Chapter Seven
Kenzie was in the walk-in freezer when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out as she exited, securing the door behind her. Then she leaned against it to open the text message from Danny.
I sent the book to my agent. It’s one of the rougher drafts I’ve ever sent, but it’s a complete manuscript.
She read the message twice, her heart pounding. Now that the book was done, would he leave? He’d come here to bust through his writer’s block and he’d done that. Now there was no reason for him to stay.
She pushed down that initial, rather selfish thought, and sent some celebratory emojis back. Congratulations! I knew you could do it!
“Hey, Kenzie, you’ve got food in the window,” Frank called back to her.
“I’ve got it.” She was about to put her phone away when another text message flashed onto the screen.
We’re throwing steak on the grill tonight to celebrate around five. Can you come? I couldn’t have done it without you.
“Kenzie!”
“I’m coming!” She slid the phone back into her pocket and gave her father a dark look before pushing through the swinging door.
She hated when he did that. The customers could hear him thanks to the giant open window, and his impatience made it seem their food had been sitting in the pass for longer than it actually had.
After delivering the meals and taking a trip around the dining room to see if anybody needed anything, Kenzie went to the small counter where they kept the register and all the various other things she needed.
The phone hung there, and there were extra order pads, a mug of pens and the credit card machine.
By putting her phone next to the register, Frank couldn’t see it and he’d just assume she was working on something. Instead, she read the message from Danny again.
She shouldn’t go. It wasn’t going to make it any easier on her when he went home.
And she’d have to tell her dad where she was going because they usually ate together on the days the restaurant closed early.
But she was annoyed with him at the moment, and it was sweet Danny wanted to include her in celebrating the book being done.
Sorry, had food in the window. I’d love to come. Can I bring anything?
Just yourself. Maybe a beverage if you like something other than water, lemonade and iced tea. Or coffee.
She laughed, and then caught herself. After a glance toward the window, she went back to her phone. That’s after decaf o’clock for me, but lemonade’s good. See you at five.
The thumbs-up emoji was the only response, so she slid the phone back into her pocket and got back to work. The rest of the so-called lunch rush dragged on, and she’d gotten all of her closing tasks done by the time she flipped the sign to Closed and locked the door.
Her dad and Nathan were finishing washing the dishes and breaking down the steam table when she went out back.
“Hey, Dad, Rob and Hannah invited me over for a cookout tonight, so I won’t be around for dinner. There are plenty of choices in the freezer to pop into the microwave if you don’t want to take something home with you.”
“I’ll probably heat up some of that lasagna from the freezer,” he said easily. Then he looked sideways at her. “That writer going to be there?”
“Since he’s staying with Rob and Hannah, I guess he probably will.” She tried to say it casually, which was ridiculous. She was thirty-four, not sixteen, and she didn’t answer to anybody.
But this wasn’t a typical father-daughter situation. Frank’s livelihood depended on Kenzie not falling in love and running off with a man who didn’t live locally. It wasn’t something they talked about, but they both knew it.
When she’d moved home—without Hunter—after the funeral, Kenzie had downplayed the breakup.
Losing her mother had caused enough heartbreak so it was easy for her to hide the pain of her boyfriend choosing Boston over her, and the loss of all the dreams they’d had for their life together.
But she hadn’t wanted to add to her father’s sorrow, so other than crying a lot of tears on Rhylee’s shoulders, Kenzie had kept it to herself.
Before Frank could ask any more questions about tonight, she went back out front and did a final check to make sure everything was ready for six o’clock tomorrow morning. Of course it was. She’d been doing this job a long time, so she didn’t even think about it anymore.
What she did think about was Danny. Whether she was wondering about his book or thinking far more intimate thoughts about him, he was on her mind a lot.
And now she was going to have dinner with him and his family.
She was a little worried about Hannah, who probably knew her well enough at this point to see that being so close to Danny flustered her.
When she pulled into the campground driveway a few minutes before five and parked next to Danny’s truck, her heart was pounding. She was planning to take her time walking around the house so she’d be able to calm down, but she’d barely gotten out of her car when Danny walked out the front door.
