Kaileigh is excited for her family's annual camping trip. On the morning of their departure, her parents surprise her with two matching ATVs. The trip is a great success, with Kaileigh forming special memories with her parents through activities like cooking meals together and playing board games. As they pack up to leave, Kaileigh falls asleep in the back of the truck. Her mother takes a photo of her sleeping daughter, planning to email it to Kaileigh later. Both parents are sad to see the trip end, but look forward to returning next year.

1. A Dolphin for One
~~ * ~~
Chapter 1
As the only child of Ray and Dani Ross, Kaileigh sometimes thought about what it might be like to
have someone around for bit of company, maybe some late night whispered conversations when sleep
ran away and hid under the pine trees-when the Colorado skies turned that skybluepink and forced
every living creature to rest for the following day. There had even been a few times when she wished
for a brother to irritate her and steal the glory by cleaning the garage perfectly when she had done all
the work.
But that was only sometimes. Most of the time, Kaileigh found herself quite contented in the fact
that she was the center of her parents world and shared the spotlight with nobody else.
Ray and Dani enjoyed showing their love for the teenage girl and gave her everything they could;
there may have been times when the family had to pinch corners or save up for certain things they
wanted, but that never bothered Kaileigh. Growing up in the mountains, material possessions never
rated high on her priority list anyhow.
Their daughter thought of herself as being practical, able to discern between the wants list and the
needs list. It had actually been half a quarter's home schooling class in economics, taught by her mom
in the upstairs laundry room-makeshift class room that her parents had designed right before she started
kindergarten.
Home schooling had never been anything her parents planned in advance. They had, in fact, never
even thought about it until they bought that house up on the Colorado hilltop in the middle of nowhere
and it dawned on them that their daughter could be hurt on the playground several miles away or God
forbid, the brakes on the school bus went out going around those steep inclines.
Without even discussing the matter, the couple simply began preparing the class room, bought a
case of notebooks-and it was a done deal.
The way Dani looked at the situation, she worked at home anyway; her freelance writing had taken
off and the work schedule allowed her to work around her family's needs. Kaileigh's education fit in
just fine with a schedule like that.
*
The girl's eyes scanned her bedroom, over the plum-colored curtains, past the bookcase and the
pair of guitars propped up in the corner. Blue eyes scanned for that one last item to stash inside her
duffel bag; can't go camping without a book light! When she caught sight of it sticking out from under
a pile of folded laundry on the end of her bed, Kaileigh scooped up the treasure and did her version of
the Happy Dance.
She'd been looking forward to this trip for ages. Even though her parents had planned to go more
than once over the last couple of years, something always forced her parents into postponing their
vacation plans. Each time she heard the bad news, the duffle bag found its way back to the top shelf of
her closet-along with dreams of sleeping under the stars and feeling the breeze blow across her nose.
But this time her family was really going on that camping trip, no doubt about it!
She'd known it was a for-sure deal when her mom announced that school would consist of two full
days of non-stop home economics; time to fill plastic zip-top bags with trail mix, jerky and other snack
foods the Ross clan loved.
Her dad had already gone to the trouble of crawling under their house; he dragged out the folding
chairs and chest coolers. Once the tents were watertight and all the parts were collected into one
container, Ray folded the tents back up and stowed them in their respective bags again. He was one of
those dads who believed in making sure everything was in working order before leaving the house.
*

2. Dani stood in the door frame of her daughter's room, her back firmly planted against the cedar.
“So what are you wearing in the morning?”
Kaileigh's startled jump showed her mom that she had no idea her mom had been standing there;
did she catch her performance in the hair brush a few minutes earlier?
Pointing to the brass chair in the corner of her room, Kaileigh showed her mom the chosen
ensemble: jean shorts (otherwise known in the teen circle as jorts), a long sleeve yellow t-shirt with
matching yellow socks, and of course, the pair of hiking boots she'd broken in long ago.
“Cool,” her mom confirmed. “Might as well haul your stuff out and set it on the couch so Dad can
pile it in the trailer. He's gone now to fill up the propane tanks and top of the tank on the truck; he's
hoping to roll at daybreak. I might also warn you that he decided to bring his banjo.”
Kaileigh stopped cold. “I thought he said I couldn't bring my guitar-what gives?”
