She and Caleb sat while Katherine gave a rundown of this weekend’s agenda, with an overview of the various workshops that would be conducted.
“Keep in mind that none of this is mandatory,” the psychologist explained. “You know your relationship better than anyone else, so it’s up to you to chose which program will be most beneficial. In the past we’ve had couples who decided to participate in every single workshop, while others only wanted to join in physical activities and yet others who choose to spend the entire weekend alone. Those are usually the newlyweds,” she said with a wink, garnering a laugh from the crowd.
She put up one finger. “However, I highly recommend that engaged couples participate in the activities marked with an asterisk. Our post-retreat feedback has shown that those workshops have had a tremendous impact on couples who have participated in the past.”
“Most of all, we want you to have fun,” Geoff Mumford interjected. “This is, after all, summer camp. We want you to enjoy yourselves while growing closer in your relationship. That’s what this weekend is all about.”
Katherine explained that the official start to the retreat would begin tonight with a Marshmallow Mixer at the fire pit. The couple ended the welcoming session with some marriage affirmation that Leah didn’t bother to pay attention to.
“So, are you ready to run home screaming yet?” Leah whispered to Caleb as they followed the other couples out of the conference room.
“Not yet,” he answered. “Although if at anytime we’re all asked to join hands and sing Kumbaya, I’m out of here.”
Leah’s head flew back with her laugh. “I’m right behind you.”
They walked past Birch House, which according to the map was the formal dining hall, and then past the Grub Shack, where visitors could grab a quick bite to eat.
As she breathed in the clear mountain air, some of Leah’s anxiety about this weekend began to fade. They hadn’t been here for an hour yet, and already she knew this would be better than spending the weekend at home, agonizing over her broken engagement.
They arrived at Cabin Fourteen. The lightheartedness Leah had been experiencing evaporated the moment she turned the doorknob and entered. Her eyes immediately went to the single queen bed. It sat in the middle of the sparsely, yet handsomely furnished cabin, like a living, breathing thing. It wasn’t until Leah heard Caleb clear his throat that she realized she was blocking his entry.
“Excuse me,” she said, moving inside.
Their bags had been delivered, sitting right inside the doorway. A sofa butted up against the wall. In front of it sat a rustic coffee table with a rug underneath it. That was it.
And the bed, of course.
The single, solitary bed.
Caleb stood next to her, his hands in his pockets. Leah was consciously aware of how close he stood, close enough for her to feel his body heat. It made her skin warm even more. Tension filled the air, as thick as the humidity in July.
“So,” Caleb said. “One bed.”
Leah attempted a nonchalant shrug. “I was supposed to be here with my fiancé, remember?”
“How could I forget?”
His expression remained neutral, but she wasn’t mistaken about the trace of resentment she heard in his voice.
“I…uh…” She gestured toward the couch. “I’m not sure if it’s a pullout, but it looks comfortable.”
“I guess I’ll find out tonight.” He followed that with a slight smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
“Maybe I can ask them to move us to another one,” Leah said. “The brochure shows cabins with twin beds.”
“The sofa is fine. It’s only for a few nights. I was supposed to be in a sleeping bag on the hard ground this weekend, remember?” His smile was a bit more genuine this time.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” Leah said, matching his grin.
He reached for their bags. “Here, let me take care of these.”
Leah watched as he brought their bags to their respective sleeping places, putting his on the coffee table and hers on her bed. She noticed the way the muscles in his shoulders and arms bunched. Something she was too shocked to acknowledge pulled low in her belly.
She quickly brushed off that twinge of interest she’d just experienced. She’d been engaged to another man not even twenty-four hours ago, for crying out loud.
Leah walked over to the bed and started to unzip the carry-on, intending to unpack, but the tension still suffusing the room stifled her. She needed out of here. Now.
“What do you say we leave the unpacking for later?” she asked. “The grounds here are so beautiful. I want to take a look around before dusk settles.”
“Sounds good to me,” Caleb said, dropping the T-shirt he’d been holding back into his open duffle.
They walked along the shoreline of Lake Waawaatesi, which, according to the map Heather had given them, meant firefly in the Ojibwe language.
Leah pointed to the map. “I read online that there are these waterfalls close by—”
“Let me guess? Are they called Firefly Falls?”
“Yes, Mr. Smartypants,” she said with a laugh. “There’s some kind of mythical legend of the Ojibwe tribe connected to the waterfalls. I think I may try to find them this weekend.”
“What else are you planning to do?”
She shrugged. “My itinerary was planned out from sun up to sun down, but all that’s changed now.” She exhaled a weary breath. “I haven’t had time to think about exactly what I want to do this weekend. To be honest, just getting away from the city is enough for me.”
“It is pretty nice out here,” Caleb said.
“It’s gorgeous. And do you smell this air? It’s all so clean. Rejuvenating. I wasn’t sure about this on our drive up, but now I’m happy I didn’t cancel.”
“You considered it?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. She looked over at him. “This whole thing was actually Derrick’s mother’s idea. The daughter of one of her friends attended one of Katherine and Geoff’s seminars, and she convinced Derrick that we needed to go before the wedding.”
