Lakeside Cottage

by Susan Wiggs

  “Then don’t do it,” Aaron yelled, a panicky note in his voice.

  Kate recognized that tone. He was about to lose it. She used all her willpower to avoid mediating. She’d learned long ago that it didn’t work.

  “I hate losing worse,” Callie explained and whacked his ball a good ten yards away.

  “Mom!” Aaron howled.

  Callie ignored him as she took her next shot. Then she said, “Your turn.”

  “I was almost to the post,” Aaron hollered. “You ruined it.”

  “Tough break, kid.”

  “I’m putting my ball back where it was.” He marched over to where it lay in some tall grass.

  Callie beat him to it. “If you touch that ball, you’re disqualified and you automatically lose.”

  “Mom!” Aaron howled again, his face bright red.

  Kate stayed seated. If she stepped in to mediate, it would weaken Callie’s control over him. And then Callie wouldn’t want to watch him tonight while Kate was out, and then Kate wouldn’t be able to go out at all, and once again, a man she was interested in would dismiss her the way all his predecessors had.

  Of course, Callie was not familiar with the pattern. Nor was she at all rattled or intimidated by his fury. “Whatever,” she said in exasperation. “If you’re not going to play by the rules, we might as well not play at all.” She turned her back and walked away, calmly and deliberately.

  Aaron exploded. He let out a yell, raising his mallet high overhead and bringing it down as hard as he could, gouging divots in the grass. “Mom!” he hollered. “Make her play fair. Make her—”

  “Not my job,” Kate said, but he didn’t hear. He was lost in a world of anger, a place he went all by himself, and sometimes seemed unable to find his way back. With wooden mallets and balls everywhere, she worried he might hurt himself—or someone else. She was on the brink of going to him, trying to calm him down, when Callie intervened.

  “Jeez, kid,” she said, acting unimpressed. “You’re a real drag when you blow a gasket like this.” She turned away and bent to pick up her ball.

  “Wait,” said Aaron. His voice was taut but controlled. “It’s…it’s my shot.”

  Because her back was to him, Aaron didn’t see Callie’s look of relief. But Kate did. The girl was a wonder. She had been onto Aaron all along.

  Kate beamed at Callie, who acted nonchalant as she turned back to Aaron. He was breathing hard and his face was still red, but he had conquered his temper. Progress, thought Kate. A year ago, he would have had to spend an hour in time-out, making everyone miserable.

  “Whatever,” Callie said, and stepped back. “Go for it.”

  Aaron visibly shook off the episode and bent over to aim his ball. One stroke put him back in the game, aligned to get through the double wickets to the stake.

  “Nice hit, kid,” Callie said.

  Kate hoped her antiperspirant was still working. She had been unbelievably tense during the game, and the relief spreading through her now made her feel limp and boneless.

  Callie said, “You look good in that dress.”

  Kate picked up her purse. “You think?”

  “Totally.”

  “Thanks.”

  They went back to their game as though Aaron’s outburst had never happened. Callie’s compliment boosted Kate’s self-confidence. The girl possessed a surprisingly sophisticated fashion sense. Surprising, because Callie herself always dressed in oversize clothes. She never even wore a swimsuit, preferring to swim in cutoffs and a black Corona T-shirt, size extra-large. Kate wished she could erase the things that had happened to Callie in the past, things the girl only hinted at but never fully explained. She knew better, though. She knew perfectly well that the past couldn’t be changed. So the key, then, was for Callie to come to terms with it. Kate still hadn’t figured out what it would take to do that.

  Callie and Aaron took a break from their game, and she gave them instructions for the evening.

  “Make sure you turn the propane off after you grill the hamburgers. And Aaron, you go to bed when Callie says. No monkeyshines, got it?”

  “Callie said I can stay up as late as I want,” he said, standing up straighter.

  Kate’s heart sank. She had explained to Callie that Aaron’s control tended to slip when he was tired or over-stimulated. Apparently Callie had not listened.

  “Tell her the rest, smart aleck,” Callie said, elbowing him.

  “If I stay up, I have to be lying down flat in my bed, reading a book.” He flicked a glance at Callie. “A chapter book, not a comic book.”

  Kate kissed him on the head. “Sounds good to me. Brilliant, in fact.” She beamed at Callie.

  Just then, JD arrived. Kate felt a flutter of nervousness.

  He got out of the truck and came toward her, and the flutter escalated to a storm. He looked… Golden, that was the word that came to mind. He shone. In khaki slacks that fit his slim hips, a golf shirt and navy blazer, he had an unexpected air of grace. He wasn’t smiling; he almost never did, but she suspected that behind the dark glasses, his eyes were shining.

  Unlike him, she couldn’t keep from grinning as he approached her.

  “You’re slaying me, Kate,” he said. “That dress is a lethal weapon.”

  “You don’t look so bad yourself,” she said, grabbing a light wrap and draping it over her arm. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  He said hello to the kids. Then, as she told them goodbye, Kate struggled against the impulse to go down the list of admonishments yet again. Callie had more than proven herself to be equal to Aaron’s behavior. Kate had to trust that they would be all right.