Dani winked at her daughter and gave a swift nod toward the corner of her room. “Which one do
you like most? Daddy never said I couldn't bring one.”
“That one,” her daughter pointed to the acoustic guitar, the one she would be least sad about if
anything happened to.” “Thanks, Mom! You're the best.”
“It's what I do,” Dani waved as she made her way out of the room to sneak their secret into that
overhead ledge in the trailer.
*
“Why do you insist on being so loud?” Kaileigh's unpainted fingertips fumbled around until they
found the little lastic switch protruding from the back of the alarm clock and mechanically gave it the
familiar flip. For a blissful three seconds, the teenager fell back into slumber.
As if some invisible creature poked her from underneath the bed, Kaileigh bolted straight out of
the blue gingham comforter, her feet plunking down on the carpet in one fluid motion. She flipped the
long dark hair from her face and grinned. Oh yeah. It was goin' down!
“Woo hoo! Vacation day, everyone – wakey, wakey!” The smile revealed perfect white teeth,
compliments of the local orthodontist. On her last visit, she'd chosen the black and neon pink bands to
reflect her inner rock-star.
Tripping her left foot on the lamp cord, Kaileigh darted right by the White Rabbit boy band poster
she'd proudly displayed on her wall-instead of pausing to stare at Danny Montgomery, as she normally
did before leaving her room Lead vocals and bassist, he and his pop group had earned the coveted
Group of the Year award for three straight years. Every teenager in the nation knew who the guy was.
Instead of her normal pause, however, the girl burst out of her room to crane her neck up toward
her parent’s upstairs lofted bedroom.
“C'mon! The sun is almost up already, you sleepyheads,” she hollered up.
No response.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
Kaileigh gave a look of disgust and shook her head; how could they sleep in today, of all days?
That look of disgust quickly turned to a childish grin as she began tip-toeing up the staircase. She
remembered jumping into the center of their bed as a little girl and shouting 'hiyegi', which means
'wake up' in the Cherokee language.
Each step widened the girl's grin as she made her way down the skinny hallway toward their room.
But the joke was on Kaileigh, because their room was empty, the bed had been made, and there
was a note waiting on the comforter for her; it simply read, Meet us outside when you're ready. We
have a surprise for you!
If she thought she could have gotten away with jumping down over the side of the lofted bedroom
without breaking a leg, she probably would have opted for that maneuver. Instead, teenage feet raced
back down the staircase and out the front door; once she'd firmly planted herself to the porch, her eyes
found the surprise.

3. “No way!” she shrieked when her eyes fell on the matching neon green and white quads tethered to
her dad's flatbed trailer.
“Aw, ya hear that, Mom? She doesn't want them. Guess we'll just have to take them back now,” he
teased.
His daughter raked one hand through her mop of hair and pointed one finger at him as she caught
her breath.
“Not a chance, Mister! When did you do this? I am always with you!”
Ray Ross nodded. “Yea, but you haven't been with the Wilsons. I asked Mark to bring them home
with him when he went into town a couple of weeks ago. They've been in his garage ever since, and
then last night when I made a fuel run, I swung by and grabbed them. Sneaky, huh?” Her dad wiggled
his eyebrows up and down, flashing that grin of his.”
Kaileigh's grin turned completely upside down as a vision crept into the back of her mind.
“Ewwww...what about-”
Her words cut short, Dani knew exactly what was on her mind.
“He's been away at his uncle's ranch for a week and a half now. No, he didn't sit on them,” came
the assurance she needed to hear.
They were referring to the Wilson's teenage son, who, in Kaileigh's opinion, was a total idiot. She'd
been turned off by the boy several months before, when she and her dad were rebuilding a transmission
for Mr. Wilson.
“Hey, I don't wanna hafta get up,” she called to the Village Idiot. “You wanna hand me that torque
converter?”
He'd just stood there. Blankly staring first at her feet and then at the work bench. He had no clue
what she was talking about and the girl rolled her blue eyes at him.
Puffing a strand of hair from her mouth, she called out a second time.
“Yo, it's that big round thing. Sitting next to all those shiny metal things on sticks,” she mumbled.
He winced, wounded.
“Yeah? Well, don't be so smart.”
He reached over and put his hand on the torque converter, glancing over at her first to double
check that was the right thing.
She forced a smile.
