Chapter Eighteen #2
Brian paused in the doorway of the store, Stella at his heels, pondering the question he’d walked in on Rob asking Hannah. Then he continued on, making sure the dog’s tail was in before pulling the door closed.
“I can come up with a plan for getting away with murder,” Hannah was saying. “I’m just not going to tell you how.”
“Dave again?” Brian asked, dropping into a chair.
“There seems to be some confusion about who actually owns this property,” Rob said, and Brian knew the interaction must have been a bad one because their roles were usually reversed—Brian had a shorter temper and Rob was his voice of reason.
“Dave and Sheila have been camping here for decades,” Hannah said, clearly stepping into the peacemaker role. “It’s like a second home to them, so of course they’re going to have feelings about things changing.”
“I was trimming back the branches that scrape down the side of their neighbor’s truck because I don’t want us on the hook for repainting it if it gets scratched up and Dave accused me of trying to make it so there’s no shade at all in the campground.”
They’d taken some trees down before the campground opened for the season because taking down an unhealthy or dead tree was always better than having one fall on an RV or one of the guests.
One of them had been a disease-weakened tree that had still offered shade to one of the campsites—not Dave and Sheila’s—and it seemed they would have to hear about it forever now.
Hannah sighed. “Only six more weeks or so and then you won’t have to worry about them again until spring.”
Brian chuckled. “You sure you want to spend the winter alone with this guy?”
She looked at Rob, her expression softening in a way that Brian envied. He’d like to have somebody in his life who looked at him the way Hannah looked at his brother. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“With fall coming and a list of things to do before we can close up, there’s a lot going on,” Brian said, mostly to distract himself. “Maybe I should tell Joey to come up next weekend.”
Rob frowned. “For what? I mean, last I knew, Ellie’s had some morning sickness, except it’s also midday sickness and evening sickness, so Joey’s been taking Nora to school and picking her up. He said something about maybe working Saturdays to make up for the lost hours.”
“I’m not going to be around next weekend, and he hasn’t spent as much time here, so he probably has a higher Dave tolerance than you do.”
“Sure, because you’re the tolerant one of the bunch.” Rob snorted. “And did I know you wouldn’t be around next weekend?”
“I told you. And it’s on the calendar.”
After a few seconds of thinking about it, his brother’s face lit up. “Oh, the sleepover. I can’t believe that slipped my mind.”
On the other hand, it never left Brian’s mind. No matter what he was doing, some part of his brain was thinking about the fact that his son would be sleeping in his house next weekend. It was surreal and exciting and terrifying.
Hannah laughed. “I won’t let Rob kill off any of the campers while you’re gone, Brian.”
“Speaking of killing off campers.” Rob sighed and held up his phone. “Some jerks rode through the pasture again and tore it up. Somebody passing by got a picture from the trail, but it’s not great. Do these look like the machines from site thirteen to you?”
Brian took the phone from Rob so he could see the photo filling the screen.
His brother was right about it not being great, but he knew whoever had sent it to the lodging establishments—either the conservation officers or the local ATV club—would send the best they had.
After zooming in as far as he could, he squinted.
“It’s hard to tell, looking at the machines, but see here? ”
He pointed to where there were some lighter pixels along the helmet of the guy on the four-wheeler, and then he panned over to a decal on the storage box of the side-by-side behind him. “We talked about the custom decals when they checked in, remember? Are they at their site right now?”
“No, I checked a few minutes ago and they were still out riding.”
“Call it in and give them the details we have. If they catch up with them out there or when they’re back and confirm it’s them, we’ll throw them out and blacklist them.”
Most of the ATV trails in NH were on private property, used with permission between the landowners and ATV clubs.
But when people disrespected the property and the landowners got mad, they could close the trails.
That was bad for everybody who loved the sport respectfully, but especially for businesses—like Birch Brook Campground—that depended on the trail system financially.
Sometimes Brian felt like he spent more time helping law enforcement ferret out jerks than anything else.
“Oh, and site twenty-two,” Hannah said. “There’s the beginning of a nest in the water hookup. Bees or wasps or I don’t even know, but I noticed it when I was chasing a plastic bag around in the wind.”
“Another day in paradise,” Brian muttered, and they all chuckled. “I’ll go take a look at it. Stella, you stay.”
The dog gave him a look before settling onto her cushion.
Brian knew she was bluffing. She loved being outdoors, but she also loved taking long naps in the store.
It wouldn’t have mattered. During their early days, there had been a very expensive trip to the emergency vet after Stella decided wasps were just flying snacks and Brian didn’t want a repeat of that.
He was halfway to the site when his phone rang. Because the signal could get sketchy once he crossed into the wooded part of the campground, he sat on a picnic table in an empty site and pulled it out.
