Ten Million Fireflies (Band of Sisters) Read online

  She rubbed her hands across her face and sighed. People with money didn’t understand. Hell, she didn’t understand what he didn’t understand. It was all too confusing. His boyish good looks, the flirting a few weeks ago, the tension between them about the camp, his unfortunate connection to buckets of money.

  “You’ll stay for pie, won’t you?” Helen came back outside, carrying a pie dish and a carton of ice cream.

  “Absolutely. I’ve never had rhubarb before.”

  “Well, we can’t have that, can we?” Helen cut into the pie and Brooke took her seat again.

  “Oh, wow,” she said a minute later around a mouthful of the sweet and tart dessert. “This is amazing.”

  “Thank you. The rhubarb and the strawberries are from my garden.”

  “Someday I’d love to have one. Maybe we’ll start a greenhouse project at the camp.” She could start working on it when she moved on-site in a few days. She’d already extended her stay at her rental by a few weeks and the summer rate was way beyond her budget. Thankfully, the weather was warming. She’d planned on living in a bunkhouse during the summer and would find a winter rental on the pond for cheap off-season.

  In the meantime, she could use some land at the camp to start a garden. Charlie would be all over that as well, wanting to grow fresh herbs and vegetables to use in the kitchen.

  “Would you like to see my garden? My strawberries aren’t ready yet, but I have rhubarb and snow peas that need picking.”

  “For real?” Brooke scraped her plate clean and licked the last of the pie from her fork. Eating from rations and in grub halls in the army didn’t leave her with many manners. She knew she looked like a starved, ill-behaved child in her cheap clothes, wild hair, and elbows on the table.

  “I’ll get a basket for you to put them in.” Once again, Helen was off and running.

  “I feel bad making her get up and down so many times.”

  “Nonsense.” Marcus snorted. “She loves waiting on people. Drew hasn’t come by for a meal in some time, not since he and his sister visited last Christmas. This makes her happy. Cooking for others, sharing fruits from her garden. Reading. Visiting.”

  Brooke supposed it was what most people wanted. It wasn’t what she was accustomed to. Not what her grandmother wanted. Louise wanted to be left alone and had made it quite clear she resented having the responsibility of a child living in her house. She expected Brooke to take care of herself, and Brooke worked hard not to be an inconvenience to Louise.

  Few grandmothers liked to be called by their first name by their only grandchild, and most, Brooke supposed, were like Helen. A day made when company came over for a meal. Not in Louise Hubert’s home, though.

  It was always ‘be quiet, stay out of the way, and let me watch my shows and play solitaire,’ or you got the death glare.

  “Here you go, sweetheart,” Helen handed her a basket.

  “Show me the way.” Brooke stood and waited, even though she knew where the garden was. There were a few manners ingrained in her. The military may not have taught her eating etiquette, but she knew how to treat her elders.

  “We don’t have a lot of time before the sun dips behind the mountain. If you don’t get enough tonight, I can pick some snow peas for you or you can come back if you’d rather do it yourself.”

  “I’ll be happy if I can eat some right off the vine. When are strawberries usually ready?”

  “Not until the end of June.” Helen linked her arm through Brooke’s, and they walked hip to hip across the field. “Marcus picked the left side two days ago. This area should have the most peas.”

  She dropped her basket in the straw-marked path and plopped down on her knees. Brooke followed suit and plucked the first peapod she saw, holding on to the stem, and bit down on it. “Mm,” she said as she crunched, the fresh pea pod crisp and flavorful. “Frozen veggies can’t compare.”

  “Not even close.” Helen pulled a handful from the vine and placed them in Brooke’s basket. They picked in silence and it didn’t take long for the basket to fill.

  “I don’t even know what to do with these.”

  “They’re perfect all by themselves, but sometimes I’ll make a nice dip or toss them in with my pasta.”

  “That’s something I can handle.” She ate another peapod. She hated ruining the picturesque moment by bringing up the sore subject, but Helen deserved an apology. “Helen, I’m sorry for being so snippy to your dinner guest. Drew and I...we don’t exactly see eye to eye.”

  Helen did not try to get up and seemed to settle back on her knees. “I remember when Drew was a little boy,” she said, her eyes in a far-off place, her face masked with contentment. “It was the third week of camp and a little towhead boy came wandering through the woods, making himself comfortable in our circle around the fire. I didn’t want to scare him but was concerned his parents were out looking for him.”

  “And he calls me the trespasser,” Brooke mumbled.

  Helen shifted to the other side of the row and cut through a rhubarb stock, placing it in the basket with the pea pods. “I made my way over to him and asked him his name and where he lived. His grandparents had just purchased a beautiful home not far down the road from the camp. Drew had heard the children singing and wanted to check things out on his own. He was nine and quite mature for his age.”

  “I can totally see that.”

  “His mother and older sister came storming through the woods looking for him not long after we started talking. An instant friendship between us formed as well. They lived in Boston and spent every summer there with Jason’s parents. Jason is Drew’s father. He was a successful attorney and Rose was an accountant. Long story short, Drew and his older sister Katie attended camp every summer from then on.”

