She glanced at him uncertainly.
“Little Alice wanted to climb. She wasn’t afraid.”
“I don’t know anything about Little Alice. I only know heights are my worst nightmare. Actually, falling is,” Alice corrected with a wry look, her stare locked in his. He returned her smile. He reached up and pushed her bangs off her forehead. The leaves on the trees flickered, dappling his face and shoulders with moving light and shadow.
“You’re pretty amazing, you know that?” he murmured.
“No idea why you’d say that. Do you think I have some unique talent for hurling?” Her words made it all come back to her in graphic detail, how he’d watched it all. Her stomach squirmed. She turned her head away from him, self-conscious of his closeness when she’d just been sick. He laughed, and suddenly he was looping his arm around her waist and shifting in the grass behind her. He pulled slightly and her back fell against his chest.
“I mean you’re amazing because you did that zip line and you were so afraid and sick, and none of us even guessed. Relax,” he said gently when she stiffened and tried to move away from his casual embrace.
“Thad, I just got sick. I don’t want to …” She faded off uncomfortably. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to even if she hadn’t just gotten sick.
“I know,” he said. “I’m not coming on to you. But it’s nice out here. Just sit with me for a minute until you feel better, and then we’ll walk back to camp. Do you want some more water?” he asked, holding up the bottle.
She didn’t, but she took the water anyway, glad for something to do with her hands. After a minute or two, when Thad didn’t try anything, she did start to feel a little better. They started to talk about their past experiences and their impressions of Camp Durand so far.
It wasn’t so bad, sitting in a sun-dappled glade in the woods without a damn Durand manager anywhere in sight, relaxing into Thad Schaefer’s embrace.
IT’D been the only time she’d been paired up with Brooke during their training, although they had to put up with each other for several team challenges. They hadn’t killed each other yet, but their mutual dislike had started to approach genuine hatred after a week of enforced contact.
Or at least on Alice’s part, it had.
Alice was patient. Brooke may think she’d remain unscathed after that zip line incident, but she was wrong.
ALICE had been positive she’d get Brooke as a roommate when they first arrived. It’d be just like fate to shaft her in that way.
Bizarrely, fate had sent Alice a fairy godsister instead.
She came in the form of a fellow counselor: a beautiful, fun-loving, exceptionally smart young Indian-British woman who had been educated at Oxford. Her name was Kuvira Sarin—Kuvi for short. Kuvi possessed a killer accent and a suitcase full of brightly colored tops and shorts, darling swimsuits, fluttering beach cover-ups, awesome strappy sandals, and bangles that looked amazing on her smooth, caramel-colored arms. She was funny and warm and fearless in equal measure, and Alice felt truly blessed to have her as a roommate.
On the last evening of their weeklong training, she and Kuvi entered their cabin, tired out from the rigorous activities of the day, but anticipatory, too. Tonight was the dinner and team flag selection at Castle Durand.
Tonight, Alice would see Dylan Fall again.
As she and Kuvi entered their cabin, Alice was reminded again of just how lucky they were. It was one of the most luxurious suites Alice had ever seen, let alone stayed in—although she kept that bit of information to herself. It featured two queen-sized beds, a large bathroom with a compact washer/dryer, a large sitting area, and a comfortable outdoor terrace that overlooked a white sand beach and the Great Lake. When she and Kuvi had first entered their cabin a week ago, Alice had immediately gone for the bed that faced both the front door and the patio entrance to the terrace. She always needed to be in a position to see all the entrances to a room while she was in bed.
Force of habit.
Presently both she and Kuvi collapsed on their beds, sighing in comfort at the cool air-conditioned suite and the slow release of tight, sore muscles. Today they’d completed the wall-climbing challenge—another activity Alice had been dreading. Thanks to Thad’s easygoing leadership, however, the fifteen counselors soared through the challenge. Of course, it helped that Thad was aware of her vulnerability when it came to heights. She didn’t think he’d told anyone about her weakness, but he did little things as he’d strategized the team wall climb that made her think he was being sensitive to her irrational fear. At least for the wall climb, her anxiety only lasted for the brief up and down, and was quickly relieved.
Training was finished, and Alice had come through, if not with flying colors, at least without any scars on her record.
“Done,” Kuvi sighed happily.
“Yeah. Now for the hard part,” Alice said, rolling her head on the bedspread and giving Kuvi a grin.
“Do you want to shower first?” Kuvi asked. Alice suppressed an increasingly familiar sinking feeling. She and Kuvi had already discussed the fact that they’d need to shower immediately and get dressed if they wanted to be on time for the meet-up before the dinner at the castle.
“No, you go ahead,” Alice said, sitting up and looking at her closet, forlorn as she imagined the uninspiring contents.
When Alice walked out of the bathroom after her shower forty-five minutes later, Kuvi looked around as she fastened an earring. Kuvi looked very pretty in a high-low fuchsia dress that hung in the back to her calves, and then rose in the front to show her knees. Alice’s cheeks heated when she saw Kuvi’s gaze drop over the sundress she wore.
“I didn’t bring anything for a cocktail party,” Alice said, sounding a little sharper than she’d intended.
“I know, I didn’t bring much either. They didn’t tell us we’d need to dress up. It’s a camp, for Christ’s sake,” Kuvi said, her disgusted, mildly outraged tone applying a bandage to Alice’s acute discomfort. “Is that the only dress you brought?” Kuvi asked her matter-of-factly.
“It was between this and a purple one like it,” Alice said, shifting uncomfortably on her bare feet. Thus far, her lack of nice clothing hadn’t been an issue. All the counselors wore some combination of shorts, T-shirts, swimsuits, tennis shoes, and hiking boots. Alice lived in clothes like that, so she’d felt like she’d fit in just fine. Thanks to Brooke’s pointed query about the attire for the Castle Durand party, however, Alice knew what to expect for tonight.