Freckle-Sticks.
Lili had been mortified when she realized that whoever called out from the forest had undoubtedly seen her accept Patsy’s skinny-dip dare. She’d figured the “whoever” was likely the studly campsite owner whom the Alleycats had been chattering about. Brick Callahan. A stranger. She’d met a few people named Callahan through the years, but never a Brick. A peculiar name like that she’d have remembered.
So Lili was in no way prepared to be caught with her pants down—literally—by a blast from her past.
But then she’d recognized him, and she’d spoken his name—the name she’d known him to use—without thinking. Why the heck hadn’t she kept her big mouth shut?
Freckle-Sticks.
Suddenly Lili was a child again. Tall and skinny, flat chested and freckled, and hopelessly secretly crushing on her big brother’s best friend.
Not that he’d ever noticed her. The glands-driven idiot had been too busy mooning over Tree House Tiffany.
The pair had been an item for over ten years before she dumped him for somebody else. Cheerleader and captain of the baseball team. Homecoming Queen and King. Both intelligent. Both good students. Mark had been a bit of a wild child, but Tiffany … she’d been a two-faced Queen of Mean. Always sweet and polite to adults, but a bully to other girls.
Not to boys. Never to boys. Ol’ Tif was smarter than that. But Mark, Derek, every other boy in the school, they all thought she’d hung the moon.
Patsy and the ’Cats are right. Guys are stupid. All guys. All the time.
And this stupid man had just seen her naked. Finally, I have something in common with Tiffany.
Her instinct was to turn and run, but that would only cause her grief with the Alleycats. She forced herself to stand her ground. “Seriously? Did you seriously just call me by that horrible nickname?”
“So it is you.” His gaze trailed slowly down her towel-clad body and locked on her legs. “I almost didn’t recognize you. You’ve put on some weight.”
Outraged gasps sounded from the Alleycats. Obviously realizing that he’d stepped right into the hoo-ha, Brick quickly clarified. “In all of the right places, Liliana. You look good. Really good.”
She wanted to melt into a puddle of embarrassment. Not for the first time, either, where Mark Christopher/Callahan was concerned. Hadn’t he witnessed the most horrifying event of her entire life?
Oh, now that’s a wonderful place to let your brain go right now.
Fighting off the humiliating memory, Lili wrapped the beach towel more securely around her body. This was ridiculous. She shouldn’t be embarrassed because Mark Christopher had seen her naked. She definitely shouldn’t be humiliated. He’d said she looked good, hadn’t he?
So quit hunching your shoulders, stand up straight, and show off the girls! You have good girls!
He’d never call her Freckle-Sticks again.
He might call her just plain Freckles, though. She still had freckles. Not that he would have seen them in the moonlight. Lili recalled that Mark had shown every sign of liking the freckles on Tiffany’s shoulders. He’d nibbled on them enough.
Lili called on her newly christened inner Alleycat, straightened her spine, and lifted her chin. “What are you doing here? I thought you moved to Texas after college.”
“I did for a little while. Then I moved to Colorado. Stardance is my resort.”
“Oh. You manage it?”
Pride rang in his voice. “I own it.”
Lili rolled her tongue around her mouth. She hadn’t seen much of the facility beyond the campground, but the accountant in her couldn’t help but do a quick mental inventory. Bottom line? Big bucks. Resentment washed through her. “That’s right. You came into money, didn’t you?”
Firelight clearly illuminated the way his mouth flattened into a displeased frown. Flatly, he said, “Not exactly.”
Lili remembered now. The whole daddy’s-money thing had contributed to his breakup with Tiffany. Lili felt snotty for having brought it up.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and shifted his attention back to Patsy. “As I mentioned, Stardance has a noise policy, ma’am. It and a handful of other policies are printed in the booklet I gave you at check-in. Please review them, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask. The goal is for every guest to enjoy his or her visit with us.”
“Of course,” Patsy said, her tone repentant. “I do apologize. As I mentioned this afternoon, we’re celebrating the addition of a new member to our club. I thought we were the only people here tonight, so we could kick up our heels a bit. I should have realized that staff spent the night on-site and we’d be disturbing you, too.”
Mark shook his head. “We have some honeymooners here tonight. They are way over at the edge of camp, but I’m afraid your music woke them up.”
“You don’t sleep on the premises?” Patsy asked, her voice filled with innocence.
