Page 14 of Sunshine for the Grumpy Grizzly

“Can I help?” I ask, a little stunned by the tornado of energy hurtling around me.

“Nope. You relax.” His teeth flash pearly white.

Okay. I pull out my phone. I need to check through some work emails anyway.

“Plug this cable in,” he says after a few minutes.

“Sure.” Fumbling, I shove an electric plug into a multi-socket thing, and…

Wow.

Fairy lights, everywhere. Strung between the trees; wrapped around the trunks. It looks like a miniature holiday festival. I gaze at him in awe. “I would not have guessed you had this side to you,” I blurt out.

He flashes me an embarrassed look. “Me either.”

A couple of minutes later, some little lamps flick on at the edges of the clearing, then he starts carrying logs to the fire.

“Oh, I’ve got to help you with that,” I insist.

“You can lay out the food if you want. You’ll be better at that than me.”

I grin to myself. He doesn’t talk a lot, but he’s got a way of getting his point across.

I go to the cardboard box and take out a bunch of dishware, then I lay it on a big wooden table off to the side of the clearing and fill the bowls with chips, etc.

When I turn back, the fire is lit, and the first embers are starting to glow.

I dash over and put my hands to it, as excitably as a child. “Oh, this is amazing!” I exclaim.

Preston nods silently, but he looks pleased.

Then my phone rings.

“Lucy, you said seven p.m.!” Natasha sounds even more wound-up than usual, but for once, I don’t care.

“That’s right. We’re here waiting for you,” I say, and I can’t keep the mischief out of my voice.

She makes another snarly noise down the phone. “Where’shere?”

“Come to the fire pit.”

There’s a long silence. “Howexactlyare we going to find thisfire pit?” she asks in the tone of someone who has a stick jammed up their ass.

“Map’s in the lobby,” Preston grunts.

My head snaps toward him. He’s on the other side of the clearing, building a barbecue, by the looks of it. How did he even hear that?

“There’s a map in the lobby,” I repeat to Natasha.

“I got that, thank you,” she snaps.

“See you soon!” I chirp. She’ll give me a hard time later, but I don’t care. I’m so happy being out here with my taciturn mountain man.

The delicious smell of grilling meat hits my nostrils and I skip over to where Preston has built a gigantic barbecue out of bricks.

“Wow, that’s a lot of meat,” I remark.

Figured there’s a lot of mouths to feed.” He points to all the portions of meat in turn. That’s rabbit, deer, elk and wild turkey.”

---