by BETH KERY
Thad looked like he was going to defend himself, but then just shrugged. “If it wasn’t for Dave riding me constantly in high school to study, I’d probably have ended up as a fisherman instead of being here with all of you guys. Forget that. I’d just be a bum in a boat,” Thad amended, his eyes gleaming humorously as he glanced at Alice. “I suck at catching fish.”
Alice laughed.
“As if,” Brooke said, automatically dismissing Thad’s joking modesty. She glared briefly at Alice, and then gave Dave a sidelong, assessing glance before she swung her attention back wholesale to Thad. Alice wasn’t surprised to learn that she wasn’t the only one Brooke found wanting. Even Tory had seemingly become invisible with Thad present.
“Here comes Sebastian Kehoe,” Dave told Tory and her quietly under his breath after they’d chatted for a few more minutes.
Alice glanced in the direction Dave was looking, curious and a little anxious to meet Durand’s vice president of human resources. Kehoe’s position was so significant to the company that he actually sat on the Durand board—another example of Durand’s almost obsessive commitment to hiring and developing top-notch managers. The other counselors would have met Kehoe during their interviews. Alice was the exception. Yet another reason she felt like she was beginning two steps behind the starting line.
Sebastian Kehoe was her boss for the next four weeks. If she didn’t pass muster with him, there was no way she’d ever be considered for a position at Durand. Kehoe’s salt-and-pepper hair placed him in his early fifties, but he appeared younger because of a relatively unlined face, a tall, lanky frame, expensive-looking outdoor clothing, and a vigorous spring to his step. He gave the impression of being fit and energetic, but in a neat, meticulous kind of way. Alice figured he was the type to never waver from his high-protein, low-carb diet and daily, ritualistic workouts.
“Brooke, Tory, wonderful to see you. Welcome to Camp Durand,” Kehoe called, stepping up and shaking hands. “And this must be Alice Reed.”
“Yes, sir, it’s nice to finally meet you in person,” Alice said, shaking his hand. She’d only spoken on the phone with him briefly, when he’d called to offer her a position at Camp Durand.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know you better,” Kehoe said in a friendly fashion, but Alice noticed his assessing, curious glance. “It’s unprecedented for me to not be more familiar with the recruits. Mr. Fall spoke so highly of you, though, I knew you’d fit right in.”
His words seemed to vibrate and swirl in the gusty air that surrounded all of them, perhaps because the opposite of Kehoe’s statement seemed glaringly obvious to everyone, including Alice.
“You know Dylan Fall?” Thad asked her, amazement edging his tone.
“No,” Alice assured quickly. She gave Kehoe an anxious glance. Kehoe’s gaze was on her bare legs, but quickly leapt up to her face. He’s trying to figure out why in the hell Fall vouched for you. A spike of irritation went through her when she realized Kehoe thought it might have to do with her legs … or any other part of her body aside from her brain. “I mean, yes,” she fumbled. “Mr. Fall interviewed me for the Camp Durand position.”
Dave whistled softly, as if impressed. Brooke looked mutinous.
“Call me Sebastian, please, Alice,” Kehoe said a little sharply. Had he noticed Dave’s whistle and Thad’s awed tone at the mention of Dylan Fall? Alice had the impression their unguarded admiration for Fall annoyed him. “And you and I will have plenty of opportunity to get to know one another here. All of us will. By the end of training and camp itself, you’ll know each other as well as your closest friends and even some family members. Maybe better. The cohort of Camp Durand managers we hire every year remain close-knit for lifetimes, all because of what happens here on this shore and in these woods,” Kehoe said.
Alice forced her face into a polite, interested expression. Somehow, when Kehoe talked about Camp Durand, it reminded her of the processing for a cult. Dylan Fall may have been infuriatingly confident, but he’d never given her that particular impression of Camp Durand or Durand Enterprises. Fall was too blatantly individual to ever be remotely considered a company drone.
“Are you two having trouble with the sign?” Kehoe asked.
