Logan smiled. It felt good to help someone. It had been a while since he’d done such a thing.
“Oh, and Tess said it’s cool if you come tonight. Meet me in the lobby at seven? It’ll only take a minute to drive over there.”
“Yeah, sure,” Logan said. “Sounds fun.” It would be interesting to see Tess in a non-camping environment.
After Max left, a thought struck. He couldn’t go to a party empty-handed. Where was he going to find a gift on such short notice?
Abandoning the business stuff, he jumped online to search for gift ideas. He found something he thought she’d like at a store in Meredith and ordered it for same-day pickup. Then, just for fun, he poked around the office until he found a blank CD. He slid it into the computer’s drive and searched “Hits of the 80s.”
It was cheap, easy, and his specialty.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Tess
It took Tess thirteen hours to recuperate from the campout. One in a long, hot bath. One devouring an entire pizza. And eleven more in a deep sleep on a cushy mattress.
She spent the next morning puttering around her garden, happy to see that Faith had remembered to water and everything had survived. She pulled some errant weeds and harvested a few early cherry tomatoes.
After lunch, her phone rang. Caller ID gave no hint as to who it was, but she answered anyway.
“Hey, Tess. It’s Carter. You sleep as hard as I did last night?”
She shouldn’t be surprised at his call—he’d taken her number and said he would after all—but still! It wasn’t every day a professional basketball player called. “I did. Felt pretty good, huh?”
“Never have I been so grateful for a soft bed.” He chuckled. “Hey, so I’m in town one more night and wanted to see if we could make that date happen.”
Tess plopped onto her couch in shock. She’d thought for sure Carter was all talk, only flirting with her because she was the only woman on the mountain.Be cool, Walker. Be cool.
“Oh, well, actually, my friends are throwing me a birthday party tonight.” She winced and squeezed her eyes tight, thankful he couldn’t see her. So much for cool.
“Today’s your birthday? That’s awesome. A party sounds fun.”
The comment hung like bait at the end of a pole. He was fishing for an invite, though she couldn’t fathom why. The high-society parties in Boston he was surely used to, would make hers look like a child’s.
“Oh, well, I mean, it’s not a big deal. But if you want to come, you’re welcome to.”
She wasn’t sure what she wanted his answer to be. On one hand, it would be interesting to hang out with him in a “real life” setting. But on the other, how would he react to her small-town shindig?
“I’d love to. What time and where?”
She gave him the details, hung up, and started to stress. Knowingofhim, but not much about him, drove her to the internet. She confirmed that he’d just signed with the Celtics the previous season. And, according to one website, even though he wasn’t a starter, he still had a multi-million-dollar contract. Holy crap. She thought maybe he’d exaggerated that.
The subject of money turned her thoughts to The Outpost. The idea of buying it was growing on her. If she really wanted to get into the prepper business, it would be much easier to add emergency preparedness inventory to an existing store with an adjacent purpose than it would be to start from scratch. Also, she already knew she could run The Outpost. She’d been doing it successfully for years, turning a healthy profit each year.
The routine of something she already excelled at, mixed with the added challenge of implementing her new ideas, seemed like a no-brainer. She just had to figure out a way to scrape together the down payment. And a way to talk Mr. Moody into taking it out of his portfolio and selling it to her.
Monday morning, she’d contact the bank and then call Moody. It crossed her mind that Carter probably had the kind ofmoney she needed in his couch cushions. But asking for a loan was not an ideal way to start a relationship.
Wow, she was getting ahead of herself. A “relationship” was surely the last thing on Carter’s agenda. Judging from the photos that turned up in her internet search—image after image of him out on the town, rarely with the same woman twice—she shouldn’t read anything into his interest in her.
Still, that night, she put some extra time into her hair, makeup, and choice of outfit.
The party was at the recreation center of Alex’s cabins. Tess arrived early, and her friends, who’d been there for hours setting up and decorating, welcomed her with a chorus of Happy Birthday. Faith handed her a Paloma—her favorite cocktail—and they all caught up as the other guests trickled in.
Her gang was especially interested in the news that Carter McNair was coming and peppered Tess with questions she didn’t have answers for.
“Think he wants anything serious?” Faith asked.
