The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5)

by Krista Sandor

  “Wow,” Rory whispered, coming to stand next to Nick. “Miss Lindsey is really…”

  “Yeah, buddy,” Nick replied and grinned like a sap. “She sure is.”

  Lindsey met Nick’s gaze and cocked her head toward the door.

  “Come on, guys,” Nick said. He had to shake Tyler and Billy to get them to move. “Let’s drop off the girls’ snacks.”

  Lindsey opened the door to Becky Cabin with her gaggle of girl campers crowded in behind her. “We found Meg’s CD player. It turns out, she loves cheesy pop music.”

  Nick took one of the pitchers of bug juice and handed it to Lindsey. “You’re amazing.”

  The girls giggled, and Nick became painfully aware of the twenty pairs of eyes watching him. “Here’s Becky Cabin’s share of the snacks,” he said. He was blushing. He knew it. But he didn’t care.

  The boys handed Lindsey tins and bags, and she passed them back to the girls. “The ladies of Becky Cabin want to thank the gentlemen of Sawyer Cabin, right girls?”

  “You’re welcome,” Nick said. He wanted to reach out and kiss her, run his fingertips up and down the length of her spine and wrap his arms around her.

  Lindsey licked her lips, and Nick swallowed hard. Holy shit. Night patrol couldn’t come soon enough.

  “Mr. Nick?” one of his campers called out sheepishly.

  How long had he been standing there, staring at her like a lovesick puppy? “So, we’ll be going back to Sawyer Cabin. Just on the other side of the latrine. I’m sure you know where it is?”

  Jesus, what was wrong with his mouth? He sounded like an idiot.

  The girls standing behind Lindsey giggled again.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said, adjusting the flower in her hair before shutting the door.

  Nick scratched on Lindsey’s window screen. But this time, she didn’t wake up asking for breakfast.

  “Nick,” she whispered, opening her eyes in slow, heavy blinks as a broad smile spread across her lips.

  He pressed his hand to the screen. Lindsey raised hers and drew her index finger down the length of his palm. She sat up and wound her chestnut hair into a messy bun. “I’ll be right out.”

  He walked to the front of Becky Cabin and waited for the door to open. His breathing kicked up a notch when the old door squeaked, and Lindsey emerged wearing his flannel shirt.

  “I’ve been counting the minutes,” he said, gathering her into his arms. But something clunky moved between them before he was able to kiss her. “What’s that?”

  She took a step back and held up a camera. It was hanging on a strap around her neck. “My camera. It’s a perfect night to shoot the clouds.”

  He took her hand, and they set off down the dirt trail. “Tonight’s the perfect night for…photography?”

  “And other things,” she answered back coyly, shifting her fingers and lacing them with his.

  His cock twitched.

  They fell into step, and neither spoke as they took a lap around the camp. The chorus of night sounds filled the air. The humid summer breeze softened at night and bathed them in cool, gentle currents of air as the wind came across the lake. Lindsey wrapped both her hands around his and leaned in. His body remembered when she’d fallen asleep on the bus and had rested against him. Jesus, that was barely more than a day ago. A time that now seemed light-years away.

  “I don’t think any kids are out tonight,” he said. “Probably all beat. My boys were asleep before their heads hit the pillow.”

  “Same with my girls.”

  They rounded the trail and stood at the top of the hill near the lodge.

  Lindsey surveyed the sky. “Let’s go down to the boathouse. I think I can get the perfect shot there.”

  She could have said, let’s hop a flight to Vegas or let’s get face tattoos. He would have agreed to anything she wanted.

  Lindsey stopped short of the water’s edge and raised her hands to the sky.

  “What are you doing, Linds?”

  She dropped her gaze and met his eye. “Framing the clouds.”

  She sat down and laid back on the grass.

  He sat down next to her.

  “Lay down,” she said. “The whole world changes when you look at it from this perspective.”

  He leaned back and joined her. The camera rested on her chest as she raised her hands and framed the sky.

  She turned and met his gaze. “I think I’ve got it.”

