“I have fun, thank you very much. And Danny and Idohave fun together. We go for walks and talk about anything and everything.” Mostly his book woes, but sometimes they talked about other people’s books, and also about movies and television shows. Neither of them watched a lot of either, though, and they had even fewer in common, so mostly they talked about books.
“You know what I mean, and if you keep pretending you don’t, I’m going to yellsexreally loud in this store right now.” She gave Kenzie a challenging look. “I wonder which aisle he’s in.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Sure, it would be nice. But in the end, it would be a disaster because I’ve been content with my life, and the last thing I need is actualevidenceof what I’m missing out on.”
“You’re about to quote Aunt Corinne again, aren’t you?” Rhylee sighed. “Nothing destroys contentment more than yearning for something you can’t have.”
“Exactly. Now focus on the shopping so we can get out of here.”
“We’re almost done, anyway.” Rhylee pushed her cart about three feet before she turned back. “I’ll let it go for now, but I know you better than anybody else on this planet, and you’realreadyyearning.”
Kenzie didn’t dignify that with an answer—not that there was anything she could say, because it was true—and led the way to the next aisle.
Unfortunately, she didn’t need as much as Rhylee did. Mostly it was a function of eating most of their meals at the restaurant, but they could also nip a little sugar and other things from the business’s bulk buys.
With her mind free to think about Danny, she found herself looking for him every time they turned a corner. Listening for him. Waiting for that electrical charge that shot through her every time he looked at her.
They made it through the checkout without another encounter, which was slightly disappointing. But it was also for the best because Rhylee kept giving her searching looks, and Kenzie wasn’t sure she wanted Danny and her cousin sharing the same space again. She didn’t think her nerves could handle it.
While they were loading their groceries into the car, though, Kenzie couldn’t stop herself from scanning the parking lot, wondering where he’d parked.
And then she saw him, four rows over. He was looking in her direction—had he been searching for her?—and when their eyes met, she got that familiar jolt.
He grinned and waved, and she waved back. After a long, lingering moment, he got in his truck. Kenzie turned to find Rhylee staring at her, and her cousin rolled her eyes before slamming the trunk closed.
“I’m not going to say anything,” she muttered. Then she poked Kenzie in the shoulder. “But we should get home before all that ice cream and chocolate you bought melts.”
Chapter Eleven
The first weekend in May was a busy one for the campground, as the seasonal campers arrived to open their campers for the summer.
Danny had thought it would be an easy process. Most of the seasonal campers were returning from last year, and their winterized units were already parked and ready to be opened up. The new ones would need a little help getting their campers parked on their sites, but overall these were all people who knew their way around.
What he hadn’t counted on was the fact everybody would want to catch them up on literallyeverythingthat happened to them over the winter. He’d done more standing around talking on Friday and Saturday than he had for the entire last year. Rob didn’t seem to mind at all, but Danny had no patience for it.
And of course, because it was just the way his luck worked, the email from his editor had landed in his inbox Friday morning, about an hour after the first campers arrived.
He’d tried to ignore it and save it to read when the day was over, but it called to him. Knowing the answer to the question that had haunted him since he turned the manuscript in—was it a good book?—was right there, and the need to know became like a physical itch he had to scratch.
Saving it would have been a better idea, he thought after skimming through the pages detailing suggested changes to the book. They felt overwhelming, and, even though he knew edits always felt that way when he first got them, there was one change—basically a reimagining of one character’s entire personality—that he wasn’t sure he agreed with.
Usually he’d read through the editorial notes again with a notebook at hand, turning the pages into a bullet point list. But another truck pulled into the campground and came to a stop near the office door. Rob was helping somebody with a water hookup and he wasn’t sure where Hannah was, so Danny was on deck.
By late Saturday afternoon, he’d had enough socializing. Most of the campers were nice, of course, but he wasn’t used to so much conversation with people he didn’t know. His voice was getting hoarse because of all the talking, and his social battery was totally drained.
Sitting at the counter in the store was a good hiding place, since the weather was nice and the campers were doing all of their hanging around and chatting outside. With his notebook open, he skimmed through the notes from his editor on his phone, writing down a list of changes. It was his third time reading the document and it was the magic number—he could process the comments less from a place of panic and dread, and more with the spirit of rolling up his sleeves and getting to work.
Then the door slammed, and, after peeking down each aisle to make sure they were alone—a lesson they’d learned the hard way last year—Rob dropped into one of the chairs.
“It’s only been twenty-four hours and I’m sick of site four.”
Danny ran the seasonal campers through his mind, trying to place them. Bert and Connie were on seventeen. The Scott family with the twin boys were on twenty-eight. Tony and Barb? They had the mean little dog. But no, they were on eleven.
Site four… Those were the chronic complainers, he thought. “Oh. Dave and Sheila. I remember you talking Brian down from turning the campground into the site of a future true crime documentary.”
“They’re the most miserable people I’ve ever met, and it’s like they go out of their way to find things to be unhappy about.”
“What’s their current complaint?”
