Once, Emma took her time waking up, enjoying the slow rise to consciousness. If there wasn’t coffee waiting on her nightstand, what was the rush? That all changed over the last twelve months, when every day brought a to-do list the length of her arm. Now, she came awake quickly, already thinking of the problems she needed to solve. There was no time to sleep when her dreams were so close to coming true.

That morning was no different. As soon as light filled the room, her eyes popped open and her mind whirled into action.

Text her assistant. Check email. Argue—again—about the display placement in the international stores. Approve additional models for the spring releases. Post promotional Instagram photo. She reached for her phone on the nightstand, and her fingers grazed a rough surface instead of the glass top she expected to find.

Emma shot up in a panic and blinked at the room, with its wooden walls and rustic furniture. Of course. She was in a cabin in the Berkshires, and she was there to forget about work for a few days.

“That’s going well,” she muttered to herself. She swung her legs out of bed and stretched, still feeling the tension from the previous days’ wedding prep. She’d have to make time for a yoga session in between all the massages she planned to sign up for. It was her favorite way to relax. Well, second favorite.

Her brain picked that moment to remember the night before, and Emma groaned. That gorgeous, awful man had called her shallow and self-absorbed. She could think of a few words for him, as well. Smug. Arrogant. Mean.

At least she was no longer tempted to break Ruby’s one rule. Max could go fuck himself, because she definitely wasn’t going to do it.

Emma closed her eyes, inhaled, and pictured Max’s face getting smaller and smaller, squishing in on itself until it was tiny enough to fit in a box. She imagined closing the box and taping it shut. It was a trick she’d taught herself years ago whenever unpleasant thoughts or feelings showed up. Once a thought was contained, she could mentally push it away and get back to the business at hand.

No point lingering in the cabin when mimosas and mud wraps waited. She showered quickly, though she still took time to apply makeup. Just eyeliner, mascara, powder, lipstick, and a bit of contouring cream beside her nose and under her chin. She pulled on a spaghetti-strap sundress and a pair of leather flip-flops. Her hand hovered over her phone, reluctant to leave it behind. The small device practically felt like an appendage these days.

Which was, she reminded herself, why she was at camp. For one week, she was leaving work behind.

Leaving the phone on the nightstand, Emma hurried from her cabin to the registration table set up outside the Pinecone lodge.

Emma grabbed a cup of coffee from the nearby Grub Shack and headed for the registration desk, eager to learn what luxury she’d be treated to first.

The blonde woman behind the desk smiled at her. Her name tag identified her as Jessica. “Name?”

“Emma Canton.” She sipped her coffee while Jessica searched for her on the registration form. Emma took another sip, and another, while Jessica read the list a second time.

“How do you spell that again?”

“C-a-n-t-o-n. Like it sounds.”

Jessica ran her finger down the list, carefully checking each name. Her easy smile was replaced with a line between her brows. “I’m afraid you’re not registered for this session.”

Ridiculous. Fortunately, Emma had spent the last year communicating with far more recalcitrant people than a cheerful camp counselor, and she slipped into her pleasant determination expression without a hitch. “And I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

Jessica pointed at the paper. “We printed it this morning. You’re not on the list.”

“I’m not disagreeing. I’m saying your information is wrong. I registered in June and received a confirmation email.”

The counselor perked up at that. “Do you still have it?”

“Of course.” So much for leaving her phone behind. Emma returned to her cabin, then hurried back to Jessica, pulling up the mail program as she walked. A fair number of emails came up when she searched the camp name, dozens of messages planning her and Ruby’s trip the year before. She scrolled through, looking for the June one.

“Here it is,” she announced with relief, handing the phone to Jessica.

The woman read it. Emma waited for the line between her brows to smooth. Instead, she let out a low “Ooooh.” There was an ominous note to the simple syllable. Jessica picked up a different clipboard.

“Have you found my registration?” Emma’s smile was starting to feel somewhat brittle.