“Only because we were hanging it against the wind. Alice was kind enough to point out our idiocy and told us to hang it in an east-west direction,” Thad said, seeming to find his own stupidity on the subject funny. Alice liked him even better for it.
“The wind has been unusually bad since yesterday,” Kehoe conceded. “That’s why we hadn’t gotten the banner up for your arrivals. There’ll be plenty of time to hang it this week before the kids get here. We always put the welcome sign between those two trees, so that the campers can see it from the second they arrive. It’s a Camp Durand tradition,” Kehoe said, trumping Alice’s banner hanging advice single-handedly. Like it matters, she told herself disgustedly. She really needed to get over the idea that she didn’t belong there. She had the qualifications and she’d been hired for the job, fair and square. And perhaps most importantly, starting today she was being paid a heretofore-unimagined amount of money.
For that salary and the possibility of an even larger one in the future, she could get over a lot.
Thad and Dave started to roll up the vinyl banner. Alice stepped forward to assist by taking the hammers they both clutched.
“Let’s get up to the lodge so that I can make introductions and we can have lunch. The ten other counselors are waiting for us. We have a lot of business to attend to this afternoon: getting to know one another, a tour of the camp, orientation to the training schedule, a general overview of our camp philosophy and how our classes and activities demonstrate it,” Kehoe said, as if ticking off a mental list. “Hopefully you’ve already gotten a good understanding of all that from the packet of literature I’ve sent, but now you’ll begin to see the principles put into practice. Ten Durand managers usually volunteer every year to assist me here. We have an unprecedented twelve this year, though. We find it helps to refresh employees about Durand’s origins and philanthropic directives,” Kehoe explained as Dave tucked the rolled banner beneath his arm and Thad shrugged on his shirt.
Alice glanced at Dave and read the wry message in his dark eyes.
And it never hurts to have extra Durand staff to spy on us, of course.
She suppressed a small smile, guessing his thought.
“Plus, we need to do cabin assignments. The counselors pick their roommates randomly,” Kehoe said as he started down the path and they fell into step surrounding him. “I think you’ll be pleased with the cabins, by the way. Mr. Fall had all of them renovated last fall. Even the camper team cabins are extremely luxurious.”
Alice listened, observing everyone closely as Tory asked how the children and counselors were assigned to teams.
“The returning campers are assigned to their old team color. As for the newcomers, after observing all of you this week during your counselor training, and studying our staff child psychologist’s assessments about each camper’s strengths and challenges, myself and the other managers will designate the teams later this week,” Kehoe said briskly, leading them to the clearing that was in front of a handsome, modern, mountain-style lodge building. “Mr. Fall himself will be giving you your list of campers and file folders, as well as designating your team color at the dinner up at the castle on the last night of your training.”
Alice knew from the literature she’d received that the teams engaged in a friendly competition that culminated at the end of camp. Every child and team was rewarded and commended for something meaningful without exception, but the awarding of the Camp Durand Team Championship trophy was a special event. Each team could acquire points that were either earned straight out—say, by the winning of a competition or achievement of some team goal—or they might gain merit points awarded by Kehoe and/or other managers based on individual character growth and excellence.
She would have
thought the whole thing sounded a little too rigid and militaristic for her liking if it weren’t for the photos she’d seen of kids of various ages grinning away while they played water polo, piloted sailboats, rode on horseback, or painted on easels set up on the white sand beach. The informational packet Kehoe had sent her had made one theme crystal clear: The Durand counselors were expected to give these kids the time of their lives. Whatever happened at Camp Durand had to be wonderful, because the experience was meant to expand the impoverished children’s horizons, to encourage them to hunger for more, to expect good things of themselves, other people, and life in general.
An organization with that primary goal couldn’t be so bad, could it?
She felt a tickle on her right cheek and turned to see Brooke studying her as they walked up the lodge steps, her eyelids narrowed. Alice straightened her spine and cast her eyes forward. Might as well face it. Brooke Seifert was going to do her damndest to make sure that Alice was one of the first counselors to be checked off the Durand employee list.
