She's Got a Way (6 page)

As she doled out paper and crayons, her eye caught on Luke as he came down the pathway hauling a small pine tree he'd just cut down. He moved with a smooth grace that belied his muscular build, and
God,
those muscles. They were the kind that came from good, honest work, not a set of barbells, and in a moment of sleep-deprived insanity last night, she'd wondered what it would be like to touch them … him.

Gabi shook her head. The handyman's body was
not
what she needed to be focused on right now. The sun was out, the lake was beautiful, and she'd arbitrarily decided it was arts-and-crafts hour. She already knew the girls would hate it, and honestly, she didn't care. They'd gotten themselves sentenced here. They'd have to deal with … here.

She pointed up the pathway from the beach. “Here's your job: without losing sight of the admin cottage, head out into the woods and find some leaves, ferns, flowers—anything that can lie almost flat. Put them in your bag, and once you have ten different items, come back to the picnic table and I'll show you a project.”

Madison did her patented eye roll. “This is so stupid.”

“You want to head for the other camp? Catch your own food? Because that can be arranged.”

Madison grumbled and snatched her bag. As she turned, Gabi was pretty sure she heard her mumble “bitch,” but she was honestly too tired to call her on it.

Waverly called up her best sneer as she took her own bag, anxious to show Madison that she, too, thought the project was lame. Too bad her efforts were wasted, as Madison was already halfway across the lawn.

Eve sighed and held out her hand. “Ten different things?”

“Ten different things.”

Sam raised her eyebrows. “You hoping this will take forever? Because guess what? There are a lot of plants out there. We'll be back in, like, five minutes.”

Gabi shook her head as she handed Sam her bag, but she couldn't help smiling. She was probably right.

“Walk slowly, okay?”

Ten minutes later, long before Gabi was ready for them, three of the four girls were back at the picnic table, their bags full of leafy plants. She showed them how to take the paper she'd found in a supply closet Oliver had shown her in the admin cottage, flip the leaves so their veins were showing, and rub crayons over them to trace the shapes. It was a project she remembered doing way back when she was a kid, but as she demonstrated, she didn't remember it seeming nearly so lame when
she'd
done it.

With a minimum of grumbling, the girls started arranging their plants, and when they'd been at it for almost half an hour, Gabi looked toward the edge of the woods where Madison had been sitting since leaving the picnic table.

“You going to join us, Madison?”

Madison rolled her eyes again, and for a moment Gabi wished the old wives' tale about eyeballs getting stuck that way actually held true.

Sam looked over. “It's better than sitting on your ass in poison ivy.”

Madison jumped up like a marionette, then looked down at the ground. “Shut up, Sam. It's just grass and weeds.”

Sam laughed, not looking at her. “Do you even know what poison ivy looks like?”

Madison gave her the finger, but made her way reluctantly to the table, dumping her bag of leaves at the end. Gabi handed her paper and crayons, but didn't bother to give directions again. After all, as Madison had so kindly pointed out, it was something fourth-graders could do. Or kindergarteners, really.

“So what
does
poison ivy look like, anyway?” Gabi paused her own rubbing, figuring it was something they should probably know, since they were here in the boonies.

Sam looked up at her. “You don't know?”

“No. No idea.”

“Huh.” Sam bit her lip, looking down at her paper for a moment, then at the little pile of leaves in the middle of the table. “Looks pretty much like that.” She used her eraser to point at a couple of shiny plants at the center of the pile. Then she turned toward Madison, who held a similar one in her hands. “And that.”

She looked down again, not even bothering to contain her smile this time. “And you
were
sitting in it, princess.”

*   *   *

“Poison ivy? You had them do a project … with poison ivy?” Luke's eyes were wide when Gabi tracked him down in the admin cottage a few minutes later.

“I obviously didn't
know
it was poison ivy. And I didn't pick it—the girls did.”

He shook his head. “Do you have any idea how much that stuff itches?”

