The Great Peach Experiment 1, Erin Downing [books to read romance .TXT] 📗

cement corncobs. They’re each more than six feet tall.

And how’s THIS for odd? On the way through West Virginia, Dad surprised me by stopping in a town called Odd! That’s the name: ODD! I’m pretty sure we almost careened off the road a few times on the way there, since Dad had to navigate the food truck through these narrow, winding mountain passes. It was SUPER beautiful, but also SUPER terrifying.

23

  PEACH ON THE BEACH

The Peaches arrived in North Carolina very late, nearly midnight. They set up their tents in a small, rugged campground a few miles from Carolina Beach.

The next morning, when Lucy came back to their site from the campground bathroom, she found her dad packing up the truck. He looked like he was preparing to hit the road again. Lucy had known this change in plans had to be too good to be true, and now, it seemed, she’d been right again. “Are we leaving?” she asked.

“Yep,” her dad said, securing all their food inside cabinets, the way they had to do before they drove anywhere. “We’ve got big plans, kid.”

Lucy nodded, resigned to the fact that her father was simply incapable of doing nothing. It was obviously time for her to just accept who he was and adapt. “Where to now?”

Dad winked at her. Lucy took a step back. She had never, in all her life, seen her dad wink. To be honest, it was more of a squinty-blink, but she was pretty sure he’d been going for an actual wink. “To our beach house.”

Lucy’s eyebrows shot up. “Beach house?”

“Yep.”

“For real?”

“I’m tired of living out of this truck and tents,” Dad said. “We have some of Mom’s fun money left over, and you’ve all been working really hard. We deserve to splurge a little. So I found a nice house that’s available to rent for the next few nights. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s right on Kure Beach. That’s not too far from here. It’s near the spot I used to stay with my cousins, Aunt Lucinda, and Uncle Martin when I was a kid.”

Lucy stepped forward and wrapped her dad in a huge hug.

“I hope that’s okay?” Dad asked, his voice teasing. “Think Mom would mind me using a little of her invention money to spend a few days relaxing with you kids?”

“I don’t think she’d mind at all,” Lucy said. As she hugged her dad tight, she felt something inside herself unravel for the first time since their mom had died. “In fact, I’m pretty sure this would make her very happy.”

A few hours later, they pulled up to a two-story house on stilts that was painted a crazy teal color. They parked the food truck in the driveway at the back of the house, then made their way around the side to a wooden staircase that led up to the door.

Inside, the house was bright and airy, and there were enough bedrooms that everyone got their very own space. It was Lucy’s own little slice of heaven. “So, what’s the plan for today?” she asked, after she’d unloaded her things into the neat little chest of drawers in her borrowed bedroom.

“Nothing,” Dad said.

“Nothing?” Lucy repeated.

“I have nothing planned and that’s the plan,” Dad repeated. “I figure we can walk down to the beach, test out the waves, and then figure out what sounds good for dinner later.”

As far as Lucy was concerned, this no-plan plan was too good to be true. She’d never been much of a do-nothing kind of girl, but at the moment, a few days of doing nothing sounded perfect. She still had fourteen books left to read on the seventh-grade summer reading list, and she was hoping she might have some time to sink into a few of them here at the beach. But if she didn’t finish them all before the trip was over, she had decided that was totally okay, too.

“Beach time!” Herb screamed, tugging his swimsuit up over his buns as he raced into the living room.

Lucy began to load up a bag with sunscreen and snacks, but her dad gently set his hand on her arm. “I’m on it,” he told her. She started to protest, then saw that her dad already had a bag filled with sunscreen, water bottles, a container of pretzels, and a few issues of his favorite journals: Nature and the very-boring-sounding Earth and Planetary Science Letters. He squeezed her shoulder. “I hope you know that I know how lucky Herb and Freddy are to have you for a sister. And I’m lucky you’re my daughter. You’ve really stepped up and grown up these past few years, Lucy. I know it hasn’t been easy, and I appreciate it.”

She nodded. Until Dad said it, she hadn’t realized that was just what she needed to hear. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Dad said with a smile. Then he called out, “Ready when you are, Herb-o. Freddy, you all set?”

Freddy hollered, “Coming!”

“Ocean, here we come!” whooped Herb.

Dear Great Aunt Lucinda,

Guess what?! Dad went totally crazy and abandoned ship (truck?)—but in a good way! We bailed on the next week of pie selling and set off on an epic family road trip to the BEACH instead. We’ve been boogie boarding and playing in the sand and reading in big chairs on our very own deck that overlooks the ocean! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but now I wish there was more time left in the Great Peach Experiment, because I’m having SO MUCH FUN!!!

See you soon!

Lucy

(Give the dogs a big hug and an extra slice of bacon for me!)

24

  CHANGE IN PLANS

On Monday morning, Freddy woke up early. He had left his window open, just a crack, the night before so he could hear ocean waves all night long. He was afraid if he couldn’t hear it, none of this would turn out to be real. He lay in