Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping Read Online Free Page B

joyous reason, not a death, and I was happy for them. But I was happier still that I could call Stone and tell him we could accommodate your three rigs. Oh, by the way, Lexie,” Emily said, as Wendy, Veronica and I turned to leave. “I apologize in advance, but unfortunately her royal highness is parked right next to one of your three sites. I made the mistake of giving her the fourth site that opened up due to the last-minute cancellation.”
    “No worries,” I responded. “Even though I may not be able to display the patience you did, I’m sure I can hold my own with the esteemed Ms. Finch. I’m afraid I would have sent her packing the second after she walked in and slammed her reservation form down on the counter in front of me.”
    As we walked back to the rigs, two men in golf carts prepared to lead us to our assigned sites. I told the one parked in front of our motorhome to put us right next to the last camper he had parked, which would have been the Finches. I didn’t want to saddle either of the younger couples with an unpleasant neighbor.
    As we pulled into our site, I spotted Fanny Finch yelling and gesturing wildly at a man I assumed was her husband as they stood outside their Fifth Wheel. He was attaching his cord to the electrical pedestal, ignoring his spouse as if she were nothing more than a fruit fly buzzing around a rotting cantaloupe on the picnic table. I was sure he’d learned to tune her out many moons ago—to maintain his sanity, if nothing else.
    It was at that moment I had a fleeting feeling of uneasiness. That niggling premonition in the back of my mind when we pulled into the campground had come back in full force, and I feared I hadn’t seen or heard the last of the disagreeable author. To my chagrin, in most cases, I had found that my premonitions were almost always spot on.

 
     
     
    Chapter 3

     
    As I had expected, Stanley Harrington had to be called upon to give the men a refresher course in connecting all the utilities to the motorhomes. Somewhere between the thingybobber and the doohickey was a whatchamacallit that Stone didn’t know what to do with. Stanley explained that it was a regulator, designed to keep the water pressure at an optimal level.
    It was a Friday night in late July, and the opening night of the rodeo festivities. We didn’t have tickets to the concert that evening, so the six of us sat in lawn chairs on the patio next to our site. The campground was a beehive of activity, and it was fun just watching the other campers coming and going. We saw a bus pull up in front of the office and a swarm of excited people rush to board it for a ride to the fairgrounds where Toby Keith would be entertaining the crowd in concert that evening.
    At an elevation of over six thousand feet, it was remarkably cool for a mid-summer evening. I was wearing my Kansas Jayhawks sweatshirt, and relishing the fact that all my friends back home in Kansas and Missouri were probably sweating like an ice-cold glass of lemonade on a hot Midwestern night.
    For a late supper, the six of us had purchased barbecued pork sandwiches and fries from the little restaurant on the premises. I had remembered Emily and Stanley talking about it being a new addition to their campground one evening as we gathered in the parlor of the Alexandria Inn for an after-supper cup of coffee.
    The food was delicious and we devoured it as we visited and relaxed in our lawn chairs. I had my ever-present cup of coffee in my hand as I listened to a lively debate between Andy and Wyatt about which political party was most apt to put us in a deep depression and ruin our country the fastest. In the end, it was a six-of-one and half-a-dozen of the other consensus. We all agreed, no matter which party was in power, our country was destined to go down the toilet faster than we could holler, “Impeach him!”
    To veer the conversation toward a less depressing subject, I said, “I wonder if our owl was rescued and how it’s