  He came from money and made more money. Another barrier between them. She already knew she and Drew had nothing in common.

  “That doesn’t explain why he’s so opposed to starting it up again.”

  “Actually, it does. There’s a lot more to the story but I don’t know if it’s my place to share it.”

  The nosy side in Brooke really wanted to know, yet she respected his privacy as well. He was a hotshot famous person, so it threw privacy out the window. “That’s okay.”

  “When Katie was sixteen and Drew eleven, they started volunteering during the younger children’s weeks,” Helen continued, her concern for his privacy no longer seeming to be an issue. “One day, a little boy named Shane was playing chase in the fields with Drew. The little boy ran out onto the long dock to hide. He slipped and hit his head and fell into the water. Drew screamed for help, and Marcus and Katie and I came running. We performed CPR, but it was too late. Shane slipped into a coma and died three days later.”

  “Oh, Helen, how tragic for his family, and for all of you at the camp.” That put Drew at just a year older than Brooke when she lost her mother. Grief. Something she didn’t expect them to have in common.

  “That experience changed Drew and Katie. She wanted to learn everything medical, and is now a pediatrician in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Married a fine man. Glen is a dentist, and they have two adorable little children.”

  Born into a nice family. Sibling is successful. He’s successful. Yeah, no wonder he didn’t care for her and she didn’t... well, she actually liked Drew. Liked being the operative word. Past tense. Until he threw his money in her face, he was a decent guy. That and his quirky behavior about the camp.

  She got he had bad memories of the place, but it happened a long time ago.

  Helen picked up a stock of rhubarb from the basket and toyed with the leaves. The sun had set behind the trees, casting a line of brilliant purple and orange streaks across the darkening sky. The bugs had come out and Brooke swatted a mosquito on her arm.

  “When he turned thirteen, he worked as a camp counselor to our littles. It was when he was eighteen and supervising our middle school campers that,” her voice trembled, “our lives changed.” />
  “Helen.” Brooke laid a comforting hand on her arm. “You don’t have to share this with me if it—”

  “No. It happened a long time ago. Seventeen years. Too long to be harboring so much... sadness.” She gripped Brooke’s hand in hers and lifted her face until their eyes met. “Drew was a head counselor.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes. “He wasn’t in the cabin when it happened...”

  The boy who fell from the loft. The story she read online.

  “Poor Drew. He was too young to see death.” Helen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “He found Ryan Westleigh on the floor. His limbs were bent in a way that wasn’t natural. There was blood...”

  Brooke gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. He was there. No wonder Drew was spooked about her opening the cabins again. Her heart stopped for a moment before beating erratically. “I can’t imagine discovering a dead body. Especially at such a young age.”

  “Hopefully you never will. The authorities came, and we called all the boys’ parents. Only three nights into their week-long summer adventure and their lives forever changed.”

  “This is why you closed the camp?”

  Helen nodded. “Marcus and I didn’t have the strength to go on after losing Ryan. The locals and the police were very respectful of us and the Westleigh family. Of course, it made the news, but we did our best to keep our privacy. We decided to not open the following summer. Then the next summer came around, and we couldn’t go back.”

  “And it’s been vacant ever since?”

  “Seventeen years.”

  “So why now? Why sell me the camp, especially knowing my plans to resurrect it?”

  “It’s because you want to bring life back to that beautiful property. It broke our hearts to shut down, to not see hundreds of smiling faces every summer or bring joy to families across the state. We had offers for nearly a decade from realtors, lawyers, and the locals. They eventually left us alone. We didn’t want someone coming in tearing down our memories. We had two tragic events happen, but there were thousands of beautiful moments we will cherish from our fifteen years running the camp.”

  Brooke wasn’t the hugging type, but Helen needed one, and maybe Brooke did as well. She sat up on her knees and reached across the basket of produce, pulling Helen into her arms.

  The older, much shorter woman fit nicely in Brooke’s arms and she took comfort in being able to give love and support to the kindhearted woman. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  “We all have, honey. That’s a part of life. It’s how we handle life’s obstacles and how we carry ourselves amidst the difficulties that make or break us.” Helen squeezed Brooke before pulling back. “I worry about Drew. He’s been practically a recluse all these years. I want to see him get out and enjoy life.”

  That would explain the dark books he wrote. Sort of. Granted, she supposed even the perkiest, happiest people could write dark horror.

  “Does he spend a lot of time at his grandparents’ house on the water?”

  “He’s been living there full-time since he published his first novel five years ago.”

  “You’d think if the pond and the area held so many sad memories that he’d move.”

  “It’s his family’s home. Part of me thinks he stays there to punish himself. Drew used to be such a free spirit. A rascal in his younger years.”

  Rascal? Yeah, Brooke could see that. For those few minutes they flirted when stopped by with his paddleboard at her rental house there was a spark of mischief in his eyes. It was one of the dozen things that had attracted her to him.

  “Enough of the sadness. I didn’t realize how dark it was.” Helen attempted to rise and Brooke shot up, holding out her hand to help the woman up. “These knees have a way of reminding me of my age.”

  “Bah. Age is just a number.” Brooke reached down for the basket and looped her arm through Helen’s. They walked back to the house the same way they came down to the garden.

