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Chapter One
“But Dad, I don’t want to go I want to go home,” Riley pleaded
Ehed and turned toward her as they sat in the back of the lihed you up to be a counselor in the caood time Give it a chance”
“No one will like me,” she whined
He glanced over at his daughter “You need to start e You can’t stay at home by yourself all the time”
“I’m not alone Connie’s there with me”
He rolled his eyes “She’s the housekeeper, not your friend Don’t tell ardener, Henry, or Mike, our stable master, are your friends, too”
“But they’re nice to me”
“Because I pay thee of his nose “I know they like you, Riley, but they are not the type of friends you need You’re twenty-two years old, and you act like a twelve-year-old sometimes”
Any animation Riley had in her expression faded
Ever since her hter had been at a loss Her mother had been the center of her and her dad’s universe, and then she was taken from them in a senseless accident caused by a drunk driver Since then, Riley had attached herself to her dad like a barnacle, and it seeet worse as the years passed
Instead of growing up and going off to college, Riley had decided to stay ho, she had taken on ht, told what to do, and dressed more like a child than an adult
“Dad, please I’ll go to suet a job”
“Really? What kind of classes and where would you work?”
“I … I would take hoet a job at the ice cream parlor by our house”
Eet ht even find a boy you like”
She scrunched up her nose “Dad, most boys I know are stupid”
“Oh, Jesus Christ I’randkids, am I?”
“Oh, absolutely I want to have babies soht now,” she informed him
He rubbed his temple where a headache had started to build He prayed sorow as a person because he didn’t kno er he could take it He spent more time at the office nowadays than he needed to because when he was at ho him sit in peace
He would love to be able to have a scotch after dinner in his den and read sohter alanted hiame, cards, or watch animated movies Her favorite was Beauty and the Beast She also liked to talk about things he had no interest in, like fashion, movie stars, or horses
He glanced down at his daughter when she gasped and then followed her gaze to see the camp come into view There were twenty or er than the others There was a long, gray steel building with a sign that said Mess Hall over the door The closer they got, the other areas around the camp came into view He saw the lake with several rowboats lined up on the sandy beach, the stables, and a dozen horses in the corral attached to a large red barn
It looked just like the picture he’d received A friend of his knew the man who had owned it for years Emerson had heard about the man, Noah Harrison, as richer than everyone he knew but spent the summer at this camp he built
Emerson had heard that the camp Noah built was like the one he went to as a child, which had changed his life, so noanted to give back He didn’t know many people ent to the extreme that Noah did, and it impressed him