by Barbara Lohr
Acting on Cole’s suggestion, Kate began to interview some of the store owners on Whittaker. Sarah suggested Sun and Sail, a shop that hadn’t been around when she was growing up, but boogie boards weren’t around then either.
The owner, Oscar Werner, shrugged when Kate questioned him about the town’s strategy for merchants. “What can I tell you? If the town council doesn’t start bringing in more tourists, I might not be here next summer.”
Kate looked up from her notes. “What would have to change?”
He gave her a wry smile. “You’re asking the wrong guy. Ask me about skis, and I can fit you. What fishing lure to use on Lake Michigan? Sure, I’ll talk your ear off. But bringing in tourists? I’m no marketer. What we don’t need is another gambling casino.”
“Got it.” Kate left Sun and Sail feeling unsettled and headed for The Full Cup.
“You’re going to interview Cole, aren’t you?’ Sarah asked. “He’s the one with the facts and figures.”
“I guess.” Would any conversation with Cole about Gull Harbor turn into a confrontation?
“You guess?” Sarah’s face flushed. “Kate, he’s the main driver of progress around here.”
“Is it progress, Sarah?” Uncertainty churned in Kate’s stomach.
“My word, have you been reading those flyers? Those darn yellow sheets.”
Kate’s stomach tightened painfully.
“I don’t know what idiot has been circulating them, but obviously it’s someone who doesn’t know the town. And that editorial in the paper agreeing with the flyer? Another moron. Did you see that?” Sarah slammed a tray of sticky buns into her glass case. Kate felt it clear to her backbone.
“Yes, my mom read it to me. Upset her plenty.” She thrummed her numb fingers on the case.
The curls on Sarah’s head shivered. “Nathan Petersen no doubt wrote it, our resident complainer. If it’s not the poor service at the gas station, it’s the lines that need painting on Red Arrow Highway. Always negative. We don’t need his kind around here.”
Pushing away, Kate turned to stare out at the street. Had her assumptions hurt or helped Gull Harbor?
“Didn’t mean to upset you, Kate. I’m just letting off steam. Haven’t heard from Jamie for over a week. It’s not like him.”
“Oh, Sarah. You’ve got so much on your mind. I shouldn’t be making you crazy with my questions.”
Late afternoon and the bakery was quiet. They sat and talked at one of the tables, but Kate couldn’t share any concerns about her mother. Couldn’t mention that yesterday she’d come home to find a frying pan in the freezer on top of the frozen peas.
And then there was Cole. No word from him, and she wished she didn’t care.
“Think I'll ask Cole to send Natalie's suit over tomorrow,” she told her mother later that evening. “Business has slowed. I close earlier each day.”
They’d finished their tuna salad and were sitting on the screen porch, hoping to catch a beach breeze. Even the weeds were wilted. Rain had pounded them in June but now? Nothing.
“Natalie will love that, honey. I can stand up here, directing you with my cane.” Her mother gave her a wry smile.
That called for a hug. Their relationship had sure changed.
Before she tapped out Cole’s number, Kate sucked in a breath. Amazing how nervous she felt. When he answered, she quickly made her case. “Don't worry. She won’t be swimming alone.”
Nothing but silence.
“Feel free to come.” Kate rested her head against the kitchen cupboards. Was she begging? Sure felt like it. Her entire insides knotted with longing. Maybe she just wanted some closure after those kisses. Wanted some proof so she could believe once again that Cole would wreck Gull Harbor if the town let him.
“Depends on my schedule, but I’ll see.”
She was being put off. This felt like high school.
The call ended, and she pocketed the phone.
“We’re set for swimming tomorrow.” Kate leaned into the porch that was still stifling, even though the sun was setting. “How about some iced tea?”
Mom was fanning herself with the weekly Beacher magazine “Not before I go to bed. I’d be limping to the bathroom all night.” Her eyes slid to the black futon they kept in the corner. “Maybe I'll sleep out here tonight.”
“You sure about that?” Kate's gaze swung to the settling darkness.
