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Beth’s head snapped around. Grayson stood across the firepit, his face unreadable.
He’d changed back into jeans and wore a dark-blue flannel over his T-shirt. The man was impossibly handsome, like straight out of an epic romance.
“Sorry, I had a call,” he said. He looked straight at her. “Am I too late?”
“It’s getting late for us,” Anne said. She passed the bag of marshmallows, chocolate bars, and grahams to Beth. “But you’re welcome to stay.”
“What about you guys?” Noah stood and passed his marshmallow stick to Grayson.
“I need some sleep.” A dark-haired woman stood.
“Me too.” Another Wilderness Challenge counselor grabbed her sweatshirt from the bench.
The fire crackled as the group finished collecting their belongings.
Beth did a quick count—everyone but her and Grayson was leaving.
And she wasn’t sure what to say to the man who might be taking her heart. Or maybe breaking her heart. What was that call to Oregon about?
“We’ll put out the fire,” Grayson said. He’d apparently made the same assessment. And wasn’t ready to leave. He sat down on the bench next to her.
“Good night,” Noah said. “There’s a bucket of water over by the shrubs.”
A chorus ofgood nights followed, and the group disappeared to cars and cabins.
The quiet settled over them, a heavy blanket of her own uncertainty.
“You really know how to clear a party.” Beth tried to squelch the questions brewing in her mind.
Did she ask him and risk their entire evening?
She added a marshmallow to her stick.
Grayson laughed and speared several of his own marshmallows. Set them above the flames next to hers.
He smelled soapy and masculine, and it made Beth’s nerves buzz.
The longer Beth listened, the more she heard. Crickets. An owl. A few thousand frogs.
She watched the telltale flickers bouncing around the tall grass near the tree line. Pointed. “Fireflies.”
“They always remind me of childhood,” Grayson said.
“All those dusk games of tag and hide-and-seek?”
“Yeah.”
“Me too. There’s just something so…whimsical about them.”
“Whimsical? About a bug whose butt lights up?”
She laughed. “Don’t make fun.”
“I’m just teasing.” He rotated his marshmallows. “You love Deep Haven.”
“Of course I do,” she said.
“Sometimes it seems like you have all these dreams, but you keep them to yourself.”
