Ben’s SUV was in the parking area, along with a half-dozen or so other vehicles, and she cursed the jolt of anticipation she couldn’t deny she was feeling. She wanted to see him again.
Every time she looked at her pink Adirondack chairs, she thought of Ben. His face was more expressive than he realized, and she knew how badly he’d wanted to take over the project. But he hadn’t. He’d waited until she asked for help and then still kept quiet while she fumbled with the tools.
It had been sweet. And then, when she’d asked him to do a final tightening on the bolts, he hadn’t looked smug or made a big deal of it.
He was also easy to talk to. Almost too easy, she thought. She’d come very close to asking him if he’d like to come back after his meeting with Josh and try out one of the chairs. But she hadn’t for the same reason she’d panicked when he started talking about the diner.
She wasn’t here to date. She had absolutely no interest in sharing her life with a man right now, even one as attractive and kind as Ben Rivers.
Of course that didn’t stop her gaze from going directly to him when she walked into the living room, where she’d been told the meeting would be. The room was full, but Ben was leaning against the doorway to the dining room, his arms folded across his chest as he spoke to a man Laney didn’t know.
Ben saw her and smiled, uncrossing his arms to wave to her. She waved back and then took a seat in one of the dining room chairs somebody had moved into the room. Looking around, she tried to guess who some of the visitors were.
The man talking to Ben looked enough like Josh that she guessed he was one of his older brothers, but it wasn’t until a little girl ran up and hugged his leg that she figured out it was Mitch Kowalski. And the woman chasing the girl despite being even more pregnant than Katie had to be his wife, Paige.
Andy was handing a little boy over to a man in a Whitford PD T-shirt, so she knew that was Drew Miller, his son. Rosie had told her their grandson had just turned one. And she’d laughed as she told Laney she was a double-grammy to little Jackson because she was Drew’s stepmother, but also because she’d practically raised Liz. After looking around the room, Laney spotted a woman with dark, curly hair and blue eyes who was talking to Rosie, but keeping a close eye on the baby. She guessed that was Liz Kowalski Miller.
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Laney pulled up the app on her phone in which she kept various notes relating to the Northern Star. It had a photograph of the task list Rosie had written out. She also had a list of the inventory it was her job to keep track of, along with other miscellaneous notes. Starting a new one withATV Club Meetingat the top helped with the feeling of being overwhelmed. Nobody expected her to memorize every person in the town and family right off the bat. It would take her a while to get to know everybody, and right now all she needed to do was take note of anything during the meeting that might be relevant to her job.
Finally, Josh called the meeting to order and everybody in the room quieted. They went through typical club business, like a treasurer’s report and reading minutes from the last meeting. There was talk of trail maintenance and a landowner who wasn’t thrilled a group of side-by-sides cut across his lawn. Then it was time for new business and Josh talked about how he and Ben were exploring the possibility of finding a few emergency-use-only shortcuts through the woods.
Laney glanced at Ben when Josh said his name, and was surprised to find him looking at her. Their eyes met for a few seconds and then he turned his attention back to Josh. Flustered, and hoping nobody would notice, Laney looked down at her phone and pretended to read her notes.
“And one last thing,” Josh said. “Some of you know this is happening, but for everybody else, Rosie and my aunt Mary decided to move the annual Kowalski family camping trip to the Northern Star this year. The invasion begins the Wednesday before the Fourth of July and they’ll be here for two weeks.”
Laney still wasn’t sure exactly how many Kowalskis there were, but she knew there were a lot of them. She’d just started this job, and the place filling up with the bosses’ family members was a whole new level of pressure.
“I’ll make you a list, Laney,” she heard Rosie say and even though everybody in the room laughed, she was pretty sure the woman wasn’t kidding. She liked lists.
“The reason I mention it,” Josh continued, “is that it coincides with heavy traffic times on the trails, especially the holiday weekend. It’ll probably be best if we coordinate ahead of time who’s willing to do trail patrol and when so we can keep everything under control, even if Andy and I are spending less time than usual out there.”
“I baked some goodies today,” Rose said. “And once the meeting proper is over, everybody who’s willing to volunteer some extra trail patrol time can come on in the kitchen and we’ll look at the schedule while we eat.”
Laney joined in the laughter as they all recognized they were being blackmailed by baked goods. And if the welcome basket she’d found in her camper when she arrived was anything to judge by, it would work, too.
“Oh, that wasn’t the last thing,” Josh said. “The actually last thing is a new face in the room. Most of you know Laney’s staying here for the season to help us out, so I want to introduce her because if Andy and I aren’t around, she’ll be taking care of things.”
Laney smiled when everybody turned to look at her and gave a little wave in everybody’s general direction, but she was relieved when Josh announced they were done and there was a mad rush for the kitchen.
She heard Ben’s voice as he walked out of the room with Rosie. “You know, technically I’m part of trail patrol 24/7, since I’m always on call. How many cookies does that get me?”
“Does that count the two I know you stole before the meeting even started?”
He laughed, and Laney felt her mood lift just at the sound. She loved his laugh. As she stood, tucking her phone into the back pocket of her shorts, he turned back to her.
“You’re going to come have some cookies, right?”
“I’d have a hard time doing trail patrol since I’ve never been on a four-wheeler in my life.”
His eyebrow arched. “Never?”
“Nope.”
“There are ATVs all over this place. I can teach you.”
Now it was her turn to raise her eyebrow. “Teach me what? How to ride one?”
“Yeah.”
