“Isla,” CC moved to next. “How’s my girl?” she asked and she bent to hug her like she had done with Mila.
Watching the affection, she had for my daughter wasn’t helping my attraction to her.
She hugged Jaden next, ruffling his hair even when he tried to dodge her. Then CC’s eyes found mine. Everything around me blurred at the edges for half a second. She froze almost imperceptibly. Not enough for anyone else to notice, but I noticed. I noticed the way her breath caught, the way color touched her cheeks, the way her gaze dropped to my mouth before snapping back to my eyes.
“Hunter,” she said.
“CC.”
That was it. Two syllables from her, two from me, and somehow it felt like we had said too much. Isla, bless her oblivious little heart, threw her arms around CC’s waist. “CC, you’re coming to babysit me when I get back, right?”
CC blinked, pulled from whatever dangerous current had passed between us, and smiled down at her. “Of course. I expect a full report on camp too.”
The counselor arrived a few minutes later wearing a camp T-shirt and the bright, energetic smile of someone who had not yet spent six hours trapped with children on an airplane. She checked names, counted bags, reviewed the plan, and gave all of us the kind of reassurance that should have helped.
“You have your phone?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And the numbers on the paper I gave you in case it dies?”
“Yes.” My daughter grunted.
“And you’ll stay with Mila?”
“We’re in the same bunk, Daddy.”
“And if you need anything?—”
“I tell my counselor.” She touched my face with both hands, her palms warm against my cheeks. “Daddy, I know.”
I swallowed.
She smiled, but her eyes were shiny now too. “I’m only gone two weeks.”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“You can call Grandma if you get sad,” Isla suggested.
Mom would have loved that. I was glad she wasn’t here to hear it because she would have cried, and I would’ve lost it completely.
“I might do that,” I said.
“And Aunt Quinn.”
“I’m definitely calling Quinn.”
“You can complain to her for a whole hour.” Isla giggled, then wrapped her arms around my neck.
I held her tight. Probably too tight. She smelled like strawberry shampoo, sunscreen, and the gum she wasn’t supposed to chew before getting on a plane. Isla was the one good thing that had come from the worst season I had ever lived through. I had spent ten years building my world around her, and now she was walking away from me with a rolling suitcase and a best friend, telling me she would survive without me.
“I love you, Bug,” I said against her hair.
“I love you too, Daddy.”
The counselor gathered the girls and began leading them toward security. Isla grabbed Mila’s hand. She looked back once. I lifted my hand. She smiled. Then she turned forward and walked away.
Holland stepped beside me quietly. “She’s going to be okay.”