muscles, which had been screaming in protest a moment ago, now threatened to go slack with exhaustion. She used the last of her strength to give his arm a push so she wasn’t trapped. He let go of the ladder and held up his cyborg hands, palms out, as if to show he came in peace. They were huge, in their black gloves. Darth Vader hands. Terminator hands.
“Okay,” he said. “You’re safe now.”
She leaned back against the ladder. When she looked up at him, the ground beneath her feet didn’t feel so safe. Nothing felt safe.
He was huge, his bulk enhanced by all that leather, including chaps. A biker in chaps over faded Levi’s, the leather worn to softness in all the most interesting places. She eyed the ripped T-shirt visible through the half-open jacket. His battered boots appeared as though they belonged to a man who actually worked in them. Except for the chains. She could see no earthly purpose for that bit of bling, except that it was sexy. Oh, God. It was.
“Thanks,” she said, quickly stepping out from between the guy and the ladder. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come along.” In his mirrored glasses, she could see her own reflection—flushed cheeks, wind-tossed hair. She wiped her hands on her shorts. “What, um …” She fumbled. Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe all this fresh air and sunshine had muddled her brain. She adopted a neutral tone and decided to play it cool. “Can I help you?”
“I think it’s the other way around. You left a message on my voice mail. Something about a construction project?” With that, he peeled away the sunglasses, then unstrapped the helmet and took it off.
Oh, God, Olivia thought. I wanted it to be anyone but you.
He removed the gloves, keeping his eyes on her as he tugged them off, finger by finger. He squinted. “Do I … have we met?”
Was he kidding? she wondered. Did he really not know?
When she didn’t respond, he turned away and expertly raised the flag. Immediately, the wind filled it like a sail.
Watching him, Olivia forgot to move. To breathe. To think. With one look at those heartbreaker eyes, she was hurled back in time, the years peeling away like pages from a calendar. She wasn’t looking at Easy Rider. She was looking into the face of a man, but in those ice-blue eyes, she could see the boy he was so long ago.
And not just any boy. The boy. The one who owned all the firsts, every significant milestone of her troubled and painful adolescence—the first boy she’d ever loved. The first she’d ever kissed. The first she’d ever—The first to break her heart.
Her whole body flared to life with a fiery blush. Maybe that was why the term “old flame” had been invented. Somebody always got burned.
“Connor Davis,” she said, speaking his name aloud for the first time in nine years. “Fancy meeting you here.” Inside, she was thinking, I want to die. Let me die right here, right now, and I’ll never ask for another thing as long as I live.
“That’s me,” he said unnecessarily.
As if she could forget. The promise of the boy he had been was fulfilled in the man standing before her. He would be twenty-eight now, to her twenty-seven. Lanky height had filled out with solid breadth. His cocky grin and twinkling eyes were still the same, though the GI Joe jawline had been softened by a day’s growth of beard. And he still—Olivia blinked, making sure she wasn’t seeing things—yes, he still wore a tiny silver hoop in one ear. She herself had done the piercing, thirteen years ago, it must have been.
“So you’re …” He studied the back of his left hand, where it appeared that he had scrawled something in purple ink. “You’re Olive Bellamy?”
“Olivia.” She prayed for him to recognize her the way she had recognized him, as someone from the past, someone important, someone who’d had a life-changing impact on his future. God, someone who’d risked getting sent home from camp for piercing his ear.
“Yeah, sorry. Olivia.” He studied her with blatant male appreciation. He clearly misinterpreted her look of outrage. “Didn’t have a piece of paper handy when I checked my messages,” he explained, indicating the purple ink with which he’d scrawled a message on his hand. Then he frowned. “Have we met before?”
She gave a short, harsh laugh. “You’re kidding, right? This is a joke.” Had she really changed that much? Well, okay, yes. Nearly a decade had passed. She’d lost a ton of weight. Gone from nut brown to honey blond. Traded her glasses for contacts. But still …
He just stared at her. Clueless. “Should I know you?”
She folded her arms, glared at him and summoned a phrase he’d probably remember, because it was one of the first lies they’d ever old each other. “I’m your new best friend,” she said, and watched the color drain from his tanned, handsome face.
His gorgeous blue eyes narrowed and then widened in dawning wonder. His Adam’s apple rippled as he swallowed, then quickly cleared his throat.
“Holy shit,” he said in a low murmur. His hand went up in an unconscious gesture and touched the little sliver hoop. “Lolly?”
CAMP KIOGA CODE OF CONDUCT
Everyone is expected to participate in all planned activities as defined by the camp schedule and to be in regulation dress. Counselors are responsible for ensuring that campers participate in all sessions of the planned program activities, unless excused by the camp nurse or the director.
One
Summer 1991
“Lolly.” The tall, lanky boy hiking up the trail behind her spoke for the first time since they left base camp. “What the hell kind of name is Lolly?”
“The kind that’s stenciled on the back of my shirt,” she said, flipping a brown pigtail over one shoulder. To her dismay, she felt herself blushing. Cripes, he was just a dumb boy, and all he’d done was ask her a simple question.
Wrong, she thought, hearing a game-show buzz in her head. He was pretty much the cutest boy in Eagle Lodge, the twelve-to-fourteens. And it hadn’t been a question so much as a smart remark designed to rattle her. Plus, he said hell. Lolly would never admit it, but she didn’t like swearing. Whenever she tried saying a swearword herself, she always stammered and blushed, and everyone could instantly see how uncool she was.
“Got it,” the kid muttered, and as soon as the trail curved around a bend, he passed her with a rude muttering that was probably meant to be an “Excuse me.” He trudged on, whistling an old Talking Heads tune without missing a note.
They were doing a pairs hike, the first activity of the season. It was designed to familiarize them with the camp layout, and with another camper. They had been paired up as they’d gotten off the bus, while their duffel bags and belongings were being sorted and taken to their cabins. She had wound up with the lanky boy because they had both been last to disembark. She had folded her arms across her chest and sniffed, “I’m your new best friend.”
He’d taken one look at her and shrugged, saying with an air of false nobility, “‘Barkis is willing.’”
The show-off.
