“Yes, actually.” She climbed down from the ladder and was grateful to be on solid ground again. She really didn’t like heights. “I graduated from college with a degree in interior design. I’d like to open my own company someday.”
“You’ll be wonderful at it,” Charlotte assured her. “Thank you.”
“I came to tell you they’re only fifteen minutes away.
Spence just called from the road with a status update.”
“Great,” she lied, nerves crashing around in her stomach like drunken butterflies. “I had better finish up in here, then, and put away all the supplies.”
“I can help you with that.”
“You don’t have a million other things to do?”
“At this particular moment in time, no. Amazingly enough. Everything is done, as far as I know. Alex and her crew are on the way from Brazen with dinner. We’ll have the welcome reception and then dinner, then let everybody settle in after their day of traveling. Tomorrow the fun starts in earnest.”
That was a matter of perspective. “Will you be here the whole week?”
“I wish. Unfortunately, I’ve still got a store to run. Sugar Rush is crazy-busy this time of year, with everybody wanting custom orders at the last minute. I’ll be here on and off most of the week. Eden, Chelsea and Mac should have everything under control, with all the other volunteers that come and go. Plus you and Dylan, who will be here full-time.”
She hadn’t seen the man since he’d left her house the night before after that stunning kiss.
“I guess Dylan went to help with the airport pickups,” she said since his sister brought up his name. She tried to inject a casual tone into her voice, but she was afraid she failed when Charlotte flashed her an intent look.
“He wasn’t very happy about it, but yes. Spence talked him into going with him.”
What would Charlotte say if she knew about that stunning kiss—or that Genevieve fiercely wanted more? “What would you like me to do during the welcome reception?” she asked, quickly changing the subject.
“Just try to make everyone feel comfortable. That’s all. Change can be overwhelming to some of these guys, especially the few we have with head injuries, and the logistics of traveling can be stressful. The first night, we just try to relax and let them settle in, become familiar with the place, that sort of thing.”
Those nerves snarled in her stomach again. This part was easy. Hanging a few ornaments, wielding a can of spray paint, arranging some flowers.
Interacting with people who had been through hell was a different situation entirely.
On the other hand, she liked Dylan and had been able to get along fine with him, with only a few faux pas. She would just try to treat the others as she did him.
Except for the serious-crush part. Oh, and the kissing. the guests of A Warrior’s Hope arrived at the recreation center in three separate vans. Eden, in her hyperorganized way, had emailed Genevieve—and everyone else, she assumed—a list of everyone attending this eight-day-long camp, as well as photos and a quick biographical sketch and which family members they would be bringing as guests.
The two men using wheelchairs were easy to identify. One was young with blond hair and an open, freshfaced demeanor. Army Corporal Trey Evans hailed from Alabama, she knew, and had limited use of his legs after a spinal-cord injury. He was also the only warrior attending without any family members.
In quite startling contrast, the other man using a wheelchair must be Army Sergeant Joe Brooks. He was surrounded by family—a wife, Tonya, Gen remembered from the bio, who was just about the most beautiful woman Gen had ever seen in person, and two adorable girls with hair in a flurry of braids, Marisol and Claudia. One of the girls sat on his lap and the other one held her mother’s hand as they walked in beside the chair.
She knew two of the men had suffered brain injuries. They were a little harder to pick out, until she remembered one was coming with his parents. Judging by the way an older couple fussed around a tall, goodlooking man with a buzz cut, she guessed that was Marine Lance Corporal Robert Augustine and his parents, Robert Sr. and Marie.
She found the other one, Ricardo Torres, and his wife, Elena. When Eden sent his bio picture, Gen had thought he reminded her of one of her friends in Paris. Now she saw the similarity was even more pronounced. That would help her remember his name.
Lieutenant Pam Bryant was quite easy to pick out, as well. She was a pretty, compact woman with severe scarring over one side of her face who walked with a pronounced limp. Beside her was her fiancé, Kevin.
The last group to come in had to be Marine Lance Corporal Jason Reid and his wife, Whitney, who carried a little boy who was probably about three.
They were all talking together and laughing, though a few seemed tired and Jason Reid had a stony expression that discouraged conversation.
What did she have to talk about with any of these people anyway? She knew nothing of what they had endured. Feeling awkward and superfluous, she stood in one corner, trying to gather the courage to mingle.
Eden and Mac moved through the crowd, handing out appetizers, drinks, snacks for the children. Even Dylan was deep in conversation with Pam Bryant.
Etiquette and manners had been drilled into her from the time she used to go to dance class. She knew it was the height of rudeness to stand here in the corner. She had to make some kind of effort. By avoiding interactions, she likely appeared rude and snobbish, exactly how people perceived her.
What was she supposed to say to any of them? The old social nicety of seeking points of commonality seemed ludicrous under these circumstances. What could she and these battle-scarred men—and Lieutenant Bryant—who had seen and done so much, possibly have in common? It seemed ridiculous to even try making faltering conversation.
She stood shifting her weight from foot to foot, gazing out the window to avoid eye contact, wishing she were anywhere else on earth.
