“Danny?”
His agent’s voice jerked him out of his reverie and made him realize he’d gotten totally derailed by thoughts of Kenzie. “You’re right. I need a change of scenery. There’s too much pressure in sitting here in my office, trying to force words to come.”
Once Colby had reiterated the dire consequences of not getting him a draft by the end of the month, his agent clicked off the call. Before he could change his mind, Danny immediately dialed his brother Rob and set the plan in motion.
He knew he’d see Brian up north soon enough, but Danny decided to drive over and visit his brother Joey. With a newborn in the mix, they wouldn’t be seeing much of Joey and Ellie at the campground this summer.
Both vehicles were in the driveway, so Danny parked behind Joey’s truck and knocked softly on the door. Joey opened it, looking a little bit like he was trying out a zombie costume for the following Halloween.
“Is now a bad time?” he asked, and then he winced. “Not that there’s really a great time, I guess. Did I wake you up?”
Joey chuckled and waved him in. “We’d have to actually sleep in order to be woken up.”
Ellie smiled wanly from the bottom of the stairs, having just come down, he guessed. “Hi, Danny. I just got off the phone with Hannah. She said you’re going to stay at the campground for a while?”
“I know secrets are impossible in this family, but that was fast, even for us.” He stepped forward and took his new niece from her. “No way was I leaving without kissing little Julia Mary goodbye first, though.”
He settled into the recliner and made sure his niece was nestled properly in the crook of his arm. Ellie curled up on one end of the couch, sitting slightly sideways with her head rested against the back cushion, and Joey was at the other end with his arms folded and his feet up on the table.
“Okay, sleep is not a thing that’s really happening in this house,” Ellie said. “So tell us in really simple words why you’re going to go stay up north during the worst season to be up there?”
“This book is stuck and I’m climbing the walls. My agent suggested a change of scenery, and I think he’s right, so I’m going to go climb different walls for a while.”
Joey snorted. “I’m sure Rob and Hannah will appreciate that after all the remodeling they did this winter.”
Danny pulled the soft blanket away from Julia’s face a little so he could see her dark hair, and then he launched into a recap of the conversation he’d had with his agent. He leaned more on words likeproductionandmarketingand less onmoneybecause he didn’t want his brothers to think they’d gotten him in over his head financially. But he made it pretty clear the only thing he could worry about now was finishing the book.
When he looked up, his brother and sister-in-law were both sound asleep. If he wasn’t holding Julia, who was currently nothing short of angelic but could give an air raid siren a run for its money when she was unhappy, he might have been offended.
Instead, he settled back in the chair and watched the rerun of an old investigative drama series that was on the TV. They’d muted it when he came in, but the closed captioning was on, so he didn’t have any trouble figuring out what was going on.
At one point, Ellie jerked awake, her eyes wide as she tried to track where she was and—more importantly—where Julia was. Danny put his finger to his lips, and her body relaxed. She gave him a questioning look, but he waved his hand to let her know he was fine. Within seconds, she was asleep again.
Danny had only intended to stay for a few minutes, but Julia was content, and Joey and Ellie needed the sleep. He could hang out longer, and, if everybody was lucky, they might be able to nap until Nora got home from school. That last step off the bus seemed to launch her into a new energy mode, and she had a tendency to burst through the front door all talking and hands moving and papers waving.
Danny had been a knot of stress and panic for weeks, but as he rocked the baby and lost himself in the show, the knot eased. He had a plan now.
Go north to the campground. And then see Kenzie again.
Chapter Two
Danny walked back into Kenzie’s life on one of those frigid March mornings when it felt as though spring had been just joking and winter wasn’t going anywhere after all.
She pushed through the swinging door, butt first because she was holding a tray of lunch plates, and when she turned, there he was. Danny Kowalski sitting at the counter, wearing a soft blue sweater that perfectly matched his eyes. There should be a law against that, she thought as the plates clinked on the tray and she had to shift her weight to keep from dropping the entire thing. His eyes were intense enough without drawing more attention to them.
“Hey, stranger,” she said as she walked past. She couldn’t stop and talk to him while holding up somebody’s lunch—literally. “I’ll be right with you.”
Delivering the plates to the big round table in the corner, where three retired couples met for lunch at least once a month, gave Kenzie time to get her reaction to seeing Danny under control. At least, she hoped it was. Carrying a heavy tray gave her a reason for having flushed cheeks and being slightly out of breath, but that excuse was only good for about a minute.
After delivering the meal, she ducked back through the door to leave the tray by the dishwashing station. She smoothed wisps of hair back from her face and made sure there wasn’t anything clinging to her apron.
Then she took a deep breath and pushed the door open before walking through it, preferring not to do the butt-first thing this time. “Sorry about that.”
“No problem. How was your winter?”
“Slower than usual. The lack of snow hit pretty hard, but we’re still here. How was yours? Did you finish your book?”
Some of the light went out of his eyes, though he tried to hide it with a casual shrug. “Not yet.”