It was too late when he realized it was actually a two-handed task, his shoulders snapping from the
weight. He glanced in her direction to see if she'd caught it.
She had.
Her dad's voice brought her back to the quads.
“You gonna stand there all day or are we going camping?”
Chapter 2
“There is nothing in the whole world like my daddy's cheesey-eggs,” Kaileigh reported out loud,
rubbing her belly for emphasis.
Ray stood at the dish-washing station he'd invented the summer before; the bubbles splashed as the
still-hot skillet hit the water, sizzling and popping while her mom refilled coffee mugs.
The teen pointed at her own mug.
“Don't forget about me!”
“Hit me, Mamma, one more time...” Dani sang off-key.
Her daughter held up one finger and mouthed the word, NO, shaking her head with closed eyes and
a scrunched up nose.
“What?” Dani laughed. “Can't a mom sing?”
“Not that!”

4. *
The Ross family camping vacation went down in the books as the highlight of their entire life thus
far; between Ray's surprise of the quads and her mom remembering to pack everything including a
couple of cans of campfire spaghetti sauce, to all the jokes and rounds of Scrabble, Kaileigh knew she
would never forget the past week.
On that last night of their trip, the three pitched in to cook dinner together. Campfire spaghetti.
With supper eaten and dishes dried and nestled securely back into their proper totes, the Ross
family retired to their camper table for a rousing game of Monopoly.
Mamma always asked the same set of questions before every game they played.
“Are we gonna use the ones for ones or for thousands? And do we have to go around once before
we buy anything?”
Dad always answered the same way.
“We’ll use them for thousands, and yeah. Go around once.”
She smiled to herself; the comfort of familiarity with family was by far the best way to spend her
night. She was also waiting for her mom to ask if they could take out personal loans from the bank.
She did.
And her dad pretended to think about it before answering that yeah, they could do that. Like he
always did.
Chapter 3
The Ross family, loaded down with all their camping gear, pulled out from their rented spot in
front of the lake after some of the happiest ten days they had ever spent together. No responsibilities, no
stress. Nothing to fix, tote, or worry about. It had been the trip of a lifetime and they all agreed this
would become an event they repeated once a year.
Ray looked in the rear view mirror at his daughter.
All she saw was his blue eyes peeping back at her as she listened to his every word.
“Let's keep the tents in good condition so it's not such an ordeal next year,” he teased. “Or at least,
let's keep them in a better place than I found them in this time around!”
Wincing, Kaileigh found herself pointing a finger at her dad. “Okay, that was not entirely my fault,
ya know! You told me to pack em in and I did. How did I know you meant near the basement door and
not at the back of the house? You must be specific with me, Dad,” she teased right back. “And who was
it that misplaced the brackets, anyhow … Mom?”
“Whoah! How did I get dragged into this? I only did what I was told to do.” She slipped her hand
in between the seat and door, fishing a candy bar of bribery to her daughter.
“Oh, I totally take Mom’s side on this one, Pops. Totally,” she chirped as she tapped thanks to the
master briber in the front passenger seat.
Ray steered the truck, camper and 4-wheelers down the three-mile trail and out the main gates of
the Rocky Mountain Wonderland Campground, glancing in the rear-view mirror for one last glance at
what he was leaving behind. He let out a long breath.
“Sure wish we weren't heading back already. I sure could have stayed another week.”
Dani peeled the sun visor down to shield the sunlight from her side of the window and pulled her
seat belt into place, agreeing with her husband. “Me, too. I wasn't so sure how I'd do for so long out
here, to be honest. But now that it's over, I wish it wasn't; I sure did take a few mental notes on stuff to
bring-and not to bring-next year, though. For instance, maybe I didn't really need all that much string
after all.”
Before Ray could even open his mouth, Dani raised one hand and grinned. “I intended on hiking
and finding tons of flowers to make bouquets out of. I would have needed a lot of string to hold all
those flowers together, wouldn't I?”

5. “Three balls of the stuff, though?”
She opened her mouth to say something smart, but only laughed. “Yeah, like I said … mental notes
for next year.”
Thirty minutes later, Kaileigh fished through her bag to find the MP3 player her parents had given
her a few weeks before to show their appreciation for how she'd helped them with the firewood hauling
and post-hole digging. Not oblivious of the fact that mountain life could be tough, especially when they
asked her to do as much as they did, an occasional spoiling of their daughter was something they both
enjoyed when they manage fitting it in. Kaileigh's parents still would have gotten the gift for her,
though, even if firewood chopping hadn't been involved.
