“Are you okay?” Aubrey rushed over and helped her up.
She was so embarrassed. She blamed her old flip-flops and crawled away from the window while pulling them off her feet, and she tossed them toward the front door. Then she snuggled on the sofa and relaxed back against the cushions, wondering what the three men were doing there. Prospective employees? Lord knows they needed them.
She told Aubrey that her feet and back were hurting from the long day she’d had and that she just needed a rest.
Of course, Aubrey used that moment to get on the walkie-talkie that each of them carried around.
“Zoey, whoever they are, deal with them. I’m stuck helping Hannah for the next hour.” She flipped off the radio and tucked it in her back pocket.
“Liar.” Elle narrowed her eyes at her friend.
Aubrey shrugged and glanced out the window one last time. “No, it’s true. I’m supposed to meet Hannah”—she glanced at her watch—“later. I’d pay a million dollars, if I had it, to be a fly on the wall and watch Zoey deal with them.” A sigh filled the room. “Besides, I’m not ready to handle more potential employees. Not at the going pay rate they’re requesting anyway. I’ve interviewed so many people in the past weeks I’m pretty sure time is stuck in a loop and I’m in my own Groundhog Day hell interviewing people for the rest of time.”
Elle knew the feeling. She herself had compared the last three weeks to her own version of repeating hell. The first wave of prospective employees had elated her. Then, after a dozen or so interviews, she’d been over the entire experience.
“Maybe these three will be the last for a while,” Aubrey said, walking away from the window.
“I doubt it. We still need”—she thought over the list in her head and groaned—“more. But, for now, they may have to do if they’re cheap enough. I’m beginning to feel as if potential employees should walk in with price tags on their foreheads so we can cut all the bull out and just tell them we can’t afford to hire them. As it is, we already have several employees filling different roles.”
“Including us.” Aubrey sat across from her. “Not that I’m complaining.” She held up her hands. “Being the director of counselors, as well as teaching tai chi and judo, is far better than being someone’s secretary.” She shivered.
“Still,” Elle said, “you were working for your father.”
“Even more reason to stay here,” Aubrey finished.
“I thought things were going better between you two?”
Just then Hannah strolled in. She tossed a large backpack down at the door, flung herself down next to Aubrey, and closed her eyes.
“That bad?” Elle asked as Hannah toed off her tennis shoes. The fact that Hannah was covered in mud sent both Aubrey’s and Elle’s eyebrows skyward.
“Worse.” She moaned. “How many days left before we open our doors?”
“Twenty-eight days, nine hours, and”—Elle glanced at her watch and calculated quickly—“twenty-two minutes.”
Hannah groaned. “Do you think it will get better?”
“God! I hope so,” Aubrey said. “My feet, my back, and my butt hurt.”
Elle glanced over at her. “Your . . . butt?”
“I fell off of Jack yesterday,” she answered, rubbing the spot. Jack was one of the seven horses they had purchased to fill the stables.
“Fell off or were bucked off?” Elle asked, already worrying that one of the older horses they had sprung for wasn’t going to cut it.
“Fell,” Aubrey insisted. “I’m not really up to speed on riding. It’s more of Zoey and Scarlett’s specialty, remember?”
“Right.” She relaxed back.
“Besides, Carter assured me it was a . . . How did he put it? ‘A rider error, not a horse one.’ Who wants wine?” She got up and went to the fridge to pull out a bottle. All five of them occupied the three-bedroom apartment her grandfather had lived in during most of the summer months while he ran the summer camp.
“Don’t you feel any remorse?” Elle asked Aubrey when she handed her a full plastic glass of red wine.
“For?” she asked, her red eyebrows going up slightly.
“Leaving Zoey with the three hunks?” she answered.
“Hunks?” Hannah’s eyes opened, and she took her glass from Aubrey.
“No,” Aubrey answered her. “Yes, three of them,” she said to Hannah. “Think different, equally hot versions of Jason Momoa.”
