28. Beau
twenty-eight
Beau
Daisy invites me and Ollie to dinner again on Sunday night, but I’ve got a better idea. We arrive late in the afternoon, grinning like a couple of clowns on her doorstep.
“Pack a change of clothes while I box up the food,” I tell her when she opens the front door.
Daisy gives us a puzzled smile. “Why?”
Ollie jumps into the air. “Because we’re going camping!”
“We are?” She glances past us to where my beat-up old truck is parked in the drive, the bed loaded with a tent, sleeping bags, and other camping gear.
“Where did you get all that?” she asks with wonder.
“Borrowed it,” I tell her. “Luke helped. Almost everything is out of the garage at the main house. It was pretty dusty, but I checked it all twice, and it’s in good condition.”
“We’re going to build a fire,” Ollie adds, bouncing from foot to foot. “And roast marshmallows so we can make s’mores.”
“You got the graham crackers?” she asks.
“Yep! And chocolate.”
Daisy grins, but it falls away when she looks at me. “I can’t go. The horses.”
“Ryan and Marcus agreed to take the morning shift tomorrow,” I tell her. “And you don’t have trail rides until the afternoon, so we’re free until noon, at least.”
Her smile returns, brighter than before. She tweaks Ollie’s hat and gives me a wink.
“Well, then! I guess we’re going camping. Come in while I get ready.”
There’s a large bowl of chili and a basket of cornbread waiting on the table, and it takes no time at all to load it into heatproof containers.
“See if you can find some orange juice and apples in the fridge,” I say to Ollie while I organize the food. “And granola bars in the cupboard. Those will do for our breakfast.”
Ollie finds what we’re looking for, and we’ve transferred everything to a cooler by the time Daisy appears with a backpack slung over her shoulder.
She swapped her cowboy boots for hiking ones, and the strong lines of her calves and thighs look incredible in her short denim cutoffs.
Her ponytail sticks out the back of her baseball cap, a bouncy blonde mane that matches her tight, bouncy purple tee.
“What?” she asks with a puzzled frown. “What are you looking at?”
“Oh. Um…” I glance at Ollie, who watches me, waiting for an answer. “Nothing. You just… look great.”
Daisy’s eyes sparkle above her pleased smile. “Thanks. So do you.”
I clear my throat and ignore the heat creeping along my neck as I heft the cooler. “You ready to go?”
She stands taller and nods sharply. “Let’s do it.”
We pile into the truck, Daisy beside me up front and Ollie in the back. I start the engine, and as the staticky old radio hums to life, I defer to my copilot.
“Where to?”
Her forehead furrows, and she squints out the window, thinking hard before the line between her eyebrows disappears and she points a finger toward the horizon.
“Take the drive down to the dam, turn left, and I’ll direct you from there.”
I do as I’m told, going slow to give us time to admire the surroundings. I haven’t seen as much of Silver Leaf as I’d like, so the rolling pace is as much for my benefit as it is for hers and Ollie’s.
The road we’re on is framed here and there with tumbled boulders, the grass dry in patches before it rolls into the vineyards.
Some are open and fallow, others green and full of grapes hanging heavy on the plants.
Everything’s neatly marked with timber and wire fences, and in the distance, cows graze in an otherwise empty paddock.
“Are they yours?” Ollie asks.
Daisy turns and cranes her neck, needing to use my window to follow Ollie’s line of sight.
“Yep. They joined the family about six months ago. Dylan wants to make everything from scratch these days, so all the cheese and butter and yogurt in the restaurant is thanks to those girls. We sell a few things, too, in the Silver Leaf tasting room as well as artisan markets around the place.”
“Cool,” Ollie says.
“Yeah,” I agree. “Very cool.”
She gives me a surprised look. “Thank you.” And then, after a glance out her window, she points and says, “Turn here.”
For a while, we drive along dirt roads well worn by farm equipment, until finally Daisy takes us closer to denser woodlands cut through by a narrow river.
There’s plenty of room for the truck to get through, evidence that larger vehicles have been here before.
But with the encroaching growth of plants along the trail, there’s a feeling of abandonment about it.
Soon, Daisy tells me to pull in, and we park at the edge of a clearing about thirty feet across.
“We’re here,” she announces, and with a click of his seat belt, Ollie flings himself from the truck. Daisy and I share an amused look.
“I think he’s excited,” she says.
“I think you might be right.”
Daisy slides out of her seat and rounds the hood to catch up with Ollie.
I debate asking for help unloading the equipment, but the two of them are already halfway down to the river’s edge, Ollie hopping like a rabbit alongside Daisy’s eager step, and I can’t bring myself to interrupt.