  She lifted the camera to her eye. “The trick with night photography is to be very, very still. You need a longer exposure time to let enough light in to capture the image. The moon’s bright tonight—which helps—but you have to be so still, you can’t even breathe. Any amount of movement can blur the picture.”

  “Have you always photographed clouds?”

  She set the camera back on her chest but didn’t pull her gaze away from the night sky. “I’ve always loved clouds. In school, my art teacher showed us lots of images by Ansel Adams. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

  “Black and white photos. National Parks. Mountains. That’s the guy, right?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. He took this amazing picture called Noon Clouds. It’s from Glacier National Park. It’s two gorgeous peaks and between them are these clouds. I remember my teacher putting up the slide, and I couldn’t look away. The clouds were mesmerizing. The way light danced and played with them. I’m sure five seconds after Ansel Adams took that picture, the light shifted, or the wind blew, and it was a completely different image.”

  Nick extended his arm and pulled Lindsey in close to him. Her head rested on his chest, and he slid his fingers into her hair.

  She sighed. “Clouds are magical, aren’t they? You can see them. You know they’re there, but you can’t hold them or contain them. That’s why I want to be a photographer. I get to keep a little piece of every picture I snap.”

  They watched a swath of thick clouds roll in like nature sensed she was being observed and didn’t want to disappoint.

  “My teacher says what I like to do is called cloudscape photography,” Lindsey continued. “This Belgian guy, Leonard Missone started it back in the 1800s. But I really like the images by this British photographer, Robert Davies. He takes his photographs above the clouds looking down. They're haunting and beautiful.”

  “Do I need to be worried about this Davies dude?” Nick asked, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

  Lindsey chuckled. “Never. Now be still. I’ll tell you when to hold your breath.”

  Lindsey lifted the camera and peered through the viewfinder. “After our next inhale, we’re going to hold our breaths.”

  He hadn’t noticed that their breathing had synced up, slow and steady like a heartbeat. They exhaled. On the inhale, Lindsey stilled. The shutter opened and closed. A mechanical click pierced the air—a foreign sound against the backdrop of water and insects. He liked it. It was comforting. It brought him back to a different time.

  She exhaled, and Nick released his breath.

  “My mom sent me away for the summer, too,” he said, staring up at the sky. “She’s leaving my dad this time.”

  “What do you mean, this time?” Lindsey asked.

  He closed his eyes. This wasn’t something he discussed. “I knew something was wrong when I was just a kid, seven or eight years old. But I didn’t know what it was. My mom would wear dark sunglasses in the house or long sleeved shirts in the middle of the summer. It wasn’t until a few years later when I realized that not everybody’s dad beat their mom.”

  He took in a sharp breath as the bands of shame and guilt tightened in his chest. “She’s tried to leave him before. We’d go stay with my grandparents for a couple of weeks, but then my dad would promise to change, promise to get help…”

  Lindsey set her camera on the ground and cuddled into him, entwining her legs with his and resting her head on his chest. “But he didn’t, did he?”

  He wrapped his arms around her. “No, he didn’t
. As I got older and stronger, I’d try to step in and protect her. At first, I thought it worked. The first time I hit my father, he was completely stunned. I was so scared. My dad’s a big man. It was like punching a brick wall. He’d left the house, and I thought, that was it. We’re going to be okay.” Nick swallowed past the lump in his throat. “He came back a few hours later. He was drunk. You’d think that would have made it easier for me to defend my mother, but it didn’t. He found us in the kitchen. I was helping her make a pie. He beat her with the rolling pin. I tried to stop him, but he was too strong. He broke my nose with one punch.”

  “Oh, Nick,” Lindsey said, shifting to meet his gaze.

  “I couldn’t believe it when she told me she was sending me to stay with my great aunt in Kansas for the summer. I’ve been so angry that she didn’t want me there to help her. That she didn’t need me there to protect her.”