And out of pure stubbornness, Alice was just as determined to see Brooke fail in that task.
“Just out of curiosity, what’s the dress for the dinner at the castle, Sebastian?” Brooke asked.
“Semiformal attire.”
Brooke shot a triumphant glance at Alice as they all started to file through the lodge’s front doors. Despite her determination, Alice felt herself wilting. Brooke had known she wouldn’t have anything “semiformal” in her grubby duffel bag.
Certainly not one thing suitable to wear to the prince’s castle perched atop the hill.
THE weeklong training flew by in a flurry of activities, challenges, and meetings. Every counselor was expected to complete every activity in which they’d lead the campers. In addition, they had to then learn how to instruct the campers in the various tasks safely and with psychological acumen.
Alice excelled in almost anything that involved strategy, physical strength, thinking out of the box, mental and physical endurance, and most aspects of teamwork. She knew right away—and realized with a sinking feeling that Sebastian Kehoe and the various managers recognized, too—that she had significant challenges when it came to basic knowledge of some activities, such as nutrition and cooking class, public speaking, or artistic expression.
And her most gaping shortcoming? Trust of her peers. Trust in any of the Camp Durand process. Part of her loved being in the gorgeous outdoor setting, testing her personal strength, playing games, and bonding with some of her fellow counselors.
Another part remained observant, but aloof. Wary. She got along especially well with Dave Epstein because they had that quality in common. Thad became another quick friend, but Thad was just too nice of a guy to ever be as cynical and vaguely amused as she and Dave were by the whole process. Thad never hesitated to throw himself into the thick of things. He also never wavered on his stated plan on that first day to have fun. Alice envied and respected his ever-present drive, optimism, and energy.
Alice thought for certain they were going to send her home on the afternoon she was paired up with Brooke Seifert on a steep and treacherous zip line challenge. Why someone would ever want to leave the solid ground and zoom over the canopy of the forest while suspended on a thin wire, Alice couldn’t fathom.
In the same fashion as the campers would be handled, the counselors were paired up according to their experience. Brooke had zip-lined several times, so she was labeled the “expert.” She had the task of coaching and reassuring Alice, who was a designated “novice.”
Alice wasn’t just a novice though. What she was, was deathly afraid of heights.
As a very young child, she’d taken a bad fall and woken up in the hospital. She didn’t remember the accident—or anything at all before waking in that hospital bed. Nevertheless, ever since then, her stomach and brain had minds of their own when her feet went too far off the ground. Of course, she’d withheld all of that from Sebastian Kehoe when he’d asked them some pre-activity questions.
If thirteen-year-old campers could finish the zip line task, she could.
But Brooke reassure her? What a joke. She’d muscle through the task on her own, thank you very much.
Despite her determination, she’d been stiff with anxiety and dizzy by the time they climbed to the way-too-skinny forty-five-foot-tall wooden platform suspended over the woods. She’d held her own, though. Until …
“Look at that,” Brooke said under her breath while Jessica Moder, their assigned Durand manager, had turned away to adjust their equipment. Alice instinctively glanced where Brooke pointed, vertigo hitting her like a tidal wave when she stared directly down at the forest floor. Far below, she blurrily registered Sebastian Kehoe talking tensely and gesticulating to a tall Durand manager with a military-style haircut and a face like it was carved from a rock. A cold sweat broke over Alice. The canopy of leaves blurred in her vision, and she barely managed to jerk her gaze off the horrible drop to the forest floor.
“That manager, Sal Rigo, is a creep,” Brooke muttered under her breath. “It looks like Kehoe is giving him hell for always slinking off from his assigned post. He deserves it.” Brooke turned to smile brightly at Jessica, who now was approaching them with a harness.
“I was telling Alice that I was a little nervous the first time around, but once I was airborne, it was too fantastic,” Brooke told Jessica enthusiastically. Her chattiness diverted Jessica from noticing Alice’s pallor and struggle to keep down the contents of her lunch, but that was just happenstance. Alice knew perfectly well Brooke had tricked her. She’d been an idiot to listen to her and look down over the edge of the platform.
