“So … you … you saw him, too?” she asked hoarsely, pointing toward the woods. Her flash of hope mortified her. She dropped her stare furtively, worried he’d notice it. “You believe me about the man chasing me?”
“Of course I do.”
Her gaze shot to his at his utter confidence.
“You did see him?”
He shook his head slowly. “I didn’t have to see him. Maybe you don’t think we’re alike, but I can guess at one thing we probably have in common, given our backgrounds. We don’t spook easily. One look at your face out there just now,” he said, nodding in the direction of the stable entrance, “and I knew for sure you were convinced the devil was on your heels.”
The ensuing silence was deafening.
“I’m not agreeing to come,” she said.
“You’ll come. Head toward the stables, and I’ll meet up with you on the path.”
He stepped toward her, impervious to her dazed state, and finished unlocking the door.
THE whole experience—the person chasing her through the woods, the scorching sexual escapade with Fall, and his subsequent outrageous proposal that she continue carrying on with him—left her in a strange state indeed.
She’d heard people who were in a state of shock could operate on automatic mode, going through the motions of survival without really being aware of what they were doing or how they were doing it. As Alice waited for the arrival of the buses filled with campers that brilliant summer day, she figured that’s what was happening to her. True, this morning had been earth shattering and totally unbelievable. But with her mind and spirit focused elsewhere, it was also kind of hard to work herself into the feverish anxiety she’d been in when she’d awakened this morning, before she’d jogged on the beach …
Before Fall.
She couldn’t stop replaying those taut, intensely erotic moments with him. She’d grow hot and restless at the most inopportune times. It all seemed dreamlike in the vivid bright light of day. Then she’d feel the tenderness between her thighs, the slight, strangely pleasant ache that was her constant reminder. Her sex still felt primed, like the desire she’d experienced had been so great, it needed hours or days to fully dissipate.
It’d been real. He had. Their mutual desire was tangible still.
She blinked, coming out of her torrid memories when she noticed Thad watching her. They were standing next to each other, awaiting the arrival of the busloads of campers.
“You certainly are calm about all this,” Thad observed. “As usual.”
?
?Is that how I look?” she asked with a small laugh. “If that’s the impression I’m giving, I really am a much better actress than I thought.”
Or I’m a hell of a lot more shell-shocked.
“I think it’s more than acting,” Thad said very quietly, as if he didn’t want his voice to carry to anyone else in the crowd of people waiting. The Camp Durand staff was all there, waiting at the edge of the forest: counselors, the Durand managers, and various other employees hired every year for camp: a cook, a nurse, a tennis instructor, two lifeguards, night supervisors, a janitor, a man who worked in the small boat marina, and even Gordon Schneider, the stables manager. A flash of heated embarrassment had gone through her when someone had introduced her to Schneider a few minutes ago, and she recalled what she’d been doing against the man’s desk early this morning.
The counselors wore their team flag like a scarf in various conspicuous places so that the arriving campers could identify them easily—Alice, like most of the other counselors, had her red flag tied around her neck, but Thad wore his orange one around a golden muscular biceps. Kuvi jauntily displayed her diamond flag on her head, tied like a pirate’s scarf, and was pulling off the look adorably.
Alice glanced at Thad sideways. “What do you mean?” she asked him in a hushed tone.
“Don’t you ever get ruffled?” Thad murmured, his voice barely audible above the chattering, excited crowd surrounding them. “You’re like Patton heading into battle.”
She shook her head. “Like I’ve told you before, I’m an actress and didn’t know it, then. Shame they don’t have theater as one of the activities around here. I’m scared stiff about being a miserable failure with these kids. With Camp Durand in general.”
“You told me while we were in the woods the other day that you came from a similar background as a lot of the campers,” Thad said. A wave of regret swept through Alice. She shouldn’t have told him about her childhood during their amiable interlude in the forest. She’d revealed too much. What if he mentioned it to Tory or Brooke, and the news somehow reached the Durand managers or Kehoe? Maybe it wouldn’t matter. Look at where Dylan Fall had come from, after all? She still couldn’t believe that revelation.
Still, her impulsive confession to Thad made her feel uncomfortably exposed.
“Won’t that commonality in your background make it easier for them to relate to you?” Thad continued. He stared at the still empty road ahead of them. “If I were those kids, I’d resent someone like me.”
“Someone like you?” Alice wondered.
He shrugged, as if trying to minimize what he was saying. “Someone who doesn’t know crap about what they have to go through every day of their life. Why should they listen to some privileged white guy from Greenwich, Connecticut?” he joked, but she heard the hint of worry in his tone.
A minor shock went through her. Gorgeous, utterly confident, natural born leader Thad Schaefer was worried about failing? At this, an outdoor leadership retreat, the likes of which he’d probably attend and excel at no matter what type of executive position he ended up taking?