She's Got a Way (18 page)

Sam shook her head, then coughed out more water before she buried herself in the blanket. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

*   *   *

Luke stood in the darkened dining hall just after midnight, looking out the windows at the moonlit lake. He was still too amped up to sleep, and he imagined he wasn't the only one, so he'd wandered down the pathway to see if maybe Gabi was in her favorite beach chair. She and Sam had returned from the hospital hours ago, but besides a quick stop in the admin cottage to say they were back and Sam was okay, she hadn't emerged from the tent yet. The girls had gone to bed at nine, and since then, he'd been pacing and cursing and dying to talk to her.

He'd sat down to wait, hoping against hope that she'd come out. At eleven o'clock, he'd told himself he'd only wait until eleven-thirty. At eleven-thirty, he'd decided he could wait till midnight. At midnight, he'd decided … ah, hell. He had no idea what he'd decided.

A movement on the pathway caught his eye, and as he watched, Gabi emerged from the woods and headed for the beach. A strange feeling gripped his gut as he saw her wrap her arms around her midsection like she was trying to hold herself together.

The sudden realization that
he
had a strong urge to be the one holding her like that made him pause a minute longer before heading down to join her. Finally, he closed the screen door quietly behind him and walked down the pathway, stopping when he was twenty feet shy of where she stood in the sand. For a week now, he'd watched her go toe to toe with this little crew, and he'd been impressed with the inner strength that kept her sane. But right now, it looked like the steel had left her spine. She looked sad and defeated … and like she could really, really use a—what? Friend? Ally? Long, hot kiss to make it all fade away?

He shook his head. She needed A and B.
He
was the one who'd started thinking too much about C.

“You okay?” he finally asked, trying to keep his voice quiet so he didn't scare her.

She paused before she turned, and he tried not to notice she was swiping her sleeve across her eyes.
Shit.
He did not do tears.

“I'm okay.” She turned, and the tears were gone, but they'd left her eyes red, and left tracks down her exhausted cheeks. It was all he could do not to cover the ground between them in two steps and take her in his arms.

“How's Sam?”

“Doctors said she's physically fine.” She tipped her head. “Might be a long trip back for the nonphysical end of things.”

He took a step toward her. “I can't believe she doesn't know how to swim.”

“Yeah, well, surprise surprise.” Gabi sniffed, then blinked hard as she tightened her arms around herself. He wasn't sure whether it was the tears pooling in her eyes, or the way she looked like she was afraid she'd snap apart in the middle that did him in, but before he could think better of it, he closed the distance between them and pulled her close.

“Hey. It was a tough scene, Gabi. You did great.”

She took a shuddering breath against his chest, and he realized she might be about to lose it completely. She might dissolve right here in his arms—tears and sobbing and fear and hysteria—and he was going to be stuck, because what kind of asshole opened the door and then slammed it shut?

But for the first time in his life, it didn't actually scare him. For whatever crazy reason, he just wanted to stand right here and hold her in his arms until she didn't need him to.

“I'm sorry,” she mumbled against his chest. “I'm not—I don't usually do … this.”

“It's okay. Losing it's a pretty standard reaction when somebody almost drowns on your watch.” Her shoulders shook as she took another breath, and he pulled her tighter. “Hey. It's okay. She's okay now.”

“She could have died, Luke.”

“She didn't.”

“By the grace of God … and you. I can't stop thinking what might have happened if you hadn't been there.”

“You'd have figured it out, Gabi. You'd have saved her.” He said the words he thought she needed to hear, but knew she would see through them. Neither of them knew what might have happened. Gabi couldn't weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, and Sam wasn't a tiny twig. It would have taken all Gabi had—and more—to get that girl off her neck and out of the water.

“I'm not so sure, Luke. I'm really not, and that scares me.”

“I know.” He reached up to stroke her hair, finding it even smoother and softer than he'd realized when he'd plucked out the stupid spider. “And I know you'll see through whatever platitudes I can come up with right now, so I'll stop.”

