Almost Paradise

by Debbie Macomber

  “My appreciation to Longfellow,” he whispered outside her cabin door.

  They shared a secret smile, and with unspoken agreement resisted the urge to kiss good night.

  “I’ll tell the girls—Longfellow—you said so,” she murmured.

  Roarke continued to hold her hand. “Good night, Sherry.”

  “Good night, Roarke.” Reluctantly he released her fingers, moved away, and started toward the steps.

  “Roarke?” she called, anxiously rising onto her tiptoes.

  He turned around. “Yes?”

  She stared at him, uncertain; her feet returned to the porch. It was in her mind to ask his forgiveness for everything she’d done that had been so zany and caused him such grief. She yearned to confess everything, clean the slate, but anxiety stopped her. She was afraid that a confession now would ruin everything. She could think of only one thing to say. “Friends?”

  “Yes,” he answered, and nodded for emphasis. Much more than friends, he added silently. Much more.

  —

  Things changed after that night. Roarke changed. Sherry changed. Camp Gitche Gumee changed.

  It seemed to Sherry that Roarke had relaxed and lowered his guard. Gone was the stiff, unbending camp director. Gone was the tension that stretched between them so taut that Sherry had sometimes felt ill with it. Gone were the days when she’d felt on edge every time they met. Now she eagerly anticipated each meeting.

  Roarke spent less time in his office and was often seen talking to the children. The sound of his amusement could frequently be heard drifting across the campgrounds. He joked and smiled, and every once in a while he shared secret glances with Sherry. These rare moments had the most curious effect on her. Where she’d always been strong, now she felt weak, yet her weakness was her strength. She’d argued with Roarke, battled for changes, and now she was utterly content. The ideas she’d fought so long and hard to instill at the camp came naturally with her hardly saying a word.

  The late afternoons became a special time for Roarke and Sherry with the camp kids. All ages would gather around the couple, and Sherry would lead an impromptu songfest, teaching them songs she’d learned as a youngster at camp. Some were silly songs, while others were more serious, but all were fun, and more than anything, Sherry wanted the children of Camp Gitche Gumee to have fun.

  Soon the other counselors and staff members joined Sherry and Roarke on the front lawn, and music became a scheduled event of the day, with two other musically inclined counselors taking turns leading the songs. Within a week, as if by magic, two guitars appeared, and Sherry played one and Lynn the other, accompanying the singers.

  Someone suggested a bonfire by the lake, and the entire camp roasted marshmallows as the sky filled with twinkling stars.

  When they’d finished the first such event in the history of the camp, Gretchen requested that Sherry tell everyone about Longfellow, and after a tense moment, Sherry stepped forward and kept the group spellbound with her make-believe tales.

  To her surprise, Roarke added his own comical version of a trick the friendly spook had once played on him when he’d first arrived at the camp. Even Fred Spencer had been amused, and Sherry had caught him chuckling.

  The night was such a success that Sherry was too excited to sleep. Her charges were worn out from the long week and slept peacefully, curled up in their cots. Sherry sat on top of her bed and tried to read, but her thoughts kept wandering to Roarke and how much had changed between them and how much better it was to be with him than any man she’d ever known.

  The pebble against her window caught her attention.

  “Sherry?” Her name came on a husky whisper.

  Stumbling to her feet, she pushed up the window and leaned out. “Who’s there?”

  “How many other men do you have pounding on your window?”

  “Roarke?” Her eyes searched the night for him but saw nothing. “I know you’re out there.”

  “Right again,” he said, and stepped forward, his hands hidden behind his back.

  Sherry sighed her pleasure, propped her elbows against the windowsill, and cupped her face with her hands. “What are you doing here?”

  He ignored the question. “Did you enjoy tonight?”

  Sherry nodded eagerly. “It was wonderful.” He was wonderful!

  “Couldn’t you sleep?” he asked, then added, “I saw your light on.”

  “No, I guess I’m too keyed up. What about you?”

  “Too happy.”