“Yum, we could use some eye candy around here.” Hannah sipped her wine. “Did she hire them?”
“Not sure. Aub left Zoey to deal with them all by herself. We don’t even know if they were applying for jobs.” Elle thought about it. If they weren’t, what were they doing there?
“Poor Zoey,” Hannah added dryly. “I’m sure she can handle them,” she said before leaning back again. “I’m sure she’s going to hire them. We’ve all been lacking in the sex area.”
“Speak for yourself,” Aubrey chimed in, causing Elle and Hannah to turn to her.
“Who have you been sexing up with lately?” Elle asked her.
Aubrey shook her head. “This one guy named Noneya,” she said with a smile. “None ya business.”
“Spill.” Elle set her glass down. Normally, when one of them hooked up, it was blatantly obvious by the glow she had.
Still, as Elle ran her eyes over her friend’s face, she could tell Aubrey had been holding something back.
“Don’t waste your time,” Aub said and got up. “I’m going to run downstairs and see if Zoey needs my help.” The fact that she left the room without another word reaffirmed she really wasn’t going to talk about her sex life. Yet.
“Fine.” Elle leaned back and frowned at the apartment door. “So, at least we know it can happen here. I mean, we’ve been here for a year, working full time with hardly any time off . . .” Her mind whirled. “Do you think it’s Carter?” she asked Hannah.
“Dean?” Hannah speculated quickly.
“It can’t be Brent. He’s married,” Elle added, thinking of the head waiter their celebrity chef, Isaac Andrews, had personally hired. “Besides, we’re the wrong gender.” She sighed, thinking of all the other employees they had hired in the past few weeks. “It has to be an employee. I mean, there’s no one else around.”
“Do you think that it’s a long-distance thing?” she started to suggest, but just then Scarlett walked in, picked up the bottle of wine, and downed several gulps. Then used the back of her sleeve to wipe her face.
“Rough day, honey?” Hannah asked softly.
“I hate him.” She groaned and flopped down on the sofa beside Elle.
“Who?” the two of them asked at the same time.
“Levi. Who else?”
Hannah and Elle turned to one another and said “Levi” at the same time.
“Naw, he’s not Aubrey’s type. Besides, are redheads attracted to one another?”
“What are you talking about?” Scarlett broke in and then took another swig of the wine like a pirate downing rum.
Levi was one of their first official hires. Elle had known her fellow local all her life. She’d attended school with him since she’d moved in with her grandfather.
Levi had been one of the only people in her grade she could remember being nice to her. Hence her hiring him on the spot when he’d pulled into the camp shortly after they began the renovations.
She had hired several locals to help with the renovations, including Aiden Stark, her second cousin, fresh from college with a degree in architecture.
Aiden’s grandmother (Nancy) and Grandpa Joe were brother and sister. Nancy had died shortly after she’d given birth to Aiden’s father.
Aiden was a couple of years older than Elle, and shortly after she’d moved in with Joe, Aiden had come to her defense during a football game. He’d lent her his jacket after someone had spilled a soda on her white shorts on purpose. He’d told her that she was his cousin and that he’d been keeping an eye out for her.
When she’d talked to him about the project, he’d jumped at the chance to work with her, and she’d immediately hired him to oversee the entire camp’s construction.
The fact that Scarlett and Levi were butting heads threw her off. Levi was one of the nicest guys she’d ever met. He lived a few miles away with his grandmother, who had raised him ever since his mother had become addicted to drugs when he was born. She’d died of an overdose shortly after his seventh birthday—taking with her the secret of who had fathered Levi.
“What have you done?” Elle asked. She knew Scarlett too well to assume it was something Levi had done.
Her friend’s eyes narrowed. “Why is it always my fault?”
The entire room went silent; then all at once, everyone burst into laughter.
“Fine.” Scar threw up her hands. “I simply asked him to help me move some logs.”
