Page 23 of If the Summer Lasted Forever
CHAPTER TWENTY
“I’m thinking tomorrow,” Landon says, leaning over the counter, watching me work. He has his camera trained on me, but I hardly even notice anymore.
“Tomorrow what?” I drum my fingers next to my keyboard, looking at a map of the property, trying to decide if we could construct a dog run near the creek. I bet we could squeeze one in.
“Tomorrow, we’re going to drive to Glenwood Springs and go on that date I promised your mom I’d take you on,” he answers.
“I have to prune the roses next to the fishpond.”
“Do it Monday, and I’ll help you.”
I give him a look, but that only makes him grin. He turns the camera so it’s focused on his face. “Lacey says she doesn’t have time, but I think I can talk her into it.”
“I can’t take you seriously when you’re talking to your imaginary friends,” I tease him.
“I’m very serious,” he insists, shutting off the camera. “We’ll leave in the morning, explore a little, have an early dinner, and head back.”
“Glenwood is about four hours away.”
“Humor me.”
“Where exactly do you intend to explore?”
He flips out a brochure of a cave tour. “Cool, right?”
Absolutely, except for one tiny problem—I’m terribly claustrophobic, and caves are creepy. “You are not getting me in there.”
He rests both elbows on the counter and leans down, giving me a pleading look that he full well knows is addictive. “Come on. It’ll be fun. And I need something new for the channel—we’re running out of material around here.”
Now that worries me because it might mean his parents are ready to move on.
I look at the brochure again. It shows smiling families in a cavern filled with soft, ambient light. Never mind that the stalactites look like giant dripping fangs.
“Say yes,” Landon coaxes.
Closing my eyes, I groan. “All right. If you really have your heart set on it.”
“I do,” he assures me.
“And you have to help me with the roses.”
He taps the brochure on the table, grinning like a little boy who got away with something. “There’s nothing I enjoy more.”
“Except for guided cave tours,” I point out.
With a wink, he walks backward toward the door and agrees, “Except for cave tours.”
“You want to help construct a dog run too? A two for one sort of thing?”
Uncle Mark walks into the office, hearing the last of the conversation. “Where in the world would you put in a dog run?”
“Near the creek, by Cabin Four.”
Mark shakes his head, chuckling. “You’re giving a hundred and ten percent, Lacey my love. Feel free to back it down to a hundred. Heck, you’re a teenager—we’d be happy with eighty.”
Landon laughs but holds his hands up in surrender when I shoot him a look.
Mark turns to Landon, still joking. “If it were up to my niece, we’d work every minute of the day, and only sleep six hours at night.”
I roll my eyes and go back to looking at the map, already searching for a better location for the dog run.
“Are you two going to the concert in the park tonight?” Mark asks as he shuffles through a drawer, probably looking for the licorice I finished a few days ago.
“Are we?” I ask Landon and then turn back to my uncle. “What is it tonight?”
“Some instrumental thing,” he says, wrinkling his nose. Classical’s not exactly his cup of tea.
I give Landon a questioning look, and he shrugs. “If you want to.”
Might as well. It’s not like there’s anything else going on in Gray Jay. “Sure. I’ll be here until six?—”
“Wait, weren’t you supposed to have the day off?” Mark interrupts.
“I’ll be done at six ,” I continue, giving Mark a stern look before I turn back to Landon. “I’ll come find you after.”
Landon nods as he opens the door. Pausing over the threshold, he turns the camera back on. “Told you,” he says in a voice that’s cocky yet somehow irresistible. “She said yes to the caves.”
“But you have to help prune roses on Monday!” I remind him before he’s out the door.
“And I have to prune roses on Monday,” he tells the camera, making me smile as he leaves.