Chapter Eight
April was the most boring month of the year, as far as Kenzie was concerned.
The promise of summer was in the air, but it was still cold at night—and raw on many of the days—so it was too early to plant anything.
The ATV trails were still closed, and even the walking trails were a mess.
In the spots at higher elevation, there was still crusty snow, and in the lower elevations, there was so much mud.
Business was slow, and with nothing more pressing to occupy her time, Kenzie spent most of her days thinking about Danny.
She’d heard from him once, about ten days after he left, letting her know he still hadn’t heard anything because his editor was giving it a second read before typing up notes.
When she asked him if that was a good sign or bad, he said he didn’t know.
After she’d wished him luck and reminded him to keep her in the loop, he said he would and that was it.
“You’re doing it again,” Rhylee said, nudging her with her arm.
They were doing their Monday shopping, and Kenzie realized she’d been staring at the canned soups without moving while thinking about Danny.
“Look at them all,” Kenzie said, waving her hand at the wall of soups. “Give me a minute to make a decision.”
Her cousin snorted. “You’ve been buying the same three soups for as long as we’ve shopped together.
Tomato, because it’s easy to heat up with a sandwich when you’re tired.
Cream of chicken because, as you’ve pointed out many times, it’s versatile.
It can be soup or gravy or sauce or whatever.
And chicken noodle just because who doesn’t have chicken noodle soup in the house? ”
After rolling her eyes, Kenzie put those soups in her cart, and then she grabbed a can of minestrone just to prove Rhylee wrong.
It was ridiculous to buy soup at all, she knew, since she could grab a to-go container of whatever they were serving at the restaurant that day.
It was a stubborn quirk she wouldn’t let go of, as though being able to dump a can of soup into a saucepan whenever she wanted proved Corinne’s Kitchen hadn’t totally taken over her life.
“You’ve been like this since that writer left,” Rhylee said as they moved on to the next aisle. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that bit of timing.”
“Did your keen sense of timing also pick up on the fact it’s April and it’s the most blah month of the year?” she deflected. “And speaking of blah, did you go on another date with that guy who bought the Wilson camp?”
In January, the town clerk had retired, and Rhylee had been a shoo-in for the job. It didn’t pay a lot, but she didn’t spend a lot and she liked the work. And that’s how she’d met a new prospective boyfriend.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Rhylee said, wrinkling her nose.
“It was so exciting to have a hot new guy in town, but he was so boring. So boring. I wish there were more of those Kowalski brothers, you know, but they’re all taken.
Two are married, one’s engaged, and you’ve got dibs on the last one standing. ”
“I don’t have dibs,” Kenzie hissed, stopping short so she didn’t run her cart into the man in front of her.
“So I can date him?”
Kenzie’s fingers tightened on the handle of her shopping cart, but she forced a smile. “I don’t care who he dates.”
Rhylee laughed. “Sure.”
When her phone buzzed in her back pocket, Kenzie actually hoped it wasn’t Danny for once, because she’d never hear the end of that from her cousin. But it was from Frank.
“Oh, no.” She stopped walking, typing out a reply. “My dad asked me to pick up some cold medicine. The good kind that makes him sleep.”
“Damn. I heard there was a bug going around.”
Kenzie nodded as she added the request to the shopping list so she couldn’t forget, but her mind was already on the contingency plan if her dad-slash-cook couldn’t work.
They didn’t happen often, but sick days were inevitable.
If Frank was down, Nathan could step in with Kenzie doing some double duty, though they usually put up a sign announcing a simplified menu.
In the past, if Kenzie was sick during the summer or a school vacation, her dad and Nathan would struggle through the morning until one of her high schoolers could get in.
Worst-case scenario, they had to close. Now they were lucky enough to have Hannah around if necessary.
It definitely wasn’t ideal, but she’d make it work. She always did.
Even though business was on the slower side, getting through the next three days was a challenge.
Nathan liked his job behind the swinging door because he was painfully shy and didn’t have to talk to anybody, as a rule.
