Chapter One
Siobhan Rowe had gotten through some hard times in her life, but she was afraid spending an entire week camping with the Kowalski family might be her undoing. She didn’t like taking a week off of work. She didn’t like camping. And shedefinitelydidn’t like the Kowalski family.
Except for Steph, of course. She and Stephanie Kowalski had been friends for years, which was how she’d ended up agreeing to be her last-minute replacement maid of honor at a campground wedding in the middle-of-nowhere northern New Hampshire.
“How many diapers are you taking?” Robin asked, looking at the pile on Siobhan’s bed.
She sighed and looked at the woman who’d become a good friend since Siobhan moved into the apartment across the hall. Without Robin, she wasn’t sure how she’d get through the exhaustion of being a working single mother of a boy two months shy of his second birthday.
“All of them?” she said. “I don’t know.”
“You’re not taking him for a trek along the Oregon Trail. They have stores up there.” Robin was obviously amused by Siobhan’s packing pile, which wasn’t a surprise.
As the oldest of five kids, Robin didn’t sweat the small stuff when it came to little ones. As an added bonus, shewas totally comfortable hanging out at Siobhan’s in leggings and comfy T-shirts, eating pizza because going out on the town meant throwing off Oliver’s sleep schedule.
When Oliver’s sleep schedule went awry, Siobhan had a very bad day. A week of trying to get him to sleep in a campground was just going to add to thefun.
“Explain to me again why you’re going camping for a week with people you don’t like? It seems so sudden and you keep starting to tell me and then getting distracted.”
Siobhan sighed. “I don’t dislikeallof them. Most of them, I don’t know very well. And obviously, Steph and I are friends. But Brian Kowalski—one of the four brothers who bought the campground—was married to my sister, Kelly.”
“Oh.” Robin’s eyes widened. “So you’re spending a week with your former brother-in-law and his entire family?”
“Right. He’s Steph’s cousin. She and Kyle—the groom—met at that campground when they were teenagers and, since her cousins bought it in March, they decided it was the perfect place to get married. But Steph’s maid of honor had to drop out at the last minute, and I was the next friend on deck.”
“You could have said no,” Robin pointed out.
“It’s not that easy to say no to a friend in distress because her wedding’s ruined,” Siobhan replied wryly. “And I’d been having a miserable day when she called. I had left work early because Oliver had an appointment with his pediatrician, and traffic was backed up more than usual because they decided to pave that day. Also, the air conditioner in my car wasn’t keeping up with August in Boston. The phone rang at theonepossible moment when an all-expenses paid, week-long vacation in the woods in the middle of nowhere sounded good.”
“With your ex–brother-in-law and his family.”
“I didn’t really think about that part until after. I was mostly focused on helping Steph and on the woods.”
While they spoke, Robin was rummaging through the piles on the bed, winnowing out what she deemed unnecessary. “How do you and… Brian? I think that’s what you said. How do you get along?”
“That’s the fun part.” Siobhan pulled the package of diaper wipes out of Robin’s hand and put them back in the pile. She was taking all the wipes she had because they were going camping and, if nothing else, she knew there would be marshmallows in Oliver’s future. “We didn’t really like each other very much from day one and it went downhill from there.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t think Kelly was in the right headspace for a relationship, and for me it was about Kelly and where she was in her life, but Brian thought my reservations were abouthim. We just clashed a lot. And, of course, when she left him, he blamed me.”
“Of course.” Robin held up a small bag that was stuffed with tiny shoes. “Why are you bringing every pair of shoes Oliver owns?”
“One, I’m not. And two, he’ll be running around a campground. His shoes will get wet or muddy or he might step in something sticky.” She watched as her friend took two pairs of sneakers out of the bag and set them on the bed. Then she dumped the rest back into the bin Siobhan used for shoes. “We’re staying in a camper, so we have plenty of room for shoes.”
“I’m not worried about the camper. I’m afraid you won’t actually have room for Oliver in your car by thetime you’re done packing his stuff.” She cocked her head. “Whose camper are you using?”
“It belongs to somebody in the family, I guess. Steph borrowed it for her maid of honor, and now that’s me.”
“Way better than a tent.”
Siobhan laughed. “There was a zero percent chance my answer to her asking me to be in her wedding would have been a yes if it involved me staying in a tent with a toddler. Honestly, I’m not staying in a tent at all, but especially with a kid who’s figured out the basics of a zipper.”
Robin put her hands on her hips and nodded, apparently satisfied with what remained on the bed. “What time are you leaving?”
“Shortly after Oliver wakes up from the nap I didn’t want him to take.” She sighed. “I’m sure he’ll sleep in the car, too, since it’s a three-and-a-half-hour drive. In a new place—especially in a camper—with bonus naps? My son’s going to be line dancing at two in the morning.”
“Let’s get you repacked, then.”