“Okay.” She looked up at him, tears in her eyes. “I just keep seeing her in the water, below me, out of reach. I don't dare close my eyes, because that vision's going to haunt me forever. I don't think there's any way I'm going to sleep tonight.”

Her voice was shaky and raw with fear, and in another life, Luke might have offered himself—his body, his bed—as a comfort. He'd have done that, if he didn't care so much about what the next morning would look like.

But this was Gabi. Granted, he'd had precious little time to get to know her, but he was one hundred percent sure she wasn't the kind of girl who did the casual, trauma-induced hookup thing. And he wasn't anymore, either. Someday maybe he'd be ready to go all in with somebody. But until then, he wasn't going
anywhere.

But then she looked up into his eyes for a long moment, then at his lips. And
damn.
He knew he could kiss her right now—somehow knew she'd let him. But he also knew she'd regret it. She was vulnerable and exhausted, and he'd be a total ass to take advantage of it.

She closed her eyes, breaking the moment. Then she leaned her forehead against his chest, like she didn't want to pull away.

“I just can't believe none of us knew. I mean, she never went in the water. Never. How did I not even
think
of it? I just assumed she was being obstinate. Or that she was just trying to make sure she never again did
anything
that the other three do. I still can't believe I didn't know.”

“Kids are good at hiding what they don't want us to know. You know that. It's not your fault. She never told you.”

“I know, but Jesus, Luke. I'm usually not this obtuse. How didn't I even wonder? It never even crossed my mind. I mean, who gets to this age and doesn't know how to swim? It just didn't—didn't even occur to me.”

He stroked her hair back from her face. “Stop beating yourself up, Gabi. Some of this is on her, you know. She should have told you.”

“Right.” Gabi rolled her eyes. “Because that wouldn't have been embarrassing at all for her to do.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes, willing her to stop blaming herself for what had happened.

“The important thing here is how we move forward, right? What's done is done. We can't go back. We can't undo it. But we can get to the bottom of what's eating at these girls so that the next three weeks can be less of a disaster.”

“Or … I can take them back to Briarwood.” She bit her lip, looking off toward the dock, and he knew she must have been running that possibility through her head for hours now.

“Yeah, you could.”

She snapped her eyes back to his, like she'd hoped he'd argue, not agree, and he almost smiled.
Good.
She didn't really think that was the right solution.

“Or you could stick it out here, and we could work together to make things better.”

“Says the camp handyman saddled with a bunch of hooligans trying to drown each other.” She shook her head. “Why do you even
want
to help at this point? We have turned your summer completely upside down. I can't imagine there's any sight you'd like better right now than our taillights disappearing down that driveway.”

He laughed quietly. “The thought has crossed my mind.”

“So why, Luke? Why
do
you care about making this work?”

He took a deep breath, stalling for time.
Why, indeed?
Then he pulled her close again, hugging her tightly. Was it about the kids?

Or was it about Gabi?

 

Chapter 17

The next morning, after a solemn, quiet breakfast, Luke gathered the girls together at a circle of logs with a huge bonfire pit in the center. As Gabi looked around, she could imagine a normal summer here at Camp Echo, filled with crackling fires, campfire songs, and kids laughing as their marshmallows dropped into the flames.

This morning, though, there was no fire, no singing, and definitely no laughter. The girls were all quiet, wary … scared. Gabi'd woken up this morning no more convinced that they should stay here than she had been last night, but after torturing herself for two hours with the pros and cons, she'd decided she needed to give Luke a chance, at least for another day.

He hadn't answered her question last night—had just turned her around and walked her to the tent, like he was afraid she might lose her way if he left her to do it alone. And at the tent, he'd leaned in and kissed her softly on the forehead, and that damn kiss had just about undone her. It'd been sweet and kind and oh-so-tender, and her lack of sleep this morning had just as much to do with the promise of that kiss as it had to do with her fear of going to sleep and having drowning nightmares.