While he was comfortable enough with Kenzie, he wasn’t loud and pushy, like Frank, so she had to make sure she kept some of her attention focused on the pass-through window.
She also had to take up some of the dish washing slack, since Nathan was at the grill.
If there was a silver lining, though, it did keep her from thinking too much about Danny.
On Thursday night, she didn’t get home until almost nine o’clock, and she was beat. She found her dad in his recliner, and he was awake when she walked into the room, but she could tell he’d been nodding off to whatever crime show he was watching.
“How’d it go?” he asked, turning down the volume.
“Good. Spaghetti’s pretty easy, though the dishes suck.” She sank onto the couch, even though she wouldn’t be there long. Her bed was calling. “Nathan’s great. He’s just not as fast as you, which is to be expected. How are you feeling?”
“Better. I’ll be up and at ’em bright and early tomorrow morning. I probably could have gone in this morning, honestly, but I figured an extra day wouldn’t hurt.”
“Better to rest than relapse,” she said, echoing something her mother had said many times.
He chuckled. “So I’ve heard. And on that note, I’m going to lock up and head upstairs.”
Kenzie nodded, intending to do the same, but she ended up staring blankly at the television instead. Ten years she’d been doing this. Frank was a very healthy fifty-nine, so how many years were left before he decided to hang up his spatula? Ten? Fifteen? Knowing him, it could even be twenty.
The idea of every day for another decade or more being the same as every day in the decade before exhausted Kenzie even more than fourteen hours on her feet. After clicking off the television, she went upstairs and got ready for bed, leaving Frank to finish turning off the lights.
Once she was in bed, though, she didn’t go right to sleep. Instead she picked up the book from her nightstand and looked at the too-serious photo of Danny on the back. She ran her thumb over his jawline, smiling.
Then she put the book back and turned off the lamp. March had been a fun interlude, but another quote from her mother ran through her mind as she closed her eyes.
Nothing destroys contentment more than yearning for something you can’t have.
* * *
Danny loved his house. It was small, but it was private and set back in the woods.
The river ran through his backyard, far enough back so he didn’t worry about flooding, but close enough so he could sit in his screened-in back porch and watch it flow while he drank his coffee.
When the weather was warm, he’d often unplug his laptop and do some work out there.
With help from his cousins and brothers, he’d renovated the ancient cape-style home before moving in.
The downstairs was mostly open concept, with only a large island separating the living room from the kitchen.
Off to the side was a half bath and laundry room, along with a room that was technically a dining room.
He never dined in there, preferring to sit at the kitchen island.
Sometimes he’d have a jigsaw puzzle going.
Upstairs was a primary bedroom he’d given an en suite bathroom. On the other side of the hall, two smaller rooms shared a bathroom. One he used as an office, and the other he kept as a seldom-used guest bedroom.
The whole house was decorated in neutrals, mostly because he didn’t care and his mother had chosen a color palette that would go with anything if he ever got an itch to decorate.
So far, he hadn’t. One of his younger cousins had called the look “sad beige,” whatever that meant.
But his office and the back porch were well lived in, and designed for his comfort.
By the third week in April, though, he was antsy.
The first week he’d been back, he’d thrown himself into touching base with his parents and the rest of the family, and into catching up on work.
By keeping himself busy, he hadn’t had a lot of time—other than when he should have been sleeping—to think about Kenzie.
But a couple of weeks into his usual routine, she crept into his thoughts more and more.
He was sitting on his back porch, drinking coffee and ignoring the notebook sitting open on his side table, when a yellow Lab trotted into his yard and straight up the stairs. When she saw Danny, she gave a single woof and waited for him to get up and open the screen door. “Hey, Stella.”
Everybody in the family agreed that Brian’s dog was the best dog ever, and seeing her lifted his spirits. It lasted until his brother came around the corner of the house, his hands in his pockets and his mouth in a straight line.
“Is everybody okay?” Danny asked when he reached the top of the steps. “You look more grim than usual.”
When Brian grinned and shoved his shoulder, Danny felt a rush of relief. While something was definitely on his brother’s mind, it wasn’t anything too dire.
