Chapter 1
One
“I need you to impersonate me.”
From the faded corduroy sofa in her tiny, studio apartment, Sarah Meadows rolled her eyes, though her sister on the other end of the phone couldn’t see. “Did you forget to renew your driver’s license again? Because it expired back in January.”
“I wish it were something that simple,” Taryn said. “I’ve got a serious problem.”
Sarah tensed at the words. “What is it this time?” She tried to keep the judgment out of her voice. Really, she did. But it was hard. So much of her twin’s adult life had been a train wreck, and it seemed Sarah was routinely the one called upon to pick up the pieces and deal with the fallout.
“Well, you know I was supposed to be done with this private tour guide gig day after tomorrow and flying back East in time to start the new job at Camp Firefly Falls on Saturday, right?”
“Yeah. You’ve got orientation starting this weekend.”
“I’m not going to make it back in time.”
Oh, not good. Not good at all. “Why? What happened? Did your flight get cancelled? Because it’s not too late to reschedule.”
“No. This job came in last night—a two-week-long trek for some Hollywood muckitymuck.”
Sarah couldn’t stop the exasperated sigh. “You are not blowing off the camp job for one last guide trip.” Dear God, she’d thought her sister was past this kind of impulsivity.
“No, it’s not like that. I told Danny I couldn’t do it. But he’s threatening not to give me my last month’s pay if I don’t stick around and do it.”
“You haven’t been paid in a month?”
“Room and board were covered, and I figured if I didn’t have the money in hand, I couldn’t blow it on anything stupid. Except now I risk not getting paid at all, and I need that money, Sarah.”
That was putting things mildly. Three years before, Taryn’s unfortunate taste in men had resulted in a short relationship with one Jax Howorth—not his real name—who’d taken every dime of Taryn’s money, trashed her credit, and left her under a mountain of debt.
She’d been slowly, painstakingly climbing out of that hole ever since.
Sarah sighed. “How much are we talking?”
Her sister named a figure that had Sarah’s mouth dropping open.
“You’re getting paid that much as a guide?” Maybe she’d chosen the wrong career. Not that anybody became a grad student to make money. The hope was that you’d make enough when you finished the degree that you’d pay off whatever student loans you’d acquired before retirement.
“Rich people will pay for all kinds of things. And this producer guy, or whoever, is willing to give me a five thousand dollar bonus to stick around.”
That had all of Sarah’s alarm bells ringing. “Are you sure he doesn’t expect you to do something more than be a trail guide?”
“Positive. He’s flamingly gay.”
Well, that was something, at least. “So, what exactly are you asking?”
“I want you to go to Camp Firefly Falls and be me for orientation. I’ll be done with this job, get paid, and be back in time for the certification test. Nobody will be any the wiser.”
Sarah shoved to her feet and began to pace.
Ten steps to the kitchen. Fifteen to the window overlooking the busy Brooklyn street.
Five to her bedroom door, then start again.
“Taryn, this isn’t like fooling our high school teachers.
This is a job! One that you’re qualified for, and I’m not.
And what about you actually learning the stuff you’re being certified for? ”
“I’ve learned the handbook backwards and forwards, and there’s nothing a camp in the Berkshires can throw at me that’s harder than what I’ve been doing in Wyoming.”
“That may be, but I’m not trained for any of this! How do you expect anybody to believe that I’m you?”
“It’s not that complicated, sis. You’re in good shape.
You’re a trained lifeguard, a runner. And God knows, you haven’t met a subject you can’t study up on and pass a test for.
You just have to spend a couple weeks learning their policies and procedures, helping get camp set up, readying cabins, and that kind of thing. Easy peasy.”
“Yeah, that’s what you said when you convinced me to fill in at cheerleading practice so you could meet up with that college guy.
‘Kick high, shake your thing, you’ll be fine,’ you said, ‘they’ll never know the difference.
’ Only you failed to mention the pyramid, and trust me, when it all came down, everyone knew the difference.
” Sarah felt a twinge in her back at the memory.
The noise at the other end of the line sounded suspiciously like a stifled snort of laughter.
Taryn cleared her throat. “In my defense, I didn’t think they would try the pyramid.
