Chapter 4 #2
“Oh, her.” Glenda’s eyes shot up. She gave a wry smile and a slight shake of the head. “Let’s get this together.” She started to give out instructions as if she were trying not to gossip about whatever took place with Florence’s adjustment.
“To be fair,” I added, because I sure didn’t want to cause any trouble if Florence loved her adjustment with Tex. “Tara Kelly and Alice Charles liked them.”
“See?” Glenda brightened immediately. “That’s our target audience. Women who enjoy calm nervous systems.”
Dottie snorted. “Then Florence Sparks was never gonna qualify.”
Tex was eerily quiet as he carried the massage table toward the wooded edge of the campground, where they’d planned their setup, while Glenda started arranging baskets of oils beneath the tiki hut.
Little glass roller bottles filled with amber-colored oils lined up neatly beside homemade soaps, candles, and small handwritten signs describing scents like Forest Calm, Mountain Mint, and Cedar Breeze.
“You know,” Glenda said while fluffing one of the table runners, “we thought tonight might be good exposure for the spa. Community events usually help people loosen up enough to try something new.”
“Especially once karaoke starts,” Tex hollered from across the clearing. “Nothing says massage business like hearing somebody butcher ‘Friends in Low Places.’”
Dottie cackled so hard she had to grab the tiki hut post. “Honey, after enough sangria, half these campers gonna think they can sing like Dolly Parton.”
Within a couple of hours, Happy Trails Campground looked less like a campground and more like somebody had shaken up all of Normal, Kentucky, and poured it straight into the woods.
Golf carts zipped between campsites, kids ran around with glow sticks already hanging from their necks, and the smell of barbecue smoke drifted through the summer air, thick enough to make your stomach growl whether you were hungry or not.
Ty Randal had completely taken over the grilling station beside the recreation hall, with his brothers working the smokers while he barked orders like a football coach during playoffs.
Pulled pork, burgers, roasted corn, and giant tubs of his famous Southern slaw covered every available inch of the serving tables.
“Don’t let Dottie near the slaw,” Ty hollered the second he spotted us. “She puts raisins in potato salad and can’t be trusted.”
“That happened one time, and I was under emotional distress,” Dottie gasped from her Adirondack chair beneath the tiki hut where she’d planted herself for the evening.
“It was Easter,” Ty yelled back.
Before Dottie could defend herself further, another truck rolled into the campground lot, slower this time, tires crunching softly over the gravel. My shoulders instantly relaxed the second I recognized Hank’s forest service truck.
“There’s your mountain man,” Dottie muttered while nudging me with one flip-flopped foot. “Look at him, all rugged and useful.”
Hank climbed out of the truck, wearing his park ranger uniform pants and a fitted green T-shirt with the sleeves pulled tight across his muscular arms. His thick black hair looked slightly mussed from work, and even from across the lot, I could see those green eyes land directly on me.
That man had a way of looking at me that still made my stomach flutter, which was annoying, considering we were married, and I was too old to be fluttering.
“You need help?” Hank called while heading our way, carrying two bags of ice over each shoulder like they weighed nothing.
“No,” Dottie answered before I could. “But I’d enjoy watchin’ you help anyway.”
Hank laughed and bent down to kiss the top of my head as he passed me. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Everything okay?” I asked, since I knew he was late, which was never good when your husband was a forest ranger.
“Some tourists thought feeding a black bear hot dogs was a smart idea.” He sighed. “Turns out it was not.”
“That’s because people are dumber than a sack of wet hair,” Dottie muttered.
Hank carried the ice toward the coolers while I watched half the women within eyesight notice him too.
Honestly, I couldn’t blame them. My husband looked like he belonged in one of those outdoors calendars hanging beside cash registers at feed stores.
Tall, broad shouldered, and rugged enough to chop wood with his bare hands if society collapsed.
“Well, ain’t this cozy,” Cheryl Paisley said, her voice floating toward us as she and Buck Davis crossed the campground together, carrying folding trays loaded with homemade desserts from the diner.
Cheryl looked polished as always in a floral summer cardigan while Buck looked exactly like a man who’d spent all day inside a thrift store, digging through old boxes. Tall and slender, with his coal-black hair combed neatly back, he balanced a pie carrier in one hand while waving with the other.
“Tell me y’all saved me a good seat before Blue Ethel starts screamin’ into that microphone,” Buck called out.
“You mean singing?” I asked.
“I said what I said,” he stated with a smile.
“You hush before she hears you.” Dottie pointed toward him. “That woman holds grudges longer than freezer meat.”
Alvin Deters wasn’t far behind them, wearing his usual plaid shirt tucked into dark jeans with that giant silver belt buckle sitting front and center like it deserved its own introduction.
His cowboy hat sat low over his light-brown hair while Bobby Ray Bonds trailed behind him, carrying two folding chairs and arguing with Abby about hashtags as she took photos of the fundraiser.
“I’m telling you, Bobby Ray, social media engagement matters,” Abby fussed while typing on her phone.