Their Campfire Romance (The Kowalskis #13)

Chapter One

Kenzie Pelletier usually loved spring as much as any other girl born and raised in New England, but this year the warm sunshine and chirping birds were on her last nerve.

It had been a very long winter. Northern New Hampshire got below average snow and well below average temperatures, which wasn’t great when your livelihood depended on tourists.

The snowmobile season had been disastrously short, with the trail conditions so marginal, only the diehards made the long drive north to ride.

And now they were already in mud season in the opening days of March, with the snow gone and nothing going on until the end of May, when the land the trails wound through would be dry enough to open to ATVs and side-by-sides.

All the bugs and mud, but none of the traffic steadily flowing past her restaurant.

Corinne’s Kitchen—named for Kenzie’s mother—could survive on their local customers, but they certainly didn’t thrive.

“You going to write up those specials or just stare at the whiteboard all day?”

Her father’s gruff voice jerked Kenzie out of her grumpy thoughts, and she popped the top off of a dry-erase marker. He wasn’t mad about her lapse in attention. Frank Pelletier just had the kind of low, stern voice that sounded a little angry, even when he was affectionately teasing his only child.

“What’s the soup today?” she asked, even though she knew writing it on the board was a waste of time and dry-erase ink. Customers would still ask what the specials were and what the soup of the day was, even though they were right there on the wall.

“It’s Friday,” Frank said over his shoulder as he pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen.

Of course, she thought, writing fish chowder on the board with a shudder. Fridays were fish night, highlighted by the AYCE fish and chips. Kenzie wasn’t a fan of seafood, and she always felt as if she had to wash her hair twice to get the lingering fried fish smell out of it.

Tomorrow would be franks and beans because that’s what was expected on a Saturday night.

Week after week, year after year. They closed at two Monday through Wednesday, so the regular menu got them through lunch on those days.

But Thursday was spaghetti night, Friday was fish, Saturday meant franks and beans, and Sunday offered pot roast. Sometimes Frank would be in the mood to make his exceptional meatloaf, and those were busy nights, with word spreading as quickly as good gossip through the community.

She’d just finished writing the Friday specials on the board when the kitchen door swung open again.

Frank had a box of the small bags of oyster crackers they’d go through a ton of tonight, and he set it on the end of the counter.

He had to nudge her book out of the way with the corner to make it fit.

“You’re not done reading this book yet?” He held up the paperback copy of Under Still Waters that was already slightly tattered from being handled.

It was a heartbreaking story of a man who has to come to terms with guilt and his family after his wife fell off their boat during a surprise storm.

Not her usual kind of read—she preferred romance or thrillers in which the deaths were deliberate.

But she’d read all of Danny’s books, and this one—his third—was her favorite.

“You usually plow through books like your mother did,” Frank continued. “If it’s that boring, quit and read something else.”

“It’s not boring. It’s my second read, so I’m taking my time.”

“You’re rereading a book you already read, huh?

It must be a good one.” Even though he wasn’t much of a reader, Frank flipped the book over to read the cover copy on the back.

After a few seconds, he frowned and held it up again.

“Dan Kowalski. Hasn’t this guy been in here?

He’s one of those brothers who bought Birch Brook Campground, right? ”

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s also a writer,” she said as casually as possible considering just looking at the photo on the back of the book kicked her pulse up a notch.

He looked so professional and put together in his author photo.

Dan Kowalski, bestselling and award-winning author of the kind of literary fiction book clubs couldn’t get enough of.

While he looked comfortable in front of the camera and not as stuffy as some writers did, his expression was serious and thoughtful.

His dark hair was neatly trimmed, and the camera couldn’t capture the sparkle in his pretty blue eyes.

She much preferred the version of him she’d gotten to know since he and his three brothers had bought the campground up the road last year.

Danny Kowalski, with his hair mussed and in need of a trim.

And his eyes—the way they crinkled when he laughed or narrowed thoughtfully when he came in for a meal and ended up bouncing story ideas off of her.

