Adam scooted over on the bench. “Would you two like to sit down? We probably won’t see my kids again until they run out of quarters.”
“Thank you.” Natalie sat next to him, and Josh took a seat on Brenna’s side.
The waitress reappeared, clearing plates and promising a box for Morgan’s cheeseburger. When she asked if Josh and Natalie needed time to decide on their orders, Josh laughed. He had the menu memorized and had probably known what he wanted even before he parked his truck out front. He asked for the barbecue plate, and after a moment’s consideration, Natalie ordered a half-size fried-chicken salad.
“So, Dr. Varner…” Natalie began.
“Please, call me Adam. ‘Doctor’ seems too formal for vacation. And I desperately need a vacation,” he added with a rueful grin.
Considering his traveling companions, Brenna doubted he’d get any real rest or relaxation.
The blonde returned his smile, her interrogation techniques a lot more amiable than Josh’s. “What brings you to Mistletoe?”
“Three weeks of bonding with my kids. I have two girls and a teenage son. We’re looking forward to hiking, exploring the town. We’ll be staying at the Chattavista.”
“What a coincidence!” Natalie said. “Josh works for the lodge.”
It wasn’t that big a coincidence-there were only two real places for tourists to stay around here. The Mistletoe Inn located downtown, as it were, and the more rustic Chattavista Lodge outside the town proper. Nestled among hills dotted with Georgia wildflowers, the lodge was in perfect proximity to a river that offered fishing, tubing and rafting. People made the most of outdoor sports in the spring, summer and brilliantly colored fall. During the colder months of the year, when holiday visitors were more likely to stay at the inn, the lodge offered discount space for corporate retreats, attracting businesspeople from Atlanta and surrounding states.
“I take groups out on the river,” Josh said. “Well, and answer the phone and other stuff. But white-water rafting is a much more exciting job description.”
Brenna smiled in his direction, feeling a big-sister rush of pride. And also feeling suddenly, inexplicably old. The quiet, shaggy-haired boy who’d seemed unsure how to react when his father married Brenna’s mother was now a broad-shouldered, confident man. Despite his joking about “playing outdoors” for a living, she knew how committed he was to doing a good job. “Josh is a trained guide, a CPR instructor and a certified Wilderness First Responder.”
Josh flashed a grin across the table at Natalie. “Brenna’s just trying to make me sound good for you. Is it working?”
His girlfriend chuckled, but before she could reply, the waitress returned with their food.
Josh offered his heartfelt thanks, then stole a glance at Brenna. There was a mischievous gleam in his eye. “Now, if I wanted to repay the favor and make Brenna sound good for anyone’s benefit, I might mention how she kept making the dean’s list and got her MBA.”
Apparently he’d weighed the potential risks of Adam’s being a total stranger against the likelihood of Brenna finding another boyfriend soon and had come down in favor of the good doctor.
“You have an MBA?” Adam asked, looking at Brenna in surprise.
Some people found it perplexing that she’d busted her butt for six years in higher education and now walked dogs. “I interned at a corporation after I got my bachelor’s, then tried jobs at two other places once I completed my MBA. After three false starts, I realized that cubicles and Monday-morning meetings just aren’t for me. I lack the corporate group-think mentality.” More alarmingly, she’d felt restless, edgy. For the first time in her life, she’d worried about turning into her mother, so she’d abruptly quit and come “home” to Mistletoe, wanting to feel grounded.
And it had worked. Creating her own business from the ground up was challenging but immensely satisfying; she was carving out her own unique place among family and friends. “My MBA isn’t being wasted, though. I am my own marketing staff, HR and accounting department.”
“Lot of responsibility,” Adam said.
“It’s not exactly on a par with heart surgery,” she said with a wry smile, “but I am very aware that people are trusting me with keys to their homes and members of their family.” Furry, four-legged members, but still.
“Dad!” Geoff yelled from the middle of the dining room. Adam whipped his head around as if anticipating an emergency, but Geoff’s chief concern as he ambled toward them seemed to be, “Any food left?”
Adam stopped his son as he reached for the white square box on the table. “That is your sister’s. And I know your mother raised you with better manners. You don’t shout across a restaurant unless it’s urgent.”
Looking genuinely bemused, Geoff asked, “Was I shouting? Sorry.”
“Now say hello to Brenna’s brother, Josh, and his friend Natalie.”
“Hey.” Geoff nodded politely to Josh, then turned to Natalie. Whereupon he reddened and looked away.
Brenna managed not to smile. When Natalie had been in high school, she’d been one of the head cheerleaders, admired by many tongue-tied teenage boys; a decade later, she was still a head-turner. “We were just telling your father that Josh is a river guide. You have any interest in white-water rafting?”
“That would be
“I don’t know.” Adam sounded dubious but refrained from shooting her any accusatory glances. “How old do you have to be to do that, Josh?”
“For rafting, the minimum age is seven. It goes up from there, depending on the intensity of the trip you sign up for.”
Adam nodded. “Morgan’s way too young.”
“I was still playing,” Morgan announced forlornly, “but Eliza said I couldn’t stay back there by myself.”
“She’s absolutely right,” Adam said.
“She said she wanted to come find out who the he-”
“So is there still room at the table for us?” Eliza asked, blushing furiously.
Adam gave her a hard look, then sighed. “Grab a couple of chairs from that empty table over there. You can sit on the end, and Morgan can squeeze in here with me.”
It was a perfectly reasonable suggestion since Morgan took up no room, and Eliza, having already eaten, didn’t need much space. But she looked so ticked off that Adam might as well have asked her to sleep on the floor so someone else could have her bed. From what Brenna had seen so far, it would be easy to believe Eliza was just ticked off at the world in general. But Brenna thought there was more to it than that.
Although the girl acted as if she loathed her father, was she jealous of his attention elsewhere? Eliza already had to share him with two siblings, and now, on the very first day of their vacation, three new people were added to the mix.
Brenna thought of the string of boyfriends with whom she’d had to compete for her mother’s scattered attention-until the woman had left her outright. “Josh, I don’t suppose you’re ready to leave?”
As she finished the question, he gaped at her. He wasn’t even halfway finished with his meal. “You in a hurry?”
“I…” Between her attraction to Adam and her discomfort at being the outsider witnessing another family’s drama, she couldn’t be more eager to go. But since she couldn’t say any of that, she concluded, “I still have one stop tonight in my neighborhood, and I should try and go by the Dillingers’ if I can get a ride over there. Plus, I have a lot of clerical stuff to catch up on tonight. I’ve been so busy with the actual pet visits for the last few days that I’m behind on updating my calendar, printing invoices and logging checks to deposit.” Which was crucial since it looked as though she’d have to rent a car while hers was being fixed. Lord alone knew how much
“We can take the rest of our dinner to go,” Natalie offered.