Finally, after about ten minutes, one of the men took the matter out of her hands.
“Hey there. What’s so interesting out there?”
She turned to find the younger man in the wheelchair had approached without her realizing. Trey Evans, she remembered. Up close, she could see he was about her age, with sun-streaked hair and quite handsome features. Not Dylan-gorgeous but enough to make most women a little flustered.
“It’s not a matter of something else being more interesting than present company. I’m just a little…out of my comfort zone.”
“Aren’t we all, darlin’.”
She had to smile at his easy charm and Southern drawl.
“You don’t like Colorado?”
“Never been here. All I can say is, you all sure know how to bring it when it comes to mountains and snow.”
“We do our best.”
He held out a hand. “I’m Trey Evans. You can probably tell I’m not from around here. I’m originally from Wetumpka, Alabama.”
She could feel herself relax. He was just a kid who had lost a great deal. She shook his hand. “Hi, Trey. I’m Gen Beaumont. Welcome to Hope’s Crossing. I hope you enjoy your stay. I’m actually from here, though I’ve been living in Paris until recently. Do you know which cabin you’re in yet?”
“No idea. Why?”
She felt stupid for asking. “I helped decorate them for the holidays last week. They all have different themes and I have a few of my favorites. I was just curious which one you would be staying in.”
“So you’re, what, the staff decorator or something?”
She could feel more tension seep away. This wasn’t so bad. She could handle small talk. “Something like that. Mostly, I do what they tell me.”
Except for the part about relaxing and making everyone feel comfortable. So far, that was a big fail on her part.
“You’re the general dogsbody, then.”
“I don’t have any idea what that means, but, um, sure.”
He laughed, taking a sip of the drink he had somehow
managed to prop on his lap when he wheeled over. “My grandpap used to call me that when I was a kid and would spend the day at his store being his grunt. Running for change to the bank, sweeping the floors, grabbing him another coffee next door. It means errand boy. Gofer. Whatever you want to call it.”
“That would be me.” Something in this young man’s casual friendliness appealed to her, maybe because it presented such a sharp contrast to Dylan’s general surly reticence. “If you want to know the truth, I’m here for court-ordered community service.”
He nearly spilled his precariously balanced drink. She saw him catch it just in time, eyes wide, though some dribbled over the lip of the cup onto his slacks. “Community service? Wow. Didn’t expect that one. Seriously?”
She scooped up a napkin from a nearby table and handed it to him. “Do I look like the kind of girl who would lie about something as embarrassing as that?”
His long scrutiny wasn’t flirtatious, only friendly, edged with a daub of sadness she didn’t quite understand given their lighthearted conversation.
“No. But I have to say, you don’t look like the kind of girl who would be here on court-ordered community service, either. What did you do? Let me guess.” He narrowed his gaze. “Shoplifting.”
“I beg your pardon.” She sniffed. She had many faults, but she considered herself an honest person in general and disliked deception in others. She’d broken an engagement over it, for heaven’s sake.
“No?” He set his drink on a table and wheeled around her adeptly, trying to see her from a different angle. “How about…tax evasion.”
“Not even close.”
Dylan had moved closer, she saw, and was now in conversation with the Augustines about six feet away. When she glanced over, she found him watching her interaction with Trey out of the corner of his gaze— quite a trick, when one eye was covered by that everpresent black eye patch.
She turned back to Trey, suddenly enjoying herself much more than she expected. “Do you want to hear the ugly truth?”
“Oh, hell yeah. Lay it on me.”
She smiled, leaned in close and tried for her best badgirl voice. “I started a bar fight and ended up busting the nose of the assistant district attorney.”
Trey laughed so hard some of the other guests looked over with curious looks—including Dylan, whose expression was far more inscrutable.
“I would have paid good money to see that.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t intend for there to ever be a repeat performance. It was purely a one-off. I learned my lesson. The next time some idiot decides to play every conceivable rendition of ‘The Little Drummer Boy’ on the jukebox of the worst dive in town, I plan to pay my tab and leave.”
He laughed again, so hard that Lieutenant Bryant and her fiancé approached.
“What’s so funny over here?” the woman asked.
“This is Gen Beaumont. She was just telling me a story about breaking a woman’s nose over Christmas carols.”
Lieutenant Bryant grinned. “Wow. Remind me not to sing ‘Jingle Bells’ around you.”
At first, Genevieve was uncomfortable looking at that scarred face that must have once been quite pretty, but after a few moments’ conversation, she relaxed, especially when the other woman commented about how much she loved her sweater and asked where she could find one.
Gen launched into a conversation about her favorite of the few shopping spots in town, which drew the attention of Tonya Brooks and Elena Torres. Before she knew it, she was offering to take the women on a shopping expedition into town if it could be arranged.
Perhaps this wasn’t such a bad way to spend her community-service hours after all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it.
While he did his best to make conversation, fighting the urge to escape to his canyon retreat with every breath, Genevieve held court in the corner. She seemed to have charmed just about everyone who had come in contact with her. Every time he turned around, the group was laughing. More often than not, Gen was in the middle of it.
