Your New Kingdom 
Chapter 3
Your New Kingdom
One week later.
The quiet rocking of the plane to Jackson City had lulled me into a doze. I jerked awake at the turbulence of the landing, my forehead pressed against the chilly, plastic windowpane. I’d stayed up half the night packing, cleaning, and reassuring Lexie that a bear wouldn’t eat me. Considering I’d originally told her about the trip via text message because I was too much of a coward to say it to her face, she’d handled the announcement with grace. And fifty replies.
Dry air welcomed me into the terminal with a gentle embrace, so unlike the walls of humidity in the Midwest. Outside, mountains pierced the sky with jagged teeth of snow and granite. I tossed my backpack over my shoulder and shuffled through the airport, yawning.
First order of business once I arrived at Adventura: take a nap.
Running late, Mark said in a text.
Where are you?
Chasing tornados.
Of course.
We’ll be there soon. Ish.
I eyed an empty bank of chairs. Would it be weird to nap in the middle of the airport? Deciding that Mark would tie me to the chair if he caught me, I moved on to baggage claim.
A crowd of people clumped around a wheezy carousel as it belched duffel bags. Locating my ratty suitcase a few steps away, I grabbed the handle to wrench it free, but the wheel caught. My wrist twisted as the bag tumbled to the ground. The zipper split with a crack.
Clothes spewed out like a cotton volcano.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered, scrabbling after a pair of polka-dot underwear and a runaway tampon. A teenager guffawed while I seized a purple bra. Honestly. Of all the bras to lose in the airport…
“Airports are the worst place to lose your underwear,” said a man in a worn baseball hat. He set my hiking boots next to me with an amused twinkle in his eye. “Looks like your boots are getting a head start on you.”
“Uh, yeah … they’ve always had a mind of their own.”
His shocking blue-gray eyes reminded me of a faded pair of jeans. His lip twitched, deepening a dimple in his right cheek. He hesitated, then reached past several pairs of underwear for a stray hoodie. Cheeks burning, I swept all the underwear into my arms and punched them into the corner of the suitcase.
Once we finished re-packing my bag, he stretched out a hand. I hesitated, looking from his callused palms back to his shadowed face, then accepted. He pulled me to my feet.
“Thanks for the help.” I gestured to the bag. And for not embarrassing me over the colors of my underwear.
He shrugged it off, adjusting a backpack strap on his shoulder. My hand fell back to my side, tingling.
“I’m Justin,” he said.
“Megan.”
“Megan?” He tilted his head.
“Yeah. Why?”
His dimple deepened again. I’d been wrong. His eyes weren’t denim but thunderstorm gray. Layers of amusement colored his tone. “Good to officially meet you.”
A familiar cry jerked me back to reality.
“Yoo-hoo! Littlest blister! Over here!”
Two familiar oafs strode into baggage claim holding up signs that said, THAT’S MY SISTER. THE ONE WITH THE FACE and THE BLISTER HAS RETURNED. A knee-high dog with gleaming black fur trotted next to them.
“Oh, Megan,” Mark sang. “It’s so good to see you.”
I backed away two steps, palm raised.
“Don’t you—”
He charged, wrapped his thick arms around my shoulders, and yanked me off my feet with his violent love. My scalp burned under a brotherly knuckle rub.
“Let me go!”
“Never!”
I nipped the fleshy part of his arm with my fingertips. He leaped back with a howl, releasing me.
“No fatty pinching!”
“Wimp.”
Mark set his hands on his hips, studying me with a burgeoning grin. “In love and war, I suppose. It’s good to see you, blister.”
“It’s always war with you, Mark.”
He hauled me into a bear hug with a growl.
“You’re a rotten brother,” I said into his shoulder, but I squeezed him tight. Unlike JJ, who had a lean runner’s body and muscular calves that belonged in a magazine, Mark had the meaty shoulders and legs of a weightlifter. They both loomed above me at six feet tall.
JJ jerked me away and tucked me into his arms.
