“Don’t make me call Tanya and tell her you’re being a party pooper,” Aisha threatened him. Adam just stared at her for a few seconds, his eyes blinking rapidly as he tried to figure out what his odds of getting out of this mess were. Sighing, he looked at Tommy.

“This is all your fault, you know that, right?”

“I know,” Tommy assured, him. “What are the rules?”

“It’ll be a simple three lap race,” Billy instructed. “Jump in, swim a lap, tag your teammate, who repeats the process. Once all three are back out of the pool on this side, the race is over.”

“No, I think it needs to be more complicated,” Kimberly laughed.

“You just want to participate, don’t you?” Jason teased her. Kimberly nodded vigorously.

“What did you have in mind?” Trini asked her, laughing.“He may not act like it,” Kimberly said with a smile, “but he’s just a big sweetheart deep down.”

“Yeah?” Kira said casually, itching to pull out her notepad.

“Yeah.” Kimberly shrugged, feeling rather nostalgic. She slipped back into her memories as she drove them back to the hotel, letting the good times of the past override her bad blood with Tommy, at least for the moment.But for every delight, there was devastation. The upstairs portion of the house had never been wired for electricity and the electrical lines to the house had long since been disconnected. The kitchen contained an old gas stove, which meant there had to be a propane tank buried somewhere, but they hadn’t found it. The kitchen also contained the only bathroom and those were the only two rooms that had plumbing.

The city had no intention of another running power line from the main road to the property any time soon and when they did, it was going to cost her a small fortune to have them hook her up. Solar panels were an easy solution to the problem, Kim had access to highly advanced and efficient ones, but she had to repair the roof to install them and repairing the roof required the use of a generator for the power tools, as well as other borrowed technologies. There had also been some dicey moments until it was determined that the well water on the property was both sufficient and potable. Fortunately, the house had been hooked up to the Stone County waterline somewhere in the sixties and Kim had managed to get an account opened again. But that brought up the issue of the old septic tank that needed replacing. Kim had gotten it done. How, Tommy didn’t want to know.