He didn't say anything, but his eyes were open so I knew he hadn't gone to sleep and was most likely still listening to me.
“And reason number two is that I don't want to give up my vacation,” I said.
“We can go somewhere else,” Jake offered. “Anywhere else. Sky's the limit.”
I gently squeezed his ankles. They were covered with red welts, too. “But we're already here. I don't want to go anywhere else. We don't have another place to go to and if we did pack up and leave, it would take us half a day to get to anywhere. And then we'd be tired and we'd lose another day. I don't want to lose a day.” I squeezed his ankles again. “I want my vacation. With you.”
“Oh my God,” he moaned. “You're playing the I-want-to-spend-time-with-you card. You know I cave to that every time.”
I bit back a smile. “I'm aware of that, yes. But it's true. I do want to spend time with you and I don't want it interrupted and if we leave now, it won't feel like a vacation.”
“We could drive to the airport and hop a flight to Hawaii,” he said. “We could be lying on a beach and sipping a drink with an umbrella in it by midnight.”
“And you'd have to get a second job to pay for it,” I countered.
“You could get a job.”
I waited for a moment. “Okay. You call the airlines and see if we can get to Hawaii tonight. I'll start looking for a job when we get back. I'm sure I could find something—when I'm not homeschooling the kids, of course. It would be nights, so we probably wouldn't ever see each other. Maybe I could find something waitressing or tending bar. Not terribly fulfilling and I'd have to deal with a lot of drunk men but the tips would be good, so we could pay off the trip to Hawaii faster. Or maybe—”
Jake held up a hand. “Alright. Point taken.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So now you don't want to go to Hawaii? I'm confused.”
He sighed, his entire body sinking further into the couch. “What I want is a stress-free vacation with my wife and I'm questioning whether we can have that here.” He shot me a look. “And before you open your mouth again, I get it. We're staying.”
I wiggled out from under his legs and crawled on top of him, laying my head on his chest. “We're here. We didn't kill anyone. And I don't really want to leave.”
He wrapped his arms around me and I snuggled into him. “I know, I know.”
We rarely got time for just us. With the four kids and his job and the house and everything else going on in our lives, we never found ourselves alone. Even when we went to bed, it seemed like we were joined by one of the kids at some point in the night. Sometimes all three of the younger ones wormed their way in with us. So our time together was at a premium and I didn't want anything to get in the way of our vacation. Even a misrepresented resort. Even a pompous, egotistical jerk of a resort dweller.
And even a dead body.
“So we can stay?” I asked, listening to his heart thump against his chest.
“I think you made that decision for us, Madame President,” Jake answered. “Remember, I'm only the vice president of this family.”
I pressed my head closer, inhaling the scent of his aftershave. “I'm glad we're on the same ticket.”
“Yes. For sure.”
“But seriously.” I lifted my head up and looked at him. “You're okay staying here? If you really want to leave, we can. I won't make you stay.”
He tucked his chin to his chest and smiled at me. “I'm okay staying here, yeah. But can we try not to find any more dead bodies?”
I laid my head back down on his chest and scratched my mosquito bites and smiled. “I will stay out of the bushes.”
TEN
“There's only one thing I hate more than karaoke,” Jake said, tilting a beer bottle in my direction. “And that's bad karaoke.”
We were down at the pavilion near the pool, a large covered area with about twenty picnic tables and a couple of barbeque pits. We'd showered and dressed and I suggested we walk down to the pavilion because they were offering up free hamburgers on the barbecue, as well as coolers full of cheaply priced soda and beer. We'd chosen to walk down, enjoying the cool, crisp air as the sun sank for the day. The bugs weren't too bad and the birds were chirping as we strolled down the hill. Chipmunks and squirrels scampered across well-manicured lawns and up trees and I smiled. I was happy we'd stayed.
“What about my parents? You don't hate my parents more?” I said.
He grinned. “I like your parents just fine. I think you are the one having issues...”
I picked up my own bottle of beer and took a sip. “They lost Grace and Sophie at the park!”
“They did not lose them,” he said patiently. “They...misplaced them.”
I rolled my eyes. “What's the difference?”
We'd talked to the kids before heading down to the pavilion. Grace had wasted no time letting us know that Grandma and Grandpa had let the two younger girls go for a walk in the wooded section of the park—which would have been fine if they'd stayed put on the bench where they told the girls they'd be waiting. Instead, my dad had freaked out about poison ivy and bears—even though there were no bears in Moose River—and decided to go in after them. My mom followed, which meant the girls emerged from the woods ten minutes later and discovered an empty bench where their grandparents should have been waiting.
“They're fine,” Jake said. “That's all that matters.”
“I probably should have just left Emily in charge,” I said, referring to our fifteen year-old. “She would have done a better job.”
“Except they would have all starved,” Jake commented. Emily's culinary expertise consisted of pouring cereal into a bowl. “Speaking of, I'm starving. Let's get some food.”
We left our beers on the table and made our way to the front of the pavilion. There was no line at the barbeque and an older man wearing a John Deere hat plucked two burgers off the grill and plopped them on to our plates. We loaded our buns with ketchup and pickles, then found a spot at one of the tables. Jake paid a couple bucks and grabbed two more bottles of beer.
“This alone might be worth staying,” he said, cracking the new one open and taking a long swig. “One buck each. Just wish I would have brought ear plugs.”
I was still working on my first bottle. I took a sip and looked around. The pavilion was filled with families and other campground denizens—some chatting and laughing together, some sitting alone like me and Jake. While we caught a few people looking in our direction, there didn't seem to be a whole of whispering or staring. Even the Hackermans seemed oblivious to our presence. Wayne held court at a table with several other families, waving his beer in the air and loudly boasting about some fish he'd managed to catch earlier in the week.
I'd mentally congratulated myself for scouring the schedule of events and knowing about the free barbecue. But what I'd missed on that very same calendar was the announcement that karaoke would accompany the barbecue.
At the front of the pavilion, they'd arranged several picnic tables side by side and a computer was set up along with a couple of old and battered house speakers. A pleasant-looking guy in a bucket hat, tank top and denim shorts got up while we were finishing our burgers and started tapped away at the computer. A few seconds later, the speakers pounded to life with a little Michael Jackson.
“Please don't tell me people are going to try to sing Michael Jackson,” Jake moaned.
I popped the last of my burger into my mouth. “I thought you liked Michael Jackson.”
“I do,” he said. His eyes narrowed as he studied the people seated at the tables. “And he's not here.”
“Well, that's because he's dead...”
His gaze shifted to me. “I think the idea of karaoke should die.”
No one else agreed with him because people scurried toward the DJ table, chattering about the songs they were going to attempt to sing. Within minutes, hits from the 60s and 70s were being mangled by Windy Vista campers. When a woman in her sixties wearing an oversized Minnesota sweatshirt screeched out a particularly awful rendition of Mustang Sally, I glanced at Jake. His pained expression told me he was probably ready to saw his ears off.