“Are you serious?” Ashlyn frowned.

“Yes, ma’am, very serious.” Jayden smiled. “Even though she got home late, she got up and had a hot breakfast with me every morning, and we visited while we ate. My school was only a couple of blocks away, so I went home for lunch and we spent that half hour together, too.”

“What about your dad?” Tiffany asked.

“He and my mother divorced when I was sixteen. My grandmother died and Gramps was helpless without her, so Mama moved him into our house. Daddy said that Mama put us kids and then her father before him and that was the cause of the divorce, but the truth was that he was having an affair and married the other woman as soon as he could. They made me come spend time with them one summer after the divorce, but I was miserable and they were, too, so they didn’t push the issue anymore,” Jayden answered.

“Did that make you mad?” Carmella asked.

“No, I was just glad that I didn’t have to go,” Jayden replied.

Ashlyn raised her hand. “Testify, sister.”

“The bottom line is this,” Jayden told them, “you have to learn to love you for who you are. Get so comfortable in your own skin that nobody else’s opinion matters. One of my favorite sayings is, ‘To thine own self be true.’ I don’t always do a good job of doing it, but I’m trying to do better lately.” Immediately Jayden wondered if she should have shown such a vulnerable side to the girls.

“One day at a time, sweet Jesus.” Ashlyn giggled.

“Pretty much the truth.” Jayden laughed with her. “Now, the bunch of you best get your things together and go to the bathhouse. It’s your turn to go first tonight. And just one more reminder: leave the scorpions alone or kill them if you can do that safely.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they all chimed together.

Jayden got up and walked across the yard to Moonbeam Cabin, where Novalene was sitting on the porch with a glass of tea. She sat down in one of the hot-pink chairs, and Novalene pushed the tea over toward her. “Looks like you could use a drink of this. I’ve been using the straw, so you can drink out of the side.”

Jayden sucked up a mouthful and almost choked when she swallowed it. “You could have warned me,” she sputtered.

Novalene chuckled. “Have another sip. I always come prepared to make at least a couple of these while I’m here. I buy two each of those little single bottles of rum, vodka, gin, tequila, and triple sec. Without a doubt, I will need it at least twice. Today, we’re celebrating half of the season being gone, and the fact that we lived through the spider episode,” Novalene said. “Did you give your girls the ‘come to Jesus’ talk about scorpions being set loose in anyone’s cabin?”

Jayden nodded and took one more drink of the tea. “If I come back next year, I’ll remember to bring something to celebrate with and share with you.”

Novalene chuckled. “I don’t know if I’ll return, but if I do, I’ll hold you to that.”

“What’s so funny?” Jayden asked.

“The idea you won’t come back next year,” Novalene said.

“What makes you think that?” Jayden asked. “Skyler could be here instead.”

“Who knows what will happen in a year, but you won’t ‘come back’”—Novalene put air quotes around the last two words—“because you won’t ever leave.”

“In your dreams.” Jayden laughed out loud. “Tarantulas, scorpions, and God knows what else is hiding in the corners of this place. Not much to keep me here.”

“I’ll bet you a bottle of Knob Creek Smoked Maple bourbon that you’ll find something you don’t want to leave behind in the next few weeks,” Novalene told her.

Jayden stuck out her hand and said, “Deal!”

They shook hands to seal the deal, and then Jayden pushed up out of the chair. “I hear my girls coming back from the bathhouse. See you at breakfast.”

“I’m going to enjoy every drop of that bourbon you’re going to have to buy for me,” Novalene called out as Jayden jogged across the yard.

“You should be in Daydream Cabin,” Jayden hollered, “with that kind of thinking.”

She went to her bedroom and got her journal out, picked up a pen, and began to write:

Dear Mama,

I’m not sure if I made a mistake today. I let my tough girls see a vulnerable side of me. Now I worry that they’ll think I’m a softie and try my authority. Maybe I should have kept things on a professional level and not gotten into my own personal background. I’ve disclosed more of my feelings since I’ve been here—with the counselors, Elijah, and the girls in my cabin. I feel a closeness to all of these people that I haven’t had before. Friends and something like peers with Novalene and Diana. Something that sets my emotions into a tailspin with Elijah. And like a big sister to these girls. I just hope I haven’t made a misstep tonight by letting them into my own personal world.

Time will tell, I suppose . . .

Chapter Sixteen

Jayden wiped her hands on a paper towel, flipped her apron up over her head, and hung it on a nail on the kitchen wall next to several others. She had just finished filling a plastic bag with ice when Elijah arrived at the dining hall. Straw stuck to his chambray shirtsleeves, to his jeans and boots, and even to his cap, which he removed and stuck in his back pocket. Sweat dripped from his square jawline onto his already wet shirt. He yanked a red bandanna from his pocket and wiped his face with it.

Jayden quickly tossed him a bottle of water and poured a glass of tea. “Is the job done?”

He downed the water without coming up for air and then took a long drink of the tea. “Thank you. I was so dry I was spittin’ dust,” he joked.

Jayden couldn’t take her eyes off him. Her chest tightened and her breath came in short gasps. She could spend every day with him if she wanted, and right then she really, really wanted to listen to her heart and say yes. But—there always seemed to be a “but” in her life—she had to be sure that a major move like that was truly best for her.

“Are the girls spittin’ dust, too?” She smiled.

“Oh, yeah,” he answered. “I’ve refilled the coolers, but they’ll love having some ice to go in their cups.”

“I remember hay hauling being hard, sweaty work,” Jayden told him. “I used to help Gramps out before Granny died and he sold the farm. Thought I’d ride out with you and see how the girls are doing.”

“They’re whining, bitching, competing with one another, and sweating.” He grinned. “I’d love to have you go with me.”

“Be all right if we take a dozen bottles of cold sweet tea as well as water?” she asked. “After all that sweating, something other than water might taste real good to them.”

“Hey, until we find another cook, we’re pretty much partners in this business,” he answered. “You don’t even have to ask about little things like that. A bottle of sweet tea might even give them enough energy to get the hay all in before those storm clouds in the southwest blow up some rain.”

Sun poured into the kitchen window that faced the north, so it was hard for Jayden to imagine clouds anywhere, but when she carried a paper bag with a dozen bottles of tea out to the truck, she saw big black ones billowing toward them. “That’s weird,” she said. “If I stand right here and don’t look over my shoulder, it’s kind of scary looking. If I turn around, all is happiness and sunshine.”