What We Find. Робин Карр
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On the weekend, the park began to fill up with campers. The weather was outstanding—sunny and warm spring weather. Tom and his oldest son, Jackson, came to the property to help Maggie finish putting in the garden. She had several flats of flowers and vegetable starters. Cal dug in and helped while Beau did his job chasing the rabbits into the woods, and Sully watched over everyone, giving plenty of advice.
“Like I’ve never put in a garden before,” Tom said.
“What haven’t you done, Tom?” Maggie asked.
“Never did surgery,” he said. “Yet.”
Tom Canaday was a big, happy guy whose wife divorced him years ago. At first she wanted to take the girls, Nikki and Brenda, to her new home in Aurora, but that didn’t last long. The girls were miserable away from the home and school they knew and Tom convinced his ex-wife to give them back to him, that he was in a better position to take care of them and see they were doing well in school. Nikki was now seventeen and Brenda, fourteen. His ex visited from time to time and, as far as Maggie knew from the gossip, they were amicable and got along better divorced than they had as a married couple.
Tom had indeed had a million jobs and on top of that was a volunteer on the search-and-rescue team.
The campground welcomed a lot of what Maggie referred to as weekend warriors. They began to pull in on Thursday and Friday afternoons. A few planned to stay a few days but most would pack up on Sunday night. During school breaks, whole families or large groups of young people would stay through two weekends. And school breaks came at various times all over the country.
“We’re going to do some hiring for the spring and summer. Interested, Jackson?” Maggie asked.
“Doing what?” he asked.
“Everything,” she said. “From spring till August this place will be busy. I’m still trying to hold Sully down. Do you have any time?”
“I can take on a little work,” Jackson said, smiling handsomely. “This is not a bad place to be in summer. Girls everywhere.”
“Thanks, Maggie. As if college isn’t hard enough on my nerves,” Tom said, staking the tomato plants.
“I have an idea. Why don’t you ask Nikki if she wants a summer job, too. Maybe they can spy on each other and tattle?”
“Oh, much better, Maggie,” Tom said, one knee in the dirt. He looked up at her and shook his head. “You’re just looking for ways to make my life easier, aren’t you? Now I have to worry about two of them. Schoolwork is a priority.”
“Well.” Maggie rubbed her hands together. “Until school is out for summer, if you can come after school, I’ll give you dinner and when things are slow you can study. You can try to study, anyway.”
“I’ve been working for my dad the last two years and I have good grades. He just doesn’t want to part with his cheap labor,” Jackson said.
“He doesn’t want you looking at too many bikinis,” Sully said.
“Oh? Is there such a thing?” Jackson asked, grinning.
The camp came alive in the sunshine. The lake was still too cold to enjoy swimming but women rolled up their shorts and sat in lawn chairs in the sun by the water. Maggie strung up a couple of macramé hammocks and they were filled before she could walk away. There was a steady stream of people through the store all weekend, getting ice for their coolers, grabbing items they missed like butter, Tabasco, salt and pepper. Enid left early—she wasn’t usually in on weekends but was coming around to make sure they were covered since Sully’s surgery. Her cookies and breakfast muffins sold like crazy.
There was activity beginning on other spots around the lake—a dozen rental cabins across the lake, a Girl Scout camp, a church camp, a US Forest Service campground with bathrooms but no laundry, showers or store. Most of them were just starting to get ready for summer vacationers. A couple of them, on the other side of the lake, had little mini-marts but no general store. A family camp across the lake sold gas for the boats. People who needed to do a little shopping had to choose between a trip to Leadville, Timberlake or Sully’s.
Maggie kept the store open a little later than usual, enjoying the sound of laughter, the smell of cooking fires. Sully operated the cash drawer and Maggie knew there was no way she could leave him yet. Dusk came, the air cooled and campers settled their lawn chairs around their campfires. Cal came into the store carrying two covered plates.
“I thought you might not have time to cook,” he said.
“What have you got there?” she asked.
“Look and see. Where’s Sully?”
“He’s checking inventory,” she said. She pulled the foil off one plate. “Oh my,” she said. It was a skinless chicken breast cut in strips, smothered in a light sauce surrounded by broccoli, peppers, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, onions and a couple of baby corns tossed in for color. “Sauce?”
“Yogurt, flavored with spices. Try it.”
She took the offered fork and dipped into it. “Wow. You did this on that little grill of yours?”
“The Coleman stove. I’m a pretty experienced camper.”
“Gee,” she said, chewing and swallowing. “Imagine what you could do with a real stove. Did you go to town today? Shop for dinner?”
“Yesterday.”
“I have to stay open a little later tonight,” she said. “I hope it’s not past your bedtime.”
“I’ll manage,” he said. “Go get Sully.”
After eating at the checkout counter, Sully went back to the house. Maggie washed up the plates and gave them back to Cal. Then she dimmed the lights in the store and they sat on the front porch for a while. They sat side by side, their feet up on the porch rail. The store was officially closed but if someone came down the path and needed something, she’d unlock the door.
Since no one did, they talked. Softly. He put his arm around her again and told her that he admired her ability to shift gears, be flexible during this important time. “That you put his needs above your own for now, that’s generous. A lot of people couldn’t.”
“You thought I was overdoing it a bit,” she reminded him.
“You are,” he said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “But I think it will give you both peace of mind. You’re important to each other. I think you watch over each other. That’s all that matters.”
Maggie was working up a crush. She thought about Cal while she was falling asleep. She was probably a sucker for a soft, calm, confident voice and a steadying arm, she thought. In medical school one learns to worship calm confidence. Especially in surgery and particularly in specialties like hers where no doubt, no tremor, no hesitation could be tolerated. There were occasions she’d had to make a life-altering decision in under a minute. Maggie remembered times her knees had knocked but no one knew. She was decisive.
This was probably not what Jaycee had in mind when she suggested a break, and becoming a caretaker and full-time grocer was certainly not what Maggie had in mind. But Cal was a welcome distraction. Vacations, camping trips and campgrounds like this were ripe for romance and it was no different if you were the proprietor. There was something about the temporary quality, the way one was removed from real life for a time. Having spent many a weekend and vacation here with Sully during high school and college, Maggie had been vulnerable to that vacation dalliance a time or two. And it had been fun. When she was younger, the reality that the young man didn’t follow through, didn’t write or phone or email, stung. But that didn’t last. Now, she knew it for what it was.
The sexy Cal Jones, probably not even his real name, would be no different. Her common sense told her it shouldn’t be. He was lovely and wonderful the way he helped her dad, but he was just marking time and would be on to