I take one look at the stuff in the truck bed, then scan the sky and decide I can spare a few minutes to enjoy the moment.
I approach them as Ollie gasps. “I think I saw a fish!”
“You probably did.” Daisy narrows her eyes at the sparkling blue. “I used to come here with my mom and dad when I was about your age, and we’d catch bluegill.”
Ollie’s shoulders fall. “Oh. We didn’t bring any fishing lines.”
“It’ll be dark soon anyway.” She ruffles his hair. “Next time.”
“Talking about getting dark,” I say. “We should probably get our tent up.”
Ollie asks a hundred questions as we unload the truck and set up the campsite.
Daisy answers them all, and her single-minded focus on making this experience wonderful for Ollie makes me warm through the chest. At the first hint of a mosquito, she pulls him aside and sprays his skin with insect repellent.
She shows him where to find the best firewood, then plasters his knee when he falls and breaks the skin.
She gently corrects the way he rolls out the tent fabric, then patiently gives instruction when he’s hammering in the pegs.
I’m a third wheel for at least half an hour, but watching them from the outside makes me feel lucky to be here, not pushed aside like I don’t belong.
It feels a little like my tiny family grew by one person tonight.
“Okay, cowboy,” Daisy declares, hands smacking her thighs as she straightens from securing the last tent peg. “It’s time for dinner.”
“Can we start with s’mores?” Ollie asks, and when Daisy glances at me, Ollie clasps his hands together and gives us both sad brown eyes. “Please?”
“You could have one s’more now,” I counteroffer, “or you can eat the chili and bread first, and then have as many s’mores as you like after.”
He contemplates his options in three seconds flat, then kicks at a rock. “Fine. Chili first.”
“Good choice,” Daisy says. “Because I make excellent chili.”
Three thick logs are already arranged in a circle of benches in the clearing, and there’s a ring of old soot-stained stones in the center.
Daisy is quiet as we load it with kindling, and when she steps back with Ollie safely under her arm, watching as I set the fire, her eyes glisten between blinks.
I take her hand as the flames catch, and Ollie looks on with silent wonder.
“Are you okay?” I ask in a low voice.
Her smile is tight. “I used to camp here with my parents and brothers and sister. All of us together. I feel like Mom and Dad are here with us now. Is that weird?”
With her hand still in mine, I loop my arm around her shoulder and pull her closer. “Not at all. I like the idea that we can share this with them.”
She blinks up at me with a wistful smile. “Me too.”
Dinner is fast and no-fuss. The chili is still warm, so it doesn’t need too much time over the fire, and Ollie unabashedly asks for a second helping.
“I think it’s the novelty of eating from a tin plate,” Daisy murmurs as we watch him shovel in another mouthful, then dunk his chunk of cornbread. “Though my mom would say it’s being outdoors. Fresh air makes kids hungry.”
“I’d say you’re both right.” I take a mouthful of my third bowl. “I’d also add that your chili is excellent.”
She leans in and whispers, “It’s Dylan’s chili, but thanks.”
I take Ollie down to the river to wash the plates and bowls, and by the time we return, Daisy has set out all the fixings for the s’mores. Ollie sits alongside her, so close he’s almost in her lap, and not to be outdone, I snuggle up on her other side.
“I feel like one of these marshmallows,” she laughs. “You two are going to squish me flat!”
“Oops,” Ollie says, scooting away a little. “Sorry.”
Daisy chases him with a shuffle of her butt. “Who said I didn’t like it?”
Ollie beams, and I hand them long sticks from the pile of kindling, followed by two fat, white marshmallows.
“Poke a stick through here,” Daisy says, showing Ollie how it’s done. “Good. Then lower it toward the flames. You want to caramelize the sugar, not turn the whole thing to ash.”
It takes three tries for Ollie to get it right, but soon enough, we’re helping him squash a hot, soft marshmallow between two crackers.
Chocolate oozes out, and he impatiently blows on his treat before taking the first bite.
Orange light illuminates his freckled face as he groans with delight, eyes rolling back in his head.
“I think he’s a fan,” I say as Daisy takes a napkin and wipes the chocolate dripping down his chin.
“This is amazing!” Ollie says, mouth still full. “This whole day was amazing. I love you guys.”
Daisy freezes, and so do I. This is the first time he’s ever said that, and now he has, I wonder why it’s taken me so long to say it too.
“I love you too, cowboy,” Daisy whispers. She plants a kiss on the top of his head.
“And I love you more,” I add, throat a little thick. Reaching around Daisy, I pull them into a three-person hug.
Ollie grins like none of this means as much to him as it does to us, and maybe that’s true. “What do we do now?”