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wider view, showcasing nature’s splendor in a single perfect rhododendron blossom. A well-thumbed novel beside a claw-footed tub conveyed a sense of luxury, and panoramic shots of the whole resort showcased the grandeur of the place.
    “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said to him.
    “Your instincts are better than mine when it comes to things like this.”
    She nodded and relabeled four of the shots. “So did you talk to Nina Romano about the inn?”
    “Yeah, earlier today.”
    “And?”
    And he’d done a lousy job explaining himself to the woman. In fact, he didn’t know what Nina hated more—him, or the idea of working for him. The fact that he’d bought the Inn at Willow Lake was an affront to her. She acted as though he’d somehow stolen it away from her. “She’s thinking about my offer.” Right.
    “Well, you’d better make sure she says yes,” Daisy admonished. “I don’t think we can make this work without her.”
    “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
    “Come on, Dad. What do either of us know about running a hotel?”
    He could have pointed out that he’d built a thriving landscape architecture business in Manhattan. And despite his education and expertise, despite the fact that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing when it came to hotels, he had learned that hard work and common sense went a long way. Yet he reminded himself why he was doing this. Making the firm a success had carried a cost he’d never anticipated. Lucrative didn’t always mean successful. He had been so consumed by work that, without his even noticing it, years passed and he woke up one day to find himself with two kids who were practically strangers and a marriage that was damaged beyond repair.
    As his marriage ended, he had resolved to make a new beginning. He’d pulled his supremely unhappy kids out of their upper East side private prep school and moved upstate to Avalon. The Bellamys had long-standing ties to the community. Greg’s parents had operated Camp Kioga until their retirement ten years before. They’d held on to the property, and when his marriage raged out of control, the place had been his anchor.
    Last summer, with his marriage in its death throes, he had made a desperate move, bringing the kids to Camp Kioga to help Olivia renovate the place for his parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration. He thought he’d seen progress with Max and Daisy by summer’s end—his son was no longer obsessed with video games and his daughter had stopped smoking. But when they returned to the city, Daisy had started her senior year in a state of open rebellion and Max had adopted a who-the-hell-cares attitude, wearing it like body armor. Ultimately, when the time came to rebuild his life, he’d decided to do it here, in the riverside town he remembered from the summers of his boyhood.
    It was too soon to tell whether or not this was the right move, but he was determined to change his life, engaging in work that revolved around his family. In his former life, he was all about building things for the world. Now he was determined to focus on building a world for his family.
    “Your cousin Olivia didn’t know anything about running Camp Kioga, and look at her now,” he pointed out. A year ago, Greg’s grown niece had also made the move from Manhattan to the mountains. She’d been charged with renovating Camp Kioga, and the project had given her an entirely new direction and a future she’d never expected.
    “But Olivia has Connor Davis helping her,” Daisy pointed out. “He’s a contractor. He fixes stuff up for a living.” She sighed romantically. “Besides, they’re, like, the most perfect couple ever. ”
    Greg made no comment. At summer’s end, Olivia and Connor were getting married at Camp Kioga, and the event had snowballed into the biggest Bellamy family affair since his parents’ anniversary the previous year. Relatives and friends would be coming from all over, many of them