After he and the other children had gone, she contemplated that her happiness was so obvious that even a child could see it.
And what did that mean about the way she had been before? She hadn’t felt unhappy.
But she hadn’t felt like this, either.
Caring about someone just made everything better! The flowers looked brighter, and the air smelled fresher, and the world seemed funnier and friendlier. The week passed in a flurry of texts and phone calls between her and Jonas, but both their schedules precluded meeting. The last week of school was always crammed with activities and responsibilities. Normally, after that final Friday afternoon of tears and hugs and kisses from all her kindergarten students, Krissy would go home and feel bereft for days, summer looming large and empty.
But this year, all she felt was excited. Jonas was coming tonight, and tomorrow they were going to his reunion. She was meeting his family.
It was crazy to be so excited.
It was crazy for her heart to beat so hard every time the phone rang, every time a text pinged.
When she opened the door to him that night and looked into Jonas’s face, saw the hunger in his eyes and the tender smile on his lips, the truth hit her.
The truth was Krissy was crazy in love.
With her fake fiancé.
But when he reached for her, when he pulled her into him, when his lips claimed hers and lit that now-familiar fire within her, it was the most real thing Krissy had ever felt.
The weather was glorious the next day as they made an early start to the Catskills, but the feeling inside of her put the sun to shame.
She loved his family resort from her first glance of the log arch over the road. A sign swung from it: Boy’s Den. Underneath that hung a smaller sign that promised Dog-Gone Fun. Because Jonas had told her the story of the rebirth of the resort, when Krissy recognized the motto she already felt connected to it in some way.
“I told my sister to change the name from Boy’s Den, but she wouldn’t. My dad named it, and he thought it was such a clever play on the family name. None of us had the heart to tell him it was a terrible name, that it sounded like a Boy Scout camp or worse, a den of ill repute.”
“I love it,” Krissy said firmly, and what’s more, she already loved his sister for keeping it.
They drove down a curving driveway, shaded on both sides by enormous sugar maples, into a clearing where a small river crashed over rocks into a large body of water that was not quite a lake, but too big to be a pond. There was a sandy beach and a raft bobbed up and down out on the water. Though it was before lunch, the day promised to be hot, and there was already a group of teenagers on the raft, boys showing off for girls by pitching each other in the water.
“How many people come to your family reunion?” Krissy asked. There were people everywhere.
“It varies. More than a hundred. Less than two.”
“A hundred people in a family?”
He laughed. “That’s how many come. My dad was from a huge family—six brothers and two sisters. My mom was like you, an only child, and I bet she had that same look on her face when she was introduced to this mob.”
Jonas stopped the vehicle in front of a rustic log building that must have been the main lodge, and a woman Krissy knew instantly was his sister came off a large covered veranda to meet them as they got out of the car. Two little boys tumbled down the steps behind her, and Jonas swept one up in each arm.
“Simon. Gar!” His arms full of children, he leaned over and kissed his sister on the cheek.
The boys squealed their delight, insisted their names were Harry and Danny, but Jonas acted baffled and told them they were mistaken, and that he had a long-standing relationship with Simon and Gar and knew who they were. He bantered with them until the laughter of the boys filled the air.
Krissy could not take her eyes off the three of them, a light of love and joy shining from them. She was totally aware this was the kind of daddy Jonas would be. Strong, engaged, fun-filled. It filled her with the most exquisite tenderness she had ever felt.
She was aware of his sister watching her. “He’s great with kids,” she offered. “Do you think you’ll be having any?”
“Hey!” Jonas said, giving his sister a warning look and putting down the boys. “You haven’t even been introduced yet.”
Danny and Harry switched their rambunctious affection to the dog, who was thrilled.
Jonas introduced them and Theresa greeted Krissy as if she had known her all her life. She was warm and unpretentious, and Krissy’s feeling of loving his sister was already deepened.
“Now how did Jonas keep you secret?” she asked, folding Krissy into a firm hug. “Oh, look at that ring! Mike and I thought he was toying with us when he called and told us he was engaged, but he’s not, is he?”
Thankfully, before Krissy answered, the boys started fighting over who the dog liked best, and Theresa calmly pulled them apart.
“And look at you!” Theresa said. She got down in front of Chance and took his face in her hands, kissed him right on his ugly snout. “I can tell he’s got a great soul.”
Krissy’s feeling of homecoming intensified.
“Do you want a tour of the place?” she asked when she got back up. “Jonas, take the boys and find Mike. He’s building a mud pit. We thought we’d add a tug-of-war to the water fight this year.”
“Do you think we could unpack first before you put me to work?” Jonas groused, but shrugged ruefully at Krissy, called his nephews, and they headed off. “Do not interrogate her,” he warned his