  Sherry studied the curious way he stood, with his hands behind him. “What have you got?”

  “What makes you think I have anything?”

  “Roarke, honestly.”

  “All right, all right.” He swept his arm around and presented her with a small bouquet of wildflowers.

  The gift was so unexpected and so special that Sherry was speechless. For the first time in years, she struggled to find the words. She yearned to let him know how pleased she was with his gift.

  “Thank you,” she said after a lengthy moment. “I’m stunned.” She cupped the flowers in her hand and brought them to her face to savor the sweet scent.

  “I couldn’t find any better way to let you know I think you’re marvelous.”

  Their eyes held each other’s. “I think you’re marvelous, too,” she told him.

  —

  He wanted to kiss her so much it frightened him—more than the night they’d sat by the lake. More than the first time in his office. But he couldn’t. She knew it. He knew it. Yet that didn’t make refusing her easy.

  “Well, I guess I’d better get back.”

  Sherry’s gaze dropped to the bouquet. “Thank you, Roarke,” she said again, with tears in her throat. “For everything.”

  “No.” His eyes grew dark and serious. “It’s me who should be thanking you.”

  He’d been gone a full five minutes before Sherry closed the window. She slumped onto the end of her bed and released a sigh. In her most far-fetched dreams, she hadn’t believed Jeff Roarke could be so wonderfully romantic. Now she prayed nothing would happen to ruin this bliss.

  Chapter 11

  “Sleepy and Grumpy are at it again,” Wendy told Sherry early the next morning. “Diane doesn’t want to wake up, and Gretchen’s complaining that she didn’t sleep a wink on that lumpy mattress.”

  With only a week left of camp, the girls seemed all the more prone to complaints and minor disagreements. Sherry and the other counselors had endured more confusion these past seven days than at any other time in the two-month-long session of Camp Gitche Gumee.

  “Say, where’d you get the flowers?” Jan and Jill blocked the doorway into Sherry’s room. Jill had long since lost her tooth, making it almost impossible to tell one twin from the other.

  Sherry’s gaze moved from Jan and Jill to the bouquet of wildflowers Roarke had given her. They had withered long before, but she couldn’t bear to part with them. Every time she looked at his gift, she went all weak inside with the memory of the night he’d stood outside her window. The warm, caressing look in his eyes had remained with her all week. She’d never dreamed Jeff Roarke could be so romantic. Pulling herself up straight, Sherry diverted her attention from the wilted wildflowers and thoughts of Roarke. If she lingered any longer, they’d all be late to the mess hall.

  Taking charge, Sherry stepped out of her room and soundly clapped her hands twice. “All right, Sleeping Beauty, out of bed.”

  “She must mean me,” Gretchen announced with a wide yawn and tossed aside her covers.

  “I believe Miss White was referring to Diane,” Wendy said, wrinkling up her nose in a mocking gesture of superiority.

  “I was speaking to whoever was still in bed,” Sherry said hurriedly, hoping to forestall an argument before it escalated into a shouting match.

  “See,” Gretchen muttered and stuck out her tongue at Wendy, who immediately responded in kind.

  “Girls, please, you’re acting like a bunch
of nine- and ten-year-olds!” It wasn’t until after the words had slipped from her mouth that Sherry realized her wizards were ten-year-olds! Like Roarke, she’d fallen into the trap of thinking of them as pint-size adults. When she first arrived at camp, she’d been critical of Roarke and the others for their attitudes toward the children. She realized now that she’d been wrong to be so judgmental. The participants of Camp Gitche Gumee weren’t normal children. Nor were they little adults, of course, but something special in between.

  Moving at a snail’s pace that drove Sherry near the brink of losing her control, the girls dressed, collected their books, and headed in an orderly fashion for the dining hall. Sherry sat at the head of the table, and the girls followed obediently into their assigned seats.

  “I hate mush,” Gretchen said, glaring down at the serving bowl that steamed with a large portion of the cooked cereal.

  “It’s good for you,” Sally, the young scientist, inserted.

