Chapter Twenty-One #2
Perhaps it had been made before she’d even come.
The excuse for being in New Hampshire was to give herself the space to think about what she wanted, but maybe it had been an excuse to put off the inevitable.
She wasn’t comfortable with the format Erika envisioned for the future of Improbable Causes, so she was going to have to tell her friend it either stayed the same or Erika would move on without Hannah.
Sighing, she flung open the screen door of the camper with the intention of going for a walk, but she jumped slightly when the door bounced off of Rob and rebounded back at her.
He laughed, and the sound was like a balm to her ragged nerves. Pushing the screen door open more gently, she stepped outside and smiled at him. “Sorry about that.”
“Am I interrupting something? You seemed like you might be leaving with a serious purpose in mind.”
“No, I just...” Hannah let the response die away because Erika had been consuming her time and energy for days. She wanted to focus on Rob right now. “I just got a little enthusiastic about being outside, I guess.”
“Did Erika make her flight okay? I know traffic was bad down south yesterday.”
“Yeah, she factored all that in, luckily, so she had no travel woes.” She gestured toward the chairs. “Do you want to sit?”
He looked like he was going to say something, but then he stopped. After another moment, he shook his head. “I don’t have time. I have to deal with a pool situation.”
“That sounds ominous.” She knew how much pride he took in the pool.
“Yeah, very late last night—or technically this morning, I guess—one of the campers had way too much to drink and decided to jump the fence because he wanted to swim. He stripped down to his underwear before trying it, though, so when his thigh caught on the top of the chain-link fence and gave him a nice cut, he flailed and fell on the cement and hit his head, though not horribly, thankfully.”
“That’s awful.” No wonder he looked so tired.
“Oh, he wasn’t done. He got up, staggered and fell in the pool.
Luckily Stella alerted Brian because the guy’s friend was hollering, but was too drunk to even try to jump the fence.
Brian cleared the fence and dived in after the guy, who was panicking and tried to drown my brother to save himself.
So Brian punched him in the face and then hauled him to the steps, but the guy vomited the entire way there. ”
“Oh, Rob.” Hannah covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m so sorry.”
“So those campers are gone and will never, ever be here again, but we had to post the pool is closed and now I have a bunch of stuff I have to do to the water before it can be reopened.”
“And the Fourth of July weekend is coming,” she added.
“Yes, or the Fourth of July week, actually. Everybody will come early.” He shoved a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to dump all that on you. I just wanted to see you.”
“You can always talk to me.” She smiled and moved forward. “I give good hugs, you know.”
When she wrapped her arms around his waist, Rob buried his face in her neck and squeezed her with an intensity that seemed out of character for him.
She knew he was tired and pissed off about the pool, but of all four of them, he was the one who seemed the most able to roll with those kinds of punches.
She held him until she could feel the tension ease from his body. His hold loosened and his breathing felt lighter somehow. And when he finally released her and stepped back, he looked a little more like himself. He even managed to give her a grin.
“I haven’t had a chance to look at the footage yet, but I’m really hoping the superspy doorbell caught Brian clocking that guy.”
“Stella must have been beside herself.”
“She can’t get over the fence and thankfully didn’t try, but she did scare the other guy into climbing on a picnic table. I’m surprised you didn’t hear her bark, even from here.”
“I was so exhausted from Erika’s visit I had the white noise cranked. I’m not sure even a thunderstorm could have woken me up.” When heat flared in his eyes, she knew he was remembering the Blanket Fort of Doom, and she smiled. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a storm.”
“Technically we don’t need a storm to blanket fort, you know. It’s like buying a birthday cake. Nobody checks your ID. You can just buy one and eat it whenever you want.”
They laughed together and she was relieved to have Rob back to himself again. Even when he looked at his watch and scowled, the annoyance didn’t reach his eyes.
“I should go. The propane company’s coming out to change out a valve, and I have to get started on that pool.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m glad I stopped by, though.”
“Me, too. I hope you’ll stop by again soon.”
“As soon as I can,” he promised, and then he kissed her. Not a quick goodbye kiss, but the kind of kiss that went on and on, until all she could feel was a desperate yearning for more.