Sharon Cross sniffed. “It’s only a little past two. What are honeymooners doing sleeping this time of night, anyway?”
That question set off a flurry of off-color speculation. Mark made a show of slapping his own head. “And to think I expected an all-female camping club to be nice, quiet ladies who’d talk about books and roast marshmallows over the campfire.”
“Book club is tomorrow night,” Patsy said. “You’re welcome to join us. We’re discussing Fifty Shades of Grey.”
He exhaled a combination sigh and laugh. “It’s gonna be a long summer, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I certainly hope so,” Patsy said.
“A long, hot summer,” another Alleycat called out.
“Think I’d best toddle off to bed now. You ladies have a good night.”
“Good night, Brick,” Sharon called. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs nibble on your … knees.”
Considering the minimal amount of light, she couldn’t be certain, but Lili thought he might have blushed.
Then he turned around, waved good-bye, and disappeared into the forest. The Alleycats pounced.
“How do you know Camp Director Dreamboat?” one of them asked.
Another said, “I thought his name is Brick. Why did you call him Mark?”
“Yes, what’s the deal with his name?” asked a third. “He’s not in witness protection or something, is he?”
“I can’t believe you already know him. Will that make our plan easier or more difficult, I wonder?”
Lili whipped her head around toward the last speaker. “What plan, Patsy?”
“You need a summer romance.”
“With Mark Christopher?” Lili squeaked. Yes! shouted her inner bad girl. Or maybe it was her inner twelve-year-old. “Like I need a skunk in my trailer.”
Sharon Cross asked, “Do they have skunks in the mountains? Somebody hand me my phone. I want to Google it.”
“Camp Director Dreamboat isn’t a skunk,” someone said. “He’s more of a mountain lion—sleek and strong. Bet he can … run … for hours.”
“I think he’s an elk. Big and strong. And horny.”
Now it was Lili’s turn to do a face plant in her palm. “You women are wicked!”
“I’m so glad you noticed, dear. We do try.”
A giggle escaped Lili at that. She loved these women already. She truly did. “I’m cold. I’m tired. It’s obvious I’m going to have to train in order to be fit enough to hang with the Tornado Alleycats.” She slipped her bare feet into the flip-flops she’d left beside the water. “Except for the playlist, it’s been fun, ladies, but I’m headed for my trailer.”
“Sleep well, Lili dear,” Patsy said. “I’ll see you in the morning for our walk.”
“You still want to walk?”
“Of course.”
“Same time?”
“Yes, of course. Don’t be a slugabed.”
Lili swallowed a groan. She’d made a promise, but 6:00 a.m. would come very early. “All right. See you then.”
“You can tell us all about CDD tomorrow at happy hour,” Sharon added.
Camp Director Dreamboat, Lili interpreted.
She retrieved a flashlight from the backpack she’d brought with her to the party and headed toward her trailer. The fifth wheel and pickup she’d purchased sat parked at the far end of the Alleycats’ row of reserved slots. As she walked toward her new home, she reflected on the evening’s big surprise.
Mark Christopher. Aka Mark Callahan. AKA Brick Callahan. She couldn’t believe it. “Wonder if he has any other names?”
Leave it to her to screw up running away from home. She wouldn’t put it past Mark to call Derek and report on her first thing in the morning. I’d better silence my phone before I go to sleep or Derek might wake me up at the crack of dawn.
Her brother wasn’t happy with her. He’d phoned almost immediately after she’d sent a brief group e-mail to her family explaining that she’d chosen to take an extended vacation. She’d realized right away that her parents hadn’t shared the facts about her new circumstance. Lili had almost poured out her troubles to her brother at that point, but fear had held her back.
Had Derek reacted like her parents, she couldn’t have borne it.
So she’d rolled out vague excuses that he didn’t buy. Then, tired of being pestered, she’d spent three hours composing another e-mail meant only for her brother. In it, she promised to check in once a week. She hadn’t admitted where she was going or who she was going with, and while she had not directly lied, her carefully chosen words had made it sound as if she’d finally found romance and was traveling with a lover.
“Three hours of creative effort wasted, most likely,” she muttered. Mark would surely call Derek and let him know that she’d run off with a group of grannies instead of a tall-dark-and-handsome hottie.
Which brought her thoughts right back to Mark Christopher. Man, had she crushed hard on him for years. The angst of teenage unrequited love. Looking back on it, she wondered why she’d done that to herself. She’d never stood a chance with him. He’d never noticed her. Not as anything more than Derek’s little sister, anyway.
