Page 51 of You Know You Wanna

“Thank you.” Relief washed over me as Gracie spun around to get our drinks.

Declan cocked his hip against the counter and turned to face me. “You’re going to join them?”

“Yep,” I said decisively. “First thing in the morning. She’s right, though. I’m going to have to have a damn good explanation ready for why we’re here.”

“Just tell her the truth,” he suggested easily. “Yes, we want to invest in the resort, but we’re not interested in stealing it or taking it. We simply want a piece of the pie in exchange for a tidy sum of money that will allow them to do some upgrades. It’s not that unconscionable.”

“To us, no. It’s business as usual, but to them?” I dragged a hand through my hair and shook my head. “They think I was trying to ambush them.”

Gracie came back with the beers and I handed over a couple bills, but after she rang us up, she came back to lecture me a little bit more. There was fire in her eyes as she stared at me from across the counter, fierce protectiveness flickering in the flames.

“You better not be bullshitting me right now, Remington. If it’s true that you’re not trying to take the resort, that’s something I think she should know, which is why I told you where to find them, but if you are in fact trying to stage a coup, I’d turn around and leave right now. The people of this town are loyal, and protective, and we don’t take kindly to dishonest outsiders.”

Declan grinned at her, putting his hands together in a round of slow applause as he turned back to her. “I like a woman who stands her ground. What do you say you let me buy you a drink?”

“That’s my cue,” I said, picking up my beer and nodding at them both. “I’ll see you. Have fun.”

With that, I left Declan behind to keep trying his hardest to get her attention, and I carried my drink out to the deck next to the pool. Sitting beside the clear blue water, I stared at the crystalline surface and the cool white light underneath, mentally rehearsing what I was going to say to Birdie when I got to the campground in the morning.

One thing was for sure. If that was what she thought of me right now, I was going to have to claw my way back into her good graces. I couldn’t imagine she’d taken it lightly when she’d found out I’d been trying to invest in the place she thought of as home without ever having mentioned it to her, and she wasn’t going to be quick to forgive. Nor was I sure if she’d ever be able to forget.

26

BIRDIE

Up before the sun, I went to take a quick shower before I started making our breakfast, moving quietly through the camp so as not to wake up the girls. In the predawn air, the chirping of birds just starting to wake up pierced the quiet with a cheerful song I just wasn’t feeling today.

Although I hadn’t known him for very long, Remington’s betrayal stung more than I was willing to admit. I felt like a fool for not suspecting that he had ulterior motives and I felt even more foolish for having taken it upon myself to be there for the single dad who’d only come here to spend some quality time with his daughter.

What an ass.

At this point, I didn’t know if I could believe anything he’d ever told me. I knew from Lulu that he had, in fact, recently gotten divorced and I’d seen enough of the two of them together to know that their relationship was strained, but further than that?

I sighed. I felt like I’d been taken for a ride.

As I poked at my pile of kindling, the scent of campfire reached my nostrils and I breathed it in, watching as the first flames started licking the wood. This was what life was all about for me. It always had been.

The outdoors. Nature. Camping. The simple things. The beautiful things.

I didn’t get caught up in the aftermath of nasty divorces or the consequences of a lifetime of parental neglect. I didn’t unwittingly entertain investors who’d rather see my paradise get turned into a high-rise hotel surrounded by large parking lots.

That just wasn’t me, and yet, thanks to Remington, that was exactly the position I found myself in right then. Staring at that fire and breathing it in, I tried to find my center. I tried to quiet my mind and let go of the hurt, but it just didn’t work.

The sound of a zipper being opened broke me out of my thoughts and I looked at the girls’ tents, seeing Cassidy emerge from hers with her toiletries in hand. She smiled when her eyes met mine. “Good morning, fearless leader lady. Did you sleep well?”

“Like a baby.” In the true sense of the words though, which meant I’d been up a lot and struggled to fall back asleep without crying, but Cassidy didn’t have to know about that.

Her smile widened. “That’s great. I slept well too. Let me take a shower and then I’ll come help you with breakfast?”

“Thanks. That’d be great.”

She took off toward the bathrooms, humming quietly as she went. Heather and Lulu were hot on her heels, with all three girls coming back squeaky clean, wide awake, and brimming with excitement once they were done in the showers.

“What are we doing first?” Cassidy asked. “Please tell me it’s the high-ropes course.”

“It’s the high-ropes course,” I said.

She cheered and did a little happy dance, and the other two seemed pretty excited about it themselves. While I cooked our breakfast, Cass and Lulu chatted and munched on their apples. Then we ate in amicable silence.