Page 7 of Staying for You

“Do you watch them often?”

“Not as much as I’d like, no. Their parents all live in my hometown in Michigan,” I explain, pulling up Brody’s pants and setting him on the floor. He clings to my leg as I wash my hands, drying them on my shirt because I don’t have the patience to use the hand dryer. “They’re on a vacation in the Dominican for a few more days and I offered to take care of them.”

“You and your wife don’t have kids?”

I smirk, draping the diaper bag on my shoulder and lifting Brody into my arms. “No wife. No girlfriend. Just me, thank goodness.”

We leave the restroom and I hear a number called from the counter.

“Oh! That’s our stuff.”

Even holding Issy, she damn near skips to the front, grabs the tray, and brings it over to where I was sitting earlier. After I get Brody settled back in his chair so he can dive into his ice cream, she hands Issy back to me and picks up her cup to get her drink.

“Oh my gosh, it’s so good,” she moans after she takes a seat and starts diving in.

“Whatever you say.” I chuckle.

“So how far are we from your resort?”

“Not far. About twenty minutes.”

Cami covers her mouth while still chewing then mumbles, “Sounds good.”

I’m impressed with how quickly she’s able to eat a quarter-pound burger, large fries, two apple pies, and a large Coke with a refill.

“Ready?” she asks as I’m cleaning up Brody’s face. Both kids are definitely due for naps so I’m hoping they can fall asleep on the way home.

We bundle up, head out to our cars, and then she’s following me on the way to The Escape. I watch her in the rearview mirror, wondering what brought this woman to my doorstep in the middle of winter.

Chapter Two

Cami

“This is it?”I whisper to myself as I stare through my windshield. It’s not that I was expecting a bunch of run-down shacks or anything, and what I’m seeing is exactly what was pictured on The Escape’s website, but for some reason I expected…less.Less, what, I don’t know.

There’s a large burnt red building that I assume is the lodge. And I got that assumption because it actually has a sign over the door that says Resort Lodge. My powers of deduction are astounding, obviously. When I first pulled in, I noticed the cabins lined up along the water’s edge but also with their backs facing the trees. The cabins do not look large or fancy, even from the outside. A small playground area is in the middle between the rows of cabins as well as a cement platform that has some stands in the center. A gazebo is over the cement, giving the space some cover and hanging down from the gazebo ceiling is a wooden sign that says, “Clean Your Catch”.

Beside a group of trees there are some wooden bear carvings, and each cabin is labeled with a tree species and a number. There is even a road (and the term road is very suggestive here as it seems more of just an area to drive on that has bumpy gravel instead of grass) sign: Northern Pike Road intersects with Walleye Ave, from what I can see. I have no idea what kind of alternative universe I just wandered upon, but I think I like it. Rustic and charming are the first two words that come to mind. I was looking for a place where I’d be able to forget about life, and this seems like the perfect place to do it. I live in a city of close to one hundred thousand people and it appears that I’ll be around exactly one for the time being.

After I’d booked my vacation with Owen up here at The Escape without an end date, I’d gone through with my threat to Scott and changed the locks on all the doors. He was in his bed in the guest room sleeping when the guy came, making as much noise as possible, per my request. He stormed down the stairs, saw I meant business, and called his mom and dad to either tattle on me or whine to them about how unfair I was being. Whichever it was, I didn’t care.

I guess it’s lucky that his parents lived in the same city. They came over immediately to help him load up his stuff. His mom glared at me the entire time, while his dad gave me a hug and whispered that it was about time I kicked his son’s sorry ass out of the house. He even went as far as to apologize for his shitty behavior and made me promise to stay in touch, wishing me all the best. I always liked his father. We got along well and most of the time, I could see that the enabling behavior came from his mom. Part of me will miss him, but a bigger part of me won’t because he’s a connection to Scott and I want none. An eight-year marriage to a man who still looked to his parents for help with everything but tying his own shoes. An eight-year marriage that ended in nothing but anger is enough of a connection for a lifetime.

Everyone says to live a life with no regrets — or something similar to that — but it’s hard to do that when ending something makes you feel like a failure. Still, I wished I’d listened to the advice of the internet memes and realized I’d rather be a failure than live with the regret of clinging to something that wasn’t worth it in the first place.

As soon as Scott and his belongings were out of my house, I got to work packing everything I thought I would possibly need for an extended vacation in northern Minnesota. I also had to make a trip to the mall to get more winter gear. Living in Tennessee brings cold temperatures and sometimes snow, but I knew it would be nothing in comparison to what I’d find on the border of Canada in the middle of nowhere. And I wasn’t wrong. The farther north I got, the quicker the temperature fell and the deeper the snow seemed to be along the side of the roads.

Owen had mentioned in a confirmation email that he sent that I’d pretty much get the choice of where I wanted to stay because the cabins weren’t currently full and by the lack of extra vehicles here, I can see that he wasn’t exaggerating. Which isn’t surprising, considering that it’s a whopping twenty degrees here and from what my weather app is showing me, that’s a warm front that’s settled in and we can expect some wickedly cold temperatures in a few days.

From where I’m sitting in my car, I watch as Owen gets out of his pickup and moves around to unload his niece and nephew. When I first saw him at McDonald’s, I didn’t allow myself the time to really get a good look at him but now I can’t stop staring. There’s a really good reason women go gaga over a man with a baby in his arms — it’s like it triggers every single one of our erogenous zones and has them firing in tandem. Add in his killer smile and dark scruff, and kind hazel eyes, it’s enough to bring any jaded woman to her knees. Not that I’m jaded. At least not entirely. Sure, I’m leery about beginning a new relationship someday, but I also know that all men aren’t like Scott.

Owen’s sexy and even more handsome than the men I write about in my romance novels. I’m absolutely positive there’s a better word to describe him, but he has my words all tied up at the moment. When we’d met an hour ago, I was exhausted from just having survived an eighteen-hour drive by myself. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’d split the drive up into three days because I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get to the town where Owen offered to meet me without stressing over whether or not I’d fall asleep while driving.

The drive had been good for me, though. I spent the first four hours in complete silence, wanting the time to think. But then I started to go a little crazy, my mind playing tricks on me as I went through every what-if scenario possible.

What if my broken marriage and cheating husband was actually my fault?

What if what he said was true, that I was so focused on my career that I ignored him and pushed him into the arms of other women?

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