Even if he hadn’t been stuck on Tiffany, he’d always been out of her league—Mr. Popular, the two-sport letterman with the very real possibility of a major-league baseball career in front of him. He’d earned scholarship offers from a number of Division 1 schools. He’d chosen Hawaii, Lili remembered, because he’d “liked beaches, bikinis, and the baseball coach.”
And of course, Tiffany had chosen to follow him there.
Derek had been bummed about his best friend’s choice. He’d been headed to Cornell, and he’d hoped that Mark would take one of the offers he’d had from schools on the Eastern seaboard.
Her parents had been not-so-secretly relieved to see Mark on the other side of the country from their golden boy. They blamed Mark for the fact that Derek had swung and missed on admission to both Princeton and Harvard. After all, her parents had believed that Mark had been the instigator of the brawl he and Derek had participated in their senior year—the lone smirch on Derek’s high school record.
Mark had thrown the first punch, but her parents hadn’t known the whole story. Lili did. The fight had erupted because of her on what had been the most humiliating day of her life.
Two weeks into her freshman year in high school, on a school bus headed for a debate club competition in St. Louis, Lili restlessly tapped her foot. She was excited, but anxious about the competition. She’d had a nervous stomach all day.
As vice president of the club holding court in the back of the bus, Derek had banished her to the front. She didn’t care. She was thrilled her brother hadn’t forbidden her to come along.
Lili was the only freshman on the trip. The two sophomores were boys who sat across the aisle and one seat behind her. She thought maybe one of them—Johnny Brewster—might like her, because he kept stealing glances at her.
She didn’t have a boyfriend. She’d never had a boyfriend. Too many freckles. Boring blond hair. Boring blue-green eyes. No boobs or butt. She’d just about given up on ever getting them. She was the only girl she knew who had yet to have her first period.
She glanced over her shoulder and caught Johnny at it again. Only she realized then he wasn’t looking at her. He was sneaking looks at the girl in front of her.
Beautiful auburn-haired, doe-eyed Tree House Tiffany with the curvy hips and boobs that now measured a D. She’d flounced up to the seat in front of Lili about thirty miles ago after getting into a snit with Mark. Now she lay on her back with her legs propped up on the seat in front of Lili. She even had pretty feet.
Of course Johnny was looking at Tiffany, not Lili. He was looking at Tiffany’s legs—like every other guy on the bus.
Maybe that was why Mark sauntered up the aisle. He lifted Tiffany’s legs by the bare ankles and slipped into the seat beside her. For the next half hour, Lili got to listen to their murmured bickering. Tiffany had given Mark back his senior ring. He was trying to cajole her into taking it back.
When Tiffany broke into “tears,” Mark made soothing shushing noises and soon apologies spilled from the very same lips that earlier in the same conversation had claimed that he had nothing to apologize for. Lili rolled her eyes. Clueless guy. She’d thought Mark Christopher was more savvy than that, but apparently not.
Despite being in full view of everyone on the bus and their teacher if he’d bothered to glance over his shoulder, the pair in front of Lili began cuddling and kissing, so Lili turned her head and stared out the window.
She was beyond ready to get off this bus. Her nervous stomach gave another cramp and nauseated swirl, and she feared she might throw up. When Mr. Bronson stood up and announced they would be stopping soon at McDonald’s for lunch, she breathed a sigh of relief. She needed off the bus. She needed fresh air. The moment the bus pulled into the parking lot, Lili hopped to her feet.
Johnny Brewster exclaimed in a loud voice, “Hey, new girl. You need to change your tampon!”
Lili felt all the blood drain from her face. And, oh no, pool between her legs.
Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. No. Please don’t let this be happening. Please, God. Please.
She rushed blindly toward the exit door, vaguely aware of laughter and the buzz of cruel comments. Of course, the door wasn’t open yet and she had to stand there and die.
“Here,” said a gruff voice behind her.
Lili felt something against her shoulder. She glanced down and saw a letter jacket and a large male hand no longer sporting a senior ring. Though she wouldn’t have believed it possible, her humiliation grew.
Nevertheless, she took the jacket, wrapped it around her waist, and fled the bus the moment the door opened.
She didn’t even think about her purse until she’d made it to the bathroom, shut herself in a stall, and hung Mark Christopher’s letter jacket on the door hook. Her bag. She’d left her bag on the bus. Her bag with the emergency supplies she’d carried for three whole years in anticipation of this moment.