“I’m afraid so.”

Emma’s eyebrows arched. She waited for an explanation.

“You registered for session 8A. Spa week is session 8B.”

“Is there a price difference? I’ll pay.”

“It’s not that.” Jessica’s smile returned, but this time it was apologetic. Almost pitying. “The session is full. There’s no room.”

“I’m just one person. I already have a cabin. How can there be no room?”

“We have exactly as many spa technicians as we need for this week. Everything is carefully scheduled. One extra body will throw it all out of whack. We can’t ask the other campers to give up a session they’ve already paid for.”

Emma’s fingers tightened around the coffee cup, and she placed it gently on the table before she crumpled it. She’d been looking forward to this all summer. No way she was letting a single letter make the difference between a week of luxury and a week of…

“What exactly did I sign up for?”

Jessica winced. Emma sighed and awaited an answer the counselor clearly didn’t want to give.

And, it turned out, she really didn’t want to hear it.

“Scout wars?” Emma repeated, her voice rising. “Are you kidding me?”

“It’s actually a fun week,” Jessica insisted. “You might enjoy it.”

“Will someone be working the knots out of my trapezius muscles?”

“That’s not on the program, no.”

“Then we have different definitions of fun.” She tried to make it into a joke. This wasn’t the counselor’s fault.

Jessica relaxed at the wry note in Emma’s voice. “It’s a bit of lighthearted fun,” the counselor explained. “Former Girl and Boy Scouts do daily challenges inspired by merit badges. A battle-of-the-sexes kind of thing.”

Emma gestured at her dress and shoes. “Do I look like someone ready to make fire by rubbing two sticks together? I’ve never been a Scout in my life.” She bit back a laugh at the thought of her mother encouraging her to wear a polyester uniform.

“I’m shocked.”

Electricity zinged through her. She took a deep breath, fixed her expression into coolly amused, and turned to face Max. To her annoyance, he was also wearing coolly amused that morning.

“You’re still here?” she asked.

“You’re the out-of-towner.”

“I’m on vacation. I’m supposed to be here.”

“And I live just a few miles away. I went home last night.”

After he’d called her a spoiled princess. Emma suspected he’d slept like a log, without feeling a single shred of guilt about being an enormous ass.

“You came back just to say goodbye to Josh?” Ruby and her new husband had spent their first night of married life at Camp Firefly Falls, but they’d left early that morning for an Alaskan cruise, before Emma even woke up.

“It’s the first day of his honeymoon. I’m pretty sure Josh doesn’t want to see me.” Max stepped closer. The temperature of the cool September morning seemed to spike. His body twisted as he reached for her, and Emma’s breath caught.

His thumb brushed her dress, then moved past her. A second later, he stepped back, this time with a clipboard in his hand.

Emma exhaled carefully while he studied the list of names. It was like he’d already forgotten she was there, which annoyed her more than it should.

“You don’t need to double-check. Jessica already confirmed I was an idiot when registering.”

He flicked a glance at her, then went back to reading. “You know not everything’s about you, right? This is a different list. I want to see how many of my group has arrived.”

Max was going to be there all week? For the first time, Emma was almost pleased she wasn’t staying. If she had to worry about seeing his smirking face every time she left the cabin, it would have really interfered with her scheduled relaxation. Much better to go pack her things and see if she could make a last-minute reservation at her mother’s favorite spa in Ojai. She would have liked to play on a giant trampoline or trapeze in her downtime, rather than take lessons on healing crystals, but she’d go wherever she could get a hot-rock massage.

Emma nodded at the clipboard. “You’re doing the Scout session? That seems about right.”

When he looked up, he took the time to actually see her, though he still didn’t look particularly interested. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know.” She gestured at him, taking in the unnecessarily large body. How the hell did he get muscles like that from working in a hardware store? There couldn’t be that many heavy boxes to lug around. “You’ve got the whole ‘I’m a self-sufficient man who will survive the apocalypse better than you’ thing going on.”