“Took you long enough to return,” he muttered. His chocolate-brown hair coiled in a bun at the back of his head. A scruffy beard had filled out his face, hiding a strong jaw and cheekbones that made most girls swoon. JJ knew his power.
I pulled away, flicking his bear-claw necklace.
“Real classy. Fake?”
JJ squeezed my shoulder. “Remind me to tell you the story. It involves a leprechaun, a sage old Native American man who I later find out is a ghost, and me wrestling a bear.”
I laughed. “Naturally.”
Mark grabbed my backpack and slung it over his shoulder, then shoved a brown paper bag into my chest. “You hungry? We already bought lunch. That’s why we were late. We got you tots. ‘Cause you’ll always be our little tater.”
“And there’s Justus Aurelius, the gladiator,” JJ said, embracing the stranger who had helped me repack my clothes. “Your canine missed you, brother.”
My mouth dropped.
Justin knew my brothers?
I elbowed Mark in the side. “You know that guy?” I asked while JJ and Justus Aurelius thumped each other on the back. Mark grabbed my bag, glancing over his shoulder as he headed toward the exit.
“Who? Justin?”
“Yeah.”
He scoffed. “Of course we know him, Meg. The man is a freaking gladiator. Try not to fall in love with him, all right? He’s part-owner of Adventura. And that would, quite frankly, just get weird.”
My hopes of a nap dwindled with surprising speed.
JJ and Justin spoke quietly in the backseat the whole hour-long ride to Adventura. Snippets of their conversation drifted through my mind. Grandpa and assets and lawyers. I stayed in the front with Mark, grateful for a chance to compose myself after the embarrassment at the airport.
My purple bra. I pressed my forehead against the windowpane. Polka-dot underwear. Seriously.
Mark narrated a tour of Adventura as we drove through it, skimming past the glittering blue lake and thousands of lodgepole pines.
“Cell reception is best at the lodge and the main office. None at the ranges, but we’ll use radios to communicate. Sorry, blister, but you’ll have to explore it on your own time,” he said as we bounced down a dirt road. “We have work to do.”
Adventura sat at the base of two mountain canyons. The archery and rifle ranges occupied the northern area, the lake filled the west, the parking lot and main office lay at the southern edge, and campsites scattered the eastern side. A lodge and the trading post stood right in the middle.
When I stepped out of Mark’s truck, the bracing scent of wildflowers filled my lungs. Craggy peaks blocked most of the sky, casting long, cool shadows. In the distance, a creek bubbled.
“Sweet chariot, Mark.” I reached for my backpack when Mark dropped the tailgate. Deep, rusted tire rims blended with the fading marmalade of the chipped paint. Inside, a woven mat partially covered a frisbee-sized hole in the middle seat.
“It gets me all the ladies.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Bought it from a guy in Jackson City for a hundred bucks. It’ll withstand the zombie invasion, little blister. Tease me now, but you’ll be sorry when the zombies come.”
The left bumper dropped with a groan.
“You better pray for slow zombies.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder. JJ retrieved my broken suitcase and headed toward a one-room cabin off to the right. Justin faded into the trees, calling for his dog with a punctuated, three-note whistle.
Mark kicked the bumper back up.
“C’mon,” he said. “I’ll show you your luxurious private condo. Pets allowed. Hope you like squirrels.”
Dust billowed beneath my backpack when I dropped it in the middle of the musty wooden structure. Cobwebs swept out from the rustic logs in gossamer curtains. Dead bugs overflowed from the windowsills. No cot. No shelves. No water source. Nothing but dusty air and rotting wood.
“We can move you to a less ornate space if you’d like,” JJ said.
“It’s…”
Mark ducked around a cobweb. “Impressive?”
“Clean?” JJ grinned.
“Dry,” I said.
JJ eyed a beam of sunlight streaming through a fist-sized hole in the ceiling. “For now.”
“Just wait till you see the kitchen,” Mark muttered. “Let’s go check it out. JJ will get you a sleeping bag. I think we have a cot around here somewhere. The gladiator will know.”
