California's Calling (Hunt Family Book 3) (5 page)

Chapter 7

I woke up to Tess staring straight at me. She was standing on the floor near the head of my bed, just looking right at me. I heard someone clear their throat from the door, so I glanced in that direction.

"Good morning, Ladybug," Cub said, leaning casually against the doorjamb.

"Morning, Firefly," I said sleepily as I wiped my eyes before giving Tess a scratch.

"She's not talking to you, she's talking to me," he said to Tess.

I smiled absentmindedly as I continued to pet her.

"You've got about twenty minutes to get up and rolling," he said. "I should have asked you how much time you needed. I wanted to wake you up a half-hour ago, but Evan and Mia both said you'd rather sleep."

"Are they both up?" I asked, sitting up.

"Yep," Mia said. She came around Cub with a mug of coffee in each hand.

"Do you want me to get her out of here?" Cub asked as he was leaving. I started to joke like I thought he was referring to Mia instead of Tess, but I was still a little tired for that.

"She's fine," I said.

Cub walked off, leaving us alone.

"How long have you been up?" I asked as I got to the edge of the bed.

"Thirty minutes or so. We've just been in there talking."

We both took sips of our coffee, and she regarded me from behind her mug with wide eyes.

"What?" I asked.

She nudged her head in the direction of the living room, indicating Cub, and continued staring at me with that wide-eyed expression.

"He's so cute," she said.

"So?" I whispered. I sat my mug on the bedside table and got to my feet. I crossed the room to close the door so I could change. Tess followed me the whole time, so I reached down and put my hand on her head. "Thanks for the coffee, by the way."

"Stop trying to change the subject," Mia said.

"I'm not," I whispered. "He's cute. So what?"

"So, summer camp."

"You're hilarious," I said. "I can't even look at him right since you started putting all that junk in my head. I can't go there with him. Not with his sister marrying my brother. It'd just be awkward. Plus, if I let it go anywhere, I would just miss him when we have to leave. Nothing good could come of it."

"Can you imagine what he'd look like with new clothes?" Mia asked. She grabbed her shirt and pumped her fist against her chest a few times indicating her heart was pounding. "Total knockout."

I had already thought the same thing about his clothes, but I didn't like Mia is saying it. I felt protective of him. "Those are probably just his work clothes," I said. "It's not like he needs to get all dressed up to go to work."

"Somebody's taking up for him," Mia said, raising her eyebrows at me.

"It's not that. I'm just saying, maybe he doesn't need the latest clothes living in the middle of Kenya. I'll bet they'd look at him funny if he showed up with a tool belt and some skinny jeans."

She put a hand over her mouth and laughed quietly, imaging the sight. "All I'm saying is that it's hard not to notice how super gorg-a-licious he is. I'm almost thinking if you're not interested…" Mia trailed of, but she had already implied that the rest of the sentence would be, "…
than I am
."

"No," I said. "Nobody's hooking up with Cub. You only have eyes for Nico, anyway."

This statement called Mia to shoot me a playful warning glare.

I ignored it as I looked at Tess. "And you better not tell Cub we said any of this."

"If she tells Cub what you're saying about him, then she'll have to tell you what
he
said about
you
."

"She won't tell a thing," I said. Then I did a double take at Mia. "Wait. He talked about me?"

She nodded.

"
To you
?"

She nodded again. "And Evan."

"What'd he say?" Mia smiled and shrugged. "I'm not telling you."

I rolled my eyes at her as I slipped out of one shirt and into another one. "You're not telling me because he didn't say anything."

"Maybe he did. You don't care anyway."

"I don't care because you're lying."

Mia slapped a hand to her chest like she was offended. "I would do no such thing."

"What'd he say, then?"

"He said you smell like peaches and he hopes his room still smells like you when you're gone."

"He did not!" I said, pushing at her playfully.

"He did!" she whispered, smiling.

"He would never say something like that."

"He did. Evan was telling him about being on those ships for long periods of time. They were talking about smells, and somehow Cub just mentioned that his room smelled like peaches when he went in there to talk to you last night. He also mentioned that Tess wanted to sleep with you."

"I think he's wonderful," I said, "but he's not leaving Kenya, and I'm not staying here. A fling is all that could come of it, and I'm not doing that with him. End of story."

"Fine," Mia said, holding her hands up in surrender. "But it's a crying shame."

***

We piled into Cub's truck fifteen minutes later. Tess tried to hop into the cab, but Cub whistled to get her to jump into the back.

"Is she coming with us?" I asked, climbing into the front seat.

"Yep," Cub answered.

I was the one who took the seat closest to Cub this time. Mia and I both assumed it would be that way. She stood back and let me get in first.

"Does she always go with you?" Evan asked.

"Most of the time," he said. "It depends on where I'm working, but she always comes when I go to the rescue center. The kids love her."

He started the truck, and did a three point turn to get out of his driveway. I was forced to lean into him as we turned, which I didn't mind at all. He smelled good, and I caught myself thinking I hoped my stuff smelled like him when I left and not vice versa. I blamed his rugged handsomeness for even making me have thoughts like that.

I gave my head a little shake to clear it before shifting in my seat to look out the back window at Tess. I could only see the tail end of her body because her head was wrapped around the driver's side so she could feel the wind in her face.

"I can't even see her face," I said. I craned my neck, to get a better look out the back window but still couldn't see her.

