She shrugged. “It just wasn’t … done, I guess?”
“Because?” He braced for some sort of classist statement she wouldn’t necessarily mean to make, then hated himself for doing so.
“I don’t know. I think Mom was always afraid to go to one.”
“Why?”
“Not sure.” She shrugged. “Maybe she was afraid she’d actually enjoy it.”
“Well, that would have been terrible.” Before he could think better of it, he took her hand. “But since she robbed you of the experience, apparently it falls to me to help you discover all the joys of the American theme park, Christmas edition.”
Gabi laughed, and he was relieved that she didn’t take back her hand. “Where should we start?”
“Fried dough,” he said, without hesitation. “Because if you don’t have fried dough with maple syrup before you leave this property, I’ll have failed you miserably.”
“Sounds delicious. What else?”
He squeezed her hand. “Onion rings, hot dogs, and a creemee, but not necessarily in that order. And rides. All the rides.” He paused, putting up a finger. “On second thought, maybe rides before food, if you’re a newbie at this.”
She nodded. “I appreciate that.” Then she pulled out a park map, pointing at the far northwest corner. “How about we start here and work our way back to the food? If you keep me busy enough, I won’t have time to freak out about the bears coming back for a midnight snack.”
Luke’s mind immediately cycled through a lot of ways he could keep her busy for the next two hours, but he swallowed hard, pasting a smile on his face as they set off toward the log ride.
Half an hour later, a little breathless from the roller coaster, Luke handed Gabi into a sleigh, and they settled in for a ride around the park on raised rails. After covering at least a mile of pathways and five different rides already, Luke was ready for a break, and he’d always loved this ride. It was peaceful as it creaked along thirty feet above the park, winding in and out of the trees.
“Wow.” Gabi peered over the side. “Coolest ride ever.”
He smiled. “Better than the roller coaster?”
“Slower than the roller coaster.” She held her stomach, grinning as she turned to him. “Which we definitely need to do again before we leave, even though I’m not sure it’s a good idea at all.”
Luke laughed. “I thought you were going to break my fingers on that last loop.”
“Well, next time, I’ll know it’s coming.”
“Hey, Gabi?”
“Yup?”
“I might be mistaken, but I think I’ve made a theme-park convert out of you in a half hour flat.”
“Possibly true.” She paused, and her face got serious. “But now we have a problem. We’re just humming slowly along here, and I’m not fearing for my life … which makes me—you know—start thinking that when we head back to camp, I will be fearing for my life, and those of my students.”
Luke nodded, not at all anxious to let her know how nervous he was about the bears making a return visit.
“We’ll move you guys into the dining hall tonight.”
“Where the bears already broke in?” Her eyes went wide.
“It’s better than a tent. Oliver’s reinforcing the doors while we’re gone. There are plenty of other places they can find food more easily. They’ll move on.” She didn’t look remotely reassured, so he added, “They probably already have.”
“Can they get in the windows?”
“Nope. Too high off the ground. I’m sure it’ll be fine. As long as we stay secured, she’ll forget about the place eventually. Oliver’s pistol should have scared her plenty, too.”
“Are you going to leave me with that tonight?”
“No, but I’ll let the dogs stay with you.”
Her eyebrows went up as her jaw dropped. “You’re going to leave Puff-n-Fluff to protect us? At ten pounds of raging fury each?”
He laughed at the expression on her face. “You’d be surprised at the damage they can do.”
“Luke, that bear’s ears are bigger than your little cuties.”
“Are you insulting my dogs?”
“No!” She laughed, and he realized he could quite happily listen to the sound of it all night long. “I love your dogs. I just don’t know that they bring the right … skills to the job.”
“They don’t need to eat the bear. They just need to scare her away.”
“And you think they can do that?”