JJ made a sign of the cross. “May you survive without disease or maiming. I’ll wait here.”
“Scared?” I asked.
He smirked. “You should be, too.”
With JJ’s warning ringing in my ears, I followed Mark. He gestured to the left, where a cabin hid behind tree boughs.
“That’s Justin’s cabin.”
His roof sloped more steeply than mine, and white lines of insulation puffed out from between the hefty logs like a gingerbread house. A tangled lump of saplings separated us, joined by a ribbon-like footpath cutting between the trees. I turned away, my cheeks warm.
Not far from my cabin, a sprawling, rectangular building with a crooked Lodge sign sat at the edge of a meadow. Its covered front porch faced away from my cabin. Mark led me through the loose screen door at the back.
“This is your new kingdom, blister.”
One of four fluorescent tubes flickered to life at the flip of the light switch, casting an anemic glow on the cramped room. I stopped in the doorway, bracing myself. My eyes widened.
“Oh.”
The kitchen had an open, mildewed fridge, two sinks that shared a hanging spigot, and a restaurant-sized grill. An island counter occupied the middle of the room, leaving room for one person to walk around. The bottoms had fallen out of two cupboards along the wall. Cobwebs lined the rafters like a layer of thick frosting. Next to the grill, two holes smaller than my fist had been eaten into the wall at the floor seam.
“What do you think?” he asked.
I swallowed, nudging the fridge door closed. It swung open again. “Is … this it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s … ah … yep.”
He kicked aside the carcass of a beetle. “The potential has rendered you speechless, I see. I will concede that it needs some cleaning.”
“More like the full force of a thousand scrubbing bubbles.”
“We have two gallons of Windex.”
“Should be enough for the windows…”
“Five containers of bleach?”
“That’ll cover the floor,” I murmured, unable to decipher whether the floor in question was tile or dirt.
Mark patted me on the back. “You got this, blister. It’s why we called you. We needed the best.”
“Cleaning is my superpower,” I said.
“I thought it was being annoying.”
“I’m multifaceted.”
He grinned, smacking me on the back again.
“Ah, blister. It’s been boring without you.”
Despite my love of tackling a dirty surface and exposing the gleam beneath, I’d need a fairy-godmother-sized miracle. I eyed the foggy windowpanes over the sink with growing reservations.
“Where have you been cooking during renovations?” I asked.
He snorted. “Real men microwave. And eat a lot of cold cereal in the office. This fridge isn’t working yet. I have a repair guy coming in this weekend. Oh, there’s a pantry.” He pointed to a thin door opposite us. “Don’t go in there until you have some kind of mask, though.”
“Ha. Right.”
His expression didn’t falter. “Not kidding.”
“You’re serious?”
“I never kid about noxious mold.”
He ran his palm over the smooth surface of the grill. Dust bunnies gathered on his fingertips, and he flicked them away. “Also, we’re not sure if the grill works. And before you go crazy on loaves of homemade bread, a squirrel may be living in one of the two ovens, so do a critter check first.”
He strode through a swinging door that led into the rest of the lodge. I stared, blinking. Wait. Did he say homemade bread? I followed, eager to escape the stinky confines of my new office.
“Wait a second. No one said anything about homemade brea—”
I stopped in a cavernous room with an open ceiling and smooth, cement floor. Half a dozen tables with benches crowded one side. A blackened, empty fireplace filled the wall on the opposite end. The rampant dust lent it an old-world charm. At least I had someplace cool to escape. That kitchen would broil like the furnaces of hell come July.
“The staff will eat and meet here.” Mark stood in the middle of the room, his lips pursed as he stared into the rafters. The gauzy strands of a spider web floated by, and the smell of pine drifted into the room.
“Keeping this place clean will also be my responsibility?” I trailed a finger along a dusty windowsill.
He clicked his tongue as he pointed at me. “Nailed it. We’ll have campers in here for crafts on Wednesdays. But otherwise, you own it.”
“Great.”
