is a waste of time,” Nina murmured. In her family, people got lost if they didn’t speak up and make their preferences known. She grabbed Jenny by the arm and drew her into the dining room. At the buffet, they helped themselves to sandwiches and drinks. Taking care not to slosh the lemonade from the glass on her tray, Nina made a beeline for Greg Bellamy. He was perusing the desserts table, laden with a rich assortment from the Majeskys’ bakery—lemon bars and peach shortcake, walnut brownies and slices of pie. There was one piece of cherry pie left. If there was anything that could make Nina forget a cute boy, it was cherry pie from the Sky River Bakery.
She reached for the plate. At the same moment, so did someone on the other side of the serving table—Greg Bellamy. She looked up and met his eyes. His Bon-Jovi-blue eyes.
He winked at her. “Looks like we’re both after the same thing.”
Usually when a guy winked at a girl it was totally cheesy. Not with Greg Bellamy. When he winked, it nearly made her knees buckle.
“Sorry,” she said, tossing back her thick dark hair. “It’s mine. I saw it first.” Wink or no wink, she wasn’t backing down.
He laughed, his voice like melted chocolate. “I like a girl who knows what she wants.”
She beamed at him. He liked her. He’d said so aloud. “I’m Nina,” she said.
“Greg. So are you a visitor?” He studied her as though she was the only person in the crowded dining hall.
“That’s right.” It wasn’t a lie. She simply omitted the information that she was the underage daughter of the camp cook. Fleetingly she wondered if that would change his opinion of her. Of course it would, she admitted to herself. It was the whole reason such things as “social class” existed right here in the good old US of A. At Camp Kioga, the lines were sharply drawn: the nobs versus the slobs.
But if she stayed anonymous, the lines went away.
She could feel a keen interest in the touch of Greg’s gaze, and it made her stand up straighter. Nina had always looked older than her age, a combination of dark, vivid features and early development. Though she flaunted this fact with pride, her confidence was merely a cover for the fact that she had always felt slightly different. Not radically so, but just a little, because she was a year older than the rest of the kids in her grade.
The reason for her being behind in school was humiliating. It wasn’t because she was a slow learner or had flunked an early grade. It was because her mother had forgotten to enroll her in kindergarten at the proper age. Forgotten. People smiled and nodded their heads when they heard the story of how Vicki Romano had neglected to send her middle child to school. It was completely understandable. The woman had nine kids, and had given birth to the final two—undersized, sickly twin boys—just a few weeks before Nina was to start kindergarten. The entire family was focused on the fact that the tiny twin boys were fighting for their lives while Vicki battled a postpartum infection. The last thing on anyone’s mind was quiet, well-behaved, five-year-old Nina. No one remembered that she was supposed to be in school until it was too late to catch up. She had to wait until the following year.
The anecdote was a family favorite, with an all’s-well-that-ends-well conclusion. The tiny twins—Donny and Vincent—were rowdy Little League players now and Nina was in the same class as her best friend. It had all worked out for the best.
Except the experience had a more profound effect on Nina than anyone could know. She always felt slightly out of step, off-kilter. She also transformed herself from the quiet, undemanding middle child into someone who figured out what she wanted and then went for it, every time.
Mr. Blue-Eyes Bellamy was still holding on to the edge of the plate. Her plate of cherry pie.
“So you gonna let go?” she challenged.
“Let’s split it.” Without waiting for permission, he tugged it from her grasp. He neatly divided the piece of pie into two portions, put one on a clean plate and offered it to her.
“Gee, thanks,” she said, but didn’t take the plate.
“You’re welcome.” He either missed or ignored her irony. He was a Bellamy, she reminded herself. He had a stunning sense of droit du seigneur, a term she knew from the historical romance novels she was addicted to.
“You’re used to getting your way,” she commented, taking the divided pie from him. She felt a little thrill as she talked to him. Flirting had always come naturally to her—unlike school.
Because she was older than everyone else in her grade, Nina had the dubious honor of being the first at a lot of things. She’d been the first to grow boobs and get her period. The first to turn boy-crazy. It had hit her like a speeding train last year. Before her very eyes, boys—other than her brothers—had turned from loud, smelly, supremely annoying creatures into objects of strange and compelling urges. The boys in her grade still acted like children, but those a few years older seemed to share the same urges that bothered and distracted Nina. At the end of the school year, she sneaked into a high school dance and made out with Shane Gilmore, a junior, until one of her uncles—a biology teacher and chaperone—had noticed her and sent her home to be grounded for weeks.
It was easy to give her parents the slip, and she did so at will. Sometimes she even drove her older sister’s ancient Grand Marquis. She had taken it to the drive-in movie at Coxsackie, where she’d let Byron Johnson, a senior, feel her up. Unfortunately, her brother Carmine had spotted her. He hadn’t told on her, of course, but he beat the crap out of Byron and promised to break his kneecaps if he ever came near her again.
Now, with Greg Bellamy, Nina forgot all those other flirtations. This was the guy. The prize. The one she knew she’d write about in her diary and dream about at night. The one who made her want to go further than second base. A lot further.
“So, Nina, are you busy tonight?” Greg asked her.
“Depends,” she said playfully. “What did you have in mind?”
He stared straight at her mouth when he said, “Everything.”
She felt as though she’d caught on fire from the inside out. “Sounds good to me.”
“Excuse me.” Something very tall and very shapely sidled up to Greg. It was another camp counselor, looking like a Bond girl in camp clothes. “Oh, good,” she said, helping herself to Greg’s plate of pie. “You saved me a piece.” She aimed a dazzling smile straight at him. “Thank you, Greggy. I owe you one.”
Greggy? thought Nina. Greggy? Okay, I’m going to barf.
“Binkie, this is Nina,” he said.
The towering bombshell turned, offering the kind of smile that could freeze an enemy at twenty paces. “Nina. Now, where have I heard that name before? Oh, yes. You must be Mrs. Romano’s little girl.”
Nina was watching Greg, not Binkie. It was kind of amazing to see her image being dismantled before her very eyes.
“You know, Mrs. Romano,” Binkie reminded him. “The camp cook.”
In the space of a few seconds, Greg went from flirting and making a date with Nina to staring at her as though she had sprouted horns and a tail.
“Right,” he said, turning red to the tips of his ears. “I need to get back to work.” He glared at Nina. “See you around, kid.”
Binkie offered a chilly smile. “Nice to meet you, honey.”
Nina stood unmoving, having been put in her place so decisively that she felt as though she’d been rooted to the spot forever. Everything was boiling inside her—thwarted lust, resentment, yearning, shame and injured pride.
“You coming?” Jenny asked, returning from what had probably been a more age-appropriate conversation with Rourke and Joey. She seemed oblivious to Nina’s turmoil. “Gramp’s ready to head back to town.”
“Sure,”