A Midsummer Night's Romp by Katie MacAlister

stomach, saying into the pillow, “Sounds boring.”
    â€œWhy on earth did you come to an archaeological dig if you aren’t interested in it?” I couldn’t help but ask.
    â€œGunner likes it,” she said, waving a hand in the air. “And Mom said I could come here for the summer, so I said it would be fun, but now that I’m here, it doesn’t look that great. It’s nice being in England, though. Also, I thought Uncle Elliott would have at least a couple of horses.”
    â€œAnd now the truth comes out—you’re here solely for the horse action,” I said with a smile.
    She giggled. “Have you ever heard of a castle that didn’t have horses?”
    â€œNo, but I’m not conversant with castles. Regardless, I’m sorry there are no horses here, but it was nice of your father to let you have lessons.”
    â€œGunner’s cool,” Cressy said with another wave of her hand, which I’m sure she intended to be languid, but there was nothing even remotely languid about her. She fairly teemed with energy. Even now she’d had enough of lying down and leaped to her feet, smacking her head on one of the aluminum tent struts. “He’s much nicerthan my stepdad, Steve. All Steve wants to do is ski and snowboard, and things like that. He’s afraid of horses.” The last came out in a bit of a sneer. “I’m pretty sure Gunner’s not afraid of horses.”
    â€œI’m sure he’s not. Do you mind my asking why, if your dad lives in the castle, you decided to stay in a tent? I’m fairly certain that your grandmother would be more comfortable with a real bed than on an air mattress.”
    â€œI told you earlier,” she said, spinning around until she located a hair scrunchie. “Gunner said we could stay there, but Gran knew I like camping, so we agreed to be out here with the archaeologists. Gran says they’re interesting, and we can be independent.”
    â€œWhy do you call him Gunner?” I couldn’t help but ask.
    She shrugged, and yanked aside the tent flap, making the whole structure wobble for a minute. “Oh, hi, Gran. I didn’t know you were up. I’m going to see if I can find the old pony and three-legged donkey Gunner told me about yesterday. Then I’ll do the field thing to find Roman junk that’s lying around on the ground. Laters!”
    I emerged from the tent to find Salma seated gracefully on a camping chair, unscrewing the lid on a thermos. “She calls Gunner by his Christian name because my daughter didn’t bother to tell him that he had a child until Cressida was almost ten. Which is a shame for many reasons, not the least of which is he took to being a father extremely well.”
    I hesitated, wanting to know more, but reminding myself that just because I had to work with Gunner on Roger’s project didn’t mean I had to feel empathy for him. On the contrary, the more I could keep him at arm’s length, the better. I knew I wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that I wasn’t a photojournalist from him for long, but I had a faint hope that I’d be able to avoid all technicalconversations with him. Despite that, I couldn’t help but ask, “Why didn’t your daughter want him to know about Cressy? She is delightful, if a bit energetic.”
    â€œShe is charming, and wonderful, and I thank god daily for bringing her into my life,” Salma said simply. Then she added a bit more pragmatically, “My daughter is an only child, and unfortunately, my late husband and I spoiled her horribly. We didn’t realize our mistake until she was in her teens, but by then the die had been cast. She decided that Gunner wasn’t worthy of knowing about Cressida until she met her current husband. That was when she changed her mind. I think the fact that her husband likes to travel had something to do with it—at the time, I was