“Yep.” He looked over at her, and he could tell from her expression that she wasn’t quite sure whether he was kidding. In her eyes, he could see humor, but it was clouded by real fear. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make light of the situation. Really not. But it’s just the reality of where we are. Bears live here, too, and we can’t leave snacks lying out for them and expect them not to take advantage of it. But the fact that one bear got in and made herself at home doesn’t mean we’re doomed. We’ll be fine. We just need to be careful.”
“Is it always like this, though? Don’t you worry about the boys, usually? I can’t believe none of them has ever snuck a chocolate bar into his backpack.”
Luke shook his head. “No, it hasn’t always been like this. These woods have a lot more people moving through them in the past three years since a couple of touring outfits opened up. They’re doing a lot of marketing in NYC and Boston, and it’s drawing a boatload of tourists who don’t—I don’t know—understand, I guess is the right word. Then there are the city folks who buy up wilderness parcels so they can cut down trees and build ugly monstrosities they call summer homes. The bears have less space, the humans give bears more access to food, and it all trains the bears to associate humans with free lunch. It’s not good for anybody, most especially the bears.”
“Do they ever get aggressive?”
“The tourists? Oh, definitely.”
“Luke.”
He winked. “The bears we have around here only get aggressive if you get between a mama and her cub. So don’t do that.”
“Not a problem. If you’re looking for me for the rest of the summer, I will be in the admin cottage. With the doors firmly locked.”
He smiled as they rounded a bend in the tracks, and sparkling water filled the space downhill through the trees. “And there’s the view that might convince you never to leave Echo Lake.”
“Ha. Us never leaving Echo Lake is probably your worst nightmare right now.”
He shrugged slowly, realizing that her never leaving was the exact opposite of a nightmare right now. It was sobering at the same time as it left an unfamiliar zing traveling up his spine.
He smiled. “You never know. Maybe I’m coming around.”
Chapter 24
They rode in silence for a couple of minutes as Luke watched Gabi take in the sights and sounds of the park below her. At one point, she spotted the girls, and she relaxed against him, as if putting her eyes on them had reassured her that they were indeed still roaming the park.
“So … now that I have you trapped up here…” He waggled his eyebrows, and she immediately blushed.
“In the scheme of opening lines, that one’s kind of alarming, just so you know.”
He smiled. “Sorry. I have no evil plans for you, I promise. It’s just nice to have you all to myself for a few minutes.”
“Yeah.” She smiled up at him. “This is pretty okay.”
“So I’ve been wondering something.” He swallowed, half hating himself for asking the question that had been eating at him for days. On one hand, he really wanted to hear the answer. On the other, he feared he already knew what it was. “Where do you see yourself, say, in ten years?”
She pulled away from him, her face thoughtful. “That’s kind of a big question. And … I don’t know. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten quite that far.”
“What’s your dream? Is that easier?”
She shook her head, smiling. “My dream. Hm.” Then she took a de
ep breath and clasped her hands together. “Promise not to tell?”
“I promise.”
“I want to be a ball girl for the Patriots.”
He laughed out loud. “Come on. That was a serious question.”
“And that was a serious answer.”
“You want to be a ball girl.”
“Yup.” She looked very pleased with herself. “Now you. What’s your dream, Luke?”
He took a deep breath, shaking his head. “Pretty sure I don’t like how you play this game, sweetheart.”
“I don’t play games. You asked a question, and I answered it. What were you expecting me to say—initiate world peace or something?”
“Absolutely. Finding a cure for cancer was right up there, too.”
“Good to know. I’ll save that one for next time we play.”
He reached out for her hand, and was relieved when she let him take it. “I’m serious, Gabriela. I want to know you better.”
She looked into his eyes like she was trying to assess whether he actually meant it, and must have finally decided he did.
“Okay. Sorry. I just feel like … we barely know each other. It’s kind of weird to head into superpersonal territory like hopes and dreams and all that.”
“Should we stick with the speed-dating variety, then? I could ask you what your first pet’s name was.”
“I never had a pet, really.”