“Think someone might come and steal me away? I’ll beat him off with my cane.” Her laugh was more a cackle.
“You’re definitely getting better.”
Her mother made a face. “Dr. Jensen says I need more physical therapy.”
“I’ll arrange it. You have to get used to using that leg again.”
“Sure. Like I haven't been doing that already.”
A few minutes later, Kate said good night. Upstairs, the air hung hot and heavy. She threw her three windows open wide and flicked on the standing fan she’d picked up that day. Central air now seemed a mainstay but her mother wouldn’t have it. Said it was too expensive. Somehow Kate would have to work that out with Mercedes. After sliding into the light pink slip nighty she wore, she opened the closet door. The red dress flared out at her.
What had she been thinking? When the oscillating fan hit the fabric, it rippled with sensual promise. She closed the door, unable to put that dress and Will Applegate together in her mind.
Once in bed, she tossed fitfully in the stuffy room. The fan only succeeded in bathing her with hot air. Dragging her summer sheet behind her, Kate finally tiptoed downstairs and onto the porch, where the air felt refreshing. A night breeze had kicked up, banishing the muggy heat and she sank onto the futon with relief, careful not to wake her sleeping mother.
~~
The next day, she could hardly wait to get home from the flower stand. “Who's going swimming?” she called out when she burst through the back door. Damp with perspiration, her T-shirt and cutoffs clung.
“Me! I am!” Natalie shot into the living room doorway, ready in a blue striped swimsuit. Her hair was swept up into a ponytail.
Kate followed the scent of chocolate to the plump loaves of chocolate chip zucchini cake laid out on the kitchen counter to cool.
“I don't believe you’re baking in weather like this,” Kate called out to her mother on the porch. The loaves did look tempting and she brushed the warm tops lightly with her fingertips. Had her mother added any strange ingredients? Maybe motor oil or cleaning fluid?
Natalie licked her lips. “I already tried one, Kate. So yummy.”
Mom thumped up behind her with her walker. “What’s summer without chocolate chip zucchini cake?”
“Absolutely right, Mom.” Kate sliced a piece from the loaf Natalie had tested.
Maybe the meatballs had been a one-time mistake. She could only hope. The first bite of Kate’s summer favorite seduced her, warm and richly chocolate. Her mother had rituals for every season. Unlike scrubbing the floors and washing curtains, this was one Kate fully supported. Brian had always been on a diet. The one time Kate baked these sweet, summer loaves, she’d earned a frown and a lecture about calorie count. How wonderful to indulge without silent disapproval.
“Okay, I'll be right back.” Kate took the stairs two at a time. The sky blue bikini from college somehow still fit her. Opening the upstairs linen closet, she grabbed a couple beach towels.
“Want the unicorn or the goldfish?” She shook out the two towels when she reached the bottom of the steps.
“The unicorn.”
“It’s yours.” The colorful blue and green creature had been Kate's favorite. She draped it over Natalie’s shoulder on her way to the kitchen. The day before, Kate had blown up a couple of the rafts she found in the work shed. They grabbed them on their way out.
“Be careful on the steps,” her mom called out as they left, screen door slamming behind them.
“Mothers always tell you to be careful,” Kate said to Natalie. She could have bitten he
r tongue at the look on the little girl's face. Think before you speak. “Grab the railing, Natalie.”
Rafts under their arms, they descended and broke through the trees onto the beach.
Out of habit, Kate kicked off her sandals, but the sand was blistering hot and she quickly jammed her feet back into them. “Keep your shoes on, Natalie.” The trip to the water was like sprinting across a frying pan.
Kate spread the goldfish towel a few feet from the shore. Everything seemed sluggish that day, even the water. A dull expanse of grayish-blue stretched to a horizon that held not one cloud. Sultry waves stroked the shore. Mothers lolled on rafts close to the children playing in the shallows. Other women wearing floppy hats sat in beach chairs wedged into the wet shoreline, half submerged in the water.
“Time for some sunblock.” Kate squirted the lotion into her palm and swirled it over Natalie's skinny shoulders. “Such tender skin. You don't want to ruin it.”
