Sure enough, the two women were sitting at the kitchen table when she went in, and there was a plate of fresh-baked brownies on the table.
“How was work, Liz?” Rose asked, going to the stove to pour her some tea.
“It was good. It’s a different climate than the truck stop I worked at last and I really like it.”
Paige drew her hand over her forehead in a gesture of exaggerated relief. “Thank goodness. I’ve gotten used to having a little more free time when Mitch is home.”
They talked about the diner for a few minutes. Paige’s schedule was going to be fairly fluid. She’d spend more time at the diner when Mitch was traveling or during times the ATV traffic would be heavy, but she’d be more hands-off when her husband was in town. That worked just fine for Liz.
“Speaking of schedules,” Rose said, “I talked to Mary this morning and she had a wonderful idea.”
Uh-oh. A wonderful idea cooked up by Rosie and Aunt Mary couldn’t mean anything good for anybody named Kowalski. “Do I want to know?”
“Every year they go camping for two weeks. All of them—the kids, grandkids. It’s become a family tradition, I guess.”
Liz didn’t hear anything but the words camping and two weeks. Her brain added the word no.
“That sounds fun,” Paige said. “My mom had a boyfriend who liked to camp when I was a kid. We went a few times and I loved it, but then they broke up and we never went again. I should talk Mitch into camping.”
Liz could see Paige playing right into whatever hand Rose was about to play, and she was tempted to kick her under the table.
“I’m glad you said that,” Rose said, “because Mary and I want to make it a family reunion.”
“I’ll never get Mitch away from work for two weeks. And I know Ryan’s busy.”
“Everybody’s busy,” Liz echoed, trying to keep her expression regretful.
“With not a lot of notice and everybody’s schedules, we know two weeks is out of the question, but we can all go over for a week.”
“I bet Mitch can make that work if I push,” Paige said. “And Ryan can delegate. What about the lodge? If Josh and Katie go, how can you and Andy go, too? You have to be there.”
“If we go up on a Thursday and leave Wednesday, we’ll only be away one weekend. There’s a big ATV event in central New Hampshire the first weekend the family will be at the campground and everybody seems to be going there. That means we have no bookings to worry about and there’s also plenty of room at the campground.”
“This is going to be so fun,” Paige said. “Doesn’t it sound fun, Liz?”
Not really, but rather than come off as a wet blanket, she tried going with the practicality first. “If the diner’s so busy you were able to hire me to take up some slack, how can we both be gone for a week?”
“Ava and Tori will understand this is a big deal for the family, so they’ll be willing to hold down the fort for a while. And, like Rosie said, most of the four-wheeling crowd will be at that other event anyway.”
“I don’t have any camping stuff.”
Paige shrugged. “You could probably bunk down in somebody’s RV. They all have couches.”
Yeah, and they were mostly newlyweds, parents or—in the case of her uncle Leo—snored like the early rumbles of a major earthquake. But with Rose and Paige both looking at her so expectantly, practically vibrating in their eagerness to start planning this family adventure, she knew it was as good as done.
She tried to muster a smile to match theirs. “There will be s’mores, right?”
Within seconds, a notepad appeared on the table and the two women were talking over each other in a rush to make a list of everything they’d need. Liz sipped her decaf tea—which she liked a lot better than decaf instant coffee—and watched them work. Once they started coordinating with Aunt Mary, she knew this would be the best-planned camping trip in the history of the great outdoors. All she had to do was relax and enjoy the vacation.
“Somebody should tell Drew right away,” Rose said, looking up from the list. “The department’s small, so covering for him might be a problem.”
Liz almost choked on her tea, but she thought she covered it well. Of course they were going to invite Drew. He was Andy’s son. There was a good chance at some point in the future, he’d be Rosie’s stepson.
But Drew was becoming a problem for Liz. She already knew they had great sexual chemistry, which was bad enough. Now she was slowly discovering they seemed to have great chemistry in general, and that was worse. If they lived anywhere but Whitford and he was anybody but her brother’s best friend, they’d be spending a lot of time together. Maybe going out to dinner or to a movie. Sitting on her futon, talking about who knew what at the end of the day.