“And I did them yesterday, and Joey did it the whole weekend. What’s your point?”
“What’s it going to take? An extra turn scrubbing toilets? Cooking for a week? I get stuck on lifeguard duty?”
Rob snorted. “Looking out the window a few times to make sure nobody’s breaking the rules is hardly lifeguard duty.”
“I’ve got it,” Brian said as he slapped a hand down on the counter, waking Stella, who wasn’t at all impressed by having her nap interrupted. “I won’t tell our two business partners that you’re violating the business agreement.”
“Seriously? First, I haven’t violated anything.”
“Yet.But you’ve been at site twenty-nine a lot, for no good reason, and I know she was in here for, like, an hour yesterday.”
“A lot of the campers come in and start talking, sometimes for an hour. Sometimes for two.”
“I guess it’s all in how you frame the story.”
“Are you blackmailing me?” When Brian shrugged, Rob threw his empty water bottle at him. Stella sighed, but didn’t get up. “You know, there’s nothing in any of the business documents wesignedabout me not being allowed to spend time with Hannah.”
“We all agreed not to fraternize with the campers.”
Rob grinned. “Prove it.”
Brian held up his hands. “Okay, how about I’ll keep my mouth shut about Hannah...within reason.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You’re my younger brother, so I’m going to have big-brother-type thoughts about what you’re doing. But I’ll lay off the fraternizing nonsense.”
“Done.” He was probably going to be the one who went to the cabin anyway, but at least he’d gotten a concession from his brother. And a concession that might enable him to visit Hannah in peace was a big one.
Now to deal with the other brother.
When he got close to the cabin, he was able to see Hannah’s truck was gone, and he felt a pang of disappointment that he couldn’t swing by her site after. He hadn’t seen her leave, but he’d spent part of the morning in the back part of the campground, trying to fix a muddy spot on the trail that connected to the main ATV trail system. Mud was fun until a bunch of machines tore it up and then it dried into ruts.
When he reached the cabin, he peeked into the windows of Danny’s car. It didn’t look like he was ready to hit the road anytime soon, so Rob walked onto the porch and knocked on the door.
“What?”
It was definitely more of a roar than an invitation to enter, but Rob opened the door and stepped inside anyway. Danny was at the small table, tapping away on his keyboard. He didn’t even look up when Rob closed the door.
Empty gallon-size water bottles were lined up by the door, and the small trash can was full of used K-Cups. At least there were also empty snack wrappers in there and they’d seen his vehicle leave a few times, so he knew Danny had been eating something and wasn’t running on caffeine alone.
His brother’s hair was sticking up in several directions, and Rob wouldn’t have bet against those being the same clothes Danny had been wearing yesterday.
“I guess you pushed through the writer’s block.”
Danny’s fingers paused, hovering over the keys. “Yeah. Kenzie helped me figure out where I’d taken a wrong turn.”
“Kenzie from the restaurant?”
“Yeah, I went in there to have some food before the coffee ate a hole through my stomach lining and I sat at the counter with my notebook. There was nobody else there and we started talking and next thing you know, I’m talking through some plot issues and she’s really good at being a sounding board.”
“I’ll leave you to it, I guess.”
“I might not leave today.”
“I figured that out. But Friday afternoon, a nice couple from Connecticut plans to sleep in here, so things will get awkward real fast if you’re still here.”
“I’ll be out by then.”