He wasn’t quite sure what to think about that. He supposed he should have expected it from a socialite like her. When she put her mind to it, she could probably charm whomever she wanted.
He wasn’t sure what switch had been flipped after about the first ten minutes of the gathering, when she had stood in the corner looking awkward and immensely uncomfortable, but now she seemed relaxed and outgoing.
The more she relaxed, the more his tension escalated. For a guy who had lived as a virtual hermit for months, all this socializing left him as edgy as his chickens in a windstorm.
He was wondering how much longer he had to stay when his sister came over with a plate of appetizers she handed him.
“I haven’t seen you eating anything. You’ve got to be hungry, aren’t you?”
“Not really.”
“Eat. You’ll feel better.”
Apparently she had inherited the need to feed from their father, who was never happy unless he was cooking up something delicious. He knew she wouldn’t let up until he took the plate, so he gave in to the inevitable, even though he felt stupid propping the plate in the inside crook of his left elbow. He had worn one of the prosthetics today. While it could be useful for some tasks, holding a small appetizer plate wasn’t among them.
“Thanks for helping with all the airport pickups today. Spence said you were a great help with loading all the luggage.”
“I don’t recall being given much choice in the matter. Spence basically told me to get my ass in the van.” “You could have stayed here and helped Genevieve decorate, since you’re so good at it now.”
He glowered at her. It was a good thing he loved her.
She would be annoying as hell otherwise. Genevieve’s throaty laugh sounded from the corner, easing through him like a sultry jazz saxophone.
He turned, almost against his will, remembering the magic of having her to himself the night before, that voice soothing him.
That kiss that had left him aching and hungry. “She’s turning out to be rather a surprise, isn’t she?”
Charlotte said, following his gaze.
“Why do you say that?” he said, his voice gruff. He was really, really grateful his sister couldn’t read his mind right now.
“You know what Laura Beaumont is like,” Charlotte said with a shrug.
“Not really. I haven’t lived in Hope’s Crossing in years.”
“Don’t you remember how exacting she used to be when she would come into the restaurant when we were kids? She demanded perfection. I can remember once when I worked at the diner one summer during college, she made me fix the same Cobb salad three times. Each time, something stupid was wrong. The croutons weren’t crisp enough, the tomatoes were wilted, the onions tasted off.”
She grinned suddenly, looking young and mischievous, a rarity for a girl who had grown up too quickly after their mother’s death. “Here’s something funny. The fourth time, I just rearranged the very same salad she had just turned up her nose at and took it back to her table, and she declared it perfection, finally.”
“Oh, man. I hope Pop didn’t catch you doing that.”
“No. He would have been livid about not giving the customer what she wanted. I never did figure out how he could always be so tolerant of her fussiness.” She paused. “But then, that’s Pop for you. He’s entirely too patient when it comes to some people.”
By the pointed way she said that last part, he was guessing she meant him. True enough. He hadn’t made things easy on their father.
“Anyway,” Charlotte went on, “during the process of planning her wedding, Gen gained a reputation in town as basically being a carbon copy of her mother. Nothing was ever good enough for her. My friend Claire, who owns the bead store, was charged with hand-beading the bodice of this incredible wedding gown Genevieve ordered from a designer back East. It took months
for Genevieve to agree on the pattern and then more months for Claire to get it just right in her eyes. And then, of course, she had to do it all over again after Genevieve’s brother and some other teenagers vandalized Claire’s store and destroyed it.”
He vaguely remembered hearing something about that in connection with a tragedy that had affected the town some years ago during his second-to-last deployment.
“I’ll admit, I don’t know her well, especially since she’s been gone the last few years, but she has always struck me as someone who demands perfection,” Charlotte went on. Though she didn’t give him that same pointed look, the implication behind her words was obvious.
Perfection didn’t come in the form of a broken-down ex-soldier who could barely hold an appetizer plate.
“She’s different somehow. Not what I imagined,” Charlotte went on. “She’s worked really hard since she’s been here. She spent all day today decorating this place by herself. She even brought a lot of supplies with her, things she must have prepared ahead of time. I would never have expected that.”
He remembered their kiss the night before, her soft, eager response, the silk of her hair sliding through his fingers.
As far as he was concerned, that had been as close to perfection as anything he had known. Hot and sweet at the same time. He had been awake most of the night, staring at the flames in the fireplace and wishing things could be different.
“Can I have everyone’s attention?”
Though diminutive, Eden Davis could really project her voice. Everybody looked up, even the kids who were playing in a corner with some toys someone—probably Charlotte—had provided.
“It’s been a long day for everyone and I’m sure you would like to relax a little in your cabins for a while before dinner. Your bags should be waiting in your assigned lodging. A staff member will show you the way and help you settle in. The plan is to meet back here at seven for dinner. I promise, you’re in for a treat. One of the premier restaurants in this area is providing the meal for you tonight. Brazen is fantastic. It’s got phenomenal reviews. I know you’ll enjoy it. So we’ll see you back here just before seven. Bring an appetite. Could I have all the Hope’s Crossing staff up here for a moment?”
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