There was no sign of him, though, and she didn’t want her father or Danny’s brother to notice she’d hoped to see him, so she fixed her smile and carried two coffees to their table. She didn’t bother with menus.
“Lunch date today, huh?” she asked, setting their mugs down.
“We haven’t seen the surface of the kitchen table in days,” Hannah said. “And if we make too much noise in the kitchen, Danny makes this weird growling sound. We’ve been grilling outside a lot, but we want to just sit at a table and eat in peace today.”
The words sounded like a complaint, but Kenzie caught the affectionate humor in Hannah’s voice and expression, and she laughed. “That’s a good sign, actually.”
“Yeah, it is,” Rob conceded. “Show her the picture you took yesterday.”
When Hannah pulled up the picture, holding up her phone, she leaned closer to see the screen and then pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “Oh. That’s…”
“His process, apparently,” Rob said with a chuckle.
Hannah had taken the photo from diagonally behind Danny, so Kenzie could see enough of his profile to see his expression was hard with concentration. His fingers were on the keyboard, his hair was sticking out in multiple directions, and the fact she could see the tag of his T-shirt meant it was either an interesting fashion choice or he was wearing it inside out. There were at least six empty mugs on the table around the laptop, along with a notebook sitting open with a pen lying down the crease between the pages.
“His back’s got to be killing him,” Kenzie said, almost under her breath, because his posture at that kitchen table wasn’t great.
“Judging by the strange sounds he makes when he stands up, you’re not wrong,” Rob told her. “He’s going to have to spring for a massage when this is finally over.”
Kenzie absolutely didnotwant to imagine hands kneading Danny’s naked body. Not right now, anyway. “I’m surprised now that the words are flowing, he didn’t go home to his proper desk.”
Rob shook his head. “I don’t know if he would admit it or not, but he can be a little superstitious. Like, you don’t change your jersey in the middle of a game your team is winning.”
She wanted to ask if that meant Dannywaswinning, but she was always careful not to show an unusual amount of interest in that Kowalski brother in particular. And she wasn’t sure how much he’d told them aboutherlevel of involvement.
“Maybe I should send you home with a rack of coffee mugs,” she joked.
Hannah sighed. “He starts out strong in the morning. He refills the mug he started with for a while, but then he gets into the writing and every time he gets up—to use the bathroom or just pace while he talks to himself—he pours a fresh cup out of habit before he sits down. But he washes them all himself once he closes the laptop for the night, so it’s all good.”
“How’s the rest of the family?” Kenzie asked, ready to change the subject. “Everybody good?”
The diversion worked, partly because they had photos. There were several of Rob’s nephew Oliver—Brian and Siobhan’s son. He was about two and a half, and Kenzie had met him late last summer when they’d brought him in for popcorn chicken and fries. The three of them had come in a couple of times while the campground was being buttoned up for the winter, but she hadn’t seen them since.
And there were even more photos of Joey and Ellie’s daughters—Nora, who was seven, she thought, and newborn Julia—which she had to fuss over before they gave her their lunch orders.
It was a quiet day, and usually Kenzie would have pulled up a chair and chatted with them. But today she left them alone to enjoy their respite from Danny. Hannah had her notebook out, which meant they might be talking about her podcast, or about the book they were working on together—her stories of local history combined with his photographs.
In between checking on them and the other two tables she had, Kenzie started working through the closing checklist. There was a laminated copy on the back of the swinging kitchen door, but she hadn’t looked at it in years. It was mostly there for whichever high school kid was working for her—and she really needed to figure out who that was going to be this year before the tourists started returning—and because nobody had ever taken it down.
The mindless work gave her plenty of opportunity to think about Danny, though. It was no wonder—other than a few text messages to run an idea or a problem past her, she hadn’t really heard from him. He was obviously in the zone, whatever that meant to him.
She was glad he was staying at the campground. Even though Rob and Hannah might grumble—in a good-humored way, of course—about Danny, she knew they were making sure he was eating actual food and, knowing Hannah, being nagged to drink water in between a few of those cups of coffee. And they probably found excuses for him to get up from the table and move around occasionally.
Her phone vibrated in her back pocket, and she pulled it out to see a text message from Danny. It made her smile, wondering if he’d somehow felt she was thinking about him.
I found a sticky note on the counter that says Rob & Hannah were going to the Kitchen for lunch. Are they still there?
They’re about halfway done eating.
Can you add a cheeseburger and fries to-go on their order, please?
Kenzie thought it was odd that he’d sent her the text message and not his brother.I will. Writing going well?
Yup. Thanks.
That was all she got, but she smiled as she imagined him—hair sticking up and shirt inside out—going back to his keyboard. It was probably a lot less adorable if you had to live with him, but from a distance, it was cute.
“This one’s for take-out,” she told her dad as she handed him the slip to clip in the pass-through window. Usually she did that, but she was on his side of the window. “It’s going out with Rob and Hannah, but they don’t seem to be in a hurry.”