  Diane nodded knowingly. “I read this book about how healthy fiber is in the diet.”

  Gretchen looked around at the faces staring at her and sighed. “All right, all right. Don’t make a big deal over it—I’ll eat the mush. But it’ll taste like glue, and I’ll probably end up at Ms. Butler’s office having my stomach pumped.”

  When Roarke approached the front of the mess hall and the lectern, the excited chatter quickly fizzled to a low murmur and then to a hush.

  Sherry’s gaze rested on the tall director, and even now, after all these weeks, her heart fluttered at the virile sight he made. She honestly loved this man. If anyone had told her the first week after her arrival at camp how she’d feel about Jeff Roarke by the end of the summer, she would have laughed in their face. She recalled the way Roarke had irritated her with his dictatorial ways—but she hadn’t known him, then, hadn’t come to appreciate his quiet strength and subtle wit. She hadn’t sat under the stars with him or experienced the thrill of his kisses.

  Now, in just one week, camp would be dismissed and she’d be forced to return to Seattle. Already her mind had devised ways to stay close to Roarke in the next months. A deep inner voice urged her to let him speak first. Most of the times they’d clashed had been when Sherry had proceeded with some brilliant scheme without discussing it with Roarke first. No—as difficult as it would be, she’d wait for him to make the first move. But, by heaven, that was going to be hard.

  When Roarke’s announcements for the day were completed, the children were dismissed. With an eager cry, they crowded out of the mess hall door to their first classes.

  Sherry remained behind to linger over coffee. Soon Roarke and Lynn joined her.

  “Morning,” Sherry greeted them both, but her gaze lingered on Roarke. Their eyes met in age-old communication, and all her doubts flew out the window and evaporated into the warm morning air. No man could look at her the way he did and not care. Her tongue felt as if it was stuck to the roof of her mouth, and her insides twisted with the potency of his charm.

  “The natives are restless,” Lynn said with a groan, cupping her coffee mug with both hands.

  “Yes, I noticed that,” Roarke commented, but his gaze continued to hold Sherry’s. With some effort, he pulled his eyes away. Disguising his love for her had become nearly impossible. Another week and he would have the freedom to tell her how much he loved her and to speak of the future, but for now he must bide his time. However, now that camp was drawing to a close, he found that his pulse raced like a locomotive speeding out of control whenever he was around her. His hands felt sweaty, his mouth dry. He’d discovered the woman with whom he could spend the rest of his life, and he felt as callow as a boy on his first date.

  “The kids need something to keep their minds off the last days of camp,” Sherry offered.

  “I agree,” Lynn added. “I thought your suggestion about a hike to study wildflowers was a good one, Sherry. Whatever became of that?”

  Fred Spencer had nixed that plan at a time when Roarke might have approved the idea had he not been so upset with Sherry. She couldn’t remember what had been the problem: Longfellow or their first kiss. Probably both. It seemed she’d continually been in hot water with Roarke in the beginning. How things had changed!

  “Now that I think about an organized hike, it sounds like something we might want to investigate,” Roarke commented, after mulling over the idea for a couple minutes.

  Sherry paused, uncertain, remembering Fred. “What about…you know who?”

  “After a couple more days like this one, Fred Spencer will be more than happy to have you take his group for an afternoon.”

  “We could scout out the area this morning,” Lynn suggested, looking to Sherry for confirmation.

  “Sure,” Sherry returned enthusiastically. She’d had a passion for wildflowers from the time she was ten and camped at Paradise on Washington State’s Mount Rainier with her father; hiking together, they’d stumbled upon a field of blazing yellow and white flowers.

  “Then you have my blessing,” Roarke told the two women, grinning. “Let me know what you find and we’ll go from there.”

  —

  When Sherry and Lynn returned to camp after their successful exploratory hike of the area surrounding the camp and the lake, there was barely time to wash before lunch. Although Sherry was eager to discuss what she’d found with Roarke, she was forced into joining her girls in the mess hall first.

