Lily, alone and at loose ends after Sarah disappeared to her office and Chase drove off, decided to drag her luggage to the second floor of the lodge and find her room. Someone must know which was hers. She hadn’t packed all that much, considering she was going to be away for an entire summer, but she’d covered everything on Sarah’s list, including a rain poncho. She’d considered substituting a raincoat and then thought better of it. Sarah was the meticulous type. She’d said poncho, she must mean poncho.
Somewhat like sturdy footwear did not equal running shoes.
Smiling to herself at the sound of Chase’s voice teasing her about that, she lugged her new canvas duffel up the broad stairs. She hadn’t been teased about anything for a very long time. That must be why she enjoyed it—that awakening of a little humor in her life. Not that Chase actually had anything special to do with it. Besides, there was the part about the snakes. Chase wouldn’t have made up that part. Of course, she didn’t know Chase at all. Odd, that someone she’d met so recently could occupy so much of her thoughts.
And the next thing on her to-do list was to check the antivenom stock.
“Excuse me,” she called to a young man in the ubiquitous attire of T-shirt, khaki shorts, and of course, hiking boots, who looked like he knew what he was doing. The fact that he was pushing a cart loaded with linens and other household-type items was something of a giveaway.
He turned, his dark eyes alight. “Yo. Help you?”
“I hope so. I’m Lily Davenport. I’m supposed to have a room up here somewhere.”
His thick dark brows drew down a little over heavy lids, edged with ridiculously long, gorgeous eyelashes.
“We’ve got a Dr. Davenport coming.”
“That would be me.”
“Ha, right. Sorry about that.”
“No problem. The room?”
“Middle one down there on the right,” he called as he pushed his cart in the opposite direction. “Nice to meet you, Doc.”
The middle one. There were six doors on the right side of the hall. Which one was the middle—the third one from the near end, or the fourth? Might as well try the third. The door opened, the room showed no signs of occupancy, and the windows across from the door let in air so fresh she could taste it as it blew her hair away from her face. The bed, a queen against one wall, was a simple affair with a plain oak headboard and a three-drawer bedside table on one side and a partially open closet on the other. A small chair and desk sat against the fourth wall with a bureau of oak to match the other furniture crouching nearby, and a closed door beside that. Lily’s pulse thudded.
Please let that door lead to a bathroom. She hadn’t even considered that she might be sharing communal bathroom facilities. She dropped her duffel by the bed and opened the mystery door…that blessedly led into a small but efficiently arranged bathroom with all the necessary items, including a reasonably spacious shower stall. No tub. But then there was the lake. She could always swim, her favorite form of exercise—something else she’d stopped doing.
Of course, there were the snakes. Did they swim? She shuddered. Not something she wanted to think about or even know the answer to. Why did freshwater lakes have to be populated with so many unsavory things? The ocean was so much more…anonymous. She snorted. Thunder Ridge camp did not afford anonymity in any fashion—not with communal eating, shared lodgings, and people everywhere. She hadn’t been surrounded by so many people who didn’t resemble exhausted automatons in months. Her world was suddenly taking on color and…life.
Her heart twisted. After so much death and despair, she wasn’t sure she was ready for all of this. She took a deep breath. But she was here. So she’d do what had always worked—she’d attack the task in front of her, and then move on to the next.
She unpacked, filled the bureau with her mostly newly purchased camp clothes, and arranged her bathroom articles. Now she needed a plan. After endless days of barely having enough time to eat and shower, facing an afternoon without responsibility seemed foreign. She’d start with checking the supplies in the clinic. She paused at the door, turned back, and put on sunscreen.
After she’d checked the supply list neatly printed and left on the desk in the waiting area against their inventory, and found the antivenom serum in the undercounter fridge in the treatment area, and checked Medline as to indications and dosages, she closed up, making a mental note to get the keys from Sarah.
The only other area she hadn’t seen much of was the cabins for the campers, and she headed up the dirt path that connected all the buildings. All the cabin doors stood open, and she climbed the porch to the first one she came to. The porch was wide enough for four canvas-backed camp chairs and a couple of small wood tables painted in jaunty red and yellow. A quick peek inside revealed a common room with an L-shaped, dark leather sectional and a pair of matching recliners that faced an open-hearth fireplace, a heavy oak table tucked into a window nook off to one side, and a door at the rear that probably went to a bathroom. A narrow staircase against one wall led to a short loft balcony and several open doors—likely the bedrooms. The furniture sat on colorful braided rugs, giving the place a cheerful air. All in all, the place had a rustic but homey kind of vibe.
