Wildfire: A Novel (The Maple Hills Series)

You know when you feel like everyone is staring at you while you’re doing something but you tell yourself it’s your imagination?

That. Except I look up from my breakfast plate and everyone is staring at me.

“What?” I mumble with my mouth full of scrambled egg.

Aurora looks ready to start a fight, but she was perfectly content an hour ago when I managed to find us a private spot for two minutes and press her against a very large and discreet tree to make out.

Emilia looks like her usual, perfectly normal self, but Xander looks as pissed as Aurora.

“Do you have something to tell the group?” Aurora says dramatically, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms across her chest. I’ve hated getting into trouble my whole life but the way she’s staring at me is kind of sexy.

“No? Am I supposed to have something to tell the group?” There’s that many fucking traditions in this place that it’s perfectly plausible I’ve forgotten something ridiculous.

“Your birthday, Russ,” Aurora snaps, “is tomorrow.”

I concentrate on my eggs but Aurora kicks me under the table so I look back up. If I look at her for too long she’ll pout or smile and I’ll agree to something that makes me the center of attention when I don’t want to. “Is it?”

“Did you ask him?” Jenna asks no one in particular as she walks up to our table.

“Oh God, ask me what?” I groan.

“What type of cake you want for your birthday?” Jenna says.

“I don’t need a cake. I’m not really into birthdays, so please don’t feel the need to do anything.”

Jenna takes the seat beside Aurora and steals a piece of toast from her plate. Aurora is too busy glaring at me to notice. She takes a bite and turns her attention back to me. “Aw, don’t be like that when it’s your twenty-first.”

“Your twenty-first?” Aurora squeaks. “And you want to spend it here with no birthday cake and no party? I love this place but that sucks, Russ.”

Jenna scowls at her. “Uh, family legacy? Rude.”

“You’re the farmer equivalent of a nepo baby, calm down,” Aurora grumbles. “Can we all have time off to go to Vegas?”

“You’re not even old enough to enjoy Las Vegas,” Emilia tells Aurora, only to be met with an unimpressed glare.

“I don’t want to go to Vegas,” I add, even though I don’t think anybody in this conversation cares about what I want.

Aurora looks appalled. “Why not? We can take our camp counselor riches and put it all on red.”

I’m back to studying my eggs, wondering how I can say I don’t gamble without it creating more questions I’d rather not answer. Thankfully, Jenna saves me. “Can someone tell me what cake I’m buying? Ideally the birthday boy himself.”

Xander is the first to reply. “Chocolate.”

Followed by Emilia. “Lemon.”

And finally Aurora. “Ice cream.”

They’re all looking at me again. “No cake.”

“Y’all are impossible,” Jenna moans as she stands from our table. “I’ll be at the cabin in twenty minutes to do the inspection. Who’s not working today?”

“Me and Russ,” Aurora says casually.

“I’m so glad I work so hard on all your programs for you to all switch it around whenever you feel like it,” Jenna drawls, rolling her eyes. Jenna has been nice about us switching, even though it ruins her spreadsheet and she has to reprint it. Aurora told her we’re the only ones who like hiking and that’s why we’re spending so much time together. “I’m just going to put you two on the same day off from now on. I’m wasting so much paper.”

I don’t know how people sneaking around at other camps do it considering so many of them offer hardly any time off. Aurora and I struggle for privacy, but we’re lucky Emilia and Xander are flexible and like each other enough to swap with us so we can be alone.

I feel like I’m sweating beneath the pressure of being around Jenna, but Aurora looks perfectly cool as she changes the topic. “Do you want anything from the ice cream shop in Meadow Springs?”

“I thought you were hiking?” Jenna says and I’m definitely sweating.

“Jen, how do you feel about having a huge food fight tonight instead of a pajama party?”

Xander says, quickly changing the topic.

“I do not feel good about it,” she says, instantly turning her attention to my roommate.

I take the attention being elsewhere as an opportunity to inhale the rest of my breakfast, while Aurora has already made a quick exit saying she needed to do something.

“I’m mad at you,” she says as we approach my truck.

“I know, sweetheart.”

I open the passenger door for her, holding her hand to help her climb in. The summer dress she’s wearing rises, the lace of her underwear just visible as she bends over to climb in and when she looks back at me, I realize this is supposed to be a punishment. “Really mad at you.”

“I accept and encourage you to continue reminding me how mad you are,” I say, closing the door.

Meadow Springs is a tiny little town not far from Honey Acres that’s popular with the staff.