  The wizards chattered incessantly, arguing over a paper napkin and a broken shoelace. Wendy reminded everyone that Ken-Richie was still in the hands of a no-good, lily-livered thief and she wasn’t leaving camp until he was returned.

  The meal couldn’t be over soon enough to suit Sherry. The minute the campers were excused, she eagerly crossed the yard to Roarke’s office. He hadn’t made an appearance at the meal, which was unusual, but it happened often enough not to alarm Sherry.

  When she reached his office, she noted that he was alone and knocked politely.

  “Come in.” His voice was crisp and businesslike.

  He looked up from his desk when Sherry walked into the room but revealed no emotion.

  “Is this a bad time?” she asked, hesitant. She could hardly remember the last time he’d spoken to her in that wry tone. Nor had he smiled, and that puzzled her. Her instincts told her something was wrong. His eyes narrowed when he looked at her, and Sherry swallowed her concern. “Do you want me to come back later?”

  “No.” He shook his head for emphasis. “What did you find?”

  “We discovered the most beautiful flowers,” she said, warming to the subject closest to her heart. “Oh Roarke, the trail is perfect. It shouldn’t take any more than an hour for the round trip, and I can show the kids several different types of wildflowers. There are probably hundreds more, but those few were the ones I could identify readily. The kids are going to love this.”

  Her eyes were fairly sparkling with enthusiasm, Roarke noted. Seeing her as she was at this moment made it almost impossible to be angry. His stomach churned and he looked away, hardly able to bear the sight of her. The phone call had caught him off guard. He’d had most of the morning to come to grips with himself and had failed. Something had to be done, but he wasn’t sure what.

  “When do you think we could start the first hikes? I mean if you think we should, that is.” He was so distant—so strange. Sherry didn’t know how she should react. When she first entered the office, she’d thought he was irritated with her for something, but now she realized it was more than anger. He seemed distressed, and Sherry hadn’t a clue if the matter concerned her or some camp issue. Several times over the past couple months she’d been an eyewitness to the heavy pressures placed on Roarke. He did a marvelous job of managing Camp Gitche Gumee and had gained her unfailing loyalty and admiration.

  “Roarke?”

  “Hmm?” His gaze left the scene outside his window and reluctantly returned to her.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing,
” he lied smoothly, straightening his shoulders. “Nothing at all. Now, regarding the hike, let’s give it a trial run. Take your girls out this afternoon and we’ll see how things go. Then tomorrow morning you can give a report to the other counselors.”

  Sherry clasped her hands together, too excited to question him further. “Thank you, Roarke, you won’t regret this.”

  His stoic look was all the response he gave her.

  —

  As Sherry knew they would, the girls, carrying backpacks, grumbled all the way from the camp to the other side of the small lake. The pathway was well defined, and they walked single-file along the narrow dirt passage.

  “Just how long is this going to take?”

  “My feet hurt.”

  “No one said the Presidential Commission on Physical Fitness applied at Camp Gitche Gumee.”

  Listening to their complaints brought a smile to Sherry’s features. “Honestly,” she said with a short laugh, “you guys make it sound like we’re going to climb Mount Everest.”

  “This is more like K-two.”

  “K-what?” Jan and Jill wanted to know.

  “That’s the highest peak in the Himalayas,” Sally announced with a prim look. In response to a blank stare from a couple of the others, she added, “You know? The mountain system of South Central Asia that extends fifteen hundred miles through Kashmir, northern India, southern Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan.”

  “I remember reading about those,” Diane added.

  Gretchen paused and wiped her hot, perspiring face with the back of her hand. “You read about everything,” she told her friend.

  “Well, that’s better than complaining about everything.”

  “Girls, please,” Sherry said, hoping to keep the peace. “This is supposed to be fun.”

  “Do we get to eat anything?” Jan muttered.

  “We’re starved,” Jill added.

  The others agreed in a loud plea until Sherry reminded them that they’d left the mess hall only half an hour before.

  “But don’t worry,” she said, “it’s against camp policy to leave the grounds without chocolate chips.” Sherry did her best to hide a smile.