Just Flirt by Laura Bowers Read Free Book Online

afford blacktop, she made me feel like a horrible business owner, so I got upset and hung up, which you know is going to come back to haunt me. Lord, I wish…”
    Mom doesn’t finish, but I know the rest.
    She wishes Dad was here. He was the charmer, the one who made her laugh and who could always calm the storms in her mind, a role I try to take over—emphasis on try. “Well, up hers, Mom! She doesn’t own the campground anymore, so you had every right to be upset. And so what if Chuck adds water slides? He’ll also raise his prices again. A lot of families can’t afford his rates, so where are they going to go?”
    “They’ll come here,” Mom finishes for me as soothing pink rays from the rising sun shoot through the trees. “You’re right. Thanks, baby.”
    I wrinkle my nose at her and say, “ That’s why you need me around, to keep you sane. Besides, who else could bring you fabulous morning coffee like I do?”
    “Our friend at site fifteen.” Mom smiles, pointing to the tent site below where a twenty-eight-year-old we met yesterday had pitched his Coleman. “He seems willing to fetch my beverages, poor kid.”
    “Aw, I know! He was so smitten with you at check-in that he couldn’t remember his truck’s tag number! But jeez, Mom, you’re not the cougar type, and besides, it’d be such a pain to carry around a diaper bag with you everywhere you—” I stop, the rest of my teasing abandoned as clumsy silence blankets us. Mom slowly twists her wedding band and I stare into my coffee. This is the first time we’ve ever talked about her with another man, and even though we’re only joking … it doesn’t feel very funny anymore.
    *   *   *
     
    For the rest of the morning, the thought of Mom dating nags at me more than the woman who complained about her neighbor’s dog pooping two feet outside of the pet walk perimeter. Why? My mother is an attractive woman. Most attractive, widowed women eventually start dating again, so why should she be any different?
    Because. I don’t know why.
    During craft hour at the main pavilion, my mind keeps wandering and I end up watching fluffy clouds turn lazy circles while the kids go hog wild with the glitter. A gaggle—or is it a skein?—of geese fly by in a lopsided V formation, calling to each other with honking barks as they follow the leader. Is that why I can’t imagine a life without the campground, because I’m following my father’s lead? Is that why the thought of Mom dating freaks me out, because I’m afraid of change?
    “Dee, a little assistance, please,” Natalie says from the other side of the picnic table where she is wrestling a glue stick from a five-year-old boy who’s trying to eat it. She nods to a girl who has squirted the entire contents of her juice box onto a pinecone. “And where’s the paper towels, did you bring them?”
    “Oh, shoot, forgot. I’ll be right back.” I hurry toward the lodge, stepping right in the middle of a puddle from last night’s rain shower with my Old Navy flip-flops and feeling the chilly water tickle my toes in the most delicious way.
    Puddles are one of life’s many overlooked joys.
    The Cutson brothers are arguing over a tube of glitter when I return, so I bop them both on the head with the paper towel roll before wiping off the soaked pinecone. “Hey, Nat? Uh, after your uncle Dick died, how long did your aunt Loreen wait until she started dating?”
    “Oooo, you said a dirty word!” Tanner yells. “You said—”
    Natalie snaps her fingers at him while watching me. “Oh, six days. But she was seeing her dentist long before that, if you catch my drift.”
    “Did your aunt kill your uncle?” Lyle asks.
    “Bet she blew his head off,” Tanner says, taking a fuzzy red pom-pom and field-goal kicking it with his finger. He throws his arms up and screams, “Score!”
    Craft hour turns into craft chaos as the kids flick glittery pom-poms at each other, but I’m thankful for the