Man they were pissed.” This was always the way.
Her twin saw the humor in everything and never seemed to manage to take anything seriously.
“Not making your case here, Sis.”
“But pissed at me, they were pissed at me. And no human pyramid at camp, no polyester, and no shaking your thing unless you’re so inclined. But preferably not, because, you know, I have to work with these people.”
“I’m smarter than I was at seventeen. Too smart to let you drag me into this. Besides, I do have a life. Responsibilities. I can’t just pick up and go play you for two weeks.”
“Oh, come on. Like you can’t take a couple weeks off from your thesis?”
Sarah fought not to grind her teeth. “I can’t, actually.
I’m on a very strict schedule in order to finish in time to defend in August and start the doctoral program in the fall.
” She’d scrimped and saved in order to take the summer off from any assistantships so she could just write and be done with the thing. She wasn’t about to waste that time.
“But just imagine how much clearer your head will be after getting out of the city. You said yourself, you have a hard time writing there. You’ve been dying to get out of New York.
This is your chance to recharge a little.
And it’s beautiful. You could take your camera, finally have some of the nature you actually like shooting pictures of. ”
A car horn blared from the street below and somebody shouted an inventive curse in… was that Portuguese?
A muscle by Sarah’s eye began to twitch. “By working for you.”
“Pleeeeeeease,” Taryn wheedled. “Think about it, Sarah! Five thousand. It’s enough to put a serious dent in the stupid debt. Enough I might be able to pay the last of it off by the end of the summer, so I can finally have a clean slate.”
A clean slate. That had been Taryn’s Holy Grail since Jax had walked out of her life.
He’d been her wakeup call, the last in a long line of poor decisions.
The school of hard knocks had taught her what no one else could, and she was finally ready to grow up.
If she finally could get free of the mess Jax had created, she’d be able to do that.
And Sarah would be able to stop worrying about her and focus on her own work.
Maybe.
But could she really afford two whole weeks away?
The living room wall rattled as something solid slammed against it from the apartment next door.
A moan and the rhythmic thumping that followed told her it was the newlyweds going at it again, instead of a nice, helpful home invasion that would put an end to the ear-splitting noise violations they engaged in multiple times a day.
The eye-twitch ramped up to a full on headache.
Not only were they supremely distracting, but their enthusiastic amour only served to highlight exactly how long it had been since there’d been a man in her life.
Not that she was looking.
Sarah pinched the bridge of her nose. “You swear this is something I can pull off?”
“Absolutely!” Taryn assured her.
She was probably going to regret this. But maybe her twin was right and getting back to nature would help break the writer’s block that had been plaguing her for months. At the very least, maybe she’d get some shots to replace the artwork on her walls.
“Okay. Against my better judgment, I’m in. Tell me what I need to do.”
“Good morning, staffers!”
From one of the picnic tables set up down by Lake Waawaatesi, Beckett Hayes watched his new boss, Heather Tully, address the assembled crowd.
Oh yeah. His buddy, Michael, had done well when he’d married her.
The cheerful blonde looked absolutely in her element.
And why shouldn’t she? Camp Firefly Falls—summer camp resort for grown-ups—was her brain child, and it had been a roaring success.
“It’s going to be a super busy couple of weeks as we finish prepping for our first session of the summer—Singles Week—so we’ll be throwing you all into the deep end with that one.”
“Deep end is right,” the guy next to him whispered. “I was here for that last year. It’s like policing a damned orgy.”
“Great,” Beckett drawled. He’d dealt with some of that in his last job as national park ranger. Herding drunk, horny people was never fun. It almost always ended in insults and often with beer or other questionable liquids spilled on his uniform.
“Now, some of you will be here all summer and some will be in and out, depending on the specifics of the session, but everybody has to pass their camp certification by the end of next week to keep our insurance company happy. That said, we want all of you to have fun yourselves. Here at Camp Firefly Falls, we work hard and play hard. The work begins bright and early at eight every morning. You can pick up your daily assignments at breakfast. We wrap in time for dinner at six, with evening activities planned so you can get to know your fellow staff members.”
The collective staff cheered.
“This afternoon, we’re getting started with a swim test.”
“Are you serious?” someone called from down front.