  Lindsey pressed a kiss to his lips then tilted her head toward the sky as if waiting for a message. “Our moms,” she began and met his gaze. “Our moms are taking this summer to try and make life better for us. I don’t think your mom sent you to Langley Park because she doesn’t love you or need you. I think she sent you here because she does. It’s not your job to protect her from your dad. You’re here this summer because this is how she’s going to make things right. This is how she’s going to protect you.”

  Nick stared into Lindsey’s eyes and cupped her face in his hand. “She wants to get a little place for us away from my father. She was a teacher. After she had me, my dad wouldn’t let her go back to work. She said she wanted to get another teaching job to support us. She said, by next summer, we could take a trip—just the two of us.”

  “See,” Lindsey whispered, emotion lacing the word. “She loves you. Stop being angry with her and give her the credit she deserves. Maybe we’ll both be going back to better lives, happier lives, but we were supposed to find each other first, this summer.”

  “I wasted so much time,” he said. He traced the length of her bottom lip with his thumb. “We were together almost every goddamn day this summer, and I pissed it all away being a sullen, angry jerk.”

  She shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. Look where we are. Look what we’ve found.”

  Nick sat up and brought Lindsey with him. He had an idea. A million ideas. His mind raced with possibilities.

  “What is it?” Lindsey asked.

  “I’m going to be a pilot.”

  Simply saying the words filled him with hope.

  She cocked her head to the side.

  He smiled. It all made sense. This could work.

  “Lindsey, my grandpa used to take me flying in his plane. It was a little Cessna 172 Skyhawk. A four-seater. I used to pretend I was Luke Skywalker flying an X-wing fighter. You know, from Star Wars?”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I know Star Wars.”

  Excitement thrummed in his chest. “From that minute, I knew I wanted to be a pilot. My grandpa passed away last year, but he left me the plane. It’s been sitting in a hangar not far from my house in Kentucky. I’m sixteen. I can get my pilot’s license. It doesn’t matter that the summer’s almost over. I’ll be able to visit you, no matter where you move with your mom.”

  “It doesn’t have to end,” she said.

  Lindsey understood what he was trying to tell her.

  “This is just the beginning,” he answered.

  A flash of lightning tore through the sky. It illuminated Lindsey’s face and, in that fraction of a second, Nick saw his future in her blue-green gaze. He saw his mother, safe and sound, teaching at an elementary school. He saw himself, flying above the clouds, calling the tower for landing clearance. He saw Lindsey smiling at him. He saw a life filled with love and laughter and happiness.

  Heavy drops of rain began to fall in slow motion before the sky opened up and a rumble of thunder cut through the air.

  “Come on, we can wait out the storm in the boathouse,” Nick said, scooping up Lindsey’s camera and helping her to her feet.

  They ran inside the structure. It was open on both ends but provided adequate respite from the rain. It smelled of musty lifejackets and damp wood. Kayaks hanging on the wall tapped together like door chimes every time the breeze picked up, and an old Sunfish sailboat creaked in the darkness as the rain fell steadily, dancing on the lake’s surface.

  Nick hooked the camera’s strap on a bare nail sticking out of the wall then took her hands into his. “Thank you, Linds.”

  “For what?”

  “For making it all so clear. For looking past all the crap and seeing everything at its best. I want to be a better person, and I want to be that person for you.”

  She smiled up at him. Jesus, with one look, one smile, she could bring him to his knees.

  “This is just the beginning,” she whispered. Her words hung in the air, buzzing with possibilities.

  He lifted their hands and pressed them into the side of the boathouse above Lindsey’s head then leaned in and kissed her. Sweet cream and summer rain. Her scent was everywhere. He tasted it on her lips. He felt it warm against her skin. He released her hands and grasped her waist, allowing his palms to move up and down her torso as his fingers pressed into her body. She fit inside his hands perfectly. Every one of her curves was made for his touch.

  She released a sweet giggle against his lips.

  He pulled back. In the darkness, with her arms above her head, she looked like something out of a fantasy. And then he noticed it. Her watch had gotten tangled in a length of rope that was hanging from a peg high up on the wall. In the darkness, the rope looked like a gnarled, twisted mass someone had carelessly thrown on the hook in a hurry.