“Oh good,” someone with a lilting soprano said from behind her, and Lily turned.
A lithe blonde teen wearing a tight white Lycra tank and black running shorts with white running shoes—not hiking boots, Lily noted—climbed up to the porch and continued, barely glancing at Lily, “My luggage is in the black Mercedes SUV parked in the lot. I’d like to get a shower, if you can bring it up as soon as possible.”
“Hello,” Lily said, holding back a laugh. Oh my, this was going to be an interesting summer. “I’m Lily Davenport, the camp medic. I don’t believe there’s any kind of porter or maid service. You’ll have to bring up your own things.”
The teenager snorted, not bothering to give her name. “You can’t be serious. These…rooms…are a five-minute walk from there.”
“Not quite—once you get used to the trails, there are a few shortcuts. I’ve only just arrived myself, so I’m still exploring.”
“There must be some mistake, because I don’t plan on doing…” Her voice drifted away, and her expression suggested she couldn’t even put into words the impossibility of what she was imagining.
“First time at camp?” Lily asked.
The teen shot her hip and folded her arms, regarding Lily with a mixture of curiosity and disdain. “I can’t imagine why anyone would do this once, let alone more than that. Usually, I’d spend the summer sailing.”
“What kind of boat do you sail?”
A flicker of interest, quickly extinguished, crossed her long, lean, and decidedly pretty face. “A Jeanneau Sun Fast. Why, do you know anything about sailing?”
“I’ve done a fair amount of sailing off the Hamptons. Not much long-range ocean sailing, though.”
The teen glanced toward the lake, visible through the treetops. Her expression morphed from disgust to a second of sadness. “There won’t be anything like that around here.”
“No, freshwater sailing is a lot different. Fun, though. I’ve done a little of that.”
The girl’s face closed down as if she suddenly realized she was having a conversation that she hadn’t intended to have. “What am I going to do about my things?”
“If you need a hand, I don’t mind helping. I’m not doing anything else right now.”
“Oh good. There should be someone with the car. Just tell them Ford sent you.”
“Oh, not what I meant,” Lily said. “I’ll walk down with you. I can help you carry some things back up.”
“I see,” the girl said with a sniff of annoyance. “Never mind. My security will just have to take care of it.”
“Right,” Lily said slowly. “It was nice meeting you, Ms.…?”
“Ford,” she repeated, and stepped into the cabin.
Lily looked after her but saw no point in following. She ought to find Sarah. If she wasn’t mistaken, this was their high-profile camper, and if Ford was supposed to have security, shouldn’t someone be around somewhere? Were state senators’ families automatically assigned security? She had no idea. And if that was the case, where were they?
The parking lot came into view at the bottom of the winding trail leading down from the cabins, and Lily picked out the large black SUV pulled up beside her BMW. The license plate indicated it was a government vehicle, as if the appearance itself wasn’t enough to suggest it. A woman with short dark hair in black tailored pants, white shirt, and dark blazer, despite the heat, stood by the driver’s side. Lily headed that way. Looked like she’d found security.
“Are you with Ford, by any chance?” Lily said.
“Yes. Are you Sarah Fielder? Ms. Langford is waiting with her mother for you at the main building.”
“No, I’m Lily Davenport, the camp medic.” Lily judged the brunette to be late twenties or early thirties, a bit above average height, and athletic looking even in the suit. Probably a job requirement if she was the security Ford had mentioned. “And Ford isn’t at the lodge. She’s up at the cabins. I just spoke with her.”
A look of irritation quickly flashed across the woman’s face. A muscle jumped at the angle of her jaw. “I see. Thank you.”
“Well, good to meet you, Agent…?”
“Sergeant Latoya. New York State Police.”
“Oh. I see.”
“If you’ll excuse me, Doctor,” Latoya said and strode off toward the trail Lily had just descended.
Lily watched her go, yet another person not enjoying her summer assignment.