Then she watched him walk down the road before she sank into her chair and tipped her head back to look at the sky. She had so much to think about.
She was still sitting there an hour later when Stella trotted into her site.
“Out doing the rounds?” she asked as the dog propped her chin on Hannah’s knee and gazed up at her with adoring eyes that eased some of the turmoil in her mind. Dogs really were the best.
Especially since she was feeling particularly lonely at the moment.
Erika had a big personality, so she’d left a silent void in her wake when she left yesterday.
And Jenn was busy with work and her kids’ activities, and their parents were on a short trip with friends.
Because she had so much on her mind and wanted a distraction, she was more keenly aware she didn’t really have any at the moment.
And then there was Rob. She hadn’t seen him out and about much since Erika left, and today when he’d stopped by, he’d seemed out of sorts.
Her gut told her it wasn’t just the pool.
Something was going on with him, but he wasn’t telling her what.
Maybe he’d had a falling-out with one or all of his brothers.
Though he’d seemed better when he left, she didn’t know if it would stick.
When she heard footsteps in the gravel near her truck, she thought it was Rob and leaned forward in her chair, already smiling. Stella’s tail was wagging so hard her back wiggled under Hannah’s hand as Brian came around the corner.
She did her best to hide her disappointment, but judging by the wry smile he gave her, she didn’t do a great job.
“Didn’t mean to bother you,” he said. “Just looking for my dog and I figured I’d save time and start here.”
“She likes to stop by and say hi from time to time, don’t you, Stella?” The dog licked her hand before wiggling back under it for more scratching.
“We had some campers who were not great about food and trash, so we’ve become a popular dining destination for the local wildlife. We haven’t seen any bear yet—and hopefully won’t—but I’d rather she not tangle with a skunk or raccoon, either.”
She winced. “Yeah. I don’t know if she’d try to fight them, but she’s always on the lookout for new best friends.”
He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his jaw flexing for a moment. “Is there something going on between you and Rob?”
Hannah frowned. Since, as far as she knew, Brian was aware that she and Rob had been spending time together, this felt like more than him being a jerk about their ridiculous fraternization rule. “That sounds like a question for your brother.”
He looked at her for a long time and then sighed. “Sorry. That was out of bounds. He just seems off and I wasn’t sure if you guys had a fight or something. This might come as a shock to you, but I’m usually the grumpy, brooding brother.”
Hannah put her hand over her chest, gasping in exaggerated shock. “You? No.”
His grin was so like his brother’s, it made her heart ache. “I know. And I also know I should mind my own business, but you have a sister. You know how it is.”
“Even though my sister’s older than I am, I do know how it is. But I’m not sure what’s up with Rob. Maybe he’s just tired? And also that guy who got super drunk and threw up in the pool didn’t help. I’m glad he didn’t actually drown you.”
He shook his head. “That was not fun. But whatever’s bugging Rob started before the pool thing happened. But whatever. Everybody has bad days, I guess.”
Hannah made a noncommittal sound, but it seemed her hunch that something other than the pool situation was bugging Rob was correct.
“You know,” Brian said. “Maybe it was because we were young when we came here on a regular basis, but I don’t remember there being so much alcohol involved in camping.
Or vomit, for that matter. Except that one time the coleslaw got left out way too long and my mom was going to throw it away but she got distracted and Danny wolfed it down. ”
Hannah’s stomach twinged in sympathy. Over the years of staying at campgrounds with her family, she’d seen more than one person succumb to the fundamental truth that food shouldn’t sit out in the heat for hours and then still be eaten.
“I’d better get Stella back to the house. Once I get her back in the yard, she’ll stay there if I tell her to, but only if she’s already in it.” He smiled at the dog, who was gazing up at him. “She finds all the loopholes.”
After they left, Hannah pushed herself out of her chair and stretched. With Rob in a mood and so much on her mind she might just sit in the chair and stare at the sky all night, she decided getting out of the campground was the thing to do.
She’d go for a drive with the music cranked loud just to clear her head. Then she’d treat herself to dinner and dessert at the restaurant. She’d just finished reading a book so she’d pick whatever she had left in the pile that looked like something she could lose herself in.
There was almost no mood a good meal and a good book couldn’t lift.