Page 5
Her cabin might be clean, but spacious was certainly not the word to describe Cabin C. Not when the other five residential cabins were three times the size, with open-plan kitchens and living rooms.
He cleared his throat, preparing to handle this delicately. Even if he understood all of the risks behind having a meeting inside a building, he couldn’t expect everyone to understand. Especially someone who refused to even touch a computer.
“I know that your cabin is clean and very cozy. In any other circumstance, it would be the perfect spot for our meeting.”
Sandy perked up at those words, looking satisfied at the way he was subtly complimenting her home.
“But we don’t want the chance of getting others sick. We have residents going to the grocery stores and shops in town, and we decided as a community that it is safer to do everything outside this year to minimize our risk.”
She huffed. “I don’t get it.”
Archer was used to this conversation. A lot of people in the Midwest didn’t seem to understand. To them, COVID-19 was another bad cold, something you could catch then move on from. The number of casualties didn’t seem to scare them in the same ways it scared him. And yet, he’d been taught to treat his elders with respect. Even if it wasn’t always possible to see eye-to-eye.
“I’m sorry, Sandy,” he said, crouching slightly so he could meet her eyes. “I promise next year if all of this is over, you can host the meeting.”
She cocked a brow. “But we always draw from a hat.”
“And your name was drawn last. Seems only fair that we carry it over a year, yes?”
Her face relaxed as she nodded. “Yes, good. Thank you, dearest.”
Archer nodded and waved her off, turning back to the dumpster and the impossible task of trying to snake the heavy-duty chain around it. He then imagined Sandy trying to remove the chain in the morning to throw out her trash after breakfast, and realized maybe a chain wasn’t the best idea. He groaned, dropping his face in his hands.
The popping sound of tires against gravel interrupted his sense of apparent doom. Archer eyed all of the cars parked in lots behind each cabin, making a note of who had left to go to town. But all of the cars were accounted for, which could only mean one thing.
Hands sticky from his task and once again no time to hide, Archer ducked behind the dumpster.
A beat-up Chevy crawled past the shaded entrance into the resort, then parked behind Cabin B. Archer felt his face go hot as the car turned off, and a woman stepped out of the car, her white Reeboks kicking up a cloud of dust.
She looked exactly as he remembered. A grown-up version of the girl he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about for years, ever since they were kids. Long legs, slim curves, creamy white arms covered in freckles, fiery red hair. A small button nose and striking sky-blue eyes.
He didn’t dare move as he watched her pull several massive suitcases and a snake plant from the back of her car. Instead, he knelt there, his pulse hammering loudly in his ears, wondering how in the world he was going to survive a summer with an even more gorgeous version of his dream girl staying in the cabin next door to him.
The very same dream girl who shattered his heart.
Chapter 3
Tea
Everything about Cabin B was exactly as Tea left it, like the memory of this place was frozen in time, waiting for her return. The chipped green paint on the awning covering the patio. The carved wooden bees nailed to the pine tree by front door. The cherry-red bird feeder dangling outside the kitchen window, giving Nan the perfect shot for eyeing hummingbirds and blue jays while she formed casseroles and baked treats.
Tea dragged her luggage up the back porch, then stood staring at the rickety screen door. Knocking felt impossible. Knocking meant inviting pain back into her heart. Pain from memories of summers in a place she tried to erase from her thoughts. Baking with Nan. Night games of Capture the Flag, followed by staying up far too late around the bonfire. Her father wrangling her out of bed for an early morning sail. She wondered how this place could possibly hold the same kind of magic when everything about it had irrevocably changed.
She took a deep breath, expecting the scent of dried pine on the dirt driveway behind her, but was met instead by the smell of freshly baked ginger snap cookies.
Maybe some magic still exists. The scent of her favorite treats—ones she hadn’t devoured in almost a decade—finally propelled her to knock on the door.
“MY ANGEL! Get in here.”
Tea smiled at the sound of Nan’s voice as she stepped into the cabin, the screen door snicking shut behind her. Before she could scan the inside of the house, she was clobbered by a hug.
“Oh, I’m so happy you are finally here,” she said.
Tea’s muscles tensed at the hug. She hadn’t been hugged like this in months, and the contact had her hesitating. How strange it felt to be touched. Strange, and yet so wonderful.
She melted into the embrace, burying her nose in the crook of Nan’s neck, even though she had to crouch down to do it. She inherited those tall Richards genes, just like Pop and Dad. When she kept growing and growing in high school, dating proved difficult. No one wanted to take the tall girl to prom, she learned. So the night was spent with her girlfriends, thinking about what it would be like to be swept up and kissed by a handsome guy in a tux. There was only one who could sweep her up like that, but she didn’t have the courage to ask him when he was nine hundred miles away…or if his feelings were even reciprocated.
She’d learn the truth three months later.