* * *
A few hours later, Lily followed the hum of conversation and the scent of something tantalizingly savory to the communal dining room, which, as it turned out, occupied an entire L-shaped extension off the great room. Banks of windows on two sides provided sweeping vistas to the lake below and upward to the mountains for which the lodge was named. The snowcapped crests of Thunder Ridge formed a gap-toothed line against the sky, with dense evergreens marching down the mountainside to the lodge and the cabins. She wondered what was on the other side of the ridge, feeling overshadowed by the sheer magnitude of the untouched forest in every direction. She mentally transposed the skyscrapers of NYC on the skyline. There, not so very different after all.
Smiling to herself, she carried her tray with a few helpings of vegetables and sliced turkey to a table by the windows where Sarah sat with Alisha.
“Room for a third?” she said.
“Please,” Sarah said, indicating one of the two empty chairs.
Campers filled a third of the room, boys and girls mostly segregated, likely by choice, into adjacent tables, many of them surreptitiously eyeing one another. Lily flashed back to what those obligatory school and family social affairs had been like where her girlfriends would be watching the boys, and she more likely would be watching them. She shook her head. “I would not want to be a teenager again for anything.”
Sarah and Alisha both laughed.
“How is everyone doing?” Lily asked.
“About half the kids are returners,” Sarah said as she sipped a carbonated water. “They’re helping the newbies get acquainted and oriented, and so far pretty much everybody’s happy to be here.” She laughed. “It’s the young ones who usually panic the first night away from home—along with their parents. These are teenagers and far too cool for that.”
“They might act cool, but I’m not sure everyone is pleased to be here,” Lily said. “I ran into Ms. Langford—who said to call her Ford—this afternoon. What is her first name, by the way?”
“Giovanna,” Sarah said. “And she is definitely not happy to be here.”
“Is it some kind of disciplinary thing?” Lily asked.
“Not according to her mother,” Sarah said. “Mostly, I think, from a few veiled references her mother let slip, her family is concerned she’s been moving outside her social circle, and they wanted to break those connections.”
Alisha sighed. “As if that ever really works. Trying to keep people away from their chosen friends generally just makes them work harder to see them.”
“I suppose if she’s here, at least, that’s not going to be possible,” Lily said.
“Unless she goes AWOL,” Sarah muttered.
“What about her security? Is she staying?” Alisha asked.
“That remains an open question,” Sarah said. “I think Julia Latoya and Chase will have to work that out. Or their bosses will. Technically, they’re all part of the same law enforcement department, as the DEC falls under the banner of state police.”
“That might explain why the change in assignments to base Chase here,” Alisha said. “Giovanna’s father probably wanted female security for her.”
Sarah sat back in her chair, her expression resigned. “That would make a lot of sense. I feel sorry for Chase. It’s an assignment she definitely is not going to want.”
Lily nodded in sympathy. “I got that feeling too.”
Sarah looked at her quickly, and Lily flushed. Why she didn’t know. “I talked with her a few moments after the meeting earlier.”
“I see,” Sarah said in a way that made Lily wonder what Sarah thought she understood. “Chase isn’t one to do a lot of talking.”
Still not sure what Sarah meant to imply, Lily said neutrally, “She mentioned she much prefers being out on patrol to anything else.”
“Of course she does—she’s always been a child of the mountains.” This time the faint censure in Sarah’s tone was clear, and surprising. Lily had never known Sarah to be judgmental about anyone’s life choices—but then, they’d all changed in the last few years. And sometimes with family, one’s attitudes were different.
“Can’t say I blame her there,” Alisha put in. “Riding herd on a pack of kids is exhausting.” She grinned. “But then, I get to sleep in a nice cozy cabin and eat great food at every meal. So—worth it.”
“Chase’ll adjust—she’s had a lot of practice at that,” Sarah said quietly. In a lighter tone, she added, “You’re not doing justice to our very fine cuisine there, Lil.”
Surprised, Lily said, “Oh. It’s great.”
“We do have an excellent chef,” Sarah said. “The mountain air will probably ramp up your appetite soon enough.”
