When We Met (Hqn)

by Susan Mallery

  He took the fresh food he’d brought over to the communal kitchen area. A small generator powered a portable refrigerator. The woman there picked up her clipboard when she saw him.

  “You’re with the Acorns?” she asked.

  “That’s me.” He handed over the eggs and sausage he’d brought. The fresh fruit would keep in their site.

  He made two more trips and brought down the rest of his gear. As he was locking up his SUV, Taryn pulled in next to him. When she stepped out of her car he saw she’d dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. She had her hair pulled back in a braid and even wore sensible hiking boots.

  “Don’t look so surprised,” she said, slapping his arm. “I know how to dress for the occasion.”

  He peered at her. “You’re not wearing any makeup.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I know. Sunscreen only. I didn’t think I could take it off tonight and reapply that easily so I’m going natural. Don’t get used to it. Next time you see me, I’ll be back in heels and mascara.”

  “If only that was all you were wearing,” he murmured.

  Her mouth curved up in a slow smile. “We might be able to negotiate that.”

  Which was one of the things he liked about her, he thought as she opened her trunk. She came to their relationship as his equal. She was willing to take him on and win. She was smart, sexy and unexpectedly charming. Just when he’d thought things couldn’t get better, she’d taken care of him when he was haunted by missing his kid. She was a hell of a woman. Different from Marie, but amazing in her own way.

  She hauled a huge backpack out of her trunk and slung it over her shoulders. Angel started to take it from her, but she shook her head.

  “This is the stupid thing I have to wear when we go out with Cole,” she reminded him. “If I’m going to hike for a day in it, I should be able to trudge down to the campsite. But you can carry the rest of it.”

  “The rest of it” turned out to be supplies for the weekend, but not the kind Angel had brought. The shopping bags were filled with hair clips, ribbons and glitter nail polish, several kits for making sparkly jewelry and two small bouquets of flowers.

  Angel stared at her purchases.

  “Don’t give me that ‘what were you thinking?’ look,” she told him firmly. “We’re here until four on Sunday. Do you know how long that is? Sure, there are grove activities, but there is still plenty of downtime. Do you really want eight bored girls on your hands? This stuff will keep them busy, and that’s a good thing.”

  “Okay. What about the flowers?”

  “I thought they’d look nice on the table.”

  “You’ve never been camping before, have you?”

  “No, but that’s not the point.”

  “I guess not.”

  He followed her down the trail to the lower-level campsite. At the bottom, Taryn waited for him to point out where their grove had been assigned. She let her backpack slide off onto the ground.

  “It’s nice,” she said, looking at the trees, then up at the sky. “It’s been clouding up all day. I hope it doesn’t rain.”

  “Your tent is waterproof.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t care. Having it rain would really mess up the weekend. The outdoor activities wouldn’t be as fun and my hair would frizz.”

  Angel laughed, then pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “Dammit, Taryn, how do you do that?”

  She looked up at him. “Do what?”

  “Constantly surprise me.”

  She smiled. “It’s a gift.”

  He stared into her eyes. He wanted her, but there was something else. An emotion that made him want to say...

  He released her and stepped back. No getting involved, he reminded himself. He couldn’t. Or maybe it was better to say he wouldn’t.

  “Angel! Taryn!”

  They turned and saw Kate and Regan hurrying down the trail. Their parents were behind them and laden with camping gear. Over the next half hour the rest of the girls arrived. Allison’s father hovered, as if he wanted to step in and help. Taryn walked over to him.

  “She’ll be fine,” Taryn told him. “You’re just a few hundred feet away. If she needs you, she’ll come get you.”

  The man nodded. “Yeah, I know. But this is her first campout. I don’t want her getting scared.”

  Taryn murmured something Angel couldn’t hear and Allison’s dad reluctantly left.

  “What’d you say to him?” he asked when she returned to his side.

  “That she might be embarrassed by having him here. She wouldn’t want her friends calling her a baby.”

  “Shame as parental control. Interesting.”

  She smiled. “Allison’s a great kid. He should trust her to be okay.” She glanced around at their camp area and then at all the tents piled up. “Do you have a plan for all this?”

  Angel looked from the tents to the eight girls watching him. Taryn was right—he needed a plan. He stood and put his hands on his hips. “All right, Acorns. Line up.”

  The girls looked at each other, then at him. They slowly got in a semistraight line.

  He frowned. “I said line up.” He raised his voice slightly with the last two words.

  Chloe started to giggle but straightened her part of the line. The other girls did the same and all of them grinned at him.

  “Better,” he told them. “We’re going to pitch tents. We’ll all work on every tent so you have a clear understanding of how they’re the same and how they’re different.”

  Chloe’s eyes brightened. “For our camping bead.”

  “That’s right, Acorn.”

  Chloe giggled. “You sound like you’re in the army.”

  “I used to be. Now, which tent is first?”

  They picked a tent and went to work. Ten people working on a tent that slept two was problematic, but they got through it. They rotated through jobs on the tents. Each of the girls got to practice sliding together poles and hammering in stakes. By the end of the exercise, they’d put up his tent without any help, then the eight of them crowded inside and collapsed in mock exhaustion.