"She's right here," Cub said. He put his hand out the window to pet her, and I peered around him to see the end of her nose through the driver's side window.

"Spoiled rotten," I said.

He smiled and shook his head, and I focused on the road instead of continuing to stare straight at his profile.

"It's crazy seeing everything for the first time in the daylight," Mia said.

"I was just thinking the same thing," Evan said.

Cub glanced at them with a smile. "Nairobi's huge. You didn't get to see much of it last night. I'm sure your drivers took the bypass from the airport out to the center."

"Rachel said it was sort of dangerous," I said.

"It can be," Cub said. "It depends on where you go. It's best to have an experienced tour guide who knows where
not
to go."

"The center's not dangerous, is it?" Mia asked.

"No. We had a problem with people trying to break in a while back, but we built a fence, and we haven't had any problems since."

"Seriously, people were breaking in?" I asked. I glanced at him as we bounced along down the dirt road, and he nodded.

"Like bad guys?"

He laughed as if he thought the question was cute. "I guess so," he said. "Guys who want to steal from the center."

"That's heartless," I said.

"I'm sure they don't really care," he said. "They're probably desperate."

"Why can't they just climb the fence?" Mia asked.

"Because it's ten feet tall with barbed wire," Cub said.

"You didn't notice it last night?" Evan asked.

Mia and I both shook our heads since we had no recollection. "I'd be scared," Mia said. "I'm used to my regular-old life where no one tries to break in and take my stuff."

"I wouldn't like that either," I said.

"It's just something you deal with here," he said. "You can't really give yourself the option to be scared. You just build a fence and deal with it." He paused before adding, "And Rachel said your brother has to deal with photographers following him around all the time. I think that'd be just as annoying."

"It's pretty annoying," Evan said. "They kind of leave him alone when he travels, but it's crazy in L.A. he can't even leave his house."

Cub shook his head. "That's what Rachel said."

"It's a small price to pay when they give you an ungodly amount of money to pretend to be other people."

Cub smiled and shook his head. "I say he deserves the money for having to deal with the photographers."

We talked about Logan being in movies until we pulled up at the center. Cub had a lot of questions about the process of shooting a film, and I knew how to answer all of them. He thought the whole thing was fascinating. Mia and Evan even chimed in with questions of their own—things they'd never asked Logan before.

Everyone was already sitting around the dining hall when we arrived. Including the students, there were roughly fifty people in there. I could see that the kids had already eaten and were just wrapping things up. Everyone in our group was sitting around on the left side of the room with coffee mugs in front of them. I caught sight of my mom who waved us over to her table.

"You guys go ahead," Cub said, noticing her calling us. "I'll go see if Mary needs help in the kitchen."

"I can help, too," I said.

Cub smiled and winked at me. "By help I mean I'm gonna see if Mary can put more of her casserole on my plate. She spoils Tess and me."

I looked around. "I was wondering where Tess took off to."

He nodded. "Mary."

"I guess we'll see you later, then," I said. I was trying not to make a big deal out of saying goodbye to him, but I had no idea what to expect. For all I knew, Cub would be working on one project while I was working on another. Maybe we wouldn't even see each other for the rest of the day. Maybe we'd meet up again when it was time to go his house that evening. I shook my head again, reminding myself that I was there to work and to go to my brother's wedding and that it really didn't matter whether or not I saw Cub or his dog.

The dining hall had rows and rows of tables with bench seats. Evan, Mia, and I sat across from my parents and Dee-dee. Rachel, Logan, and her parents were close by as well.

"How'd you sleep?" was the first question that was asked as we took a seat.

I glanced up to see that it was Rachel who was talking.

"I slept well," I said. "Cub slept on the couch and gave me his bed."

Rachel pointed at Mia. "You had the second bedroom." She pointed at Evan. "And you had the other couch."

They both nodded at her.

"Were you comfortable?"

They continued to nod.

"Tess kept me company," I said.

"Tess slept with
you
?" Rachel asked, looking dumbfounded.

I nodded. "She's used to sleeping in Cub's room so she stayed in there with me."

"Yeah, but she usually stays with him," Rachel said. She shrugged, still looking a little surprised.

"You can bet she's with him right now," Ben said, overhearing our conversation.

"She ran back there before Cub," Laura said, laughing.

Ben shook his head. "If I was a betting man, I'd wager any amount of money that Mary's back there feeding them both bacon as we speak."

"How about a thousand," Logan said.

"A thousand what?" Ben asked.

"Dollars."

Ben laughed. "Oh, the bet?" he asked.

Logan shrugged a shoulder. "I win, you don't owe me anything. You win, I donate a thousand dollars to the center."

"That's not a bet," Ben said.

"You said you weren't a betting man."

"I can almost promise they're back there eating bacon right now," Ben warned.

Logan threw up a hand like
lets do it anyway
. "It'll be a funny way to donate if you're right."

"Who's gonna go spy on them?" Ben asked.

"I'll go," Rachel said.

"I'll go with you," I said. I hadn't planned on volunteering; the words just came out of my mouth before I could stop them.

"Come on!" Rachel said, grabbing my hand.

We walked along the walls of the dining hall toward the doors that led to the kitchen. "We can't walk straight over there because they'll see us coming," she said. "There's a window on each door, and we need to sneak up to them."