Page 6 of If the Summer Lasted Forever

Finally, he sets his hand on her head affectionately. “That’s probably enough, Kenna Bear.”

McKenna deflates, and her shoulders droop.

“That was very interesting,” I assure her. “It sounds like you know a lot about dogs. Candy’s lucky to have you.”

McKenna’s big smile returns, and she scratches behind Candy’s ear, making the cotton ball’s leg twitch.

“Except when you feed her candy and she pukes in the car,” Hunter calls to his sister from the table. Never mind about the manners.

Mrs. Tillman hushes him, looking horrified.

McKenna flashes a snotty look at her brother and wanders away, taking Candy out the front door for a short jaunt around the house…and suddenly I’m alone with Landon.

I glance in the dining room. “Where’s the big one?”

“George?”

“George?” I repeat, incredulous.

Landon grins. “The Saint Bernard?”

I nod, wondering if he’s going to come barreling from the dining room, just like Candy did.

“We left him in the camper,” Landon answers. “We coaxed him out a couple times today, and that’s about his limit. He’s not what you would call a ‘nature dog.’”

“Aren’t all dogs ‘nature dogs?’”

Landon gives me a sage nod. “All dogs except George.”

I hear the kitchen door swing open, and Mark calls, “Let’s eat.”

Landon hollers at McKenna to come back inside, and we amble into the kitchen. I try to pretend all this is natural, that we have campers over all the time, but that’s not entirely true. My mom and Mrs. Tillman must have really hit it off.

Along with Mark’s steaks and signature grilled corn, there’s a huge salad, a plate piled high with Texas toast, and a fabulous-looking lemon pound cake. To pull all this together, they must have planned this early, probably right after I left with Paige.

The food’s set up on the counter, buffet style, and I fall into line after McKenna. Landon’s behind me, and I try not to think of how close he is, how normal this seems when it’s so not normal.

“Where’s your camera?” I ask Landon as I grab a plate and silverware, feigning nonchalance.

“Dead, sadly. I left it at the camper to charge. But I’m not totally lost without it.” He slides his hand into his back pocket and pulls out his phone. He moves next to me, putting us both in the frame for a selfie with the food in the background. “Smile.”

He takes me so by surprise, he ends up capturing me laughing in the photo.

“Care if I share it?” he asks as he taps another app.

“Um, sure.”

He wants to share a picture of us? Together? With his friends?

Trying not to overthink it, I focus on filling my plate. The salad looks amazing. It’s not my mom’s usual concoction, and it’s not her bowl. Mrs. Tillman must have brought it.

Trying not to dwell on Landon’s arm as it occasionally bumps mine, I listen to the conversations around us.

Mark and Mr. Tillman talk about fishing while Mom and Mrs. Tillman discuss a popular nearby hike.

The trailhead is only about fifteen minutes from the campground, and they’re making plans for a joint family outing.

But who’s going to watch the campground? What’s Mom thinking?

Distracted by the adults’ conversation, I don’t notice when McKenna reaches for a piece of corn with her bare hand. She immediately drops it, quietly yelping. Then she bites her lip, glancing left and then right, perhaps hoping no one noticed.

“They’re hot, Kenna Bear,” Landon says, teasing but not in an unkind way. He reaches around me and tugs her hand away from her stomach and looks at her fingers. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says quietly.

Giving her a smile, he plucks a piece of corn from the pile and drops it onto her plate. “Let it cool before you try to pull back the husk, okay?”

She nods and moves down the line.

“Corn?” Landon asks me.

“Sure,” I say, feeling unexplainably wobbly after watching Landon’s interaction with his younger sister.

He tosses a piece of corn on my plate and one onto his, and then he shakes his hand dramatically, laughing.

I move toward him, pretending to tell him a secret. “Those are hot.”

Landon shifts even closer, his eyes bright. “I noticed.”

Hunter loudly clears his throat behind us. “Dude, come on. Flirt later. I’m starving.”

As they are so prone to do, my cheeks go hot, and our mothers temporarily abandon their conversation to chuckle at us like we’re just too adorable. I’m flooded with irrational irritation, and I move along the counter.

Ignoring them, Landon moves near enough our shoulders press together, and he leans close to my ear. “Yeah, stop flirting, Lacey. Hunter’s hungry.”

I turn his way, mild retort ready on my tongue, but then I meet his eyes and realize my mistake . He’s so close. In fact, if we weren’t in a room full of his family and mine, I might think he was going to kiss me.

My stomach flutters at the thought, and I look away, forgetting what I was about to say. Luckily, Landon’s youngest brother bounds up with a book clenched in his small hands.

“Guess what?” he says to Landon in a normal voice before he dons a deep, pirate-esque accent. “There be gold in them thar hills.”

“Oh yeah?” Landon plucks the book from his brother’s hands and reads, “ Colorado Treasure: Legend of Gideon Bonavit. ”

Caleb looks up at him, his eyes wide with unbridled, youthful excitement.

“It’s a local legend,” I explain. “He was a settler in the mid-eighteen hundreds, had a claim not far from here. He came to town one day, boasting that he found a huge vein of gold. He was elated because it meant he could finally send for his family. After he left town that afternoon, no one heard from him again for weeks. When someone finally went looking for him, they found him and his wagon at the bottom of a cliff. They think he went over on his way back home.”

“That’s a lovely tale,” Landon deadpans.

I bark out a laugh, agreeing. It is sort of awful.

“Did he have his gold with him?” Caleb asks.

“No one ever found the gold he claimed he’d discovered, and lots of people have searched.”

“I want to look for gold!” Caleb snatches the book back and holds it to his chest.

“Gideon’s family donated the parcel of land to the Forest Service in the fifties,” I tell Landon. “You can take him up there to look around. There’s a shanty and signs with info. It’s kind of like an open-air museum.”

“Sounds like a date,” Landon says. “When do you want to check it out?”

I open my mouth, about to protest that I didn’t mean we should go, when Mom says a little too eagerly, “Oh, that sounds fun, Lacey. Why don’t you go tomorrow? It’s supposed to rain again this weekend.”

“I took today off,” I remind her.

She shrugs. “It’s summer.”

That’s right, summer. The busy season.

“I need to?—”

“We’ve got it, hon,” Uncle Mark says, cutting me off. “Don’t worry about it.”

Landon gives me a crooked grin. “Well, then. Tomorrow it is.”