“Not even a token designer dog?”
“No.” She frowned, studying him for a long moment like she didn’t appreciate the tone of his question. He didn’t blame her, damn it all. Why had he asked that? “You?”
Ha. Right. A pet would have been tough to fit into the garbage bag he got to take when he changed foster homes.
“Not till I was an adult. Just Duke. And now—what did you call them? Puff-n-Fluff?”
She laughed. “We have to name those dogs. Why don’t you ask the girls for help?”
“Because they’d suggest things like Justin and Selena, or Kim and Kanye, or some other sort of dorky social reference I’m too old to get, and then the dogs would be stuck.”
“You don’t place a lot of trust in my girls yet, do you?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Should I?”
Gabi sat back in the seat, studying him with that gaze that made him feel like she was peeling him back, layer by layer … but doing it so gently that it didn’t hurt. “My turn for a question. What made you do this job, Luke? How did you decide this is where you belonged?”
He studied her right back, thoughts churning in his head. What should he tell her? What could he tell her? What would he tell her if he thought they had a chance for this relationship to go beyond a summer fling? What would he tell her … if it didn’t?
He didn’t know.
“I have a lot of reasons, Gabriela. We’ve got a broken system, and I have the power to try to fix it—at least my little piece of it. So that’s what I do. The guys that come through Camp Echo aren’t guys who are brought up thinking they have a lot going for them. Oliver and I? We think they do. So we try to help them get there.”
She took a deep breath, tipping her head, still examining him. “Well, I haven’t seen you work with your usual clientele, but if you’re half as good with them as you are with my girls, then I bow to your talent.”
“Oh, really?” He took in her cheeky smile and rolled his eyes.
“Seriously. I’d actually love to see you work with your normal crew. I think I could learn a ton from both you and Oliver.”
Luke felt his heart sink at her words, because if all went as he and Oliver figured it was going to, then they’d probably already had their last summer as a team. He shook his head. Now was not the time or place.
He cleared his throat, emotion clogging it for a second. “Oliver’s the best. Incomparable, actually. And he gives all the credit to his gut. If he thinks a kid deserves a chance, he does everything he can to get him that chance.”
“How’d you ever meet him, anyway?”
Luke paused, looking into her eyes. Then he barreled forward before he could stop himself.
“I was one of those kids he decided deserved a chance.”
* * *
“Let go, Eve.” The next day, Luke stood at the bottom of a small rock face, belaying for Eve as she tried her first climb. Gabi stood five feet away, trying not to wring her hands too obviously. Luke had been convinced the girls were ready for this. Gabi was not.
They’d camped out in the dining hall last night, and even though Gabi’d known they were safe, she’d barely slept. Knowing Luke was just outside in a little pup tent hadn’t helped, either. In fact, it’d just made things worse, because all she’d wanted to do was get up and go to him, bears be damned.
“What do you mean, let go?” Eve held on to the rock like it might stage an escape if she didn’t keep her grip tight enough. “I thought the object was to stay on the rock?”
“It is. But it’s important to feel what happens when you let go, too.”
She looked down at him, over her shoulder. “No offense, Luke, but you said we were climbing, not splatting.”
“There will be no splatting.” He pointed to the rope, which was clipped securely to the harness he had on. “I’ve got you.”
“Hey, Luke?” She turned back to the rock, but made absolutely no move to let go. “Pretty sure you still don’t actually like us. Why would I trust you?”
Gabi saw him smile. “Good question. Two answers. One—you’re growing on me, and two—I’ve had the opportunity to drop way more annoying kids off from a rock, and I’ve never given in to the urge. I think you’re safe. Plus, our insurance would go through the roof.”
“Very funny.” Eve turned her head to look over the other shoulder. “Gabi?”
Luke raised his eyebrows, and she knew he was silently asking Gabi to support what he was doing here, even though he knew she wasn’t completely on board with it. Gabi scanned the ropes, saw the tension in his wrists as he tried to play everything casual … saw the way he balanced his body so it was crazy-stable.
