Page 95 of His Curvy Distraction

The more she spoke, and the more the crowd responded to her, the more confident she looked. My heart swelled with pride. She was doing it.

“There are renderings of what we hope the camp to look like around the bar, and I hope you’ve had a chance to check them out. Our goal tonight is to raise enough to make the pool and volleyball court functional, to add a building we can use for lunch and when the weather doesn’t cooperate, and provide scholarships to camp. When the building is not being used for camp, we will be able to use it for town events and it can be rented out for private functions. We want this to truly be a space that is for the town.”

Once more, everyone cheered.

“Next month, if we meet our goal, we are going to have a week of volunteer time. We will be erecting the building we’re going to buy. There are signup sheets everywhere, and if you can commit to a few hours, a day, a week, we will definitely be able to use your help. We intend to do the same thing in May. That week we will be working on the landscaping and cleaning up and making the campground more functional and maybe a little prettier.”

“Did we meet the goal?” someone shouted.

“Did we meet the goal?” Natalie looked out at the crowd, searching. “Amelia is keeping track of the numbers. Amelia?”

“Here!” Amelia called out. She waved to get Natalie’s attention.

“Amelia! Did we reach our goal?”

“We have more than doubled our goal!” Amelia shouted.

The people close whooped loudly.

Natalie’s eyes widened. “No. We doubled our goal?”

The crowd went crazy.

“We did!” Amelia shouted over the roar.

Natalie’s eyes welled up. She wiped at her lashes, then looked down at me.

“You did this,” I shouted.

She put her hand over her heart. “Thank you,” she said into the microphone. “Thank you to all of you. For your support. For your generosity. For your trust and belief and commitment. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

Once more, the crowd erupted, cheering and celebrating.

“Nat-a-lie! Nat-a-lie! Nat-a-lie!”

Natalie kissed her fingertips and blew a kiss to the crowd. Her face was red with joy, her eyes overflowing with happy tears.

She handed the microphone back to Hudson, then took my hand to climb down from the bar and fall right into my arms. She buried her face in my neck and let her tears fall.

“I’m so proud of you. So happy for you. You are amazing, Natalie. Amazing.”

“Thank you. I couldn’t have done any of this without you.”

“Still a lot to do, but you will make it happen.”

She pulled back. Her eyes were bright and tear-filled. Her cheeks were red and plump from her smile. “I will make it happen. Thank you.”

I leaned close and whispered, “Tonight, we celebrate.”

She looked up at me, her eyes sparkling. She nodded. “Can we leave now?”

I chuckled. “Soon, my love. Soon.”

21

Natalie

Love? He said my love. Did that mean what I thought it meant? Or was I reading into it?

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