“Yet he backed out of the trip?” Caleb huffed out a derisive laugh.
Leah was on the verge of telling him that Derrick had backed out on everything, including their engagement, but something stopped her. Not just something. She knew exactly what it was.
Humiliation.
The humiliation of getting dumped yet again still ate at her.
At the same time another feeling began to emerge.
Relief.
She was relived to not have to listen to Derrick drone on about one boring subject after another, not bothering to ask what she thought about it. The hurt and anger and humiliation were still there, but it had begun to lessen. Maybe she would actually enjoy this time away instead of just tolerating it.
She and Caleb came across a thick downed tree trunk and took a seat. The faint sound of camp goers taking advantage of the many water sports could be heard, but they were far enough from the main campgrounds that they didn’t see anyone else, save for the occasional canoe that passed by. They skimmed along the lake, creating a soft ripple through the calm waters.
After several quite minutes passed, Leah broke the silence. “So, why did all of your friends bail on you this weekend?” she asked.
“Because their girlfriends have them all by the balls,” Caleb answered.
She paused for a moment before she burst out laughing.
“Should I apologize for my crudeness?” he asked.
“No, you’re okay,” Leah said. “I’m just sorry your plans were cancelled.”
“I’m not.” He looked over at her, raw honesty gleaming in his dark brown eyes. “Not anymore. Not now that I’m here with you.”
She surreptitiously sucked in a breath. Call her a coward, but she refused to touch that statement.
“You know.” She kicked at a pebble. “We’ve been neighbors for more than a year, but I don’t really know much abo
ut you.”
His eyes continued to bore into hers, and for a second Leah thought he was going to call her on her swift subject change. But then he stretched his legs out in front of him, flatted his palms on his thighs and asked, “What do you want to know?”
Her shoulders practically wilted with the relief that crashed through her. She wasn’t sure what to make of this awkward, intense feeling pulsating between them.
“Earth to Leah,” Caleb said.
“What? Oh!” She gave her head a light shake. “Um, just normal things. Like where did you live before you moved into the neighborhood?”
“Well, I’m originally from D.C., but I moved to Trenton about six years ago, and then to Summit. Job transfer,” he explained.
“And that job is?”
He hesitated for a moment before answering. “I’m a detective with the DCJ. That’s the Department of Criminal Justice.”
Leah nodded. “I thought so, but I didn’t want to come right out and ask.”
“Why not?”
She peeked over at him, a rueful smile edging up the corner of her mouth. “I didn’t want you to think I was nosy, as well as a thief.”
His forehead narrowed, but them he tipped his head back with a laugh. “You’re talking about the basil.”
“Yes,” Leah said. “The great basil incident shall forever live in infamy.”
She flushed with embarrassment just thinking about the first time they met, when Caleb had walked into his backyard and caught her picking off basil leaves from his herb garden.
Except Leah didn’t know it was his herb garden.
She’d started caring for the garden after the previous owners moved out, and often went next door when she needed herbs. She’d crept over one morning to pick some fresh basil for her omelet, dressed in pajamas and a raggedy bathrobe that stopped at the knee. She’d been bent over the herb garden when she heard someone clearing his throat. The throat clearing had been followed by a deep voice asking if he could help her.
Leah had been forced to stand there in her unmentionables and explain that she wasn’t stealing—not technically, since without her caretaking the herbs would have died. Thankfully, her new neighbor had been a good sport about it.
Her humiliation had been complete when she returned to the house only to discover that she still had patches of the mud mask she’d used earlier that morning dotting her face. She’d avoided running into Caleb for two solid weeks following the incident, but then she found a bunch of freshly picked herbs wrapped in a paper towel on her back steps. He continued to leave her fresh herbs to this day.
She might not know much about him, but one thing Leah did know was that Caleb was incredibly sweet.
It begged the question…
“There’s something that doesn’t make much sense to me,” Leah said.
“What’s that?”
“Why don’t you have a girlfriend?”
Caleb stared out at the lake for several moments, unsure how to answer her question. He could tell her the truth, that his last two serious relationships had collapsed under the strain of his stressful job, and that since his breakup with Marlena a year and a half ago he hadn’t bothered to get back on the dating scene because he was perfectly content using his beautiful neighbor as fantasy fodder. For some reason, he didn’t think that would go over well.
Instead, Caleb settled for the partial truth.
“I just haven’t had the time,” he said.
“It doesn’t take all that much time these days.” She grinned. “All you have to do is swipe right on your phone.”
He huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. “I’m not looking for a quick hookup. I did enough of that in my twenties.”
She wiggled her brows. “A player, huh?”
“I don’t think I ever reached bonafide ‘player’ status—if there is such a thing—but I dated a lot more back then.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Once I bought the house it was as if something clicked. Like it was finally time for me to settle down.”
He stood up and dusted the flaky bark from the back of his jeans. Leah did the same. She slipped her hands in her back pockets, the pose causing her breasts to thrust forward. Caleb’s mouth watered.
Damn. He was in for a long weekend.
