He rolled his right shoulder and smiled. “I can’t throw the hundred-mile-an-hour fastball anymore, but I can hold my own.”
“Good to know. So why are you asking about the camp?”
Cam shrugged, then grinned. “You said you’re looking for a more permanent camp?”
“Yeah.”
“As it happens, I’ve got twenty acres at my place that’s available.”
Tony paused with the coffee cup halfway to his mouth. “Are you serious?”
“Why not?” Cam leaned forward, bracing his elbows on the laminate table. “I’m looking at building a sort of ‘dude ranch’ at my place.”
Tony stared at him for a second or two, then laughed. “No way. Why the hell would you want to do that? Cater to tourists and wannabe cowboys?”
In spite of his friend’s words, Camden laughed. “Why not? I’ll be running herds on the ranch—had some Longhorns arrive just yesterday...”
“Now that’s cool.”
“It is,” he agreed. “But the thing is, when I was living in California, that place was so crowded, so jammed with people, some days it felt like you couldn’t draw a breath.
“And every time someone found out I was from Texas, inevitably, their reaction was, Oh, I’ve always dreamed of living on a ranch. Being under the stars. And every other cliché you can think of.”
“Yeah.” Tony smiled up at Pam as she delivered his slice of apple pie. “They never think about all the work that goes into ranching.”
“Exactly!” Cam glanced at their server and thanked her for his blackberry cobbler. When Pam was gone, he started talking again. “So the idea is to give city people the chance to live like country people, a week at a time. We can do riding lessons. Have bonfires at night, chuck wagon food...”
Tony took a bite of pie, chewed and swallowed. “And how does my baseball camp for kids fit into that?”
“Easy.” Cam waved his fork at his buddy as he warmed to his subject. “We could be a big help to each other. Your baseball players might see the ranch and decide to come back. My tourists might like baseball.”
Tony snorted a laugh. “Well, who doesn’t like baseball?”
“Exactly.” Cam grinned again and took a forkful of the cobbler. Meanwhile, he could see Tony thinking this through, and he was pretty sure his old friend was going to go for it.
Wouldn’t hurt to sweeten the pie, though. “You know, with twenty acres, you could build a regulation diamond, a couple batting cages, pitching areas...and some bunkhouses for your campers to stay in.”
“Hmm. That would be good.”
“Think about it,” Cam urged. “Where do the campers stay now?”
“At the inn outside of Royal,” Tony admitted. “It would make it easier to have them all on-site...”
“Damn right it would.” Cam had him and he knew it. Hell, he didn’t need Tony’s camp to be on the ranchland, but it’d be fun. And that in itself was a good enough reason.
“Hell, you could build yourself a house on the land and provide housing for all of your employees, too.”
His friend’s eyebrows arched at the suggestion and Cam could practically see the wheels in his mind turning.
Tony cut off another bite of pie and said, “You knew I’d say yes, didn’t you?”
Cam shrugged. “You haven’t said yes yet.”
Laughing, Tony said, “Hell, of course it’s yes.”
“Great.” They shook hands on it, then Cam said, “Why don’t you come out to the ranch right now? We can plot out your twenty acres, then call Olivia Turner to tell her she’s got another job to do.”
* * *