She's Got a Way (Echo Lake #3) - Maggie McGinnis Page 0,43

that!” Waverly pointed inside a stall. “Toilets!”

Gabi laughed at their expressions. “And you guys did all this? Seriously?”

“They did.” Luke leaned against the door frame, arms crossed across the chest she’d almost reached out and touched just a minute ago. She wondered what it would feel like to slide her hands up inside that soft T-shirt, feel—

“Okay, girls.” Sam pointed. “Places, please.”

Gabi ripped her eyes away from Luke, but not before she caught a knowing arch to his eyebrows as he looked back at her. She shook her head, focusing on the girls as they each took up a position in a stall.

“Ready, set, flush!”

In unison, the four toilets flushed, and Gabi crossed her fingers, hoping everything actually worked. After how much effort they’d put in, she’d hate to see one of the pipes burst open, or see water come gurgling out of one of the bowls.

Each of the girls watched her own toilet, and Gabi would have laughed at their rapt attention had she not been just as invested in the process as they were. And then there was a collective whoop as they realized they’d done it.

“They work!” Eve’s eyes went wide. “We actually did plumbing, and it worked!”

“Oh, goodie.” Madison rolled her eyes for effect, but Gabi could see pride peeking through her bluster. “Now we’re qualified to help Hank in the dorm.”

“That’s a great idea.” Gabi nodded. “Hank could use some weekends off. And if you girls know how to handle this stuff now, maybe we could give him some time.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Waverly wagged a finger. “What happens at camp stays at camp. No one will know we got excited about toilets, understand?” She turned a slow circle, pointing at each of the other girls, and Gabi and Luke laughed.

He pushed away from the door frame. “You should be excited. You worked hard, and now you have a set of flushing toilets. And if I’m not mistaken, I might have seen Gabi smuggle some ice cream into the freezer the other day. Anyone want some?”

The girls whooped and headed for the dining hall, but then Madison turned around, a glimmer of humor in her eyes.

“So now do we get to do a ceremonial burning of the outhouse?”

* * *

“Chow time!” At eight o’clock the next morning, Luke stacked pancakes on a plate, then set them on the counter with a platter of sausages.

The girls barely lifted their heads.

He raised his eyebrows. “We commence work in thirty minutes. You can do it with fuel on board, or without. Your choice. I don’t care one way or the other.”

Grumbling ensued, but all four of them pushed up from the table and came to fill their plates. Gabi watched as each of them took more food than she’d ever seen them eat at school, and she smiled as she realized they were hungry because they’d actually been burning calories doing something other than sniping at each other.

“Where’s Piper this morning?” she asked Luke as she plucked a sausage link from the platter.

“She’s too busy with work right now to give us weekends. I figured I’ll do breakfast, the girls can get their own lunches, and maybe you could do dinner—if that works for you.”

“Sure.” She cringed. “As long as you like pasta.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Not a cook?”

“I live at a boarding school where an executive chef prepares our meals. Not a lot of opportunity to learn, unfortunately.” The words came out of her mouth before she had time to consider how they sounded, but it was too late to reel them back in.

He didn’t take the bait, which she found odd, but somehow comforting. “What about when you were a kid? Didn’t your parents ever teach you to cook anything?”

She shook her head. Ha. She wasn’t sure the kitchen at any of her homes had ever been used by anyone but caterers.

“Um, no. I lived at Briarwood then, too.”

Luke turned. “So have you ever not lived at Briarwood?”

“Briefly.” She shrugged. “I went to Wellesley before I came back to work there, which—I know—sounds totally cliché.”

“I didn’t say it.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t have to. I could feel you thinking it.”

He pasted a bored expression onto his face as he held out the spatula. “Pancake?”

“Just so we’re clear”—she took the pancake—“I’m not some boarding-school princess who doesn’t know how to tie her own shoes.”

“I assume you’ve got shoes covered. We can work on the oversensitive piece next. And maybe we need to teach you how to