“Ninety-four?”
Mitch leaned in for the kill. “Think about it, Drew. Mud. Wheelers. Meat cooked on sticks over an open fire.”
“No cell phones.”
“Crushing beer cans and tossing them over our shoulders.”
“Like men do.”
Mitch nodded. “We have to pick them up after, though, or the women will make us suffer.”
Women. Kowalski women. Liz was a Kowalski woman. “I don’t know, Mitch. I’ve got a lot going on.”
“Everybody does. That’s why it’s a vacation. It’s not a vacation if it’s a break from doing nothing.”
“I could use a break,” he admitted, looking over the cluttered top of his desk. “But—”
“Before you start thinking up excuses, you should know Rosie has her heart set on you going.”
“Shit.” He may as well start preparing the station for his absence. “I think I have some camping stuff in the garage.”
“Don’t worry. My aunt Mary will probably write out a master packing list and make sure everybody gets a copy.” Mitch stood. “I’ll tell Rosie you’re in. I’d stay longer, but I have to head to Portland tonight. Early flight in the morning so I can try to get ahead of schedule on some things before the trip.”
Drew stood and shook his hand. “I’ll tell you right now, if I get locked into this camping gig and you use work to back out, I’ll shoot you. And I know how to get away with it.”
“You’re already locked in. Be on the lookout for a list from Aunt Mary. If nobody gives her your contact info, she’ll just email it through the department’s website.”
Liz came by her stubbornness honestly, that was for sure. “Since I haven’t been camping since before I was old enough to drink, I don’t have a problem with lists.”
“Dust off the fishing gear while you’re digging around the garage.” Mitch started walking toward the door, glancing at the clock on the wall as he went.
“Hey, Mitch,” he called after him. “We don’t really have to cook our meals on sticks, do we?”
Mitch shrugged. “Depends on how badly we piss off the women. Word to the wise, behave yourself on burger night because it’s a bitch to keep them on a stick.”
Drew opened his mouth to tell Mitch to forget it—that he’d changed his mind—but the door shut and the moment was lost.
And part of him didn’t want to back out. It had been a long time since he’d taken a vacation, and four-wheeling with the guys during the day and kicking back with a beer around the campfire at night sounded like a good time.
Chapter Seven
Liz looked down at the list her aunt had sent to everybody and then at the pile of stuff in her cart while mentally adding up the price tags. Then she put back the nice two-room tent that she could almost stand up in, and grabbed the small nylon tent with the red clearance sticker. It wasn’t as though she’d be spending a lot of time in it, so all it had to do was keep her dry while she slept and save her from having to have any camping roomies.
Most of the stuff on Aunt Mary’s list was probably basic stuff but, since Liz couldn’t remember the last time she’d camped, she needed all of it. She doubled up on bottles of bug spray and splurged on a small battery-operated lantern, but went cheap on the sleeping bag. It probably wouldn’t be thirty degrees below zero at night in July, even in northern New Hampshire.
Cringing as she paid for the items, she told herself it would be worth the cost. She’d moved home because she missed her family, after all. What could be better than having her brothers and cousins all in one place?
Once she’d loaded her purchases into the Mustang, she assessed the rest of the list. Aunt Mary had included every imaginable item that could be classified as toiletries, most of which she already had. The food stuff she was going to wait and buy at the last minute. She was afraid it would go bad or she’d eat it all and have to buy the same stuff again.
She had also included a list of who was bringing which games, so they didn’t end up with six Monopoly games and no cribbage boards. Liz didn’t own anything but a deck of cards and they seemed to have those covered.
Books. That’s what she needed. Rather than part with any more money, she decided to drive back to Whitford and get a library card.
She slowed down when she passed the town line. Bob Durgin had been out on patrol a lot lately and she knew there would be no sweet-talking her way out of a ticket from him. The last thing she wanted was to give him the satisfaction of busting her in his boss’s car.
Judging by the parking lot, the library wasn’t very busy, so hopefully it wouldn’t take long. The one food item she’d bought was chocolate and, with no air-conditioning in the Mustang, she was beginning to fear for its survival. And she wanted to get the tags and stickers off everything she’d bought and repack it for her trip.