back, which meant Waverly did, too. Gabi raised her eyebrows in their direction.
“Girls? Did you hear him?”
“I heard him.” Madison crossed her arms delicately. “Just not a fan of pancakes and bacon.”
“No problem.” Luke shrugged. “Don’t eat.”
“But—don’t you have other options? Yogurt? Fruit?”
“Nope.”
Madison huffed dramatically. “I can feel my arteries screaming already.”
“Your arteries are fifteen. They’ll survive a slice of bacon.” Luke raised his eyebrows at Gabi and motioned to the counter. “You going to eat?”
Gabi wasn’t the least bit hungry, but well-drilled manners prevented her from saying so. The last thing she wanted to do was insult Piper’s cooking on the second day here. After all, the woman could turn out to be the only ally Gabi might have this summer.
“Coffee first.” She took a sip as she sat down on a rickety wooden stool propped near the counter, then sighed without meaning to. “Oh, God. This is good.”
Gabi studied Luke over the top of her mug, noticing that his stubble was a little lighter than yesterday, but not fully gone. Either he needed a new razor, or he preferred the shadowy look. Her eyes locked onto his biceps, then slid to his pecs, outlined under the soft T-shirt.
She wondered if he was married. Then she closed her eyes.
Seriously.
When she opened them, he was looking straight at her, an amused expression on his face. She felt her cheeks flush as he raised his eyebrows again.
“Going forward, as long as you don’t have any food in that tent, the coons shouldn’t bother you. You’ll get used to them sniffing and scratching around. Skunks, too.”
Gabi pictured the girls’ backpacks, currently sitting in the van. She knew darn well that most of them were probably brimming with whatever they’d been able to collect from the dining hall and vending machine before the van had left Briarwood yesterday.
“And by food, I mean anything that can be eaten. One granola bar could send a family of raccoons on a search-and-destroy mission through your entire tent. And anything a bear can smell, a bear could decide to eat.”
Gabi shivered, despite herself. “Of course. Obviously. Right.”
“Happy to use my voice of doom to remind the girls of this, if you want.”
“I have a perfectly good voice of doom, but thank you.”
He smiled. “Has your voice of doom ever cleaned up after a raccoon raid? What they did to the tent last night was nothing.”
“No.” She tipped her head, conceding. “Mine has not.”
“Then mine will be scarier.”
“Fine.” Gabi waved a careless, exhausted hand. “You be doom.” Then she sighed, leaning her chin on her hand.
“Hey, Gabi?”
She lifted her eyes to his. “What?”
“I’m not kidding about the bears.”
Chapter 5
“Craft project?” Eve’s eyebrows almost touched her purple-streaked hair an hour later. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious.” Gabi handed out plastic bags. “We’re at camp. We’re going to do camp … stuff.”
Madison sighed. “We’re going to die of boredom.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Gabi tossed a bag her way. “But you never know. This craft project could be epic.”
All four of them groaned and rolled their eyes.
If she’d known ahead of time that Camp Echo was completely devoid of both staff and programs, she would have at least headed to the library to check out a stack of books that could have helped her survive being a pretend camp counselor. As it was, she was limited to what she could remember from her own summer camp days … and they’d been a scary-long time ago.
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