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“Did you put this much time into every cabin?” she asks as she touches the camp mattress that’s waiting for bedding to be placed on it.
“We aren’t finished — not even close — but each enclosed cabin will have a theme. The three-sided cabins are all the same, but through the years the kids will personalize those as well.”
“So you aren’t done with the decorating?” she excitedly asks.
“No, my brothers and I did this one as an example of what we expect. We want each cabin to have its own theme.”
“Have you decided on the themes yet?”
I smile at the look on her face. “No, not yet. That phase is about a week away.”
“May I volunteer, please?” Olivia asks as she leaves the cabin and runs to the next one. I hurry to catch up.
“I’d love that.” This woman awes me.
“And I get to choose any theme I want? Can I do more than one?”
“Yes. Okay, anything within reason,” I say with a laugh. “We wouldn’t want... well, you know...”
“Thank you for sharing this with me, Tyler!” Olivia runs back to me and jumps up in my arms, her face shining.
“Thank you for caring,” I tell her, suddenly choked up with something uncomfortably close to emotion.
I kiss her hard and she melts against me. But then she wiggles to get down and rushes into the empty cabin in front of us. After scanning the space, she sets her purse on one of the built-in desks and rifles through it for a notebook and pen.
“I’m going to do a princess theme in one cabin. The curtains will be satin and lace, and they’ll have a gigantic crown at the top. And the walls will be covered with drawings capturing my favorite scenes from Disney movies — the teapot and rose fromBeauty and the Beast, and the magic carpet fromAladdin. We can make dress-up totes for kids of all sizes and have a salon day at the lodge where the girls can get their hair done. A lot of little girls love the idea of being a princess.” She starts scribbling again. I don’t get a chance to say anything. She makes several notes, then flips the page for the next cabin in line.
“This one will be superheroes. I was going to marry Superman when I was a little girl, and my first bathing suit was Wonder Woman. When I realized superheroes aren’t real, I was devastated, but everyone, young or old, loves a good superhero story.”
I lean against a bed and can’t help but grin as more and more ideas pop from her imagination. Heck, I might need to build a few more cabins. I love each and every one of her ideas. We spend an hour in the cabin before she finally stops, then looks at me with a sheepish smile.
“I’m sorry. I’ve been going on for a while, haven’t I?” she says, tucking her notebook into her purse.
“I could sit here all day and night and listen to you. I love that you want to participate in my vision.” Maybe it’s time to drag her off to one of the counselors’ cabins. Am I changing this much? Maybe. As I pull her into my arms, the door swings open. With a grumble, I release Olivia and turn to find my brothers in the doorway, stupid grins on their faces.
“Are you planning on christening the place, Tyler?” Blake asks.
“Sure looked that way to me,” Byron adds.
“Shut up, both of you,” I tell them before addressing Olivia. “Sorry about my brothers.” I can see heat rising in her cheeks as she casts her eyes down in embarrassment. “Don’t worry about them.”
“I’m fine, Tyler,” she says. “Why don’t you spend time with your brothers while I look at the other cabins. Are they all the same?”
“No, a couple have special bathrooms for kids who have a harder time getting around, and some of the layouts are a little different.”
“I’ll go look at them while you visit.”
“I’d rather be with you,” I tell her.
Blake steps forward and holds out his hand. “We don’t want to run you off, Olivia. I’m sorry if we embarrassed you. We’re just ribbing our little brother.”
“Oh, I’m not running off,” she says, looking up with a relieved smile. I realize my brothers intimidate her. Blake’s gesture to speak to her eases her embarrassment.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Byron says. “Wait. We met, at the bistro bar, right? Nascosto?”
“Yes,” Olivia murmurs but she can’t quite meet Byron’s eyes. I think back to that meeting and remember Byron had been in a sour mood.
“That’s right,” Byron says with a smile. He grabs her and lifts her from her feet, causing a gasp to escape her shocked lips. “I remember you like hugs,” he says before setting her back on the ground. Should I say something? Her cheeks color and a real answering smile appears on her face as she looks Byron in the eyes.