He jammed his hands into his front pockets, his wide shoulders angular in his loose t-shirt. His obvious adoration for such a helpless place reminded me of an overly proud papa that wanted to show the world his wrinkled, squalling new baby.
“So,” he drawled. “What do you think of Adventura so far?”
A single sentence couldn’t contain my thoughts. They’d clearly worked hard to bring Adventura up to date. Fresh roofs on the staff cabins. A brand new dock at the waterfront. The camp pulsed with its own current of life, as if the trees anticipated the bustle of the coming weeks. I felt as if I’d been taken from real life and set on a new planet. One that stirred my blood with the song of the mountains.
“I think it’s … wonderful,” I said.
His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
I grinned. “Yeah. I mean, the kitchen is horrific. We’ll probably die of some incurable disease before it’s cleaned. But the rest of Adventura is great. You’ve worked hard, Mark. I’m really proud of you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I nodded, returning his enthusiastic smile. “This is amazing.”
He slapped both hands on my shoulders and spun me around, steering me back to the kitchen. The puff of his chest gave him away.
“All right. Cheesy time is over. Get your grubby little hands on a bottle of bleach. I’m not paying you the big bucks to stand around and talk about how much you love me, am I?”
Kitchen Supplies and Shopping List
That evening, I stood in the middle of my cabin and stared at a sleeping bag and foam pad from JJ. With a pair of sweats and a hoodie, it would be warm enough for tonight.
“Sleeping on the floor it is,” I said. Granted, I hadn’t expected a resort or maid service. Or squirrels as roommates.
A lantern hanging from the rafters shed yellow light onto the wooden floor, which I’d swept clean twice already. Somehow, pine needles littered the floor again. I didn’t dare unpack my suitcase—where would I put everything? I thought about walking to the office, where Mark and JJ slept in the attic, but decided against it. My head throbbed. I just wanted to sleep, even on the ground.
I eyed my extra hoodies. They’d make a decent pair of drapes for the night, which would keep out some of the cold. I’d stuff a shirt full of clothes to use as a pillow…
A knock on the screen door startled me.
“Just me,” Justin called through the screen. “I have a few things for you.”
I stepped back. “Oh, sure. Come on in.”
His beautiful dog slipped in ahead of him, black coat gleaming in the light. Justin propped open the door, dragging something metal behind him. My eyes widened, and I crossed my arms over my chest in horror. I’d already taken off my bra! A pair of JJ’s old high school wrestling sweats—threadbare and baggy—hung off my hips. With a messy braid and no makeup, I’d likely stun Justin with my dazzling au-natural appearance.
For sure.
Then again … what did it matter? He’d already seen my underwear.
A metal contraption slid into the middle of the room, squeaking in protest. “I brought you a cot.” He smiled, pressing the folded ends into a waist-high bed, his bronzed muscles flexing with each movement. I swallowed, forcing my gaze back to the rusty cot before he caught me ogling.
“That will be far more comfortable than the floor. Thank you so much.”
He straightened, assessing the bare windows and open hole in the ceiling. “These cabins aren’t exactly built for luxury.”
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”
He chuckled, one finger held up. “Just a second. There are a few more things.”
He disappeared back outside, reappearing seconds later with a long, round dowel, a hammer, and eight nails between his teeth.
“Makeshift closet,” he said around the nails. A minute later, he’d nailed the dowel across the south back corner, creating a bar for me to hang my clothes. He stepped back, surveyed it, and nodded in satisfaction.
“I have some extra hangers in my cabin,” he said, stepping to the middle of the wall and grabbing another nail. He drove the last four nails into the wood at eye level, each one a foot apart. “Some extra pegs for towels and stuff. Without cupboards, these will come in handy. I’ll come back tomorrow and make you a shelf by the windows.”
“Oh, wow. Thanks! You’ve got this wilderness living down, huh?”
“I’m a regular Tarzan.”
“I can’t wait to see you talk to the animals then.” I eyed the open windows. “You wouldn’t be hiding any extra drapes in your loincloth, would you, Tarzan?”
He laughed. “No, but I do know where some old pillowcases are hanging out. Want me to grab them?”