I’ve been saying I’m going to visit since I got here, but there’s only so many hours in the day and I prefer spending it wandering around after Aurora.

Many of the other counselors like its one bar and come here for drinks when they’re not working, but bar hopping—would it be a bar hop since there’s only one place to drink?—is not on our agenda.

Despite her repeated declaration that she’s mad at me about my birthday, the second I open the truck door to help Aurora down she wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me. The amount of self-control and concentration I have to exercise on a daily basis to not touch her in front of other people is ridiculous. She sinks into me, her body smooth and soft and warm.

“Are you excited?” she asks, squeezing my hands as she climbs out of the truck.

She flattens her dress and straightens the straps and she looks so fucking good I’m considering if we should go back to Honey Acres at all. “That depends, are we going to the famous tea cozy museum? The only one of its kind and Meadow Springs Gazette-awarded tourist attraction of the year 1973?”

She throws her head back as she laughs and I just soak it all in. “I’m not sure you’ll be able to handle the excitement.”

Threading Rory’s fingers through mine, the realization hits me that we don’t have to pretend here, I can hold her hand and kiss her and don’t have to worry. She realizes it at the same time as I do, squeezing my hand tightly and looking at me with a soft expression on her face.

We’re not even out of the parking lot before I’m pulling her to me. My hand cups her face, tilting it up to mine so I can kiss her again. “You look so beautiful today.”

She huffs playfully, her hands finding the front of my t-shirt, keeping my body close to hers. “You say that every day.”

“Because I mean it every day.”

She lets me go, rejoining our hands and pulling me in the direction of the stores. “You just like me in this dress.”

The fire station comes into view and it’s the size of my house. “I like you in everything,” I say honestly. “And also in nothing at all.”

She gasps dramatically, stopping in her tracks just before we round the corner. “You can’t say that here, Russ! You’ll outrage the townspeople.”

She tuts and I realize she’s joking. “There aren’t any here right now to hear me.”

“People will just know. There’s a nosey old lady somewhere with her spidey-senses tingling because she knows you want to rip this sundress off and do disgusting and deviant things to me.”

“That’s exactly what I want to do to you.”

“And you will, later. But for now,” we turn the corner, “welcome to Meadow Springs shopping district.”

On first appearances, it appears that the shopping district is just two rows of family-owned stores running parallel from a fire station to a police station. I know they’re family owned, because the words appear at least three times on every store. “Wow, it’s exactly like being on Rodeo Drive,” I say looking at the three different bowling ball stores. “How do they have three different places to buy bowling balls, but not a drug store? And how can that possibly be economically viable?”

“Ooh,” she squeaks. “Big drama. So it was one family business—”

“Surprising.”

“—and when the dad died, the three sons couldn’t agree on how to run it, so they split into three stores and they all directly compete with each other. It’s a great source of stress for the people who just want to respect the sanctity of bowling and not get involved in family feuds.”

“Sanctity of bowling?” I’m amazed and confused—and unusually invested. “How do you know all this?”

She stops outside a bookstore and I realize we’ve walked the full length of the street in a couple of minutes. “Jenna keeps me updated. She goes to the Meadow Springs Committee of Commitments to Town Improvements and Other Important Announcements. We call it MSCCTIOIA for short.”

She sounds it out like misk-tea-eye-owe-ah but it just sounds like a sneeze. “I honestly feel like you’re fucking with me.”

She gives me her brightest smile as she pulls me into the bookstore. “My favorite thing is the fact I’m absolutely not fucking with you.”

The doorbell rings above our heads, the smell of stale coffee and dust immediately assaulting me. The store is small, the same dim brownish glow throughout, but there’s plenty to choose from. I’m browsing the classics when Aurora’s nose scrunches at the old anthology I pull out. “I freaking hate poetry.”

“You’re an English major, how can you hate poetry?” I push the anthology back into its slot.

“Just get to the point, y’know? If you love someone, say it with your chest. It’s why I like contemporary romance; I know where I stand,” Aurora says, running her fingers along the spine as we walk between two rows of shelves. “I don’t trust poetry. You think you’re reading about an intense love story but then you find out it’s actually about a shoe.”

She stops in front of the mystery section and I move behind her to hold her waist, resting my chin on the crown of her head as she scans the spines of the books in front of her. She reaches for one, reading the blurb before putting it back. “There’s a girl in my major called Halle, she runs the book club at The Next Chapter bookstore in Maple Hills and she’s super sweet but she does wholeheartedly believe my indifference to Jane Austen should get me kicked out.”

