Page 65 of Lady and the Camp
I stood and he opened the bench seat we’d been sitting on. He pulled out a towel and wrapped it around me.
“Come with me to the front.”
That was only two steps. I followed him and sat in the passenger seat. He turned the ignition and returned us to the boat house. Without speaking, he parked the boat. We gathered our things and climbed onto the dock.
“Walk you back to your cabin?” he asked.
A nice closed loop on the same question he’d asked earlier tonight. “Yes.”
We made it to the split in the path toward the cabins. “Here is good,” I said. “In case any of the counselors are out, it’s probably best we part here.”
“I don’t think there’s a rule. About staff, you know…”
“Sneaking out to the lake at night to make out?”
“With their boss.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t make that public knowledge. You know, for the sake of the children.”
“Angelica would be so disappointed.”
I bit my lip. So the little girl from our runway show had made an impression on him. The kid had good instincts.
Standing together in the dark, he adjusted my towel around my shoulders. “Let’s promise we’ll both work on those two-year plans. Maybe even make a five-year one. Whatever that means.”
“Okay.” I didn’t have much left in me at the moment. A full day with campers followed by an evening running relays with flags and tugging a massive rope, and now this. Lucas and his wet skin, his probing questions, his deliberate kisses.
It was the best day I’d had in years.
“Goodnight, Lucas,” I said.
He kissed me on the cheek. “Sweet dreams, Hudson.”
Chapter 21
Lucas
Secretlydatingoneofmy camp staff had not been in this summer’s plans. Maybe dating went too far, but this connection between me and Hudson sure felt like something.
The next two days involved the usual camp activities like any other week. Only I had the bonus of stolen moments with Hudson in the camp office when Twila stepped out. In the rain shelter while the campers canoed on the lake. Passing glances. Longer ones where we touched. A light kiss, a graze of the wrist.
I couldn’t get enough of her. I felt like a high school kid obsessively crushing all over again. I was this short of writing an actual note and passing it to her in the Mess.
We’d made the mistake of sitting next to each other in the Mess which nearly gave us away. The kids were too curious. Too many questions. The teen girls, even more eagle-eyed.
After the campers cleared out Friday afternoon, the staff split off according to their planned schedules. No happy hour tonight as Maggie left camp for a much needed full weekend away. She’d return Tuesday, while Jasmine took lead on the coming week’s new batch of campers.
Twila shouted her goodbye, followed by Rena. The front office door closed. A few minutes later the door opened again and Hudson appeared in my office doorway.
She’d already changed out of her camp clothes into an outfit closer to what she’d worn her first day. Trendy and camp-inappropriate shoes. She wanted to go out.
Which was perfect, because I’d intentionally worn a nicer shirt and pants along with my good leather boots. Trimmed up my beard and used the beard combs and a balm I’d been gifted for Christmas last year. I’d told myself this morning it was because parents might stop by the office on pick-up day.
That was a lie.
I was taking Hudson to dinner. To a restaurant that didn’t serve nachos in a boat. I’d planned to ask her right now, and here Hudson came already dressed for the occasion.
I met her beneath the door’s frame.
