Page 5 of Red, White, and You

“Stupid.” I shake my head and tighten my fists in my hair, then freeze.

She’s going to think I need a haircut.

I should have gotten a haircut.

Growling, I tug at the strands, then try to comb them back into place with my fingers.

Just shy of two decades later and the thought of seeing her again has me feeling like a lovestruck boy, consumed with nerves and doubt I can’t seem to shake.

What if she’s forgotten all about me? Not in the true sense of the word, as people don’t often forget their first love—or first spouse—but what if she moved on? What if she was able to find love and happiness like I was never able to?

Brie could be in a serious relationship, something private that I wouldn’t have been able to find with a simple internet search, and my little invite to spend the week at Camp West isn’t just ridiculous but highly inappropriate.

I groan as I run my hands over my face. I should have shaved. Do I have time?

I glance at my watch as a car rolls to a stop at the base of the exterior stairs. The camp is alive with arrivals today, as it is every Friday afternoon, but this car is right outsidethiscabin.

My pulse speeds as I peek through the screen door to the sleek, black town car.

Holy shit.She’s here.

It takes me a few beats to move. Shock and fear war with the excitement now blooming in my chest, and I find myself frozen in place.

She came.

When I can finally convince my feet to move, I stride to the door and peer out. An older man with gray hair and a bushy white mustache, dressed in a sharp black suit, opens the back door on the passenger side of the vehicle.

I hold my breath.

One slender leg slides out, then the other, two black high heels planted firmly in the dirt. I smile; only my ex-wife would show up to a campground in the Pocono Mountains wearing designer shoes.

As I wait for her to climb out of the car, seconds tick by slowly. Her driver stands beside the open door, patient and still with his hand extended to help her out, but she doesn’t move.

She’s having second thoughts. Of course she is.

Brie might be as shocked as I am that she’s here.

I’ll give her a few minutes, but if she starts to leave, I’m throwing myself in front of her car.

BRIE

Just over three hours later—and not nearly long enough to complete my extensive to-do list—I’m forced to exit the vehicle in the middle of a forest in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Well, notforcedin the true sense of the word, but if my driver clears his throat one more time, I’m going to be concerned for his health.

With a deep sigh, I ask,“The time for changing my mind has passed, hasn’t it, Clarence?”

“Yes, Ms. Donovan-West.”

“Brielle, Clarence.” I squint as I look up at him, the sun too bright even with sunglasses on and a canopy of trees overhead. “How long have you worked for me?”

“Ten years, ma’am.”

As I slide my hand into his, I say, “You’re never going to call me Brielle, are you?”

Clarence’s thick mustache twitches with the ghost of a smile. “No, ma’am.”

When I rise to my feet, my heels crunch in the dirt and I frown at the sound. Further, as I breathe in the forest air, it occurs to me that the scent of the earth beneath my feet is stronger than the scent of pine—which certainly isn’t a good sign. All the arrivals have kicked up a lot of dust in their scurrying about. But even as I force my upper lip to uncurl, I’mfilled with a sense of melancholy. It’s nostalgic, this scent, reminding me of the summers of my youth, when my sister and I would come home from the state fair stinking of the outdoors, with corn kernels in our teeth and brown mucus in our—

Oh dear.

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