Max glanced down at his cargo shorts and black T-shirt. “You got that from two meetings?”

She ticked the reasons off on her hand. “One, you own a hardware store. Two, you used to work security here, so you must like things to be ordered and controlled. And three, you were a self-righteous ass last night.”

“What does being an ass have to do with a zombie apocalypse?”

“Nothing, but it bears saying.”

“I might have been an ass, but are you saying I was wrong?”

Emma didn’t reply. There was no reason to defend herself to this hulking beast. Sure, their best friends were married, but that didn’t mean they had to get along. They lived on different coasts. Odds were good they’d never see each other after this.

“Fine. I was wrong.” He sounded too bored to even care that the words were insincere.

“You were.”

“That’s what I said.”

She should go. Walk away. He could think what he wanted about her, because his opinion didn’t matter.

Instead, she narrowed her eyes. “What, exactly, were you wrong about?”

“I’m sure you’re not shallow and self-absorbed.” The words were recited, as dutiful as a child parroting a lesson in school.

The longer they talked, the more he theoretically apologized, the more she wanted to humiliate him in turn. He had no right to be so rude. Max should be like any polite member of a functional society and share his unpleasant thoughts with a friend over a glass of wine.

Emma gestured across camp, in the direction of Lake Waawaatesi. “If this wasn’t the first day of camp, I’d ask if you’d already gone skinny-dipping.”

His black eyebrows drew together. “What?”

“You know. If you’d been rolling around on the bank naked, it might explain the burr you have up your butt.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, and she blinked innocently at him as he fought a smile.

“You assume that anyone who doesn’t fall at your feet is uptight?”

“I assume someone who dislikes me after a two-minute conversation has issues. The burr was a guess. A stick is also an option.”

He scratched his right cheekbone, the movement briefly hiding his expression. “I don’t dislike you.”

The novelty of a stranger giving her a hard time for no reason was definitely wearing off. “What, exactly, did I ever do to you?”

Max opened his mouth to answer, then appeared to change his mind. His shoulders softened, and she hadn’t realized how much tension he’d been carrying until he released it. “You’re right. I’m sorry. You should talk to Heather about getting a ride into town. Maybe I’ll see you at Ruby and Josh’s tenth-anniversary party.”

He placed the clipboard on the table, and this time he circled her, keeping several feet of distance between them. Emma glared at his back. She still didn’t know why he’d been rude, but at least this apology sounded sincere.

It hadn’t stopped him from dismissing her. Again.

Emma was not in the habit of being dismissed—and if that made her the shallow, self-absorbed women he accused her of being, well, she could live with that.

“I’m not leaving.” The words popped out.

He glanced over his shoulder. “You’re staying for Scout wars.” He sounded so skeptical, he could have been saying You’re a champion kitten herder and appeared just as convinced.

She lifted her chin. “Yes.”

He nodded at her cotton dress and flimsy sandals. “Your spa wardrobe isn’t going to cut it.”

“I’ll have something shipped overnight, and I can buy clothes from the gift shop to get through today.”

“You just said you weren’t a Scout. You don’t know anything about this stuff.”

“Why are you trying so hard to convince me to leave? Are you scared you’ll lose?”

Max’s smile was almost wolfish. “Not at all. I’m worried the humiliation might be too much for your ego, Mary Kay.”

She kept her smile calm. Pristine. “I can handle it. It will be worth it when I beat that smug, burr-addled butt of yours.”

“Beat me? I think you’re a little confused.”

He sounded too confident, a man who knew something she didn’t. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not competing.” He dropped a lanyard over his neck. The badge settled between his pecs. “I’m the leader of the guys’ team. I get to plan the tests. Don’t worry. I won’t try to humiliate you. Probably.”

Once again, he spun on his heel and walked away from her, whistling the entire time.