  When they reached the lit patio, Helen turned to Brooke and wrapped her arms around her. “Thank you for listening to me tonight. I know I shouldn’t have burdened you with sad stories from the past. I just wanted you to know where Drew was coming from. It will be hard for him to see the camp resurrected, but I think it will be good for him. Therapeutic. A way to help him move forward.”

  “I’ll do my best to stay out of his way and not provoke him anymore.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. I think provoking him is the only way to get that stubborn man out of his shell.”

  Well, if that was the case, Brooke was up for the challenge.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Brooke had hiked through most of the trails on the south end of the camp’s property but hadn’t been down the long, private dirt drive off Sunset Ridge Road. Before she left the Shermans’ last night, she’d asked where exactly Drew lived.

  It figured he lived in the biggest house on Autumn Pond. She tamped down the bitterness in her throat. Just because he was loaded didn’t mean he was an asshole. Not all millionaires were like Ike, she reminded herself.

  She hoped. She knew, but it was a difficult thing to suddenly change her natural instinct in hating money. It was the root of all evil.

  However, money allowed her the opportunity to change the lives of children. A dream she never knew she had until she thought about the lack of her childhood dreams coming true. By the time she was a teenager, she’d stopped having dreams, stopped making wishes, knowing they didn’t come true for kids like her.

  A poor, unloved orphan.

  The gravel crunched under her sneakers as she adjusted the straps to the small backpack she wore. If Drew wasn’t home, she’d leave a note and mark it off as it wasn’t meant to be. At least she’d get a nice five mile walk with a stunning view of the mountains and pond out of it.

  As she rounded the curve in the drive, a peak of a roof appeared above the tree line. Brooke stopped in her tracks to admire the breathtaking home. There were fancy gables and pitches in the roofline that made the log-style cabin a picture right out of some architectural magazine.

  The driveway turned into a circle in front of the house and a dark green Land Rover sat in front of a detached garage. She let out a low whistle as she climbed the steps to the front porch. She rapped her knuckles on the door and listened for movement inside.

  Nothing. She knocked again and waited. Figuring Drew must be out for a run, or possibly out on the water, she stepped off the porch and continued her perusal of the grounds.

  Because it could totally be called that. Most homeowners on the Autumn Pond invested little in their front lawn or landscaping since the view was in the back overlooking the water.

  The Becketts, however, were no penny pinchers. Flowering pink and ruby red plants she couldn’t even name bordered the home while hanging baskets overflowing with purple flowers hung from the farmer’s porch.

  The lawn was green and lush and meticulously cared for. She spotted a path alongside the house and followed it out back, the large pieces of slate leading her to an enormous yard that sloped toward the water.

  “Wow.” It was even more impressive than the front. She swore Drew’s portion of the pond was more spectacular than any other she’d seen. Sugarloaf stood out among the smaller hills and mountains in the background, and she could imagine the shadow of it reflecting in the water when the moon shone just right.

  There was a rock garden to the left, and a trail of granite steps leading to the flat beach below where a ramp and dock bobbed in the water.

  Brooke turned around to take in the back of the house. Wall-to-wall rectangle- and rhombus-shaped windows filled the backside taking advantage of the view.

  There were three stories and two decks off the house. The bottom floor flowed out onto a patio that housed a built-in grill, fire pit, and elegant wrought-iron table set. Brooke craned her neck to the first deck and could make out furniture and a giant umbrella. There seemed to be more of the same, but on a smaller scale, on the
top deck.

  “Shit,” she heard from above right before the scraping of a chair against the decking floor.

  She didn’t think he had spotted her from her position below and contemplated going around to the front door and knocking louder. It wasn’t like her to cower away, though, so she headed to the stairs and climbed up to the deck.

  Drew leaned over the railing, his back to her, his posture stiff and rigid. She glanced around and noticed a few wads of paper scattered on the deck and a stack of Post-it notes on the table. Many were written on and stuck in some sort of pattern.

  “Knock, knock.”

  Drew spun around and jerked backward against the railing, his face ashen and eyes wide in shock. “Holy shit. Where did you come from?” He gripped his hair before loosening his hold and letting his hands slide back.

  “Sorry. I knocked a few times on the front door and then came around back.”

  He looked past her shoulder into the house and then back at her again. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Working?” She pointed to the notes on the table.

  “Trying.” His body relaxed, and he rested his elbows behind him. “Before the local trespasser scared the shit out of me.”

  Brooke grinned. “In the middle of a scary scene or something?”

  “I wish.” Drew pushed himself off the railing and stepped into her space, the area around his eyes squinting as he assessed her. “So, what’s with today’s trespassing crime?”

  “I didn’t see any signs posted in your driveway. I went to the front door and knocked. Are all visitors considered trespassers in your book?”

  “That’s fair.” He cocked his head to the left and then the right, cracking his neck. “Why the unexpected visit?”

  “Are you trying to be intimidating or something? Because you’re not.” No, not in the least. What he was, was charming with his hair all pokey and messy, his white T-shirt stained and worn, and a giant hole in the hem of his navy mesh shorts, as well as in the big toe of his black socks.