“Everybody’s fine, but I have to talk to you about something I’d rather not talk to you about.”
“Is it a rash?” Danny teased as he closed the door to keep Stella in. She had a tendency to dive into the river if they took their eyes off of her. “Are you waking up with sticky wet spots in your pajamas?”
“You’re such an ass,” Brian said, but he was smiling as they took their seats.
“I’ve got most of it out of my system, I think, so tell me what’s going on.”
“Just between you and me, for now,” his brother said, looking him in the eye. “It’s important and it’s big, but for right now, it’s just between us. I mean it.”
“Just between us,” he promised. “What’s up?”
Considering the circumstances, Danny was surprised when Brian broke into a grin. “Siobhan’s pregnant.”
“No shit!” He pushed to his feet and went to his brother, who stood to receive his embrace and slap on the back. “Congratulations.”
Sitting again, Brian nodded. “We weren’t actively trying, but we weren’t actively trying not to, if you know what I mean. We’re still wrapping our heads around it.”
“And Siobhan’s okay?”
“She’s fine, but I’m—I wouldn’t say I’m a wreck, but I’m kind of a blend of over-the-moon excited and low-key terrified at all times.”
“I don’t know a lot about it, but I think that’s how you’re supposed to feel.”
While Brian and Siobhan shared a child—Oliver, who was the spitting image of the Kowalski brothers—they’d both be experiencing pregnancy for the first time.
Last summer, when Siobhan visited the campground to be Steph Kowalski’s maid of honor, they’d all found out Brian was the biological father of the child she’d adopted from her sister—Brian’s ex-wife.
It had been a mess, but a mess with a happy ending because Brian and Siobhan fell in love. Their wedding over the winter had been small, just the parents and siblings, and they’d all gotten a little choked up.
“Again, it’s way too early to be telling anybody,” Brian said. “But I’ve got a problem, and looping you in on the news is the only way I can see out of it.”
“Siobhan and Oliver can’t go north to the campground with you, and you don’t want to leave her alone that long this early in the pregnancy.
” When Brian’s shoulders dropped in a long exhale, Danny knew he’d nailed it.
“And Joey’s got a new baby, plus Nora’s in school until late June, so he can’t go up. ”
“I know when I tell Rob and Hannah, they’ll tell me they can handle it. And I know they can, but it doesn’t feel right to ask them to, you know? Even if it’s only until we get through her first trimester.”
I’d be able to see Kenzie again.
The thought filled him with a buzzing anticipation, but he tried to ignore it, focusing on the issue at hand.
Sure, he’d turned in the manuscript, but there would be editorial notes bouncing back to him any day, since he’d put them behind schedule.
There was a lot of work left to do in turning that manuscript into a book.
To say nothing of all the marketing and admin stuff he’d let slide.
And he should already be making notes to run by his editor for his next manuscript.
“When is she out of her first trimester?”
Brian winced. “Memorial Day weekend.”
“Oh, wow. You couldn’t have planned this any worse if you’d tried,” Danny said, and they both laughed.
The campground opened to their seasonal campers at the beginning of May.
But at the end of May, they opened to all campers and the ATV trails opened.
Along with the Fourth of July and Labor Day, they were the busiest days of the year for the campground.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day in October was close, thanks to the long weekend and fall foliage, but it was more about the physical labor in making sure the campground was ready for campers.
And there was wood to cut and bundle for reselling in the store.
Roads to fix. ATV trails to work on. Hannah was a huge help in the office, but Brian not being around to help Rob for the entire month of May would be brutal.
“I know it’s a big ask,” Brian said. “You being up there wasn’t part of the—”
“I’ll go.” It wasn’t even a question, really. “Of course I’ll go. Can I take Stella?”
The Lab lifted her head, tongue hanging out, but Brian shook his head. “No. Get your own dog.”
He’d thought about it more than once, but he’d never gotten around to doing the work of researching which mix of breeds he should scour the shelters for.
And then his annoyingly predictable brain brought Kenzie back into the mix, wondering if she liked dogs.