Jo whisked herself inside the cabin and shut the door. No one was near the window. The burnt-orange curtains were closed. A small cobweb linked one end of the curtain rod to the corner of the ceiling. She leaned back against the door, holding tight to her duffle bag and her shoes.
“Jo, are you Ok?” April asked. “You look like you’ve seen a bear—or a ghost.” April’s statement caused everyone to stop what they were doing and stare at Jo, pinned against the door and turning red.
“I thought I heard something—but it was just the wind.” She pushed herself off the door and walked quickly past the others with her head down. She dropped her bag against the side of a couch and headed to the back of the room where she set her hiking boots down in a row with everyone else’s.
“Just the wind?” Galen’s voice landed on her like a block of cement. He was standing close behind her. As she stood up and turned, her eyes met his grey T-shirt stretched across his chest. His head was a dark image looming over her. “Yeah,” she stated, refusing to look up at him. She sidled her way around him.
On the other side of Galen, was a large open living room furnished with two couches sitting diagonally in front of a stone fireplace. To her right was an oval, wood dining table and on the other side of that, a tiny kitchen. On her left, a stairway led up to a loft. Dove was standing in the doorway of the only bedroom on the main floor. Jo headed to her and they walked in together.
“Oh, this is cute,” Dove said.
Jo agreed, her eyes wandering through the light-filled room. Its double bed was covered with a beautiful green and purple patch-work quilt. The windows were trimmed with ruffled, green-checked curtains. How romantic. She turned her head and her eyes discovered Mike in the living room, flopped on his back on one of the couches. His body took up the whole length of it—a long drink of water, her grandma would have said.
“Ah, this is the life.” He folded his hands underneath his head, his arm muscles bulged under the rolled-up sleeves of the denim shirt. His T-shirt stretched tightly over his chest. Her gaze slid up to his face. His eyes were closed, his expression relaxed, soft and little-boy like. She sighed inaudibly, taking in the whole of him.
Ben walked through the scene and sat on the end of the opposite couch, setting up his chess set on the raised fireplace hearth. Jo barely noticed him. Her gaze was riveted to Mike, watching his chest rise and fall as he breathed. She swallowed, her lips slowly parting.
The scene was obliterated. Drew leapt over the couch, hollering like a mad man. Mike’s eyes popped open. He sprang up and tackled Drew to the floor. Lary joined the scuffle.
“Boys,” April scoffed.
Dove shook her head, but a little grin crossed her lips.
Jo turned her attention back to the bedroom. It was the perfect room for her and Dove—April too, if they didn’t mind being squished in the bed—to whisper of dreams and share secrets in the dark of night. Perfect. “Let’s get our stuff and stake our claim,” she told the girls.
Mike, Drew, and Lary collided in the doorway, panting and huffing for breath. They pushed and shoved each other, laughing, even giggling like little girls, as they fought to be the first one in. Jo frowned in disapproval of all them—except Mike.
Drew broke through and jumped on the middle of the bed. “Mine!” He rolled from one side to the other, reveling in the cushy bedding. His feet were bare of the flip-flops he had worn into the cabin. His shaggy chestnut hair flew back and forth.
Jo shook her head at his boisterous display. She was irritated watching his body writhe on that exquisite quilt.
“No way!” Mike yelled and lunged at Drew.
“Guys!” April stuck her arms out over Drew’s body.
Mike froze.
Drew was breathing hard from the wrestling match. His breathing slowed as he gazed up at April. Jo read the feelings his eyes revealed.
April must have read it too, because she quickly pulled her arms in and folded them across her slender body, stepping back from the bed. Drew sat up and rolled off it. He tried to comb his unmanageable hair back into place with his fingers and slumped back against a wall, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He tilted his flushed face downward.
“We call dibs on this room,” April told the guys in her most intrepid, little voice. She placed her hands on the hips of her waif-like body, her lips pursed in defiance.
“Why’s that?” Ben asked. He strolled in, gazing around with a look of approval. He took off his glasses, holding them by the thick brown frames, and proceeded to clean them with the end of his collared shirt. His mustache twitched.
“Because we’re girls.”
Jo and Dove glanced at each other and sighed.
“That’s not going to fly around here,” Mike told her. The other guys adamantly agreed with him. “Let’s arm wrestle for it,” he suggested, flexing an arm.