She hadn’t seen Danny since he and his brothers closed the campground for the season last fall, but thinking about him had kept her warm all winter.

Hours later, when Rob Kowalski—Danny’s younger brother—and his fiancée, Hannah Shaw, walked into the restaurant, Kenzie tucked the book under the counter.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want them to know she was reading it.

Even Danny knew she’d read it because they talked about the book last fall.

But it was really hard for her to not ask Rob how his brother was doing every time she saw him, and it was easier if she minimized the chances he’d be brought up in conversation.

“You’re early today,” she said, glancing at the clock as she set a mug of coffee in front of each of them.

“We took a ride up to Pittsburg today so I could take some pictures and Hannah could rummage around in the archives,” Rob said. “We were going to head home, but then she said the magic words.”

“French fries,” Hannah supplied with a chuckle.

“Are you working on a new episode?” Kenzie hadn’t really been a podcast person until she met Hannah, whose podcast, Improbable Causes, covered historical true crime.

She’d come from the West Coast to stay at the campground last year and ended up falling in love with Rob, so she relocated.

She and Kenzie had become good friends, and Hannah even picked up the occasional shift in the restaurant if they were in a bind.

Besides being a quarter owner of the campground, Rob was into photography and he’d been steadily building that side hustle.

“I’m knocking around a few ideas,” Hannah said. “Nothing fully formed yet. I recorded almost a season’s worth over the winter, but I’d like to get a couple more episodes in the can before the campground opens for the summer. And before Rob’s brothers start showing up.”

Kenzie ignored the way her body perked up at the thought of his brothers coming north to help with the campground. Hannah was talking mostly about Joey and Brian, because Danny had contributed more of the money and the other three were in charge of the sweat equity.

“What can I get you besides fries?” she asked, because walking away was the best way to distract herself before she asked about the only Kowalski brother she was really interested in.

Once she had their orders, she clipped it in the pass-through window and let her dad know it was there before going through the swinging door. Maybe a trip into the walk-in cooler for more coffee creamers would cool her off.

It was early March. The campground didn’t even open to seasonal campers until the first of May, and then to transient campers for the Memorial Day weekend. Rob’s brothers probably wouldn’t start coming up for another month. And even then, it was unlikely Danny would be one of them.

But the resemblance between the brothers was so strong, seeing one of them always made her think of Danny, and she already spent more time thinking about that man than she should. Nothing destroyed contentment more than yearning for something you couldn’t have, according to her mother.

Maybe Kenzie wouldn’t describe herself as content, exactly, but she was resigned to the hand she’d been dealt. More work was what she needed, she told herself. And definitely less yearning.

* * *

“You can’t set your manuscript on fire, Danny.”

Danny Kowalski usually listened to Colby Nicholls because they’d been together since the start of Danny’s career, but his agent was wrong this time. “Sure I can.”

“It’s a long story I don’t want to get into right now, but I’ve smelled a melted down laptop before, and that stench lingers forever.”

“This manuscript is the lingering stench, so I’m going to print it out.

Then I’m going to delete the file from the laptop and the cloud, and empty the digital trash cans.

Once the paper copy is the only one left, I’m going to put it in my truck, drive the two hours north to the campground I own with my brothers, dump the pages into one of our fire-marshal-approved campfire rings and burn it into ash, legally and with no lingering odors. ”

“Clearly, you’ve given this some thought,” Colby said. “Now, how about you put the same amount of thought and problem-solving energy into untangling the end of your book and we’ll both get a good night’s sleep, your editor can stop eating antacids like candy and you’ll get a nice check.”

Danny shook his head, even though his agent couldn’t see him. He’d refused the video portion of the call because his hair was sticking up and he still hadn’t fixed the ancient Red Sox T-shirt he’d somehow put on inside out. “I’m starting over.”

“No.” The barked word actually made him wince due to the tiny speaker being literally in his ear. “Dan, you don’t have time to start over. You didn’t even have time to start over if you’d said this six months ago.”