Great, just great. What was she going to do now?
Sit on the commode and cry, that’s what. She’d sob big, fat real tears, unlike those little fake glimmer sheen things that Tiffany managed to work up. She’d sit and cry and never leave the bathroom.
On top of all the humiliation, her stomach hurt and she still thought she might throw up.
The door opened. Derek’s girlfriend, Terri Lane, said, “Liliana? I brought your purse and your backpack.”
When her bags plopped over the top of the stall door, relief melted through Lili. Not only supplies, but a change of clothes also. “Oh, thank you. Thank you, Terri.”
“Are you okay?”
No. I’ll never be okay again. “I’m fine.”
“Okay. Good. Well. I’ll … um … I need to go order my lunch. Mr. Bronson said we have a thirty-minute stop.”
“Okay.” Lili waited until she was alone in the ladies’ room once again to tidy up and change. Then she tried to work up the nerve to leave it by lecturing herself.
This was the most embarrassing moment of her life, but it could have been worse. It hadn’t happened in the school cafeteria in front of two hundred people. And this was high school. Not middle school. Everybody knew that girls menstruated.
Hey, new girl.
Lili closed her eyes and breathed in a shuddering sob.
Hinges squeaked as the bathroom door swung open. Tiffany swept in and stopped right in front of Lili. Her brown eyes blazed and her voice vibrated with fury.
She drew back her hand and slapped Lili hard. “You stupid b. You’ve ruined everything.”
Lili gasped, fell back a step, and covered her stinging cheek with her hand. “What…?”
“It’s not enough that you humiliated yourself. You had to go and spoil my entire weekend! The only reason I came on this stupid debate trip was to be with Mark. Now he’s being sent home and it’s all your fault!”
“What?” Mark was being sent home? “Why?”
“Because he got in a fight, that’s why. Because your brother mouthed off at those sophomores who were only saying what everyone else was thinking after you leaked all over yourself. Then the shoving started, and Mark just had to get involved. Had to stand with his man. Now they’re both getting sent home and it’s all your fault and I hate you.”
Oh no. Her parents would kill her and Derek both.
“Give me Mark’s letter jacket. We’re back together, so it’s mine, and I’ll need it to keep warm tonight since Mark won’t be there to do it.”
Her head spinning, her cheek stinging, and her heart hurting, Lili moved to retrieve the jacket she’d left folded over her backpack. Without speaking, she handed it to Tiffany.
The girl held it out in front of her and started to slip it around her shoulders. Then she winced. “Oh, gross. This is just great. You stained it.”
Tiffany threw the letter jacket back at Lili. “Get it cleaned. If the stain doesn’t come out, you need to buy us a new one.”
Lili clutched the jacket to her chest, closed her eyes, and wished she would die. Right here. Right now. Just … go away.
Instead, when the announcement was made to load up, she got onto the bus. No one spoke to her, thank goodness. She returned to her window seat, slumped down, and pulled the letter jacket up over her head, pretending to be asleep.
She smelled cologne. A guy’s scent, though she didn’t know its name. Derek wore Axe. This was different. It smelled nice. It smelled … older. Kind of dreamy. Warm and comforting.
Lili sank into the jacket, sank into the scent, and let her mind go blank.
Fifteen years later, with the memory of the most horrible day of her youth fresh on her mind, she wondered if Mark Christopher still wore that Armani cologne.
It had taken her weeks after what she’d personally termed the Incident to identify the scent, primarily because she started searching the fragrance counter at drugstores. It wasn’t until she graduated to trying the men’s fragrance samples at department stores that she found it. If she’d entertained a vague idea to purchase a bottle to use as calming aromatherapy, it evaporated at her first glance at the price tag.
Nevertheless, she never smelled that particular fragrance without thinking of Mark Christopher.
Wonder if he ever thought about her? He’d treated her no differently in the wake of the Incident. In fact, the only reference he’d ever made to it was a brief “Thanks” when they passed in the hallway between classes two weeks later, the day after she’d sent the replacement letter jacket she’d purchased to his house.
Not that she saw very much of him after the debate trip from hell. It wasn’t difficult to avoid him at school. He and Derek remained good friends, but since Mark had thrown the first punch in the parking lot fight, he’d become persona non grata around the Howe house. On the rare occasions he did come around, Lili made herself scarce. Then Mark’s birth father found him, and even Derek didn’t see much of him for a while.