  “Your hands,” he said. He tried to loosen the rope’s hold on her wrists.

  “Wait, Nick,” she whispered. “Leave it.”

  “Yeah?” A tremor of lust shot down his spine and settled in his belly. His cock strained against his cargo shorts.

  “Yeah,” she answered, twisting her free hand into the tangle of rope.

  He trailed his fingertips from where the rope twisted around her slight wrists and down the length of her arms. She arched forward, her breasts grazing his chest. He drew his fingertips across her collarbone and found the first button. Slowly, he worked his way down, unbuttoning his flannel shirt that looked so damn sexy on her.

  “Linds,” he whispered, holding the shirt open.

  She was wearing a white bra with delicate lace wrapped around each of her perfect breasts. The same virgin lace that peeked out from her shirt that first night in the dining hall. He caressed her breasts, then captured her mouth, kissing her hard. She moaned. Her small, heated gasps sent his body into overdrive. He traced the line down her stomach and popped open the clasp on her shorts. The satiny, smooth fabric of her panties teased his fingertips.

  “Is this okay?” he breathed against her lips.

  “Yes,” she said, drawing him in for another kiss.

  He slipped his hand inside her panties and cupped her sex. Lindsey released a moan so primal, so wanton, he nearly came inside his pants. His finger dipped past her entrance, and he rocked his palm, massaging her sweet bud while he pressed one finger inside her body. It was a tight fit, but she was warm and grew slick as he thrust in and out.

  She twisted the rope above her head, and her pelvis rocked against his palm as she rode his hand, thrusting and begging him for more. He pushed in a second finger, and she threw her head back. His lips found her neck. He nipped and sucked at the sweet skin, working his way down her jaw. He pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth as she gasped his name over and over.

  “Nick, yes. Nick, please. Nick, don’t stop.”

  Her body tightened. He pressed his thumb against her bud, and Lindsey’s body shuddered in his grip, riding out wave after wave of pleasure.

  She tilted her head forward. “Wow,” she breathed, “I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  “Want to do it again?” he a
sked with a mischievous grin. He could watch her come all night.

  “Oh, no,” she answered.

  “No?” he repeated, confused.

  “Nick, look! I can see a flashlight. Someone’s coming!”

  “Fuck,” he whispered, clasping her shorts and fumbling to button up the flannel.

  “Hey,” called out a voice. “Who’s in the boathouse?”

  Lindsey released a relieved sigh. “It’s just a counselor from one of the other camps. I recognize his voice. He’s probably out on patrol.”

  “That’s all good and fine, but we don’t want him finding you all…”

  “All tied up,” she purred.

  “Jesus, Linds,” he breathed and kissed her hard.

  “Is that you, Nick?” came the voice.

  “Yeah,” Nick called. “Lindsey and I were finishing up patrol when we found this length of rope that wasn’t put away correctly. We thought we’d get it all untangled when Lindsey’s hands got twisted up in it.”

  Fucking hell! Who was he trying to fool?

  His fingers worked furiously, loosening the rope. After a few tugs, Lindsey’s hands broke free. She reached for her camera and held it innocently.

  “Looks like we’re good,” Nick said, pressing a hand to her back and leading Lindsey out of the boathouse.

  The counselor flashed a beam of light over them. “Are you sure? You know, your patrol ended like an hour ago.”

  Nick and Lindsey were halfway up the hill when she started giggling.

  “Good to know,” Nick called back. “You know Langley Park. We always go the extra mile.”

  He took Lindsey’s hand, and they ran up the hill through the summer rain.

  5

  “This is it. You’ve played hard, and all that work has led you to this moment: The Camp Clem Capture the Flag Championship Game.”

  The kids took a knee and formed a semicircle as they listened to Nick’s pep talk.

  Their third day at Camp Clem passed in a haze of canoeing, horseback riding, and another night of patrol spent kissing Nick Kincade in the boathouse.