Page 7 of Love At The Shore
“Big day tomorrow, so let’s try to sleep until the sun actually comes up.” She stepped up the first few rungs of the ladder on Nick’s bunk bed to give him a peck on the forehead.
“Tell that to Little Miss Chatty.” Nick aimed a pointed glance at Ally.
Her bunk bed was adjacent to Nick’s, and they’d both chosen to sleep up high. Ally pouted. “I happen to have a lot of important things to say.”
“Yes, you do,” Jenna said as her gaze snagged on the bright surfboard shaped cutouts that decorated the bed rails, yet another reminder of the surfer next door. “And we will talk about all of those things when the sun comes up. I love you monkeys.”
This was going to be the perfect summer. The house was idyllic, despite her wet neighbor and his non-child-friendly vibe. She couldn’t wait to get started on her book tomorrow. As soon as she got Ally and Nick off to camp, she’d take her laptop out to the deck and get an entire chapter knocked out.
Maybe even two.
But first, sleep.
She let out a long, luxurious sigh as she settled into the comfy king-sized bed in her new, temporary bedroom. But the second she closed her eyes, three loud barks traveled from one side of the duplex to the other.
Okay, so the walls were on the thin side. She’d just have to deal. It was just a little barking.
Except the barking was only the beginning, apparently.
“Tank. No barking,” Lucas said in a voice loud enough for Jenna to hear every inflection.
She sat up straight. Did he realize the scolding was even more annoying than the barking itself?
Tank let out a few more yips, and Lucas corrected him again. “No barking.”
This time, his voice was so crystal-clear that he might as well have been standing at the foot of her bed. Jenna plopped back down, and Lucas heaped effusive praise on the dog.
“Good boy!”
No,notgood. Not good at all.
Was it too much to hope that she could finally get to sleep now that Tank had quieted down? Yes, apparently it was. Loud guitar music came streaming through the walls just as she closed her eyes again.
Jenna glanced at the clock on her nightstand. 11:13 p.m. “Seriously?”
Didn’t Lucas McKinnon know what time it was? No wonder he didn’t want kids. Hewasone.
Maybe she should go over there and ask him to turn the music down. But she was in her pajamas, and while they were a definite step up from a wet suit, she still didn’t want to march over there in them. Her next conversation with Lucas needed to take place when they were both wearing actual clothes: shirts, shoes, the whole works. She’d feel ridiculous going over there in her PJs, and she was far too exhausted to climb into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.
Besides, Nick and Ally didn’t seem disturbed by the commotion. She was pretty sure she could hear Nick snoring across the hall.
Jenna buried her head under her pillow, but the rest of the night was more of the same. When her alarm went off the next morning, she was so tired she could barely drag herself out of bed to get the kids ready for camp. So much for getting a page or two written before making breakfast. At this rate, her word count might as well be a negative number.
The ride to summer camp was filled with animated chitchat. Nick and Ally had apparently gotten a great night’s sleep, despite the rock concert that had gone on upstairs until the wee hours of the morning. Jenna squinted against the bright morning sunshine as she maneuvered the car into the camp parking lot, kicking herself for not confronting Lucas in the middle of the night. She felt like a zombie.
Maybe it was a good thing that Kayla, the head camp counselor, wore a whistle around her neck. Its piercing chirp kept Jenna from drifting off when she was supposed to be watching Nick’s first freestyle lap.
How could she be dreaming of sleep when her son was so eager to dive right in? The camp’s pool had three more lanes than the indoor pool where he swam during the school year in Savannah. Instead of a humid, stuffy natatorium, he was going to get to compete in the salty sea air, with seagulls and pelicans gliding overhead. The water glittered bright turquoise, and Jenna wished for what felt like the millionth time that she hadn’t left her sunglasses in the car.
“There will be time trials at the beginning and end of the five weeks to track your progress,” Kayla said as the kids lined up at the pool’s edge. “Think of it as your personal best. Aside from that, summer camp is all about having fun!”
Jenna smiled, despite her exhaustion.Funwas precisely why she’d enrolled Nick and Ally in camp, and with her flippy blonde hair and bubbly persona, Kayla definitely seemed capable of making that happen.
Nick was already grinning ear-to-ear. He pulled his swim goggles over his head and glanced at Grayson, standing first in line at the lane beside him. “You want to race to the end?”
Grayson struck his best Michael Phelps pose. “To the end and back.”
Seated beside Jenna on the bleachers, Maureen shook her head. “Let me guess—they’re already competing?”
