“You’re Skyler’s sister, right?” he asked.
“That’s right.” She smiled. “Kind of hard to believe.”
“It sure is,” Elijah said, “but thank you for taking your sister’s place.” He let go of her hand and turned to focus on the other counselors. “How’d your school year go, Diana?”
Diana had told him last year she only had about five more years until she could hang up her school cap and retire. The short woman had gray hair and brown eyes. She blamed her gray hair on more than thirty years of working with kids. She could be compassionate with her girls at the camp, but her voice could cut like steel when a girl needed correction.
He noticed that Jayden had sat back down and crossed one long leg over the other. How on earth could that striking woman be Skyler’s sister? Skyler was cute after a fashion, but Jayden would make any man turn and take a second glance.
He glanced over at Novalene. “I’m sure glad you didn’t retire like you said you were going to do when the session ended last year.”
“Retirement ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.” She settled a floppy hat onto her head. “I need some drama in my life.” She was around Diana’s height, but forty pounds lighter, and she kept her hair dyed stovepipe black. Her blue eyes could bore holes into a misbehaving kid, but by the end of the summer the year before, all three of her charges had cried when they had to say goodbye. “Jayden was just telling us that Skyler is going on a trip to Europe with her students from Glory Bound, but I guess you already knew that.”
Elijah nodded. “Yes, I did. Did y’all welcome Jayden to eight of the toughest and most rewarding weeks of her life?”
Jayden stood up again. “They’ve been telling me all kinds of stories. I can take tough if there’s a reward at the end of the line.”
“She sure doesn’t look anything like Skyler, does she?” Novalene said.
“Nope,” Elijah said.
“We get that a lot.” Jayden’s voice had a lot of gravel in it, like a long-term smoker, but her eyes looked sad at the mention of Skyler’s name. “She looks like our mother. I’m tall like my grandmother, and I’m a lot tougher than my sister.”
“That’s a good thing to be.” Elijah chuckled. “I’m going to make a bathroom run, grab a cup of coffee, and then we’ll be on our way. It’s about an hour and a half to Alpine, so get ready to settle in . . .”
“And listen to some country music, right?” Novalene grinned.
“You got it.” Elijah gave her a thumbs-up and disappeared down a hallway.
He gave Jayden a sideways look one more time as he left the room. He hadn’t seen a woman who would make him want to throw his own set of camp rules—number one was never get involved with a counselor—in the fire before then, and he sure wished he’d met Jayden in a bar or even a church social instead.
And then what? the annoying voice in his head asked. So you can bring bad luck into her life?
He washed his hands and dried them, then went back out to the office to pour himself a cup of what passed for coffee but tasted more like road tar. He took a few sips and then poured the rest down the sink. “Okay, ladies, let’s load it up and get on the way. Mary is planning on us being back by lunchtime, and since she’s the cook, I try to never make her mad.”
Jayden pulled her black suitcase out to the plane and parked it beside a red one and one that looked like it had been dragged through a flower garden. If a person could be judged by their suitcases, Jayden was as solid as a rock. Once everyone was buckled in, he took his place in the pilot’s seat.
“So, are you excited about this?” Novalene asked Jayden as Elijah taxied out to the runway.
“Not particularly,” Jayden answered as the plane started ascending.
“Then why are you doing it?” Novalene asked.
“Because my sister cried, and because she’s always wanted to go to Europe, and if I didn’t take her place, that would be just one more thing she’ll hold over my head the rest of my life,” Jayden replied.
Elijah could hear aggravation in her voice. She and Skyler weren’t only different in looks—evidently they didn’t get along. He had never cared about the counselors’ lives outside of camp, but he found himself wondering about the sisters.
“I can see where she would do that,” Diana said. “Skyler could get pretty emotional, but that’s the way she controlled her girls. Sometimes tears work better than a tongue-lashing. I didn’t even know she had a sister until you showed up. I knew her mama was gone and her father lived back east, but she never mentioned a sibling. Do you have more brothers and sisters?”
The other counselors were good people—that was what Skyler had said. She forgot to mention that they were nosy as well, but Jayden was adept at deflecting questions.
“Just me and Skyler,” Jayden answered. “How about you, Diana? Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Three brothers,” Diana replied.
Novalene chimed in about her siblings without being asked, and soon both of the other ladies were telling family stories. Jayden listened with one ear as she stared out the window. Elijah chuckled, and Jayden wondered if something in the lyrics of one of the songs filling the small plane brought him a good memory. She began to listen, and soon her head was bobbing in time with the music as Travis Tritt sang “It’s a Great Day to Be Alive.”
“We’re coming in for a landing, and sometimes it’s a little rough,” Elijah yelled back over his shoulder.
Jayden had been so lost in the music and the memories that each song stirred up that she didn’t realize they’d been in the air for more than an hour. The landing was rough enough that her head touched the ceiling of the plane at one time, but then they were on the tarmac and coming to a rolling stop. Elijah was the first one out and waited at the bottom of the stairs to help each of the ladies.
Jayden was the last one out of the plane, and when she stepped into the scorching hot day, blistering wind blew her dark hair across her face. She squinted against the blazing sun, but there wasn’t much to see between her and the mountains out there in the distance other than yucca plants and cow’s tongue cacti. Holy smokin’ hell! What had she gotten herself into? She fumbled around in her purse for her sunglasses and put them on. That helped a little, but it didn’t stop the heat from trying to cook her skin.
Elijah unloaded the suitcases as if each of them weighed less than a bag of marshmallows. His ham-size arms and broad chest stretched the knit shirt that was monogrammed with the PWA logo above his heart.
“Welcome to Alpine,” a deep voice said to her left. “I’m Henry, and this is my wife, Mary. You sure don’t look like Skyler’s sister.” A short man in bib overalls and a bright-green T-shirt with PWA embroidered on the sleeve, Henry was tanned to a light brown with dark-brown eyes and a big smile. He turned his green cap around backward over his ring of gray hair and hurried over to help Elijah unload the baggage.
Not looking like Skyler was something that dug deep into Jayden’s heart. One pretty sister, one plain one was the message that she got every time.
“I’m Mary.” A lady even shorter than Henry stepped away from the other two women. “I’m right glad you are here with us. Your principal at the Dallas school spoke highly of you, and I’m sure you’re going to fit right in with all of us.”