Chapter 1 #2
“Camp rules. Everybody has to tread water for two minutes, then swim out to the raft and back. Anybody who does not pass will not be on any water activities for the summer. Anybody who’s not already suited up, go change. We get rolling in fifteen minutes!”
Beckett held himself back from the minor stampede toward the staff cabins to change clothes.
He was already set with board shorts and a T-shirt.
While waiting, he scanned the remaining faces, noting the animated conversations and laughter.
A lot of these people were returning staff, and a fair chunk had been campers here before the Tullys bought it and turned it into a resort, back when Camp Firefly Falls had been a regular sleep-away camp for kids.
Beckett hadn’t been one of them.
Michael wandered over and plunked down on the other side of the table. “Settling in okay?”
“Getting there.”
“Cabin working out for you?”
Beckett laughed. “It’s like a damned penthouse suite compared to some of the places I lived with the park service.
Listen, I want to thank you again for giving me a job this summer.
After the—” He cut himself off, not wanting to get into the mess of his former position.
“Well, my prospects weren’t great. This is really saving my ass.
” The summer’s work would buy him time to figure out his next move.
“Hey, it’s our gain and my pleasure. They were wrong for firing you.”
Beckett jerked his shoulders. “Yeah, well, I was far from the only one.” His position and those of many other had been cut along with funding for so many of the national park programs. Things were improving some with the new administration, but those kinds of reversals took time to actually trickle down.
They both looked out over Lake Waawaatesi, glistening in the afternoon sun. It was gorgeous, soothing, and a far cry from the Ivy League campus where they’d met.
“Never would have thought we’d end up here when we were busting our humps for our MBAs,” Beckett observed.
“Maybe not me, but you walked away from the crazy a lot sooner than I did.”
In his last year of grad school, Beckett had walked out. Of the classroom. Of the MBA program. Away from Dartmouth. He’d never looked back. “Wasn’t gonna make me happy.”
“I wish I’d figured the same out sooner. That whole corporate culture nearly cost me my wife.”
“But it didn’t,” Beckett observed. “This place brought you two back together.”
Michael sighed in obvious contentment. “Seems fitting since we were camp sweethearts as kids.”
He tipped back his water. “You’re a lucky bastard.”
“Yes, yes I am. And hey, who knows? Maybe you’ll meet your match this summer.”
Beckett cocked an eyebrow at his friend. “Come on, now. I expect that kind of crap from Heather. Not from you.”
Michael just grinned. “We’ve got a bulletin board up in Pinecone Lodge with pictures of all the couples who’ve gotten together here. It’s filling up.”
“You, sir, are full of shit.”
Laughing, Michael shoved back from the table. “Just don’t let Heather hear you say that. She’ll try to matchmake you.”
“I do not need the complication of a woman in my life.” His own prospects were so uncertain at the moment, why would any woman even consider getting involved with him?
He’d had few enough girlfriends over the years.
None of them had been able to tolerate the semi-itinerant lifestyle of a park ranger.
When his transfer to Yosemite had come up, his girlfriend at the time hadn’t wanted to move with him, and he hadn’t cared enough to want to stay.
Since then, Beckett hadn’t bothered with anything more than casual.
If that had gotten old some time ago, well, such was life right now. He had other things to figure out.
“They’re the only complication that’s worth it.” Michael’s voice pulled Beckett back to the present.
“Spoken like the happily married man you are. And on that saccharine note, I believe I’ll take my position at the starting line.” He stripped off his T-shirt and toed off his Chacos, leaving them in a neat pile on the picnic table as he went to join the thickening crowd on the dock.
He found himself next to a long, lean woman bent in a forward fold. He made a valiant effort not to stare at her ass in the snug, racer-back swimsuit and ended up admiring her gorgeously toned legs instead.
“See something you like?” The wry tone had him yanking his eyes away like a teenage boy caught peeping in the girls’ locker room.
Busted.
“Sorry,” Beckett muttered, gaze now firmly on the raft anchored out in the center of the lake. “You just look—” Was there any way to finish that sentence that didn’t make him come off like a perv? “—like you know what you’re doing.”
“I should. I’ve been swimming competitively practically since birth.” She straightened. “I’m Taryn.”
He interpreted the proffered hand as a sign of forgiveness and turned to take it. His own name died on his tongue as he found himself faced with the biggest doe eyes he’d ever seen.
Well hello, Bambi.
“Hi.”
A corner of Taryn’s mouth quirked as she gave his hand a perfunctory shake. “May the best swimmer win.”
“Win wha—”
The scream of an air horn signaled the start of the test. Taryn dove for the water, as did everyone around Beckett before he could get his brain in gear. She’d already surfaced by the time he dove in. The chill lake water was a shock to his system, clearing the haze of lust from his brain.
“Two minutes!” Heather shouted. “Starting…now!”
His feet and arms automatically began to tread, keeping him afloat. A few feet away, Taryn was already facing the raft, her dark blonde hair slicked back like a seal.
“In a hurry?” he asked.
She glanced over her shoulder one corner of her mouth quirked. “Eye on the target.”
“You know this isn’t a contest, right?”
Her lips bowed into a full-on grin that sucker punched him more than the icy lake. “Everything’s a competition.”
Beckett had done everything in his power to get away from competition in his life.
But something about that smile pulled at him and invited him to join in the fun.
He had a feeling competition with Taryn would be anything but the senseless, boring grind he’d walked away from.
So he readied muscles honed as a boy in the surf off Myrtle Beach, and when Heather blew the air horn again, he went for it.
He made it to the head of the pack in four strokes, but Taryn was faster.
Her freestyle was a thing of beauty, slicing cleanly through the water as if she’d been born to it.
Beckett dug deep, pulling his focus back to his own form.
Half a dozen strokes and he’d closed the gap to two lengths.
Ahead, Taryn slapped the raft and dove, popping back up and heading toward shore.
Beckett tagged the raft himself and switched to butterfly for the return leg.
He caught up with her at the halfway point.
Seeing what he was about, she shifted smoothly into a butterfly stroke herself, and they both raced for the finish line.
Taryn beat him by two strokes. Beckett could hear her crow of victory as she slapped the dock.
“You are a freaking mermaid,” he gasped.
She slicked her hair back and beamed. “Yes, I am. God, that felt good!”
A shadow fell over the two of them. Michael. “You realize we have no prizes, right?”
“Maybe you should,” Beckett suggested. “Because that was damned impressive.”
“Maybe we’ll just move things around so she’s on lifeguard duty instead of paired up with you for rock climbing.”
“Looks like tomorrow we get to go to my playground.” Beckett grinned, turning to the mermaid. Something had wiped the smile clear off her face. In fact, she looked a little sick. What was that about?
He hauled himself out of the water and reached down to offer a hand to Taryn. “You okay?”
Eschewing his hand, she hoisted herself cleanly up, the water sluicing off that long, lean body. “I’m fine.” She reached for a towel, hastily wrapping it around herself before muttering, “See you tomorrow.”
Then she was gone and Beckett was left wondering what the hell he’d done wrong.
Michael smirked at him. “What was that you said about not needing the complication of a woman?”
“Still true. But I’m breathing, so I can appreciate the distraction of one when she appears.”
His buddy just laughed. “I call that denial, but whatever helps you sleep at night, pal.”