“You’re just in time. Rob just put the steaks on, and he asked me how you like yours cooked.”
She shrugged. “I’m not picky. Medium’s what I shoot for, but I don’t mind it more or less done. I appreciate the invitation.”
“I can’t celebrate finishing the book without you. It wouldn’t be done at all—or maybe it would be done, but really bad—without your help.” He started heading around back, and she walked next to him. “I want to kidnap you and take you home with me so you can help me write my next book.”
Despite knowing he only wanted her for her brainstorming skills, Kenzie’s entire body flooded with heat at the thought of Danny taking him home with her. “Or you could move up here and spend time outdoors in between writing jags.”
He laughed, clearly taking her suggestion as a joke, so she laughed along with him.
“Oh, hell no. Even though it’s only two hours north of where I live, it’s a lot colder here in the winter.
And I’m not about to give up DoorDash and super-fast internet and everything else civilization has to offer to get sucked into splitting wood and babysitting campers. ”
Even though the entire conversation was meant in jest, the hell no stuck, echoing through Kenzie’s mind.
“Kenzie!” Hannah spotted her as soon as they rounded the corner of the house and headed their way. “I’m so glad you came. I spend so much time with Kowalski men, and I adore them, but it’s such a treat to have another woman around sometimes.”
“Hey, Kenzie,” Rob said. “How do you like your steak cooked?”
* * *
They ate at the picnic table in the backyard. It was a little chilly, but at least the bugs hadn’t shown up yet. And Danny didn’t mind because he got to sit close enough to Kenzie so their legs kept touching.
It was a small thing—the kind of contact he wouldn’t even notice if he was sitting next to anybody else—but he’d take what he could get.
Rob and Hannah were telling stories from last spring, when the Kowalski brothers decided they could run a campground simply because they’d spent time there almost every year growing up. It was working out okay, so far, but the experience had definitely added to their stockpile of amusing anecdotes.
Danny had heard the tale of Rob falling in the pool the day Hannah arrived at the campground more than once, so his attention was free to wander.
Usually his focus would pivot back to whatever book he was working on, but with a manuscript just turned in and Kenzie sitting next to him, his mind naturally wanted to think about her.
Mostly he thought about what would happen if he kissed her.
Not here, in front of his brother and Hannah, of course. That would be awkward. But maybe on one of their walks, he could pull her into his arms. They could share their first kiss by a riverbank, or next to a pond.
But then he remembered there wouldn’t be any more walks. The book was done, there were no more plot problems to solve, and he was going home.
Kenzie’s knee bumped his—not in a casual way, but deliberately to get his attention. He turned his head and found her smiling at him.
“Rob asked you what’s wrong with your food.”
“What?” He looked at his brother, frowning. “There’s nothing wrong with my food.”
Rob snorted. “You’ve been sitting there staring at your plate for like three minutes. I don’t even know if you blinked.”
Danny certainly wasn’t going to share what he’d been thinking about, so he scooped up a forkful of pasta salad and shoved it into his mouth.
“So do you have any Family Functions of Doom planned for this summer?” Kenzie asked.
Danny almost choked on the pasta salad, and he swallowed hard before turning to face her. “You know about the doom thing?”
It was one of his family’s quirks going back as long as he could remember.
He knew it was probably one of his brothers—or maybe even him—who’d started referring to anything awesome or epic as the whatever “of Doom,” and it had stuck.
Hard. He’d even heard Nora and Oliver use it, so the doom had spread to the next generation.
“I’ve heard it mentioned a few times at the restaurant,” Kenzie said. “Somebody finally explained it to me, probably because hearing about your cousin’s Wedding of Doom confused me, and it must have shown on my face.”
“That was quite a wedding,” he said, and then he sent a pointed look across the picnic table.
“Nope.” Hannah laughed and held up her hands. “We are not getting married here at the campground. My family will bring the camper from California and stay here, obviously, but we don’t want to actually get married here. We’re still working on what we do want.”
“I know I don’t want to sit on this hard bench anymore,” Rob said. After getting up, he stretched and then went to light the kindling he’d laid out in the fire ring. There were already camp chairs set around it, though Danny hadn’t realized they were for tonight.