“Yes, Luke.” She tried to subtly scratch her palms, even though she was pretty sure she couldn't possibly be having a reaction yet. “What do we do about it?”

“Is it just on your hands?” He walked to a cupboard over the copier, opening it as he talked.

“I think so. Except for Madison. She—um—she apparently sat in it.”

Luke paused, his hand on the cupboard. Then he turned to her. “I won't even ask.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Here.” He handed her a bottle. “It's safe for the lake. Get them in the water and use this. And you might want to get your hands on an industrial-sized bottle of calamine lotion for later. Sounds like you're all going to need it.”

“This isn't funny.” She took the bottle, wishing she could wipe the grin from his face.

“No. You're right. It's definitely not.”

“Stop smiling.”

He laughed. “I'm sorry. I just—can't.”

“Let me ask you this—are there
other
plants that might attack us in the area?”

“Eh.” He shrugged. “Depends whether you give them a reason to.”

“Luke.”

He put up his hands. “Sure. There are plants that'll make you itch, plants that'll make you bleed, plants that'll kill you if you eat 'em. So just don't mess with anything if you don't know what it is.”

“I don't know what
anything
is.”

He nodded sagely, turning back to the ancient computer on the desk. “Guess you'd better stick close to camp, then. That's just the plants that can do you in. There are four-legged critters out there who can smell fear. And they like it.”

*   *   *

Fifteen minutes later, Gabi and the girls were gathered on the sandy beach, all of them stripped down to their bathing suits except Sam.
She
still sat at the table, running her pencil over sheets of paper, grinning when she looked at them.

Gabi was not amused.

“We're not seriously going to bathe in there.” Madison's eyebrows slid so high Gabi feared they might get caught in her hair.

Gabi handed her the bottle of organic soap-shampoo. “Would you prefer to scratch yourself insane? Your choice.”

“I'd prefer to take an actual
shower
.”

“Well, that's not an option.” Gabi tried to keep the growl out of her voice.

Eve piped up. “Luke must have a real bathroom in his cabin. Why don't you go distract him and we'll sneak in and take showers?”

“No. Not going to happen.”

Madison crossed her arms. “Come on, Gabi. He can't possibly think we're going to bathe in this disgusting lake. This is inhumane.”

“The lake is as clear as can be, and nobody's making you do anything, Madison. It's your choice.”

Gabi tried to make her voice sound firm, but oh, what she wouldn't give for a hot shower herself right now. Once again she pictured her imaginary Priscilla Pritchard voodoo doll—imagined sprinkling itching powder all over its hands, just to share the pain.

She smiled tightly. “Just think of it as an adventure, girls. When's the last time you shampooed your hair in a lake, right?”

Nobody uncrossed arms.

“Okay. Suit yourselves. I'm going in.”

She walked to the end of the dock, and knowing it was the only way she'd actually convince herself to get into the freezing water, she held her breath and did a shallow dive. When her body hit the water, it felt like a thousand ice picks were stabbing her, and she almost inhaled a lungful of water by gasping.

Holy. Shit. The water was flipping arctic.

She popped her head out of the water, but knowing the girls were gauging her reaction, she bit down on the shriek that was aching to come out of her throat.

“Who's next?” she called as she treaded water like it was a balmy seventy-five degrees here in Echo Lake. Meanwhile, she'd lost feeling in her feet already.

Madison dropped her arms and sighed. “I'm only doing this because I'm desperate. Come on, Waverly.”

She grabbed Waverly, who shrieked, but let herself get pulled to the end of the dock. Eve finally joined them, and on three, they jumped into the lake.

When they emerged, Gabi was pretty sure the entire town of Echo Lake heard them.

*   *   *

“What in God's name is going on down there?” Luke's friend Noah peered out the window of the dining hall. “If they keep yelling like that, somebody's going to call 911.”

