“Five minutes. And you know Mom and Dad will want a picture. Especially Mom. She’ll be disappointed if she doesn’t get a picture to post and brag about on Facebook.”
As expected,Momwas the magic word and though there was some muttering and rolled eyes, his brothers gathered in front of the Birch Brook Campground sign, making sure they didn’t block the letters.
Rob wanted to run into the house for his equipment bag so he’d have his good camera and tripod, but he knew if he did, there was a good chance they’d get in their vehicles and leave without him. Instead, after using the stand built into his phone’s case to prop it on the hood of Danny’s car, he framed the shot. Then he joined Brian on one side of the sign, so they were evenly split, and pulled up the remote shutter button on his smartwatch.
“On three,” he said, and counted them down.
They didn’t even give him a chance to see if the autofocus had gone awry or if any of them had their eyes closed. Rob barely had time to retrieve his phone from Danny’s hood before his brother was in the car, with Joey sliding into the passenger seat. It surprised him they didn’t run over his foot in their rush to get to breakfast—or with Danny driving, to get to the coffee.
Brian pulled up so Rob could jump into the passenger seat of his truck, and after fastening his seat belt, he checked the picture. He wasn’t too worried about it because he could always retake it when they got back. But over the years, he’d learned that when taking a photo like this, the most emotion was in the first shot. With each subsequent take, it became more about the picture than the moment the camera was capturing.
And what a moment he’d captured, he thought as the photo filled his phone screen. All four of them were relaxed and smiling, with the same air ofyeah, we really did ithe’d felt. It was probably the best picture of the four of them he’d ever seen, and he pulled up his messages and scrolled through until he found the one labeledFamily Group Chat of Doom. That one was pretty much the entire Kowalski family, including his grandparents and all the aunts and uncles—even the cousins in Maine—and he knew it would blow up their phones. He didn’t mind because itwasa day to celebrate. Also, it would annoy Brian, which was always a bonus.
Their favorite table was available, and Kenzie Pelletier—the owner and the only full-time server—didn’t bother to ask before bringing four mugs and the pot of coffee to their table.
“Today’s the big day, right?” she asked, setting the mugs in a line and filling them before handing them out.
“Yep,” they all said at the same time, and she laughed.
“Congratulations. And a big day needs a big breakfast, so I’ll give you a few minutes while I deliver those plates in the window.”
Rob wasn’t sure what he wanted, but that plate of French toast waiting in the pass-through window for her to pick up looked good. Everything at Corinne’s Kitchen was good, though. Frank, who was Kenzie’s dad—Corinne was her mom, but she’d passed away—couldn’t cook a bad meal as far as Rob was concerned.
Their phones all buzzed for what was probably the fifteenth time in the last ten minutes. During the season, most of their guests would arrive on Fridays, but they’d decided to make Saturday opening day so fewer campers would show up in the dark. That meant most of their family was off from work and able to chat.
“I would look at a menu,” Brian muttered. “But I guess I’ll read six thousand text messages instead.”
“You could have waited until after breakfast,” Joey pointed out.
“We’ll be busy after breakfast,” Rob shot back. “And you don’t have to react to every single one. Let everybody congratulate us and then when it peters out, do a quickthanks alland move on.”
“It’s a good picture of us,” Danny said, picking up his menu. “Thank you for taking it.”
“Itisa good picture,” Joey admitted, and even Brian nodded.
While the others moved on to pondering their breakfast orders—seriously, Danny and Joey had been arguing about the difference between a cheese omelet and scrambled eggs with cheese melted on top since Rob was in diapers—he tuned them out. He was definitely having the French toast.
A truck pulling a camper turning into the parking lot distracted him, and he tilted his head to get a better look out the window. The driver could be going anywhere, of course. There were a lot of campgrounds in northern New Hampshire, not even counting the private land some owners kept campers on. But it was still an exciting reminder they were actually going to welcome their seasonal campers to Birch Brook today.
Then the door opened and a woman walked in. Rob forgot about French toast and Birch Brook and pretty much everything but her.
She was a few inches shorter than him—Rob, of course, not only being the youngest Kowalski brother, but the shortest at five-nine—and wearing jeans and a plum Henley shirt that hugged her curves. Her long, dark hair was pulled into a ponytail, and when she looked around and her gaze met his, he could see that her eyes were just as dark. And the door that closed behind her didn’t reopen, so she was alone.
No wedding ring, either.
He could feel his heart beating in his chest as he looked into her eyes. Then he gave her his most charming Kowalski smile.
Because her GPS had informed Hannah Shelby she’d be turning right too late to actually brake safely enough tomakethe turn, and it took her a few miles to find a space big enough to turn the truck and trailer around, she ended up in the parking lot of a little restaurant called Corinne’s Kitchen.
And since a glance at the clock told her it was too early to check into the Birch Brook Campground, where she’d be spending the next three months, Hannah put the truck in Park instead of turning it around. She was down to her emergency stash of granola bars, anyway. Since she didn’t particularly like granola bars, ending up here seemed like a sign she was due for a breakfast somebody else cooked.
As the door closed behind her, she glanced around, looking for a place to sit. That’s when her gaze tripped over the man who was looking at her. He was a handsome one. There was no doubt about that. All dark, tousled hair and sun-kissed skin. Bright blue eyes that practically sparkled with warmth and good humor. And he had lips that curved into a smile that took her breath away.
Hannah didn’t mean to return the smile. Even though it was early in the day, she was tired from a predawn start and tense driving, and she wasn’t in the mood to encourage the attention of a stranger. But she couldn’t help it. There was something about him that made her smile back before she went to the counter and took a seat.
She set her bag down on the seat next to her and pulled out the paperback she was currently reading. Because she could see the table with the handsome charmer through the corner of her eye, she was thankful to have the story to focus on so she wouldn’t surrender to the urge to turn and see that smile again.
The server, whose name was Kenzie, according to the battered plastic tag pinned to her shirt, brought her a menu. “Do you want coffee?”
