Page 44 of The Weekend Crashers
“Are you worried? She’s with Cole, she’s fine,” he says.
“I’m notworriedabout her,” she says. “I just planned to be spending the weekendwithher. It’s kinda the whole point of being here.”
“I get it. I felt the same way about Cole. He works in the business with me, but we don’t see each other every day, and even when we do, it’s mostly work talk. So I thought this would be great bonding time.”
“Great. So text him.”
“Relax, Mama Bear: I can’t,” he says. “Barclay confiscated his phone—all the younger guys’ phones—before we headed out. Otherwise, they won’t learn anything.”
The idea that she can’t reach Piper makes her anxious, and it must show on her face. Aidan stops walking and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Please don’t worry about Piper. I’m just teasing you about the Mama Bear thing. I wish Cole had a little more of that protective maternal energy around growing up.”
Maggie smiles. “Thanks. And for what it’s worth, you seem to have done a fine job all by yourself. Though I know, from my own experience, the one thing we can’t be is two people.”
Aidan looks at her. “Exactly. That’s exactly it.”
They share a look, and she feels a surprising sense of connection to him. Twenty-four hours ago, she didn’t know he existed. The feeling isn’t unpleasant, but it makes her uncomfortable.
“Do you think Cole and Piper are talking about us the way we’re discussing them?” she says.
He smiles. “No doubt. Who do you think is getting it worse—you or me?”
“Definitely you.” She grins, and feels a lightness she hasn’t experienced in a long time.
She drags an oversized branch toward Aidan, and realizes that she’s no longer in such a rush for Piper to return.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cole Danby seems utterly at home in the woods. He stacks branches and gathers smaller vines with fluid, assured movements that make Piper feel clumsy. She stumbles around the uneven, leaf-covered ground beside him, trying to distinguish what makes one stick or branch usable and another not. And all the while, she feels guilty for running around with this strange guy, even though it’s completely innocent. She wonders if the unsettled feeling is more about her relationship with Ethan than any attraction to Cole Danby.
She checks her phone for messages and finds she had no reception. It’s hard to believe she kissed Ethan goodbye only yesterday. Everything that happened before the weekend feels long ago, as if time itself had stretched and bent. Could anxiety have that effect on her?
An occasional gust of wind sends the leaves fluttering all around them. If she were with Ethan, it would feel terribly romantic. Her mind drifts into a brief fantasy of the two of them in those very woods, and he tells her to look under a tree branch and there’s the ring box. He gets down on one knee and asks her to marry him. Or maybe they’re here on their honeymoon, like Dove and Lexi. And they stroll through the woods holding hands and planning their future.
Then she feels stupid for letting thoughts like that detract from the arguably perfect day she’s having. She and her mother are away on vacation, something they talked about but lately hadn’t made the time to actually do together. She really wishes she hadn’t found the ring in the first place. It was messing with her head.
She checks her phone. No signal.
“Damn,” she mutters. Then, to Cole: “Does your phone work out here?”
“Yeah. But my grandfather takes our phones before every activity,” he says.
“So neither of us have a working phone?” She looks around, trying not to feel irrational panic.
“That’s the spirit of bushcraft, isn’t it? The whole point of you knitters venturing out of your safe little shell?”
“Forget I mentioned it,” she says. “No phone, no problem.”
After a minute, to redirect the conversation, she says, “Your grandfather seems like a character.” She scoops up a branch shaped like a pitchfork.
“My entire family are characters. Not always in a good way.”
“Do you spend a lot of time with them?”
“Well, I see my grandfather mostly on holidays. But I see my dad all the time—we work together.” He tells her his father owns a big grocery chain in Bucks County.
“Where’s that?” she asks.
He laughs. “Here. This is Bucks County. I grew up fifteen minutes from here in a place called Doylestown.”