“Asked or demanded?” Hannah asked.
“Asked,” Scar said in a tone that made it clear she was pissed. “I mean, what’s the point of hiring muscle around here if we can’t utilize it?”
“What logs?” Elle asked.
“The ones by the old barn,” Scar answered.
“What?” Elle sat up. “Scar, those must weigh a ton each.” Some of the logs were actually full trees that had been chopped down by Aiden’s team when they were clearing the forest of anything that could possibly fall in a strong windstorm. They had plans to cut them up into smaller chunks and use them for firewood in a few of the cabins that had fireplaces. “You can’t expect him to move those himself.”
“I didn’t,” Scar said, taking another sip of the wine bottle. “Just the smaller ones. But he wanted to argue, and, well . . .” Her shoulders slumped. “Things got heated.”
Hannah chuckled. “I’ll deal with him and explain tomorrow.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s my mess. I’ll . . . go now.” She got up but stopped when Zoey walked in, followed by Aubrey. The look in Zoey’s eyes matched those of her sister’s less than five minutes before.
“Oh no, who pissed you off?” Scar asked.
Zoey’s eyes moved around the room. “I hope you’re happy.”
Elle glanced around and then pointed her thumb at her chest. “Me? What did I do?”
“Both of you.” Zoey pointed to her and Aubrey, who had sat back down on the chair in the corner. “You left me alone to deal with Thor and his brothers.”
“Who are we talking about?” Scar asked, sitting back down and handing her sister the half-empty wine bottle.
“But I was running a search online for the brothers—Owen, Dylan, and Liam Rhodes,” Aubrey said.
“Yeah, and you left me alone with them.” Zoey started pacing, hugging the wine bottle to her chest.
“Oooo-kay,” Elle said slowly, but Zoey was on a roll.
“There was nothing in the system about them. What were they? Jerks?” Aubrey said.
“No, it’s just . . .” Zoey bit her bottom lip. “How was I supposed to say no to them?”
“So . . .” Elle started, looking around the room. “You did hire them? Right?”
“Of course: I offered them the jobs, and they agreed to do multiple jobs around here for chicken-scratch pay. But”—Zoey wagged her finger—“whatever happens, it’s all your fault.”
CHAPTER TWO
Twenty days later . . .
It wasn’t long after the brothers had moved into a bunk room on the second floor that Elle spotted them on the security cameras sneaking around the campgrounds at night.
Her first thought was to approach them; then she mentioned it to Zoey, who had an idea to watch them closely. Since it was coming down to the wire as they prepped for opening, she couldn’t afford to lose three new employees—not at what they had agreed to be paid anyway. So they voted to wait.
For several nights, the five friends were glued to the computer screen watching the brothers move around the grounds like spies.
“They’re looking for something specific,” Zoey said one night. “But what?”
“We can’t afford to fire them,” Elle said, biting her bottom lip and thinking about the budget she’d gone over earlier that day. They would have just enough to get them through the first few months, if she watched their budget closely. “Not now. Who would we get to replace them? Besides, they’re building that slide thing.”
“Dry tube slide,” Zoey added.
“Right.” Elle nodded. She’d researched the slide after they had suggested it and figured it would be one more low-cost attraction they could add to the website. “So, what do we do?”
“Two can play at the game of spying,” Zoey suggested as she outlined a plan where they would each take a brother to watch. Zoey’s Google search had turned up too many hits to give them anything specific about the men. She had even tried different searches using some of the state-employee databases they had access to. Which hadn’t shown her anything new.
Elle sighed at that knowledge—she showed up on the first page. Most of it was about her taking over the camp, but there were several articles about her past and her parents.
Elle’s gaze tracked Liam as she thought about the plan. He was currently sidling around the boathouse, trying to look casual as he peeked inside the dark windows. “Good idea,” she said finally. “Plus it gives us some time to figure out what they’re doing here.”