April and Dove (and Ben and Drew) groaned, but Jo was too busy swooning. She tilted her head downward, but her eyes stayed on Mike and his soft-looking lips, his gorgeous smile, and his aquamarine eyes throwing light across the room.
“Sit ups!” Dove shouted and patted the flat tummy beneath her blue tank top.
“Ladies first,” Mike said, and his eyes met Jo’s.
Jo stiffened. She managed to grin while her face flushed with heat, but her mind went blank. He turned away. This chance to interact with him was gone.
“Galen, you want in on this?” Mike asked him.
Galen’s form had darkened the doorway. He leaned against it with his arms folded. His dark hair was hanging in front of one eye; he flipped it away. “No, thanks. There’s a hammock out front. I’ll take it unless someone wants to sword fight me for it.” There wasn’t a trace of humor in his face or tone.
The group chuckled at this odd challenge.
Jo stared at him with one eye squinted, her lips twisted to one side, almost tempted to accept, just to see what he would say. But she lost her nerve. The others laughed and agreed he could have it.
She breathed a sigh of relief when he walked away, uninterested in their contest, just like he was the night they met him—in the park, early spring of this year.
Jo remembered hearing gasps of air sucked into the lungs of every girl at the Bible study, as he strode across the thick, green grass toward them. She and Dove had looked at each other with expressions of WOW on their faces. But Jo’s opinion of him had dropped steadily throughout that evening.
While she and the others had played volley ball, Galen had planted himself under a cottonwood tree, leaning back against it with his thumbs hooked in his front pockets and a foot pressed back against the tree’s trunk. He came in black jeans and a black T-shirt with a V neck—like his grey one today. His body was long and lean, his arms taut and muscular. His wavy, jaw-length hair, picking up the light from the softball field next door, gleamed like rich, black ink. He was so incredibly gorgeous and seemed so incredibly bored.
She had caught him glaring at her that same night. At first, she’d been flattered that he was looking at her. But his expression was that of someone observing a misbehaving child. There was disapproval and even bitterness in his eyes. As he interacted, in his disinterested way, with others, she noticed his eyes didn’t project the same look of disdain at anyone else.
He hadn’t participated in the activities or talked to anyone any more than he had to, but he came back to their group again and again, and now…
Jo rubbed her burning abdominal muscles and looked longingly back at the little bedroom. Mike and Lary dumped their bags in the room, high-fived each other, sang victory chants, and were quite obnoxious in their victory.
The girls climbed the stairs to the loft with their belongings. It was empty except for two sets of bunk beds. Jo claimed a top bunk.
But the girls fared better than Ben and Drew, who were left with the two couches in the living room.
Jo headed back down the staircase. Mike stood at the back door holding up one side of the gauzy white curtain that hung over
the door’s small square window panes. “Hey, guys, there’s a pond out back—and an awesome deck.”
Jo saw her chance. “Oh, let me see!” She skipped down the stairs and hurried to the window. She lifted the other side of the curtain, barely coming in contact with the warm flesh of Mike’s arm. He dropped the curtain and wordlessly moved away.
Her heart was stung. She pretended to be looking out a window pane, but her eyes were fixed on the peeling white paint around its frame. She yanked the door open, fleeing out the back of the chalet as quickly as she’d come in the front.
She leaned back on the door and lifted her face to the sun. What happened just now wasn’t a big thing. It was just one of the many times she had found herself alone and close to him, either by stratagem or serendipity, and he had turned his attention elsewhere. Usually, he was more polite about it. “He didn’t mean anything. You’re being too sensitive,” she told herself. She took a deep breath and walked across the deck, setting her elbows on the rough wooden rail that enclosed it. Steps to the ground were on the left side of the deck, and on the right, a spruce tree shot up through a hole. Benching had been cleverly built around the tree, and there was benching elsewhere.
A forested valley spread into the distance and stopped where a mountain peak sprang up. The pond was about 30 feet from the deck and full of mud-colored water. A sign in front of it displayed the words, Enchanted Pond, on a weathered board in faded yellow paint. At the sight of it, she smiled and lifted her soft, golden hair. The breeze skimmed across her neck, soothing her hurt feelings. She let her hair fall. It floated around her face on the caressing wind. That’s Ok, she thought, I’ve got a whole weekend. She raised her eyes to the depthless blue sky. “Just give me a chance, please.”
Chapter 5