“Oh, I don’t mind doing it. Where are they?”
He waved it off. “I’ll be right back. Mind if Atticus stays?” He gestured to the dog. I raised an eyebrow.
“Atticus, huh? Are you a loyal fan of To Kill a Mockingbird?”
A little blush misted the apples of his cheeks. “Harper Lee and I are basically best friends.”
I laughed. “Yes, please leave him. I love dogs.”
Once he departed, I reached down to pet Atticus while staring at the modifications. The room already seemed smaller without Justin in it. Shaking my head, I thrust the cot against the far wall and tossed the pad and sleeping bag on top. The silky material slid through my fingertips like cool water. Atticus stared at me from the floor, his head cocked to one side. I nodded to the cot.
“Wanna?”
With a graceful leap, he jumped on top, circled the sleeping bag, and sprawled out, tail twitching. I ran a hand through his thick, smooth fur and rubbed his ears. He groaned and leaned into it.
“You’re a handsome devil.”
By the time Justin returned, I’d started to unpack, flinging a jacket, a towel, my hiking boots, and my tennis shoes on the nails in the wall. He entered with two pillowcases draped over his shoulder and a handful of wire hangers he set on my new closet dowel.
“Feels like home already,” he said.
“I think I’ll be a modern-day Laura Ingalls Wilder.”
He chuckled, pulling two small nails from a pocket and wielding a hammer in his right hand as he strode to the first window.
“So,” I asked, sitting on the cot next to Atticus. “How’d you find this handsome guy? He’s gorgeous.”
“I didn’t. He found me.”
His response hummed with an undercurrent that I didn’t have the courage to wade into. If he’d wanted to tell me the story, he probably would have.
“And you met the twins in Costa Rica?”
A rueful grin found its way onto his attractive lips. He chuckled. “Yeah. A while ago, actually. Eight years, I think? Mark got into a bar fight on the beach, and JJ was a little too drunk himself to be of much use. I stepped in to help them out.”
“Did you know them at the time?”
“Nope.”
“You helped them out anyway?”
“Yep.”
I wondered what he wasn’t saying. Atticus rested his head on my thigh with a sigh. I buried my fingertips in his thick fur.
“And you became friends after that?” I asked.
“I guess they developed man crushes on me they can’t get rid of.”
I tilted my head back and laughed. He patted two nails into place at the top of the window, obscuring it with the white pillowcase, and moved to the next.
“Your brothers said you’re a nurse,” he said. “That’s nice of you to leave your job to help them out here for free.”
A worm of nervousness wriggled in my chest. I hadn’t exactly told the twins the truth about losing my job when I’d mumbled something about extended leave and changes at the hospital. The pity on Bitsy’s face when I’d finally confessed the truth to her hadn’t motivated me toward total honesty with the twins.
“Uh, yeah.”
Justin stepped back, studying the makeshift drape, and nodded in satisfaction. “That look okay?”
I straightened. “Fantastic. Thank you so much.”
“No problem. Let me know if you need anything else.” His eyes shot to the hole in the roof. “I put a piece of plastic over that earlier today and plan on fixing it before camp starts. Do you need anything else tonight?”
Nathan admitting how wrong he was for dumping me. A functioning job that pays well. And a real pillow.
“No,” I said with a smile, rising to my feet. “This should be good, thank you. I’ll sleep much better.”
His gaze lingered on me for half a second before he gave me a thumbs-up. “All right. Well, have a good night, Meg. Atticus, come.”
Atticus trotted away with Justin, fading into the night. Sighing, I sank onto the cot, and it creaked under my weight.
A new summer of being single, spending time with my brothers, and enjoying the mountains stretched out before me. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad here at Adventura. I could survive a summer without taking extra shifts or placing IVs. Running the kitchen would be easy. Besides, Mom was coming tomorrow. I could hash all of this out with her. Talk about Nate. My desperate job loss. As if I were a kid again, Mom would make it better.
I flopped back on my bag with a contented sigh.
Ah, mountain life.