“I’ll take Dylan,” Zoey said, her eyes on that part of the computer screen where he was walking around the pool house.
“Then I’ve got Liam,” Elle said.
“That leaves the oldest one, Owen,” Scar chimed in, looking over at Hannah.
“Oh no.” Hannah shook her head. “I’m not a spy.”
Aubrey chuckled. “And Elle and Zoey are?”
“Zoey is more spy than me,” Elle added with a smile, earning her a playful nudge from Zoey.
“You’ve got to do it—Aub and I are swamped,” Scar said. “Aubrey has to train everyone, and besides, I have to leave soon to help Mom move.”
Hannah sighed. “Fine, but I want it to go on record that I—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Zoey waved her away. “So, let’s talk details.”
Days later, Elle was just finishing up helping Kimberly, Zoey and Scar’s mother, move into the Wildflowers’ old cabin—the River Cabin. She was tired, covered in a thin layer of sweat and dust, and wanting a shower and bed as she walked the dark pathway toward the main building.
When she stepped off the porch, a slight movement and sound at her back caught her attention.
Deciding to play cat and mouse with whoever it was, she started down the dimly lit trail as if unaware. She smiled slightly when she heard footsteps following her.
Just around the corner, she ducked behind one of her favorite trees along the pathway and waited.
Seeing the dark figure pass by her position slowly, she jumped out, thinking it was Zoey. After all, she was trying to catch her off guard since she wanted to pay her back for the dunking she had given her earlier that day on the docks. Instead, Liam turned to face her on the pathway, smiling as if she hadn’t surprised him at all.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she turned away to hide her blush. She started marching down the path toward the main building as if she hadn’t just jumped out of the bushes.
She had caught herself mumbling whenever she spoke to him and had decided the less she talked around him, the better. So, normally she bit her bottom lip and let everyone else do the talking. But she couldn’t miss a chance to probe into their actions.
“Taking a walk,” he answered as he fell in step with her.
“You and your brothers tend to take a lot of walks.” She glanced over her shoulder at him.
“It’s the number-one mode of transportation around the campgrounds. Besides,” he started as they climbed the steps to the building, causing her to roll her eyes at his mansplaining, “it’s not a crime.”
“Is there a reason I keep finding you
in the strangest places?” Elle asked once they were just outside her office door. Now that she could see him in the light, she had to admit: he was even better looking than she’d first thought.
His long dark hair framed his face in soft curls, brushing against the few days’ stubble on his chin. Stubble that gave him a more dangerous appearance. Since the camp wasn’t officially open yet, he was in his own clothes—a dark short-sleeved shirt that highlighted arms rippled with thick muscles. She could almost feel them wrapped around her body.
“Like I said, it’s not a crime to go for a walk,” Liam said, interrupting her thoughts.
Elle tilted her head slightly and looked at him in disbelief.
“This makes it four times in the past six days that I’ve seen you sneaking around after dark.” She had kept track—after all, running into him was a highlight. Especially after a full year of being sex deprived.
“Sneaking?” Liam’s voice rose. “If you consider an evening stroll sneaking, what are you going to do when guests start arriving and milling about?”
Elle remained quiet for a moment as she took him in. Yeah, being around him caused her brain cells to shrivel up.
“Why were you out near River Cabin?” she finally asked as she headed inside, with him following.
“I saw a light,” Liam answered. “I thought someone might be messing with the place.”
Elle’s eyes narrowed, and she remembered all the demanding work she’d just done to help Kimberly move the rest of her belongings into her new home. Her hair had come loose from the braid she’d done earlier in the day. No doubt she probably looked like a dusty rat at the moment.
“No, no one is messing with the place. It’s just private,” she said.
“Someone’s living there?” Liam asked.
“Yes,” she answered quickly.
“Who?” he asked.
Elle shifted slightly, trying to figure out a way not to answer him. Coming up with nothing, she threw up her hands.
Summer Heat Page 2