Lily heard what she wasn’t saying—that she’d lost weight and looked the worse for it—and appreciated that Sarah wasn’t nagging about it. She hadn’t really thought about food as anything other than essential fuel that she grabbed whenever she could for the last year. So many changes and she’d only been here a day. No schedule, no line of critical patients waiting, no constant clamor of emergency sirens and alerts. People who weren’t fighting to survive, but who were actually enjoying life. And most surprising of all, a woman who kept darting into her thoughts at unexpected moments. Lily hardly recognized herself. She’d lost so much of her old resiliency, everything was a challenge. But at least here, any missteps wouldn’t lead to disaster.
When the meal finished, Alisha headed off to see that the campers were getting settled into their accommodations, and Sarah left to untangle a snafu with a delivery that had gone missing. Upstairs in her room, Lily showered, changed into a light cotton shirt and loose drawstring shorts, and pulled up a book on her iPad. She’d left the window beside her bed open, and a pine-scented breeze drifted in. An hour later the room had darkened, and the air had chilled. She set her iPad aside, exchanged her shorts for lightweight gray sweats, and headed downstairs. She wasn’t used to going to bed so early and sometimes didn’t get more than a few broken hours in a twenty-four-hour period.
The sun had dropped almost completely beyond the mountains, and twilight settled over the camp. The great room was empty, and just a few lamps on side tables provided enough light to see by. Lily wandered out onto the front porch and contemplated the path leading down to the lake. The moon was high and, in places where it reached through the trees, nearly as bright as day. The trees gleamed silver.
“Beautiful,” she murmured. The lake beckoned, and then she thought about what Chase had said. Snakes slept at night, didn’t they? Still.
“Thinking about a walk?” Chase said quietly from the darkness.
Lily jumped as Chase rose from a chair on the far end of the porch and walked toward her. “Hello.”
“Couldn’t sleep?” Chase asked. She wasn’t in uniform now but wore a dark T-shirt with no logo tucked into tapered jeans and, of course, boots.
“It’s too early, and too quiet,” Lily said. “Not really quiet. I can hear things making noises. Chipmunks or something.”
“Squirrels probably, raccoons maybe.”
“They’re not afraid to come around? The wildlife?” Lily swallowed, her throat dry. The moonlight shimmered on Chase’s face. She was beautiful too. More than that—magnetic. The pull stirred an unfamiliar longing in Lily’s chest.
“A lot of them keep their distance,” Chase said, “but the scavengers, the smart ones, they know if they’re lucky they’ll find a loose trash bin lid or bit of luggage to get into.”
“Um, I left my window open.”
“They’re probably not gonna scale the walls.”
Feeling foolish, Lily laughed. “Right.”
“Want to take a walk?”
The pull grew stronger, and Lily tensed.
Engage. Deflect. Ignore.
“Is it safe?” Lily asked.
“Depends on what kinds of things scare you,” Chase said softly.
Lily’s breath caught. What indeed. She answered without thinking. “Facing the unknown.”
“People or things?”
“Situations I can’t control, disasters I can’t fix—God, what am I saying.” Lily took a step back from the edge of the porch, as if something out there in the silvery night had torn open a door to places inside her she didn’t want to explore. “Let’s forget I said that.”
“Why?”
“I must sound terribly controlling.”
“You sound like a doctor to me—or a law enforcement officer or any number of people who try to help in a crisis.” Chase grunted. “And it sucks when you can’t.”
“Yes, it does,” Lily said softly, oddly relieved to hear her struggles summed up with such simple truth. “In this case, I was actually talking about…creatures.”
“You’re close to camp, so you’re not likely to run into anything that won’t run from you. You should have a flashlight, though.”
“I don’t have one.”
Chase patted her side. “But you’re in luck.”
Lily saw the head of a slim flashlight sticking out of Chase’s front pocket.
Chase laughed, a deep warm sound that nevertheless caused Lily’s skin to tingle. “Something to get with the boots tomorrow.”
Lily sighed and rubbed her arms to dispel the distracting sensation. “I think I’m going to need a longer list.”
Chase grinned. “Could be.”
“I’d like to see the lake,” Lily said impulsively. “I can see little bits of it from my window, and it looks so serene—so magnificent—in the moonlight.”
Chase nodded. “It is. Come on, we’ll go see.”
And just like that, Lily followed her down the stairs into the night, guided by the thin beam of light on the ground and Chase’s solid presence by her side. Engaged, and not even questioning what that might mean. So unlike her, and yet, somewhere inside, feeling exactly right.