While the adults talked between themselves, the teenager in the back of the truck slid down into
her seat, lying on her back to enjoy her music. The tires rolling and vibrating over the mountainous
roads lulled Kaileigh to sleep halfway into the fifth song.
Hearing her daughter’s familiar light snore, Dani pulled her cell phone out and pulled up the
camera function, switched it to the proper mode for snapping a photo in the cab of the truck. Snapping
the shot, she turned the phone toward her husband. “Isn't she the most perfect kid in the world?”
Ray grinned. He had always been so proud of his daughter. She could chop wood with him, rebuild
an engine and change brakes with the best of them–and still cleaned up mighty well for Sunday
morning. Yes, indeed, his daughter was perfect in his eyes.
“Think I should email a copy of it to her when we stop for lunch?”
Laughing at how wife and daughter enjoyed their electronic games, such as texting one another
when they were in the same vehicle, he just shook his head. “Yeah, she'd like that. She might get a shot
of you when you least expect it, but she would probably do that anyhow,” he added. “I seem to
remember a few pictures floating around of a certain daddy who was sleeping.”
“Ok, in my own defense, we had to do it!”
“Why can't you two just let me sleep in peace? Do you always have to decorate me and take
pictures of it?
She grinned, looked out the window, and remembered the last time she and her daughter had
decorated him in his sleep. Ray had relaxed himself into a nap in the living room, so she and Kaileigh
lined up small stuffed animals on his chest and even placed a toothbrush across his cheek so lightly that
he hadn't felt it. They'd taken the photo, removed the evidence, and nobody was any the wiser until the
photos came back from the developer.
The couple rode in silence for a while, just enjoying the beautiful scenery the Colorado Rockies
had to offer during the autumn months. The leaves on aspen trees turned into the most glorious golden
tones, and against their white bark trunks, it was one of Dani's favorite parts of living in the Rockies.
Ray squinted past the tops of the mountains and commented that they'd probably broken camp just
in time, judging from the dark clouds rolling in.
“I'm gonna stop at the next town we come to so we can clean off the windshield. These wipers are
pretty well shot and if it starts to rain halfway home, all it's gonna do is smear,” Ray mentioned to his
wife. “Why can't I remember to get wipers any time we're in town?”
“For the same reason I can't remember that we're supposed to keep the baking soda changed in the
fridge every six months, I guess.”
Her husband nodded his head and tossed in a chuckle. “Yeah–or the water filter in the fridge.”
Dani opened her purse for a scrap of paper and a pen. “You think I aughtta make a little shopping
list now, while we're still thinking about all this stuff?”
“Nah,: came the reply. “We'll remember.”
They looked at each other and nodded. “Sure we will,” they affirmed in unison.
Just as both sets of eyes moved back toward the dirt road, Dani reached out to grab the panic bar,
bracing her feet against the floor of the cab. “Ray!”
He'd seen them just a smidgen too late; a family of deer had made the split-second decision to

6. cross the road at that specific point, pausing to glance up for a moment at the machinery making time
toward them.
The first reaction that ran through Ray's mind was to stop the truck, followed by his stomping on
the brakes. Rather than bringing the truck to a halt, the opposite reaction occurred as he sent the entire
train of Ross camping gear skidding across the old gravel road. As the 4-door blue truck tires began to
lose their grasp against the loose mountain roadway, Ray's grip on the steering wheel tightened.
Dani had been working a word-search puzzle and tossed the book to the floorboard; she turned her
head toward the back seat, where her daughter had been suddenly jerked awake from her mid-morning
nap.
“Kaileigh, buckle up, Honey!” Dani shouted through frightened eyes.
Just as her mother returned her gaze back to the road, she realized the fact that, the entire Ross
crew would be tossed over the edge of the mountain pass, and in that same instant, the family felt the
heavy jerk of their camper and quads pull them in a series of terrifying fish tailing for what seemed like
an eternity.
Dust kicked up and thundered through their open windows, blinding Ray's vision. Having no sight
on the road, he once again stomped on the brakes. They tires were no longer on the road.
The Ross family was airborne.