She had to trust him.
“It’s okay, Eve. You need to let go. Do what Luke says.”
Luke nodded at her. “Fall off the rock, Eve. Just let go with your fingers and fall back a little.”
Gabi watched Eve’s fingers tighten, then saw her take a couple of deep breaths. Then, like she knew she’d chicken out if she didn’t go big, she pushed herself away from the rock. She let out a timid squeak as she found herself suddenly hanging in midair, but then looked down at Luke, who held her completely steady.
“I didn’t fall.”
He shrugged. “Nope.”
“Huh.” She looked over at Gabi and winked. “Maybe he does like us.”
Luke laughed. “Don’t push it. Get back on your rock.”
Eve clambered back onto the rock face and found finger holds, and five minutes later, she’d reached the top of the fifteen-foot mini-cliff. She stood up, grinning, and Gabi had to laugh at the pride she saw on her face.
“I own this rock!” Eve shouted, and Luke nodded calmly, adjusting his grip on her rope.
“Yep. And now you get to come back down.”
“Down?” Her grin faded. “But I—you never said we had to go back down. There’s a perfectly good path right there. I can walk down to you guys.”
“Remember when we did the rappelling yesterday off from the admin building roof?”
Gabi felt her stomach jump. When had he done that?
He looked up at Eve. “Come on down. Same as the building, just rock. Hold on to the rope, bounce on your toes, and I’ll feed the rope out to you. Trust me.”
Eve growled as she sat down and turned around to face the rock, fumbling with her rope. “You know what, Luke? I never hated those words before, but I sure do now.”
Luke glanced at Gabi, smiling. “It’s okay. You’re not the only one.”
* * *
“A-plus, Sam. You’re
doing it. You’re totally doing it.” That afternoon, Gabi heard Luke’s voice as she looked up from the letter she’d been trying to compose to Laura Beringer, the chairwoman of the Briarwood board. She’d been sitting in the dining hall for an hour now, searching for just the right combination of words—respectful, but pleading—that might make Laura change her mind about the future of Camp Echo … and in turn, lead the other board members to change theirs. So far, she had six crumpled pages at her feet, and she growled in frustration as she crumpled yet another one and stood up to walk to the window.
Luke had Sam in the water, floating on her back, and the girl wasn’t flailing, or scared, or exhibiting any of the emotions Gabi would have expected. The puppies cavorted around her in the water, but even their splashing didn’t seem to panic her.
“He’s got her, Gabi.” Oliver’s soft voice came up behind her, and she looked back to smile at him. He pointed to the thinning hair on his head. “I got a lot of gray hairs over the years, but none of them came from him. You can trust him with your girls.”
“I know.” She nodded, but didn’t uncross her arms.
As Gabi watched, Sam rolled over in the water, as graceless as a baby seal, but not slipping under. As Luke walked beside her, she dog-paddled to the end of the dock, then turned around and paddled back to where the water was up to her knees.
Gabi put her hand to her mouth as she felt tears in her eyes. She was—swimming! Clumsily and slowly, but … swimming! As she watched, Sam leaped out of the water and gave two giant fist pumps. “I totally rocked that, Luke.”
“You totally did.” He smiled, and Gabi melted. She’d never once seen Sam grin so widely, and her own chest ached with pride as she watched Sam do a little victory dance.
After they both toweled off, Luke started to walk away from Sam, doing the forced-casual thing Gabi’d learned was sort of his MO. But Sam grabbed his arm before he took two steps.
“Luke?”
“Yeah, mermaid?”
Sam smiled. “Thanks for helping me.”
“Eh, it was nothing.” Luke shrugged. “You helped yourself. You had it in you all along. I just watched.”
Oliver touched Gabi’s shoulder as he turned to go. “Told you.”
She's Got a Way Page 19
