She smiled at the screen and typed a response before she could overthink it.I’m on my way.
Hannah faltered when she broke from the tree line and saw all the people milling around, though. It was alotof people, and she might have changed her mind and fled back to the peace and quiet of her camper if she hadn’t already told Rob she was on her way.
Her gaze sought him out and she finally spotted him talking to Tony and Barb. Luckily, they seemed to have left their exceptionally cranky dog in their camper, but they were on the other side of the gathering, and Rob had his back to her.
She walked straight to the food tables so she could set the fruit salad down. She wasn’t sure if she’d mingle or flee once it was out of her hands, but it could go either way.
“Hi, I’m Mary Kowalski,” an older woman said, taking the bowl and spoon from her and shifting dishes to make room for it. “I’m the boys’ grandmother. The matriarch of the family, they all like to call me. It’s such a stuffy word and makes me sound old, but it also means I don’t have to lift a finger to do anything. They can call me whatever they want as long as I don’t have to wash any dishes.”
Hannah laughed, already feeling more at ease. “I’m Hannah. I’m a seasonal camper.”
“Hannah. What a lovely name.” Mary smiled and put her hand on her arm. “Let me introduce you to everybody.”
Her opportunity to run was lost, and what followed was a dizzying round of introductions that included all of the family present as well as a few campers she hadn’t met yet. There was no way she was going to remember all the names—even though Mary had jokingly told her there would be a quiz later—but she had a general impression of dark hair, blue eyes, warm smiles and a family vibe that made her heart ache to be with her own.
Once Mary decided it was time for her to start hounding the guys about the grill, Hannah spoke to Bert and Connie for a few minutes—they were still mourning the loss of their shade tree, though Connie confessed she’d rather lose the shade than have the tree fall and crush her camper, just as Hannah had suspected—before circling around to Scottie and Melissa. Red and Blue had discovered Nora was close enough to their age to play with, and they’d commandeered the cornhole boards.
Then Hannah finally managed to speak to Rob. She wasn’t sure she would ever have gotten through everybody, but he spotted her and made a beeline straight to her.
“You came,” he said, his grin lighting up his face.
“I did. I’ve been here for a while, actually, but your grandmother wanted me to meet everybody.” She chuckled. “You have alotof family.”
“You have no idea. When we came up here when I was growing up, we took up, like, half of the campsites and one of the cabins.”
“That’s pretty amazing.”
He chuckled. “That’s one word for it.”
“No, I mean it. All of you being so close and having all those shared memories is definitely amazing.”
“Yeah.” His face softened and her heart skipped a beat. “It is pretty wonderful.”
“Uncle Rob!” It was Gage, who was approaching at a fast walk. “One of the cornhole bags landed on a camper and Uncle Brian said you have to deal with it because he’s at the grill.”
“Okay,mostlywonderful,” he muttered. “How did a bag end up on top of a camper? The cornhole boards aren’t anywhere near them.”
He shuffled his feet. “The little kids decided to play Frisbee so we were going to play cornhole, but then it became a game of cornhole dodgeball, and then cornhole keep-away and...you know how it is.”
Hannah put her hand over her mouth, trying to hide her amusement. Based on the stories, Rob and his brothersdidin fact know how it was.
Rob turned to her, giving her an apologetic look. “I have to deal with this because Brian’s cooking and apparently Danny and Joey aregueststoday? But don’t leave, okay?”
“I won’t,” she promised, and she meant it, even if it meant artfully dodging Dave and Sheila until he was done.
Chapter Ten
Once he’d retrieved the cornhole bag from the camper roof, which involved getting the ladder, his uncle Kevin footing it, and all the men in the family who weren’t running the grill watching and offering unhelpful tips, Rob wanted to grab a drink and go relax in the shade. Preferably with Hannah.
Unfortunately, she was talking to Melissa and he’d have to run a gauntlet of his family to get to her. He wasn’t surprised at all when his mom managed to corner him before he got far. It seemed as though she’d deliberately intercepted him in a spot where they were alone, and he braced himself for a maternal interrogation. Or maybe a lecture. He couldn’t really judgewhyshe’d singled him out, but he knew she’d done it on purpose.
“Hannah seems nice.”
His head whipped around to face her, and his eyes narrowed when he saw that fake-innocent look she never actually managed to pull off. “What did you just say?”
“Hannah,” she repeated with not even a hint of chagrin. “She seems nice.”
“What have you heard and who did you hear it from?” Not that it really mattered which of his brothers was talking, but Brian liked to push his buttons a little more than the other two when it came to their mother being involved. Rob’s money was on him. Luckily, Hannah was far enough away—talking to the kids and Stella—that she wouldn’t overhear this conversation.