“But I want to be tan.” Natalie scrunched up her nose, rebellious and cute.
Glancing at her own lightly speckled arms, Kate shook her head. “Trust me, I regret every freckle I ever got on the beach.”
“Did you tan a lot?”
“Lived in my bathing suit.” Didn't everyone in Gull Harbor? “Before senior prom, I even used one of those foil reflectors to deepen the color. Stupid.”
“Did you go to a lot of dances?”
“Some. Not a lot. I was tall and skinny, not exactly man bait.”
“Oh, you turned out great.”
Kate bust out laughing. “You think so, huh?” So she wasn’t a hopeless case? Grinning, she tossed the sunblock onto the fish towel. Natalie was already dipping her toes in the water. Dragging the two rafts behind them, they waded in deeper. Usually this warm, bath-like lake came in August, not at the end of July. When the water was thigh deep, Kate pulled herself onto the raft, landing on her stomach. Natalie did the same. The rafts sagged into the water under their weight.
Letting her hands trail in the water, Kate turned to look at Natalie. “You doing okay?”
“You bet.”
“How well can you swim?”
“I took lessons two summers in a row.” Folding her hands under her chin, Natalie stared out at the horizon. “My mother used to take me to the beach when I was little. I think I remember that.”
Kate struggled for the right words, ones that wouldn’t deepen the hurt. “You must miss her a lot.”
“Yeah.” Such an empty ache in that word. “But she's sick. Dad says that’s why she decided not to live with us.” Amazing how easily the little girl accepted that.
Sick. That’s what her mother had told them, trying to explain the divorce, the drinking. “If he had cancer, I’d stay with him, but he’s sick in another way and he won’t deal with it.”
But a summer day didn’t allow such a serious conversation. “Want to go out to the sandbar?”
“Sure.” Natalie’s carefree grin returned.
During the summer, changing currents continually moved the sandbar. Right now, the shallow ridge of sand wasn’t far out. When Kate could see the bottom again, they slipped off their rafts. The water reached Natalie’s waist. Kate’s toes squished into the sand, her insteps lifting over any rocks. “Watch it, Natalie. Stay where the water is shallow. It drops off fast.”
“Look, there's Dad!” Natalie pointed toward shore.
Kate's heart leapt into her throat.
Chapter 25
Cole loped down the steps in a navy swimsuit, a white towel around his neck. Kate sucked in a breath. Dressed, the man was handsome. Bare-chested, he left her breathless.
“Dad! Dad!” Excitement vibrated in Natalie’s voice.
Glancing up, Cole waved.
Watching the way the man’s body moved sent longing coursing through Kate. So much hadn’t changed. Sure, he could bulk up, but that walk? He could have been striding down the hall at Gull Harbor High School. At the shoreline, he kicked out of his dockers, waded into the water and did a shallow dive. After a shake of his head, he swam toward them, cutting the surface with precise, strong strokes.
“Let's go meet him,” Natalie said.
“Your dad will be here in a second.” The sudden surge of emotion felt so wrong and held her body hostage, like a riptide.
Natalie threw herself onto the raft and headed toward shore. They met Cole halfway, shallow enough so Natalie could stand.
“Hey, Dad, you made it.”
“Yeah.” But icy blue lightning sparked in his eyes. “You were on the sandbar?”
“We were careful,” Kate said quickly.
Natalie's mouth opened and closed. The flush on her face wasn't from the sun. Maybe she got the third-degree all the time. Darn it, did he have to ruin this?
His eyes circled between the two of them, and his square shoulders loosened.
“I grew up near the lake, remember?” Kate reminded him gently.
“Sure do but I don’t remember that suit.” Cole’s eyes brushed her, and Kate’s skin burned.
“Got it in college.”
A grin tweaked his lips. “That explains a lot.”
The tension had ebbed. Slipping off her raft, Kate submerged herself until she felt the sand against her backbone. After Cole’s comment, she figured steam probably rose from the water above her. When she broke the surface, she swept back her streaming hair.