Alice went first, Brooke’s saccharine reassurances for her safety bouncing right off her. What did she care about Brooke or her stupid platitudes when she was harnessed to this death contraption?
“Are you ready, Alice?” Jessica asked gently.
“As I’ll ever be,” Alice replied grimly. She held her breath.
Then she was sailing past the lush green treetops, her stomach seemingly left behind with Jessica and Brooke on the platform. A yawning vacuum had taken its place in her gut. She was positive she was going to drop to her death at any moment, but hated that prospect less than the idea of showing weakness in front of Brooke or any of the Durand managers.
She vaguely recognized Thad Schaefer’s smiling face at the next platform, but was too blank with terror to put a name to the other people waiting for her with outstretched arms.
They helped her unharness, but Alice was having trouble decoding the enthusiastic, encouraging comments people were making. The only thing she was sure of in a muzzy sort of way was that the task was done, and she’d survived. All she wanted now was to be alone. No one seemed to realize that her legs were barely holding her up and the edges of her vision were black. She didn’t really come back to herself even partially until she was back on the ground.
“Alice?” she heard Thad call out to her as she hurried down the trail in the general direction of the cabins.
“I’m going to head back to the cabin and take a shower before dinner,” Alice called back to him where he stood on the bottom steps of the platform. Thad nodded, but from the look on his face, he was a little suspicious. She waved in a friendly, reassuring fashion and resumed walking.
She was desperate to get away from them, as wild to be alone as an injured animal.
Five minutes later, Thad found her off the main trail in a small clearing in the woods, throwing up at the base of an oak tree.
Or finishing throwing up, anyway. By the time she felt his hand on her back, and she looked around, startled, almost everything in her stomach was long gone.
“Oh God,” she mumbled miserably when she saw him standing there, his brows slanted, his green eyes concerned. She wiped her mouth and straightened, stalking hastily away from the tree and heading aimlessly into the forest. Where could she go in this godforsaken place where she could be fucking alone? Couldn�
�t she even throw up without a Durand manager nearby tallying the contents of her stomach in a notebook, or worse yet, a gorgeous guy watching every disgusting moment?
“Alice,” Thad said tensely from behind her.
She just kept walking, barely keeping her head above a dizzying sea of mortification. Unfortunately, she was moving too fast for her rubbery legs and dazed state.
“Wait, Alice,” Thad implored, and she could tell by the proximity of his voice and the crunch of the brush under his feet he was jogging to reach her. He grabbed her hand. She whipped around at the physical restraint, ready to lay into him. He was closer than she thought. He slammed into her, and Alice’s legs buckled.
She fell hard on her butt in the tall grass.
For a few seconds, she just sat there, the meadow flowers and grass tickling her bare legs, the shock of the impact vibrating her brain.
“God, I’m sorry,” Thad said, dropping down on his knees heavily in the grass next to her. He touched her back. “Alice? Are you okay?”
She brought him into focus. Strangely, the harsh shock of the fall had cleared her head. His burnished blond hair glistened in the sunlight. His already deep tan had grown a shade or two darker being outdoors almost constantly for the past few days. He looked like a young, golden nature god with the lush, verdant foliage surrounding him. He squinted at her worriedly, turning his green eyes into emerald slits.
“Of course I’m not okay,” she said irritably. “I just fell on my ass. Hard. And didn’t anyone ever tell you it was rude to watch someone throwing up?”
“I’m sorry. I was looking for you and I just happened to come upon you while—Alice, are you going to be okay?”
The full extent of his worry fully penetrated her awareness. She grimaced. “Yes. I’m fine,” she mumbled. “Aside from the fact that I could have done without you seeing that.”
He slumped onto the ground next to her, his thigh near her hip, his arm planted behind her. She looked at him warily. The clearing where they sat was cast in part sunlight, part shade from the surrounding trees. He flipped open a button on one of the pockets on his longish cargo shorts and silently handed her a bottle of water.