“All right.” Luke sat down on one of the logs, and as she looked at the concert T-shirt he had on, she tried not to remember what it had felt like to have her cheek against that chest last night. Tried not to think about how his arms had settled around her like they belonged there. Tried not to remember how badly she'd wanted him to
really
kiss her, even though it would have been spectacularly ill-advised, given the scared, emotional wreck she'd been at the time.

She wondered if he'd wanted to kiss
her
.

Eve and Waverly sat on one log, Sam on another, and Madison on a third, and every single one of them looked like they were about to face a firing squad. Sam had her knees pulled up under her too-large sweatshirt, the picture of defensiveness and fear. Madison, on the other hand, had her legs crossed, arms crossed, and if she could have gotten her eyes to cross and stick there, she might just have done it for effect.

“Let's talk about yesterday.” Luke looked at each of them. “Because I know it's
exactly
what you all want to do this morning.”

A snort came from one of them, but Gabi wasn't sure who.

“We had no idea.” Eve's voice was quiet, pained. “Really.”

“It was just in fun,” Waverly chimed in, her voice shaky. It occurred to Gabi that the girl had probably been up all night, worrying about what would happen this morning … wondering if she'd be called to task for her own actions, even though they'd been directed by Madison. “We never meant to hurt you, Sam.”

Luke nodded. “I think we've established that this was an accident. You can each make your apologies to Sam in your own way, and I really hope that you do. It might not have been personal, but I'm sure it
felt
personal, and you really need to make sure you deal with that part.”

He took a deep breath, scanning each of their faces. “She told you to stop, and you didn't. That's on you three.”

Madison uncrossed her arms. “We didn't know it was because she couldn't swim. We just thought she didn't want to get dumped into the lake.”

“And that's on her.” Luke shifted his eyes to Sam, who Gabi knew would never meet them with her own. Her head was down, and she was picking at her fingernails. “Sam? Did you know you couldn't swim?”

She looked up, not even bothering to disguise her sneer. “Do I really need to answer that?”

“You never told anyone?”

She shook her head. “It was nobody's business. I stayed out of the water. It wasn't an issue till Madison decided to drown me.”

“I didn't—” Madison stood up, angry spots of color in her cheeks. “I was trying to dunk you, not drown you. Jesus, Sam.”

“Girls.” Gabriela's voice was sharp. “This isn't helping.”

“Okay, okay.” Luke made placating motions with his hands. “Simmer down. I think it's fair to say that nobody here intended for what happened to … happen. I'm sure it rocked all of you, no matter how big and strong you think you are. Give yourself permission to freak out a little, okay?”

Gabi had expected them to be obstinate, pissy, snarky—like they'd been since they'd gotten here. Instead, the prevailing emotion she saw in their eyes right now was … fear. And that's what told her they hadn't meant to hurt Sam—they really hadn't known she couldn't swim.

She took a deep breath, relieved. Throughout the night, she'd lain awake, eaten alive by the thought that maybe Madison
had
known … that maybe, in some convoluted, serious lapse in judgment, she'd engineered the scene on purpose, not really believing the worst could possibly happen.

Luke let the silence linger—on purpose, she knew. Age-old technique and all. But the girls didn't say anything more. He wasn't getting anything else out of them.

“I believe you,” he finally said, and he noticed their shoulders visibly relax. “I don't think anybody here really meant to hurt anybody else. But here's the thing.
She
knew she couldn't swim. She knew why she'd been sitting on shore for a week now. She just didn't choose to share that with anyone. And look what happened.”

“Oh, my God.” Sam's eyes widened. “You're pinning this on
me
?”

“I'm not pinning it on anybody. Every single one of you has some ownership of what happened, though.” He pointed at Sam. “You didn't share something really, really important.” Then he swept his hand across the other three. “And you didn't listen when your friend was clearly terrified.”