Natalie was tugging Cole into the deeper water. “I want to sit on your shoulders. Can I?”
“Aren’t you a little big for that?”
“Daddy? Pretty please?”
Little girls never got enough of horsing around with their dad. Kate knew that much. Cole hoisted his daughter onto his shoulders while she screamed with glee.
Leaving the two of them, Kate returned to shore and grabbed a frisbee from the boathouse. For a second, she stood in the cool darkness, trying to catch her breath. Cole unsettled her in a way that was unexpected and exciting. Nervous energy sent her racing back to the beach where the three of them spread out in the shallow water. They played keep away with the frisbee, splashing each other as much as possible in the process. That was one of the unwritten rules of the game. You had to annoy the heck out of the people playing with you. Watching Cole's muscles ripple under the merciless sun kept Kate in motion, although she had to keep tugging at the darn blue bikini. A pleasant heat began low in her belly when she caught Cole checking her out.
“Natalie, your lips are blue,” she commented at one point. Hard to believe anyone's teeth could chatter in this warm water, but Natalie’s were.
“Step out, Nat.” Cole nodded toward the beach. “Just sit on your towel for a few minutes, okay?”
“Oh, Dad.” Shoulders slumped, Natalie dragged herself into shore.
Cole watched her go and then scanned the lake. “God, this feels good. Want to swim out to the sandbar?”
“Sure.”
His easy crawl easily outpaced her relaxed side stroke. Kate splashed water his way at every opportunity and he retaliated. Sometimes it felt like they were back in high school. Adult responsibilities fell away and there was only the two of them.
But it had never been this way in high school.
The difference broke her rhythm and her feet scrabbled to find footing.
When she felt the sand below her, Kate stood, wiping rivulets from her face and smoothing her hair. His eyes followed each move, and she trembled.
“I hear you’ve been asking questions.”
“About?” She cocked her head. The sun sharpened the contours of Cole’s face and glazed his chest muscles. Her eyes worked their way down from there, a dizzying journey.
She forced her attention back to what Cole was saying. “You tell me. Oscar just said you had questions. Which is a good thing.”
“You asked me to write about the town and I am. Found some travel blogs.” Partially true. She was on her own fact-finding mission.
“Sounds good.” Cole’s throat worked, lik
e he wanted to say more.
Kate waited and then fell into a comfortable back float, glad she'd polished her toenails bright red. Maybe she’d fallen under the spell of that darn red dress waiting in her closet.
“Look, I'm sorry about the street dance. The beach,” he finally said. “Sometimes I can be clueless.”
She stood upright. Really? “What are you sorry about? I’m not.”
Cole’s head jerked and his blue eyes darkened to deep water. The last time they’d been this close, he’d taken her in his arms. Felt like Kate knew every muscle in his chest, his moist breath on her face, the persuasion of his tongue.
Standing in water, she was burning up.
“You’re not sorry?” His grin stretched. “Girl, you confuse the heck out of me.”
“Sometimes I confuse myself, Cole.” Especially when it comes to you. They inched closer until she could count the bristles on his jaw.
“I’m sorry because I didn’t know you were dating Will Applegate.”
“I’m not.”
An eyebrow rose. “No?”
“No. He just invited me to the dance. Total surprise. I thought…” Zip it, Kate. So much for keeping an air of mystery. With every word, Cole’s grin tweaked higher.
Time to forget about the peaks of his dark lashes. Not the moment to study his muscled arms and how they might feel on the skin she was flaunting.
Then it hit her. “Wait… you thought I was making out with you while I was dating Will? That’s sick.”
His smile faltered. “Not for some people. But, yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Don’t you know me better than that?”
“We haven’t seen each other in a long time. I don’t know what to think.”
“Ditto. The first time I mentioned the flower stand, you gave me the strangest look ever. What was that about?”
With a toss of his head, Cole stared at the horizon. “I just wondered if that’s what you got that fancy education for. I mean, you come back to Gull Harbor to sell flowers?”