Luke rolled his eyes from where he sat at a table, trying to fix a fan. It was going to hit eighty-five today, and Piper had made no bones about saying she wasn't cooking them
anything
for dinner unless he got the fan running.

“They're taking their first lake bath. Got themselves into poison ivy.”

“Already? How'd they manage that?”

Luke jerked his chin sideways. “Got into that patch I've been battling for two years now.”

“I can't believe you're making them bathe in the lake. It's fifty-five freaking degrees.”

“We don't have any other options. We don't have showers.”

“
You
do.”

“Well, I'm not sharing.”

Noah raised his eyebrows. “You could at least maybe offer it to Gabi.”

“No way.” The thought of Gabi's silky, curvy body all sudsy in his bathroom was a vision he didn't need in his head right now. “It builds character. I'm not
making
them do anything. They're jumping in of their own free will.”

Noah turned back to him. “You have a defibrillator on-site in case one of them has a heart attack?”

“Eh, they're young and healthy. A little lake water never killed anybody.”

“A little hypothermia could.”

“I told Gabi if they start to feel warm, they need to get out. And by the way, before you get all sympathetic, these girls wrote their own ticket here. Hot showers were never part of the deal.”

Luke looked down at the fan and swore, realizing he'd just put an entire piece of it back in upside down. If Gabi didn't cover up that swimsuit—and soon, dammit—he'd never get anything done today.

“You don't have
any
sympathy for Gabi, at least?”

“Not right now, no. Oliver and I were begging for a work crew for the summer, once we saw the never-ending project list from hell. What did Briarwood send?” He waved a hand at the window. “A bunch of prep school kids and their preppy little housemother, or whatever she's called. How am I supposed to work with them around, getting in the way?”

Noah looked out the window again, and Luke realized the shrieking had finally died down.

“Are they out? Or are they dead?”

“They're not dead.” Noah tipped his head. “Hey—any chance you've seen Gabriela in her bathing suit?”

“Yes, and stop looking.”

Noah grinned. “Why?”

“One—Piper would kill you. And two—just … don't.”

Shit.
He closed his eyes, knowing damn well that Noah heard the territorial directive he hadn't meant to give. Heard it loud and clear.

“Gotcha.” Noah nodded slowly, his smile still in place. “Is somebody crushing on the hot housemom?”

Luke raised his eyebrows. “Is somebody twelve? No. Nobody's crushing on anybody.”

Noah shrugged. “Hey, four weeks is a long time. You're stuck here, she's stuck here … you never know, right?”

“I do know. And no. Not my type. Not my lifestyle. Not happening.”

“Whatever you say.” He looked out the window again. “Little piece of advice, though—definitely don't look at her when she gets out of the water. You might decide her type might be
exactly
your type.”

“Noah?”

“Fine. Not talking about a hot girl in a hot bathing suit.”

“Thank you.” Luke looked out the window, then forced his eyes back to the fan. They only stuck there for a brief second before returning to the window, though. It looked like Gabi was thinking about trying to teach the girls how to—fish? Seriously? Where had she found those old poles?

Noah tipped his chin toward the admin cottage. “How's Oliver feeling about having them here?”

Luke dropped a screw and swore when it rolled so far under the table that he couldn't reach it. The man who'd spent his life pouring his every minute and every penny into young men everybody else had given up on was now looking at his entire mission going down the drain. He'd finally admitted that his age was getting the better of him, and it was killing Luke every time Oliver sat down, because for as long as he'd known him, Oliver had
never
sat still.

“I don't know,” he finally answered Noah. “But the only thing that'll kill him faster than retirement will be to see this place turn into some rich girls' summer boarding school.”

“So what are you doing about it?”

“Going through my list of incredibly wealthy contacts, trying to convince one of them to buy the place.”

“Well, obviously, yes. But say that doesn't pan out? Given that you
have
no incredibly wealthy contacts?”

“I'm toying with going straight to the Briarwood board, actually.”

Noah's eyes widened. “And saying what?”