. When Randall Whitney asked her to marry him, he would do so in a place created by her own imagination and hard work. So often in these situations, it was the job of the gentleman to create the proper ambience, and so often, he failed.

Not this time, Olivia thought, enjoying a delicious tingle of excitement. This time, everything would be just right.

Unlike the other times. With Pierce, the engagement had been doomed from the start by something Olivia refused to acknowledge until she discovered him taking a shower with another girl. With Richard, the moment of humiliation had come when she’d caught him using her ATM card to steal from her. Two strikes had left her doubting her own judgment … until Rand. This time, she wouldn’t get it wrong.

She opened the front door, turned and pictured the way the apartment would look through Rand’s eyes. Perfect, that’s how, she thought. The place was the epitome of contemporary luxury, clean but not fussed over (even though she had fussed over every little thing for days), tasteful but not decorated (even though she had planned it obsessively).

In the taxi ride from midtown, Olivia had gone over and over the scenario in her mind until she was nearly giddy with anticipation. In less than an hour, Rand would come through the door and step into this ideal setting. He probably wouldn’t go down on one knee; that wasn’t his style. Instead, he’d wear that raffish, have-I-got-a-deal-for-you grin as he reached into his jacket for the gleaming black box with the emerald-shaped logo of Harry Winston. Rand was a Whitney, after all. There were perks.

Forcing herself to move with attractive dignity, she paused at the sideboard and checked the angle of the champagne bottle in the ice bucket. The label didn’t need to be turned all the way out. Any practiced eye could pick out the mark of Dom Perignon, just from the silhouette.

She spared only a glance—half a glance—into the mirror above the sideboard, which was actually a tansu chest she’d rented from a furniture warehouse. Mirrors were important in her line of work, not for studying one’s reflection, but for creating light and dimension and ambience in a room, and for checking—oh so briefly—one’s teeth for lipstick. Anything more than that was a waste of time.

Then she saw it—a flicker of movement in the reflection. Even as a scream erupted from her, she grabbed the Dom Perignon by the neck of the bottle and swung around, ready to do battle.

“I always did want to split a bottle of bubbly with you, darling,” said Freddy Delgado, “but maybe you should let me do the honors.”

Her best friend, incongruously good-looking even in a borrowed apron and holding a feather duster, strode across the room and took the bottle from her.

She snatched it back and shoved it into the ice bucket. “What are you doing here?”

“Just finishing up. I got a key from your office and came right over.”

Her “office” was a corner of the sitting room in her apartment, which was even farther downtown. Freddy had his own keys to her place, but this was the first time he’d abused the privilege. He removed the apron. Underneath, he was wearing cargo pants, Wolverine workboots and a tight Spamalot T-shirt. His stylishly cut hair was tipped with white-blond highlights. Freddy was a theater-set designer and aspiring actor. He was also single, well-spoken, and he dressed with exquisite taste. All reasons to suppose he was gay. But he wasn’t. Just lonely.

“I get it. You’ve lost your job again.” She grabbed a cloth from his back pocket and dried the water spots from the spilled ice.

“How did you guess?”

“You’re working for me. You only work for me when there’s no better gig around.” Scanning the apartment, she couldn’t help but notice he’d done a stellar job putting the finishing details on her design work. He always did. She wondered if their friendship would change after she got married. Rand had never liked Freddy, and the feeling was mutual. She hated it that loyalty to one felt like betrayal to the other.