  By six they were all lined up for dinner. Taryn stood next to him.

  “Our group is serving breakfast, right?” she asked.

  “Sunday morning. I brought eggs and sausage. They’re in the refrigerator.” Each grove was responsible for a meal. The Acorns had the second breakfast. It was going to be easy work, he thought. The girls could cook the scrambled eggs and sausages while he and Taryn supervised.

  “Good. I’m having Danish delivered,” Taryn said.

  Angel raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t that cheating?”

  “It’s Danish. I don’t think anyone is going to complain. To make sure, the delivery includes lattes for all the adults.”

  “Sneaky,” he murmured in her ear.

  “I try.”

  They waited while their girls served themselves from the buffet of burgers and salad, then joined the others in the communal dining area. After dinner, there was a quick cleanup, then Denise Hendrix started with announcements that included the schedule for tomorrow.

  There would be a nature hike followed by the knot proficiency tests. After lunch there was an hour of free time before the group listened to a lecture by an ecologist from UC Fool’s Gold. One of the fathers would then be demonstrating martial arts.

  Chloe turned to Angel. “They should have asked you to do that.”

  Layla nodded. “You could so kick his butt.”

  Angel appreciated the support but knew it was important to have unit solidarity. “You haven’t seen the other guy,” he said.

  “We don’t have to,” Chloe told him.

  The other girls nodded.

  “You’re our hero,” Taryn said, her voice teasing.

  Angel cleared his throat and motioned for them to pay attention to the rest of the announcements. While he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, he appreciated their faith in him. He was proud of his girls and pleased
they were proud of him.

  After the announcements, they went to sit by the big fire pit. Large logs surrounded the stone-ringed pit. Denise pulled a name from a box. The FWM girl called got to light the bonfire.

  It didn’t take long for the kindling to catch. The sun was setting as the flames reached up toward the sky. One of the Grove Keepers brought out her guitar and began to play. Taryn nudged Angel.

  “Turn,” she said, pointing to Regan, who sat next to him.

  “What?”

  “You and I are going to sit back-to-back.”

  He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he did as she requested. Regan shifted so her back was to him, as did the girl in front of her and so on until four of the Acorns sat with their backs to him and four sat with their back to Taryn.

  Taryn handed him four small rubber bands. “You’re going to French-braid Regan’s hair while she does Allison’s and so on.”

  “Seriously?”

  “It’s our thing,” she told him. “Go with it.”

  He dutifully finger-combed Regan’s hair, then separated the strands on her crown into three sections. He worked easily now, not having to think about what he was doing.

  Back when he’d first agreed to be a Grove Keeper, he’d been disconcerted to discover he would be working with girls. Now that he’d been with them nearly two months, he was pleased with the assignment. They brought something special to his life, and he hoped he did the same for them.

  His initial plan had been to resign as their Grove Keeper at the end of the first year, but he was rethinking that. He wanted to see what would happen when they were Sprouts. It seemed that Mayor Marsha had known what she was doing.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  TARYN WAS ENJOYING the storytelling part of the evening right up until it started to rain. At first there was just a light mist, but that quickly turned into something steadier.

  “Tell me again why we love camping?” she asked Angel as they led the girls back to their tents.

  “This’ll pass. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll be dry in your tent.”

  “Famous last words,” she murmured before turning her attention to the girls. “Okay, let’s get our toothbrushes and toothpaste and head to the bathroom. We’ll get ready for bed, then all pile into Angel’s tent until we’re sleepy.”

  He looked at her. “Why my tent?”

  “Because you’re our Grove Keeper. Where else would we go?”

  One corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re paying me back because your hair is going to frizz, aren’t you?”

  “Something like that.”

  The girls dove into their tents and collected what they needed and then all trooped off to the bathroom. The other campers were there, so there was a line for the toilets and the sinks, but eventually they were all done with their evening ablutions.

  Taryn went into her tent and zipped it closed. Angel had insisted they take the time to tuck the edges of their tarps under so that any rain would roll down to the ground rather than under the tent. At the time his concern had seemed silly, but now she appreciated his thoroughness. She wasn’t all that interested in getting soaked in her sleep.

  She hadn’t brought a lot of clothes. Clean underwear and socks, a shirt for each day and a spare pair of jeans. For pajamas, she’d chosen yoga pants and a soft T-shirt. At home she favored sleep shirts but figured in a group camping situation she should make sure she was a little more covered up.

  Undressing in the tent was harder than she would have thought. There wasn’t a lot of headroom, so she was forced to sit on her sleeping bag, which was set on top of an air mattress. Concerned about providing some kind of shadow show on the side of the tent, she flicked off her flashlight and changed in the dark. Only it was really dark and she couldn’t see what she was doing.

  “Someone needs to explain to me what about this is fun,” she muttered as she pulled on her yoga pants.

  She decided that the T-shirt she was wearing would be fine for the night and that she would take off her bra later. She turned on her flashlight and unzipped her tent, then crawled out.

  The rain had turned steadier and the temperature had dropped a few degrees. She shivered as she ran to Angel’s tent.