“So, you’re ready to settle down, yet you haven’t made the time to find someone to settle down with? Something’s a bit off there. You may need to rethink your game plan.”
She grabbed hold of his arm, using him for balance as she stepped up on the log. It made her about four inches taller than him. She looked even more beautiful from this vantage point, especially with the way the sun glinted off her lovely brown skin.
“What kind of woman are you looking for?” Leah asked as she wobbled slightly on the log.
The casualness of her tone caused an ache to settle in Caleb’s gut. It screamed curiosity, not interest. It was likely she’d never entertained thoughts of being the kind of woman he was looking for.
“One who can handle the stress of my job,” Caleb finally answered. “I’ve seen firsthand the toll having a significant other who works in law enforcement can take on a relationship. My parents’ marriage couldn’t survive it.” He gingerly let her hand go now that she’d found her balance. “They divorced when I was in high school.”
“I’m sorry.”
Caleb shrugged as he bent down to pick up a couple of pebbles from around his feet. “They still get along, and now that there’s a grandkid in the picture, it’s almost like the days when they were happy in their marriage.” He pitched a smooth rock at the lake, watching as it skipped twice before sinking beneath the surface. “It also helps that my mom is now a lieutenant and not on the streets as a beat cop anymore.”
“Oh, so it’s your mom who works in law enforcement?”
Caleb nodded. “One of the best cops I’ve ever known.”
“I feel as if I should hand in my feminist card. I just automatically assumed it was your dad.”
“Nah. It’s my mom. Thirty years on the police force and a total badass. My dad’s a long time bus driver for the D.C. Public Transit System.”
He studied her face to see if she would show any reaction to hearing that he came from such humble roots. Granted, he didn’t know much about her roots, but he’d bet his last dollar she came from money.
“How often do you get to see them?” she asked.
Caleb wasn’t sure how he would have responded if he’d heard even a hint of repugnance in her voice, but there was none.
“I don’t get down there nearly enough,” he answered. “I haven’t been back to D.C. since Christmas.”
“I was there just this spring to see the cherry blossoms,” Leah said. “I want to go back next year. It was all so beautiful.”
“There weren’t many cherry blossoms in the part of D.C. where I grew up.”
She studied him for a moment. “Did that influence your decision to follow in your mom’s footsteps?”
“Actually, I first followed in my dad’s footsteps.”
“You were a bus driver?” Her head jerked back in surprise, causing her to wobble again.
“Army,” Caleb said, grabbing hold of her wrist to steady her. God, her skin was soft. Softer than soft. “My dad enlisted fresh out of high school. Only took him four years to decide it wasn’t for him. I lasted a little longer. Signed up at seventeen and did eight years before enrolling in the police academy.”
“I can’t imagine you as a seventeen-year-old holding onto a big, bad gun.”
“That was me,” he said.
“Did you get deployed?”
He nodded. “Only did two tours in Iraq, so I count myself lucky. I have a few buddies who went back three and four times.”
“Talk about taking a toll on a relationship.”
“Yeah, it’s not easy,” he said. “Although it didn’t get much easier once I joined the DCJ either. I’ve found myself in the middle of some hairy situations. That’s why I’m stil
l single. It wouldn’t be fair to put someone through that kind of stress, not knowing whether or not I’ll make it home at the end of the day.”
“But that can apply to all of us,” Leah said. “A person can get hit by a bus on the way home from work, or drop dead of a heart attack. No one is guaranteed a tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the most of your today.”
“You sound like a motivational poster,” Caleb said.
She grinned. “Maybe I should rethink my career.”
“You don’t like working on Wall Street?”
Her forehead furrowed. “I didn’t realize I’d ever mentioned where I worked to you.”
Busted.
“You haven’t. Not in so many words,” Caleb said. He hesitated for a moment before he shrugged, and with a nonchalance he didn’t feel, admitted, “I saw you down there once.”
“In Manhattan?”
He nodded. “I was at district court, but decided to head further down for lunch at this little place near Rector and Trinity. I called out to you, but I don’t think you heard me.”
Actually, he’d held the door open for her, but before he could even say her name she responded with a polite thank you and walked inside, not even recognizing that he was the man who lived right next door. Caleb wasn’t sure why that still rankled as much as it did. Maybe because he spent so much of his free time thinking about her, it hurt to know that she must spend so little time thinking about him. He didn’t even register for her when coming face to face.
“It must have been a while ago,” Leah said. “Our office moved to midtown and now I hate it.”
“You don’t like the city?”
“I don’t like driving in the city. Before I could drive down to Newport, park, and take the PATH train into Manhattan, but now that we’ve moved to midtown I’m forced to take the Lincoln Tunnel. By the time I get home I just want to crash. Takeout has become my new best friend.” She looked over at him. “The last two batches of herbs you brought over have gone to waste.” She gave him a playful tap on the forearm. “Although you’ve been cooking up a storm. Whatever you were making this past Tuesday night smelled so good I nearly knocked on the door to beg you for a taste.”
Mr. Right Next Door (Camp Firefly Falls Book 6) Page 3