Free The Lure of Love by Mona Ingram Page B

worse off than I.” She looked back and forth between
Jamie and Leeza. “I know you’ll need time to consider the spa, but how about
the store? I can have it ready to go and stocked in a couple of weeks. I’ve
also written a brochure on the spa and if we decide to go ahead we can start
giving it out to our guests.” She grinned. “Might as well start spreading the
word.”
    Jamie nodded.
“By all means, go ahead with the store.” She looked at Brooke like she’d never
seen her before. “Off the top of my head I like the idea but are you sure you
really want to do this? The land may be mine, but the rest of it seems awfully
one-sided.”
    “I’m sure.”
Brooke was as serious as Jamie had ever seen her. “As I said before, I fell in
love with this area the first time I saw it and this is a great business
opportunity.” She finally smiled. “It will be good for all of us. I’d like to
see Leeza with a share as well. I’m not saying we’ll make a fortune but it will
ease your financial pressures and we’ll have fun doing it.”
    “I might have
to change my menu a bit but that’s no problem.” Leeza was thinking aloud.
“We’ll attract a different type of guest with a spa.” She brightened. “Of
course that won’t be until next year, but it will be fun to make some changes.”
She turned to Brooke. “And I like your idea of a special Spa Menu. This is
going to be exciting.”
    Brooke smiled
again. “I think so too. I’m going to…”
    She stopped
speaking as Billy came through the front door, plastic gasoline container in
hand. “Hi ladies.” He acknowledged Jamie and Leeza, but his smile was for
Brooke. “The lawnmower just ran out of gas and I can’t find Floyd.”
    Jamie stood.
“I saw Floyd this morning and told him what you were going to do but I didn’t
think about running out of gas.” She turned to Brooke. “Can you contact him and
see where he is?”
    Brooke was
already speaking quietly into her headset. Billy walked to her side with a
silly grin on his face. “Afternoon, Brooke.”
    She held up a
finger. “Okay, I’ll tell him.”
    Jamie and
Leeza nudged each other as a blush crept into the cheeks of the normally calm
Brooke.
    “Hi, Billy.
Floyd says to tell you that he keeps a forty-five gallon drum of gasoline in
the maintenance shed. He’s at our neighbour’s place to the south, helping him
fix his water pump.” Her curiosity got the better of her. “What in the world
are you doing, anyway?”
    Billy
grinned. “Matt and I are building a baseball diamond on that level piece of
land up behind the campground. We’ve been gone all day looking for equipment.”
His eyes sparkled with enthusiasm. “We decided if we’re going to do it, we’re
going to do it right. We bought out all the baseball equipment in the
surrounding area; that’s what took so long. We got bats, balls, gloves, and
caps. We got bales of hay to make the backstop.” He checked his watch. “They
said they’d deliver them right around now. We bought some of those white
sandbags for the bases, and Revvy was good enough to cut us a piece of wood for
home plate. I drew it up and they cut it.” He looked pleased with himself. “We
scaled everything down so the kids will feel comfortable playing.”
    He turned and
bowed to Leeza and Jamie. “We even bought a bunch of plastic chairs for
spectators. Oh yes, and a cooler and half a dozen twenty-four-packs of water.”
He gave the gasoline can a shake. “We’ve almost finished knocking down the
weeds. A couple more passes around the outside and it’s done.”
    Leeza looked
out the window. “Where’s Matt?”
    Billy waved a
hand. “Oh, he’s out in the field putting chalk on the baselines.” His gaze
rested on Leeza for a moment. “He’s a cool guy.”
    Leeza nodded.
“The kids must be excited. Matt said you were playing catch with them last
night.”
    “No kidding,
but they haven’t left us alone since we started. We had to ask them to give us