Page 10 of Summer Camp with the Mountain Man

Did he hear me? God I hope so, because as crazy as it sounds, the irrational side of me wants to say screw the money and make out with him until my tongue’s too dry to work. I can’t risk losing Cade over a fake engagement that might save the campground, and my future.

Luckily my rational side does pushups when she’s bored, so she’s strong enough to overpower my quivering lady bits. I need this money now more than ever, but my heart just wants Cade.

FIVE

Cade

How is she marrying my cousin?

I’m so confused. If he was a handsome millionaire I’d get it. Hell, if he was a paraplegic squirrel without a tail it’d make more sense than her being with Georgie Boo Bear.

Why would she tell my family they met the way we met and stare at me the entire time, looking at me like she couldn’t look away if her life depended on it? I have no clue what’s going on or how I wound up in the middle of it but if Rayne’s here, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.

I’ve been trying to convince myself all afternoon that she isn’t as great as I built up in my head but it’s not working.

Her laughter sounds like birds singing in the sun.

Her smile is the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

She smells like a field of flowers on a foggy morning, and I can’t help but breathe her in every chance I get.

All I’ve been able to do all day is think about 10:00 at the pier and now that it’s here, I’ve got butterflies the size of pterodactyls terrorizing my stomach.

I don’t get nervous around women, at least not in my adult life. It’s been one town to the next since I got into building extreme decks, when Uncle Bobby sent me on the road with a crew of two guys. Now it’s all we do, I bounce between three crews, overseeing multiple projects at once, working hands-on at the most impossible of the bunch.

I don’t get nervous around women because I don’t need to. In a matter of weeks I’ll be gone and onto the next project, always hoping to meet someone special enough to make me want to stay.

In Rayne, I found that reason in a single conversation. A conversation I never wanted to end, in a place I never want to leave. With a girl who’s marrying my doofus of a cousin?

The moon dances on the water like the train of a wedding dress elegantly trailing down the front steps of a church. Waves splash gently against the dock, audible in the darkness when the lake goes to sleep, a loon calling in the distance the only sound to disturb the silence.

By sunrise, everything will come back to life. The orange specks of campfires on the shore will be replaced by kids swimming. The lapping ripples on the water will rise and fall in the wakes of boats. The ferris wheel will turn and the streets of Cedar Spring will buzz with a calm excitement.

But in this moment, it’s just me, lost in the quiet passage of time.

And a lone frog in the inlet to my left, bellowing into the night like Uncle Bobby after a bowl of chili.

She did say 10:00, right? I hope I didn’t get it wrong. When Rayne took off to make some work calls, I was worried I misheard her. The men in my family are known for tuning out high pitched sounds, like women’s voices and oven timers, a reliable tactic to not get tasked with doing any cooking, or fetching food from the microwave. Answering the doorbell. Or the phone. Man, the men in my family are lazier than I thought.

“You’re still here.”

Rayne’s voice soothes every nerve ending that’s been crawling out of my skin since 10:01.

“Sorry I’m late. They put the August bookings on the September calendar and it was all a huge mess. Never let your parents near anything laced with THC, it can’t have a good outcome. I was worried you would’ve gotten tired of waiting.”

“For you?” I shake my head, suppressing a laugh that rumbles over my lips without permission. “For you, Rayne, I would have waited forever. That’s a lie, I would have smelled the Springy Dogs roasting down on the pier in the morning and not been able to resist, but I would have waited all night. As embarrassing as that is to admit, considering who you’re engaged to.”

“Oh god,” she groans, clawing at her face in the most adorably dramatic way, crumpling against the back of a bench until she’s melted onto it in an awkward puddle, limbs strewn every which way. “I guess I owe you an explanation. It’s just, well, I’m sure you know, your cousin is really irresistible.”

She opens one eye a crack, looking at me upside down with her head draped over the edge of the bench, laughing before she has a chance to gauge my reaction.

“Sorry, that was mean. More so to me than you, that man is a chore to be around. How did you manage to only fire him three times this year? That sounds more like a weekly quota. And I haven’t explained anything.

“We’re not really engaged. I just met him yesterday when he was checking in. Not that I have anything against moving too fast. Fast is good. You should see me passing cars on the interstate. That’s a lie, I’m the one getting passed, usually by little old ladies who can barely see over the wheel. Trucks blow their horns at me, it’s a whole thing. I’m scared of going fast, if I reincarnate as a cheetah, I’ll wet myself every time I run. So you can imagine how confused I am by the fact that I want to speed down the highway with you in a wedding dress. Me in the dress, to be clear, not you.”

I’m trying to say something but I’m too busy smiling in relief to get the words out. I thought I was crazy for falling so hard for a girl I literally just met, but in her rambling, I think I’m gathering she’s in the same boat as me.

“Your cousin’s real fiancée left him, little misunderstanding over a prostitute. If I fill in for her this week, for the reunion, to prove he’s getting his life together, he gets his inheritance, of which he buys into some bitcoin thing which sounds like a scam if you ask me, retains his lawyers, and pays off the debt on my family’s campground so we don’t need to sell it and I can take over.”