“You’re our hero,” Taryn said, her voice teasing.
Angel cleared his throat and motioned for them to pay attention to the rest of the announcements. While he wouldn’t admit it to anyone, he appreciated their faith in him. He was proud of his girls and pleased they were proud of him.
After the announcements, they went to sit by the big fire pit. Large logs surrounded the stone-ringed pit. Denise pulled a name from a box. The FWM girl called got to light the bonfire.
It didn’t take long for the kindling to catch. The sun was setting as the flames reached up toward the sky. One of the Grove Keepers brought out her guitar and began to play. Taryn nudged Angel.
“Turn,” she said, pointing to Regan, who sat next to him.
“What?”
“You and I are going to sit back-to-back.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he did as she requested. Regan shifted so her back was to him, as did the girl in front of her and so on until four of the Acorns sat with their backs to him and four sat with their back to Taryn.
Taryn handed him four small rubber bands. “You’re going to French-braid Regan’s hair while she does Allison’s and so on.”
“Seriously?”
“It’s our thing,” she told him. “Go with it.”
He dutifully finger-combed Regan’s hair, then separated the strands on her crown into three sections. He worked easily now, not having to think about what he was doing.
Back when he’d first agreed to be a Grove Keeper, he’d been disconcerted to discover he would be working with girls. Now that he’d been with them nearly two months, he was pleased with the assignment. They brought something special to his life, and he hoped he did the same for them.
His initial plan had been to resign as their Grove Keeper at the end of the first year, but he was rethinking that. He wanted to see what would happen when they were Sprouts. It seemed that Mayor Marsha had known what she was doing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TARYN WAS ENJOYING the storytelling part of the evening right up until it started to rain. At first there was just a light mist, but that quickly turned into something steadier.
“Tell me again why we love camping?” she asked Angel as they led the girls back to their tents.
“This’ll pass. Even if it doesn’t, you’ll be dry in your tent.”
“Famous last words,” she murmured before turning her attention to the girls. “Okay, let’s get our toothbrushes and toothpaste and head to the bathroom. We’ll get ready for bed, then all pile into Angel’s tent until we’re sleepy.”
He looked at her. “Why my tent?”
“Because you’re our Grove Keeper. Where else would we go?”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re paying me back because your hair is going to frizz, aren’t you?”
“Something like that.”
The girls dove into their tents and collected what they needed and then all trooped off to the bathroom. The other campers were there, so there was a line for the toilets and the sinks, but eventually they were all done with their evening ablutions.
Taryn went into her tent and zipped it closed. Angel had insisted they take the time to tuck the edges of their tarps under so that any rain would roll down to the ground rather than under the tent. At the time his concern had seemed silly, but now she appreciated his thoroughness. She wasn’t all that interested in getting soaked in her sleep.
She hadn’t brought a lot of clothes. Clean underwear and socks, a shirt for each day and a spare pair of jeans. For pajamas, she’d chosen yoga pants and a soft T-shirt. At home she favored sleep shirts but figured in a group camping situation she should make sure she was a little more covered up.
Undressing in the tent was harder than she would have thought. There wasn’t a lot of headroom, so she was forced to sit on her sleeping bag, which was set on top of an air mattress. Concerned about providing some kind of shadow show on the side of the tent, she flicked off her flashlight and changed in the dark. Only it was really dark and she couldn’t see what she was doing.
“Someone needs to explain to me what about this is fun,” she muttered as she pulled on her yoga pants.
She decided that the T-shirt she was wearing would be fine for the night and that she would take off her bra later. She turned on her flashlight and unzipped her tent, then crawled out.
The rain had turned steadier and the temperature had dropped a few degrees. She shivered as she ran to Angel’s tent.
The other girls were all there, except for Olivia, who came in a few seconds later. They huddled together, holding flashlights and looking expectantly at Angel. Taryn tried not to do the same, but it was difficult. He was the only one with camping experience.
“We’re going to tell stories,” he said when they were settled.
“Scary ones?” Taryn asked. She wasn’t sure she wanted to deal with eight little girls who were too frightened to sleep.