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tables. Vespers at seven.”
    As Hector stood to start his chores, he said, “Gussie’s got a great voice. We need her in our choir.”
    “She’d sure liven up the service,” Bobby added. “You know, it’s pretty boring.”
    Bree laughed. “She’d sing a solo every Sunday and probably keep Mr. Foxx awake.”
    Then Mac grinned at Adam. If he’d thought she hadn’t noticed how much Gussie had entranced him during the singing, he was wrong.
     
    * * *
    At the counselors’ meeting after dinner, the adults listened while Gussie handed out schedules and took questions. Then she introduced Adam as “the new kid on the block.” She smiled at him in exactly the same way she’d smiled at Jimmy Flock, the gray-haired minister. Pleasant, happy to see both of them. Darn. The attraction obviously didn’t go both ways.
    “We’re going to need a patrol outside from midnight to two o’clock,” Gussie said. “After that, those most determined to escape should be asleep and we can get some rest. I’ll take it tonight but need another volunteer and two for tomorrow night.”
    “I’ll join you tonight,” Adam said before anyone else could speak.
    “Terrific. We can get to know each other,” Gussie said. “Who’ll sign up for tomorrow?”
    The schedule of vespers, games, refreshments, and corralling campers attempting to escape the building kept him busy after the meeting. By midnight, the youth were simulating sleep while the adults had dozed off as soon as their heads hit the pillows.
    The time had come to meet Gussie in the dining hall and start on their rounds.
    And it was time for Adam to consider how to behave with Gussie. Oh, he wouldn’t back her against a tree and kiss her passionately until she begged for more. Not that he’d turn that down if the opportunity appeared, but it didn’t seem realistic. Nor would he attempt to gaze longingly into her eyes. In the dark, she wouldn’t notice anyway.
    As he opened the screen door to enter the dining hall, he still had no plan. He saw Gussie at one of the tables waiting for him, her face pensive. She was lovely in repose. Usually, all that joie de vivre lit up her face. The vibrancy was what everyone noticed. Now, in this moment of calm, he realized she radiated beauty as well.
    “Hey,” she greeted him with a smile. “Let’s get going. You’re the muscle and I’m the mouth. If we find anyone, you grab them and I’ll lecture.”
    She handed him a flashlight, and they stepped outside into the glare of the halogen lights that surrounded the dining hall. Moving beyond that, they headed toward the lake.
    “The lake’s man-made, of course,” Gussie said.
    Man-made lakes. Exactly the best choice of subjects for a romantic rendezvous between a man and a woman alone beneath the glow of a full moon and surrounded by the soft darkness and a sweetly scented breeze.
    “Of course?” he asked. Pitiful effort, but that was the best reply he could come up with to begin his wooing.
    “Caddo’s the only natural lake in Texas. The rest are man-made.”
    “Interesting.” He sounded like an idiot. He wished he could come up with a dazzling and witty comment about man-made lakes, but no flirtatious responses leaped to mind. “Where’s Caddo?”
    “Over on the border with Louisiana. Pretty place. You should go there someday.”
    “I should.”
    Those words pretty much stopped the tête-à-tête. As they moved down an uneven path, he thought about reaching out to help Gussie over a log but knew she wasn’t the kind of woman who wanted or expected a gentleman to take care of her and make sure she—a delicate flower—didn’t trip.
    “How are things in Butternut Creek?” she asked after they’d walked nearly the length of a football field—Adam had adjusted to this normal measure of distance in Texas.
    “Are you asking about the state of the church or how Miss Birdie and I get along?”
    She laughed. “Yes, that’s really what I wanted to ask. How are the two