Then he frowned. Kevin never called him. He got frequent text messages from his uncle—joke memes and sports news, mostly—but never phone calls. “Hello?”
“Everybody’s okay and nobody’s sick or hurt or lying in a ditch somewhere,” Kevin said, and Brian chuckled.
They’d all been trained well. “I don’t have the patience to type everything out, but I heard you’ll be down in this part of the state for a bit.
Any chance you can swing by Jasper’s in the next few days? ”
“I don’t know. Siobhan and Oliver are coming up—to my house, I mean. Not to the campground. That’s why I’m heading south. For the first time he sleeps over, it makes sense for her to be there just in case he has a hard time.”
“Or you do.”
Brian chuckled. “Yeah, there’s also that.”
“It’s even better if you bring her with you, actually.”
That was strange. “What’s up?”
“I’m still waiting to hear back on something later today or tomorrow morning.
But come to Jasper’s this weekend and I’ll talk to you then.
Drop Oliver off at Mike and Lisa’s because you know nothing would make them happier and come have a meal on the house.
It’ll be good to see you both and, honestly, you could probably both use a night out. ”
Brian wasn’t one to turn down a free meal and he was intrigued by whatever Kevin was being vague about, but he hesitated.
That sounded a lot like a date night and he wasn’t sure that was a good idea.
Siobhan might have agreed to an ice cream after the testing appointment, but that had been for Oliver’s benefit.
“I’ll pop by, for sure, but I’m not sure about Siobhan. I’ll have to ask her.”
“Sure. Ask her, and if she decides she’s up for a meal she didn’t have to cook in a very fine establishment, if I do say so myself, just text me and I’ll reserve a table.”
“I’ll call her when she gets out of work and then shoot you a text.”
He still had a couple of hours before that would happen.
She’d mentioned the only almost-guaranteed time to catch her on the phone for a chat was between the time she left work and arrived at Oliver’s daycare.
Thanks to hands-free tech and being the only person in the car, it was her best time to chat.
“Did you set an alarm?” she teased when she took his call. “Exactly two minutes after I got in my car.”
“I did set an alarm,” he confessed. “I didn’t want to miss the window while destroying wasp condos and redoing the signs telling campers what they can and cannot flush in the bathhouse toilets, but this time in bold font and italics and some red ink.”
“Campgrounds are a lot more fun when you’re a camper.”
He laughed. “You’re not wrong. So anyway, Kevin called me today and wants me to stop by his bar this weekend to talk to me about something quick.
When I told him you and Oliver were coming up, he said he’d love to see you, too, and suggested we let Oliver visit my parents for a bit and go get a free meal. ”
“Um. You mean just the two of us?”
“He has something to talk to me about and when I told him you guys were coming up, he said to bring you.” Brian pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing how it sounded. “It’s just a good chance to have a meal we don’t have to cook or pay for, and for my parents to have a visit with Oliver.”
“They haven’t seen him since being his grandparents became official, I guess.”
“They’d love to see him. But there’s also no pressure. You and Oliver can hang at my place and I’ll run over for a few minutes.” He paused, but she didn’t fill the silence. “Or I can tell him I can’t make it and I’ll see him another time. Whatever works best for you and Oliver, of course.”
He heard her exhale over the phone, as if she’d been holding her breath while she thought it through. “No, it’s fine. He adores your parents and I know how hard it was for Mike and Lisa to wait for the results. Oliver would love to spend some time with them.”
“Great. I’ll let Kevin know to hold us a spot. How’s Oliver doing?”
“Good. One of his favorite things now is looking at the pictures from camping on my phone. Over the course of the week, I guess I managed to get almost everybody, even if they were in the background, so I zoom in and he says their names and fun things about them.”
“You’re amazing,” he said, the words slipping out without thought, and he winced. It was true, but it was also a weird thing to say.
Her chuckle sounded tinny through the hands-free on her end.
“Thank you. It seemed like an easy way to kind of transition into family. I noticed the younger ones tend to call their grandmothers Grammy and Mary is Gram, so I’ve been sliding that in there.
I think it’s easy for him because that’s what Nora calls everybody, so it makes it less overwhelming, I guess. ”
“Family Tree of Doom,” he said, and they both laughed.
“Okay, I actually have to run into the market before I get Oliver and I’m here now. But a meal I don’t have to cook or cut into toddler-sized pieces sounds good. We’ll see you Friday.”
“I can’t wait.”
He was smiling when they hung up, already looking forward to spending the weekend with them. Before he left, he’d check off as many things as he could on the campground to-do list because he still didn’t love leaving Rob and Hannah holding down the fort.
And then he was going to have a great weekend with Siobhan and Oliver. Just the three of them—and Stella, of course—and it felt right.