Touching Stars by Emilie Richards Read Free Book Online Page A

friend, and more relieved to be finished with this conversation.
    “What’s going on in here?” Travis waited at the threshold. He was always careful not to intrude.
    She beckoned him into the room. “Clearing out for the quilters.”
    Travis knew all about her choice of summer entertainment. As he crossed to stand beside them, he looked around. “They’re setting up tomorrow, right?”
    “Bright and early, I’m told.”
    He rested his hand on Noah’s arm. “Doing okay? Did you find a summer job yet?”
    “No, and I wouldn’t have to, if you’d let me be a counselor.”
    Travis shook his head. “I had to set the age limit somewhere.”
    “Then set it at sixteen.”
    “You know I’d let you in if I could. But every rising junior would be shouting foul. Next year, I promise. It’s bad enough I’m bending the rules for Dillon.”
    “You are?” Gayle asked. “You’re going to let Dillon into archaeology camp? Even though he doesn’t turn fourteen until the end of July?”
    “Well, we have to talk about the terms.”
    Gayle beamed at him. She was too old to think in terms of best friends, but if someone had asked, she probably would have named Travis Allen. He lived in a Colonial brick farmhouse that had been in his family for four generations. The two-hundred-acre farm that went with it bordered the inn. He rented out his fields and pasture, taught history at the local high school, fended off his share of local divorcées and widows, and still had time to be Gayle’s sounding board.
    Travis was dark-haired and lanky, with features most accurately described as regular. Wire-rimmed glasses highlighted his greatest physical asset, heavily lashed eyes that were not quite blue, not quite green. He was in his early forties and had been married once, but his wife had died some years ago. He understood what it was like to pick up the pieces after a great loss and move on, and he understood the value of having a friend of the opposite sex to confide in. A friend who was not looking for a mate or even a date. A friend who wanted nothing more than friendship.
    “Whatever it takes to get him in,” she said. “Dillon is desperate to go to camp this summer with his friend Caleb.”
    “Here’s the thing. I’ve got a new site I want to excavate.” He hesitated. “And it’s not on my property.”
    “It’s on mine?”
    “Across the river.”
    When Gayle and Eric had bought the inn, they had also purchased the fifteen acres directly across the river. Gayle had wanted to preserve the view, and at the time Travis’s father, Yancy, had been willing to sell. Yancy had been afraid that after his death the farm would be broken into parcels for eventual development. He wanted to keep as much of the land open and pristine as he could.
    Yancy was assured that the Fortmans would not develop the property nor sell to anyone who wanted to. Covenants to that effect were added to their agreement. But to everyone’s surprise, when Yancy died six years ago, Travis had come home to live on his family’s land. He had never asked Gayle to sell back the lost acres.
    “You want to excavate the old house site?” she asked.
    “One of the outbuildings. Are you interested?”
    She considered. “I don’t know, Travis. All those tents for the week they camp out? All that noise at night?”
    “No, we’ll camp where we always do, up at my place. I’ve got showers and toilets installed there. And your guests might enjoy coming over and seeing what we do during the day. But your view will be intact. The area where we’ll be digging is behind some trees. You won’t even see us. And for the most part the river will block the noise.”
    “And you’ll let Dillon be part of it?”
    “How well does he swim now?”
    This was the problem with having the head of the popular archaeology camp as a friend. Travis knew too much about her family. She shrugged. “He swims.”
    “That has to be a condition. We can’t take non-swimmers that