Lili’s freshman year passed in a miserable blur. She quit the debate team, of course. Her grades dropped—little wonder since she mentally checked out from just about everything in the wake of the Incident. As a result, she’d taken a hit to her class rank from which she never completely recovered. Unlike her brother, no Ivy League for her.
It’s a wonder her parents had waited until now to basically disown her.
As for her unrequited love issue … the Incident had managed to crush her crush. If she and Mark had exchanged more than two dozen words between that day and tonight, she’d be surprised.
She’d seen him only once since he’d graduated from high school. It had been … what … four years ago? Maybe five? They hadn’t spoken that night, either. In fact, she didn’t think he even noticed her. She’d been dining with a client.
Lili noticed the familiar figure seated in the steakhouse’s bar area when she smiled up at the waiter who’d set her order on the table. He sat alone, a highball glass with three fingers of amber liquid in front of him, and he stared broodily out the window.
Mark Christopher. Wow, now there’s a blast from the past.
She couldn’t help but steal glances toward him throughout her meal, and when her client excused himself to visit the restroom, she’d taken the opportunity to study her brother’s old friend at her leisure.
Maturity looked good on him. It didn’t surprise Lili that he’d grown even more handsome in the years since she’d seen him last. His frame had filled out. He wore his dark hair military short. Dressed in faded denim jeans and a white cotton sports shirt with the cuffs rolled up, he had a pair of Ray-Bans hanging from a cord around his neck. A waitress approached, tried a flirtatious hip waggle and grin on him as she asked a question. Lili had read his lips. “Another Jameson’s. Neat. Another double.”
He spoke without taking his gaze off of … what?
Lili followed the path of his stare to the street where a horse-drawn carriage waited outside of First Presbyterian Church. “Oh,” Lili murmured aloud. Now it made sense.
Her mother had mentioned that Tiffany Lambeau was getting married that weekend.
To somebody other than Mark Christopher.
Lili felt like a voyeur as she watched Mark watch the front of the church. It was hard to put a name to the expression on his face. Maybe because that expression was expressionless.
She could easier define what he wasn’t. He wasn’t happy. He wasn’t sad or somber or visibly miserable. But neither was he uninvested. The best word she could come up with was “intense.”
Lili wondered if he’d had come here to crash the wedding for the “if anyone knows a reason why not” moment. If so, he must have decided against it.
Her dinner companion returned, and for the rest of the meal Lili struggled to keep her mind on business. Despite her best intentions, her attention continued to stray toward the man in the bar.
She was discussing a potential tax strategy with her client when Mark froze with his drink halfway to his mouth. She lost her train of thought as emotion flashed like lightning across his face, there and gone in an instant, but so intense that it burned into her memory.
Lili didn’t need to glance over her shoulder to see that the church doors had opened and the bride and groom were hurrying to their waiting carriage.
Tonight as Lili reached her campsite, she recalled that flash of emotion that had blazed across Mark’s face that evening. Such love. Such grief. Such heartache.
“Such an idiot,” she murmured, opening the door to her trailer.
And yet Tiffany Lambeau had fooled a lot of people for a long time. Pretty girls could do that. Pretty girls with Academy Award–worthy acting talent could take it all the way to the bank. Or, in Tiffany’s case, the banker. And now to the accounting firm.
Kudos to Mark for getting out of the relationship before doing so involved lawyers. Or child support. The banker hadn’t been as lucky. His prolonged custody battle with the Queen of Mean had been the talk of the hair salon where both women had their hair cut—and Tiffany had hers colored. (Guess that auburn Mark had liked so much had been fake from the start.)
Lili wondered if Mark knew the truth about Tiffany’s hair color. She wondered if he knew about the divorce or about Tiffany’s new position at the consulting firm where Lili had worked.
The day that Tiffany had sashayed into the office with the head of HR and a brand-new title Lili had to stretch to maintain her professional composure. The old saying about it’s not what you know but who you know had never been more true. For almost six months she’d had to put up with twice-weekly meetings with the Queen of Mean.
The best thing about running away from home had been leaving those meetings and that particular coworker behind. What sort of cosmic joke was it that Lili had fled the frying pan only to land in Mark Christopher’s fire?
Actually, his lake. Naked.
Well, at least she wasn’t on her period.