THE RADIO BLASTED A BURST of static, and Summer grumbled as she hit the button to turn it off. Five-thirty...three days in a row. Before Tuesday, she hadn’t gotten up at five-thirty since...well, never that she could recall. She’d ended a few days at five-thirty, but couldn’t remember ever starting one that early.
She shuffled to the bathroom, not coming fully awake until the spray from the shower hit her face. It was still dark outside as she dressed, but when she stepped out into the morning, the black was beginning to give way to a lovely shade of pink. A mist hung over the lake, giving it an ethereal quality that brought a sigh from her lips, just as it had yesterday and the day before. How had she gone her whole life without ever seeing the lake at this time of morning?
An odd, crunching sound broke through the quiet and she turned in time to see Rick Warren, running down the gravel lane. He wore only shoes and running shorts, which hung low around his hips, and he carried what appeared to be a T-shirt gripped in his fist. His broad chest tapered down to a narrow waist and every inch of exposed skin glistened with dampness of sweat or dew. Maybe both.
He surprised her when he didn’t veer toward his cabin, but ran past her and on down to the lake. Absorbed in what he was doing, he didn’t see her watching him, and she was relieved for that. She’d been gawking in a most unprincesslike manner. And it certainly wasn’t her pretty heart the sight had been appealing to.
He disappeared, lost in the trees, but soon she heard the splash. In her mind’s eye, she could see him cutting through the water effortlessly, the muscles in his back and arms rippling like the early morning waves on the—
“Morning, Summer.” Kenny waved from the path that marked the camp boundary, making his morning rounds.
“Morning, Kenny.” Her heart beat much faster than could be explained by the startle from Kenny’s voice.
“Enjoying the view?” He nodded toward the sliver of red sun barely breaking in the east, but casting a shimmering red reflection across the water.
“Um, yeah,” she admitted with more than a little self-deprecation. “But I’ve got to leave it soon to get the girls up.”
“It’ll be there again tomorrow.” Kenny nodded and continued his rounds.
“Not if Charlie comes to his senses,” Summer muttered under her breath as the Rick Warren irritations of the past few days streamed back into her consciousness. She’d had as little contact with him as possible, and he’d stayed out of her way for the most part except to correct her on anything that didn’t meet his standards. His enormously high standards.
But she’d awakened this morning with a glimmer of hope. Yesterday on the phone, Kate told her about Ron Smithey, who had been cut in the school layoffs and was looking for work. He was a P.E. teacher, would be perfect with the kids and would probably be thrilled to have two months of income this summer.
If Rick Warren did anything else to undermine her, she was going straight to Charlie with her suggestion, which would, of course, include making her assistant director like she should have been all along.
She glanced back toward the lake, soaking up a few more seconds of the beauty to carry with her through the day. Worry darkened her thoughts instead. Rick was swimming alone, and she couldn’t hear any movement on the water. He was an excellent swimmer; she’d seen that. Still, sometimes things happened...even to excellent swimmers.
She didn’t like the guy, but she didn’t want him to drown. That would be a waste of a fine physical specimen of manhood. Just a glimpse would assure her he was okay.
She got all the way to the beach before she saw him. And then it was just a wave of his hand before he disappeared under the water.
CHAPTER FIVE
RICK’S FEET HIT BOTTOM. He gave a push and propelled himself once again to the surface. He’d saluted the four directions and the sun. His final salute was always to Dunk.
He broke the surface, clapped one arm to attention at his side, threw the other straight up beside his ear. Palm out, he made a ninety-degree arc, bringing it back to the surface.
The splashing behind him didn’t seem inordinately loud, so the arm circling his neck from behind caught him off guard. “What