  The other girls were all there, except for Olivia, who came in a few seconds later. They huddled together, holding flashlights and looking expectantly at Angel. Taryn tried not to do the same, but it was difficult. He was the only one with camping experience.

  “We’re going to tell stories,” he said when they were settled.

  “Scary ones?” Taryn asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with eight little girls who were too frightened to sleep.

  “Can they be scary?” Charlotte’s eyes widened. “Really scary?”

  Some of the girls murmured in agreement, but a few of the others didn’t look as excited at the prospect.

  “Not scary,” he told them. “I’ll start. Once upon a time there was a lonely bunny.”

  “I know this one,” Regan told him. “My mom read me all the Lonely Bunny books when I was little. Lonely Bunny Finds a Friend, Lonely Bunny Takes a Trip. Lonely Bunny and the Severed Hand.”

  Taryn tensed. “What? There’s a children’s book about a severed hand?”

  Regan giggled. “No, I was kidding about that.”

  “Good to know,” Taryn murmured, even as she wondered how Angel knew about the Lonely Bunny books at all. Had he read them to his son, years ago? A question she would wait to ask, she thought, then realized the rain had gotten a lot harder. It pounded on the tent like a drum. So far it wasn’t seeping through the fabric, but wasn’t that going to happen eventually?

  Before she could ask Angel, one of the other Grove Keepers unzipped the front of the tent.

  “We just checked the weather,” the woman said. “It’s going to be raining all night. The front that was supposed to go north of us has dropped south and parked overhead. Apparently it’s been pouring up in the mountains for hours.”

  * * *

  “WHERE IN THE MOUNTAINS?” Angel asked, careful to keep his voice calm. Because the stream in the campsite was fed from mountain runoff. Depending on where the rain was falling, the stream would start to rise. The question was how fast that would happen.

  The other Grove Keeper shrugged. “I’m not sure. East of us. We’re thinking we should pack up the girls and get them home.”

  Angel hesitated. Weather was a part of camping, and learning to deal with the elements would be good practice. On the other hand, his girls were young and for most of them, this was their first experience camping. He didn’t want the rain to be the only thing they remembered.

  He looked at Taryn, who shrugged. “I can argue both sides,” she told him. “Yes, it would be nice if the weather were better, but that will never be a guarantee.”

  The girls listened but didn’t offer an opinion.

  The other Grove Keeper said, “I’ll talk to the rest of the groves and see what they have to say. Then we’ll make a group decision.”

  “Works for me,” Angel said.

  The woman stood and started to pull the zipper closed. As she did, there was a scream from another part of the camp.

  Angel was through the opening and shifting the other Grove Keeper aside before the sound had finished echoing off the trees. He’d left on his boots, so he moved easily over the wet terrain. The rain soaked through his shirt and stung his eyes as he searched through the darkness to find the source of the problem.

  “It’s rising! It’s rising fast.”

  He headed toward the woman yelling. Other Grove Keepers and a few of the older girls joined him. He found two women standing by the benches were they’d eaten dinner a few hours before. Only what had been an open area and a gentle slope down to a stream was now a rapidly flowing and quickly rising river.

  “I don’t understand,” one of the women said.

  “It’s a flash flood,” he said flatly, remembering the mention of rain in the mounta
ins. “Combined with snowmelt. It’s coming up fast. We have to get out of here.” The other three stared at him. “Now!” he added in a loud voice. “Get your groves and get back to your cars. Keep a head count. Don’t leave anyone behind.”

  Aware of his girls waiting for him, he went from campsite to campsite and got everyone else. Some of the girls grabbed gear; others simply started running for the trail. He circled back to his tent and found Taryn waiting in the rain. Water dripped down her face and she was shivering.

  “The stream is rising,” he told her. “There’s a flash flood coming through. Get the girls and head for the trail. You’ll be safe once you reach the cars.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Check that everyone else got out, then join you by the cars.” He grabbed her upper arms. “Do a head count when you get there.”

  She nodded.

  He squatted down and opened the tent flap. Eight pairs of eyes stared at him.

  “There’s a flash flood,” he told them. “We’re getting out now. Taryn is going to lead you up the trail while I check to make sure all the other girls got out. Everybody pair up. You leave in pairs and you arrive in pairs. No one gets left behind.”

  He felt their fear. In his head, a voice kept reminding him that while he could save the world, he hadn’t been able to protect his own. That these girls were just like Marcus, and Marcus was dead.

  “You’re ready for this,” he told them gently. “I have faith in you. We’ll meet at the top by the cars. Everybody ready?”

  They nodded solemnly.

  Angel waited until they were all out of the tent, then pulled the poles so it collapsed. He would do the same with the other tents, the easiest way to make sure no one snuck back inside to hide. He made sure Taryn knew the way up to the parking lot and then went back toward the swirling water.

  He’d been gone less than ten minutes, but in that time, the water had risen at least six feet. Several of the tents were already half underwater by the time he reached the lowest campsites. The roar of the water echoed off the mountains.

  He waded through icy runoff, ignoring the cold clutching at his midsection. He checked each of the tents, then hurried up to the next site.