“What’s your beef with Jane? Poetry and Austen hater? I’m beginning to agree with your friend Halle,” I tease.

“I don’t have beef with her; I just think Darcy is a dick.” I can’t help how loud the laugh is that launches out of me, because of all the things I was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. “You’re laughing, but I’m right. Any man who says, “she is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me,” deserves to be thrown from his horse into a pond, not to get the girl.”

Aurora spins to look at me and even under these terrible lights she’s mesmerizing. “I could never say that about you, sweetheart.”

I will never get tired of being able to bend down and kiss her freely. It’s that feeling of instant relief that has me thinking about how soon college restarting is and the fact we’re going back to the same place when camp ends. I stroke my thumb against her cheek and enjoy the feel of her pulse against the palm resting on her neck.

“Why? Because I’m so handsome?”

I shake my head, running my thumb along her bottom lip as she pouts up at me. “No, because I could never describe you as tolerable.”

Her jaw drops instantly, hand reaching for the closest book to hit me with as I laugh, fighting to pull her close to me. “No, get off,” she snaps as I bury my head into her hair and kiss her neck. “I’m mad again.”

I totally forgot someone runs this store until they clear their throat behind me. Aurora and I both turn, her hair ruffled and cheeks flushed from our playfight. “Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “Can I help you with anything?”

I’m about to say no, but Aurora beats me to it. “Hi, yes, you can actually. My husband and I are looking to open a strip club here in Meadow Springs, do you happen to have any books on business?”

“I think I’d like to own a bookstore one day,” Aurora says as she eats another mouthful of chocolate chip ice cream. “Maybe that’s what I’ll do when I finish college.”

After terrifying the bookstore owner with Aurora’s elaborate strip club plans, ones that were so well thought out I’m not convinced they were thought up on the spot, we’ve ventured to the other side of the street to The Little Moo, a cute ice cream shop.

“Move here, open a rival bookstore, join the community commitment to nonsense, or whatever it’s called, sell dirty romance books and scandalize the townsfolk.”

“I love scandalizing people,” she says proudly. “And what are you going to do while I’m running my bookstore and corrupting the masses?”

“I’ll open a rival bowling store to rival the rival bowling stores, obviously.”

Aurora snorts loudly, immediately slapping her hand over her mouth and nose. “You’re going to get us kicked out of the MSCCTIOIA.”

“We’ll start a rival one.” I shrug.

“You’ve gone mad with power. I’m so glad you’ve thought this all through though, because I don’t think Meadow Springs is on the NHL roster.”

I scrape up the last of my ice cream, immediately eyeing hers. “I don’t want to play professionally anyway.”

Her eyebrows practically shoot into her hairline. “What, why? I thought it was every athlete’s dream to play in a major league?”

Aurora’s response doesn’t bother me, because it’s the one I get every time the topic comes up in conversation with someone. “I have no desire to be famous and I don’t love hockey enough to give up my privacy.”

“But why?” she says, her face more serious.

I can’t tell her it’s because I’ll always be worried someone will dig into my family or that the money I’ll have will make my dad more relentless. I shrug, but I can tell she’s waiting for an answer from me.

“I don’t know, Ror. I appreciate a low-key life, I suppose. I love my teammates and of course I love hockey, but I’m not sure I’d have even tried to play at collegiate level if it wasn’t the thing that got me a full ride.” She spins her spoon in her ice cream bowl and I know instantly I’ve said something wrong. “What? Why do you look like that?”

“My family is well known, Russ. Like, famous-level well known. Elsa is essentially a socialite, she’s in the tabloids all the time, and my dad is known all over the world because of Fenrir, so there are quite a lot of people who know who I am. Plus, my parents had this super messy public divorce.”

I didn’t realize it was anything to do with Aurora when I first met her, but I do vaguely remember my mom following along with court proceedings many years ago. “Oh. I’d never thought of it like that.”

“Yeah . . . oh. I’m not saying I’ve got paparazzi in my face all the time, I mostly get left alone, unless I’m purposely drawing attention to myself, but I could never guarantee privacy to the person I’m dating. I can’t even guarantee it to my friends.”

Of all the ways I overthink, I can’t believe I’ve never thought about this. My brain is scrambling for a response and doesn’t find one, but I’m luckily saved when the ice cream store owner who served us earlier approaches our table. “Are y’all the folks opening a strip club?”