Page 50 of Falling For You

After dinner, Andy squeezed Birdie on her way out, told her she'd see her tomorrow, and crossed the street. I closed the door behind her.

"Daddy?"

Birdie was standing at the edge of the kitchen in her socks, one of the Nancy Drew books tucked under her arm.

"Yeah, sweetheart?"

"Can Andy come camping with us?"

I took a breath.

"Yeah. Let's ask her."

CHAPTER 21

Red Rock Canyon

ANDY

The drive to Red Rock Canyon took forty minutes in Wyatt's truck. Birdie was in the backseat with her window down, pointing at every piece of desert vegetation we passed.

"That's a cactus."

"That's also a cactus."

"That one's a Joshua tree."

That one was not a Joshua tree, but I didn't say anything.

It felt strange, sitting this close to Wyatt Brooks. His arm on the console, my knee a foot from the gearshift, the whole weekend ahead of us. This was their trip and they'd asked me to come. Birdie had asked first. Wyatt added his own pleeaase with that grin that used to annoy me. And now I was riding in his truck on a family camping trip like we were something we weren't. His left hand rested on the wheel, sleeve pushed to his elbow, forearm tanned from the sun. I looked out the window.

"That's a barrel cactus, Daddy. See the round one?"

"I think that's a rock, Birdie."

"It's not a rock. Rocks don't have spikes."

"Some rocks have spikes."

"No they don't." She said it with such authority that Wyatt glanced at me for backup. I kept my eyes straight ahead and offered nothing. He was on his own.

We pulled into Red Rock Canyon and found our campsite. Wyatt and I set up the tent while Birdie abandoned us immediately to collect rocks.

"I'm making a fairy circle," she called over her shoulder. "Don't step on it."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Wyatt said.

The tent went up easily. He held the poles while I threaded the clips, I pulled the rain fly taut while he weighted the corners with sandbags. At one point he reached across me for an anchor and his arm grazed my shoulder. He smelled like sunscreen. I looked at the ground and kept working.

Wyatt inflated an air mattress inside the tent and unrolled three sleeping bags across it. Birdie's in the middle. His on the left. Mine on the right.

I stood in the tent flap and looked at it. When Birdie had asked me to come camping, I'd said yes without thinking. I was thinking now. That was his sleeping bag a few feet away from mine, with his daughter between us, and I hadn't considered this part at all.

"You don't mind, do you?" He was still crouched, smoothing the edge of Birdie's sleeping bag.

"No, not at all."

This camping trip was their tradition, their tent, their weekend. And they'd made room for me. Wyatt had planned the whole trip and done all the heavy lifting. I wasn't going to complain about where he put my sleeping bag.