  “You’re too quiet,” JD said as they drove away.

  She focused on a small St. Christopher medal swinging from the rearview mirror of the truck. “Thinking about everything that could go wrong. They’ve got no phone, no way to get in touch with me.”

  “The park ranger station is a few hundred yards away,” he reminded her. “Quit worrying and relax.”

  “When you have a child, worrying is second nature.”

  “Only if you let it take you over.”

  “I don’t know any other way to be.”

  “Then you have a lot to learn. Like, if you spend the evening worrying, we’ll both have a bad time.”

  She knew then why her dates never worked out. Her worrying—not the fact that she had a child—made them miserable. She pressed back against the seat and vowed it would not happen tonight. She’d relax, enjoy the evening. Lord knew, this man was worth the effort.

  He took her to C’est Si Bon, an unlikely restaurant with an even more unlikely name. In a town like Port Angeles, diners and roadhouses were the norm. Yet for years, the French restaurant had flourished at the side of the highway, a gastronomic oasis with a fantastic garden and interior decor of pink and gold, which had not been changed in decades.

  “Have you been here before?” Kate asked him.

  “No, but Sam made me promise I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “He’s right,” she said. “You’ve never been anywhere quite like this.”

  The small, energetic woman who greeted them at the entrance lit up when she recognized Kate. “Oh, la belle,” she exclaimed. “Et vous êtes retournée enfin.”

  Kate barely spoke a word of French, but the effusive greeting needed no translation.

  “Bienvenu, monsieur, je suis enchantée,” said the hostess.

  “Merci pour nous avoir ce soir,” he said in what Kate suspected was perfect French. So much for thinking he was an uneducated bumpkin.

  Even the hostess looked startled and impressed. “Alors,” she said, picking up menus and the wine list. “Á table.”

  The waiter lit a candle at one of Kate’s favorite white linen-draped tables, a private one tucked in a glass-enclosed alcove. A jar of dahlias and settings of Limoges china created a palpable air of romance.

  “You speak French,” Kate observed.

  “I get
by.” He put on his glasses, flipped open the wine list and his menu.

  “Where did you study French?” she asked, even though he seemed preoccupied with reading the selections.

  “I was friends with a Haitian kid, growing up,” he said. “Later I took classes in French and Spanish.”

  “Was that part of your military training?”

  “Uh-huh.” He didn’t elaborate.

  “I never would have pegged you for a guy who speaks French,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Must have been the work boots and plaid shirt.”

  “Maybe I’m French-Canadian.”

  “Are you?”

  “You’re a snob,” he observed.

  “I am, aren’t I?”

  He turned the wine list over to her. “I’m not so good at wine,” he said. “You pick something.”

  The waiter arrived to take their bar order. Kate suspected JD was desperate for a beer, so she suggested a Kronenbourg from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France. She also ordered a bottle of Vouvray to go with dinner.

  For dinner, they ordered coquilles St. Jacques with pommes Anna, followed by a salad of fresh greens with walnuts and Roquefort cheese. Kate had a funny feeling, not about JD but about other patrons of the restaurant. She noticed people staring at them a time or two, though they were always looking the other way when she tried to make eye contact. JD drew his shoulders forward and lowered his head, and Kate started to think the attention from strangers was a figment of her imagination. He was a hunk, she reminded herself, and she was wearing a tight designer dress, one of the perks of her former job. It struck her that tonight they looked like one of those couples she often regarded with envy—young and attractive, gazing at each other longingly.

  “You look happy about something,” he said.

  “I am happy. I like going out. Never had the chance when Aaron was little, so this is a treat for me.” Nice segue, she thought, beaming at him. “What about you? Do you date much?”

  “No.”

  She realized he wasn’t going to elaborate. “Well, then,” she said when the first course was served, “should I start the round of Twenty Questions or will you do the honors?”

  “What questions?”

  “The getting-to-know-you questions.”

  “I don’t have any of those,” he said. “I know all I need to know about you.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  He took a sip of beer. “It’s true.”

  His certainty struck a chord in her. A highly resonant chord.

  “All right,” she said, “what do you know about me?”

  “Fishing for compliments?” he asked.

  “Huh. Challenging you to put your money where your mouth is.”

  “Fine. Here’s what I know about you. You’re smart and you brought enough novels with you to read one every day of the summer. Although you’re not athletic, you pretend to be in order to encourage Aaron. He’s the number one priority in your life. You’re missing your family a lot this summer, even more than you thought you would. How am I doing?”

  “Remarkably well.” She shifted a little in her seat, startled by his observations.

  “You look surprised.”

  “I am. Most men I’ve gone out with tend to focus the conversation on themselves,” she admitted. “They hardly notice the color of my hair, or if they did, it’s only to ask if I’m a natural redhead—nudge, nudge, wink, wink.” Her cheeks flushed. “I can’t believe I said that.”

  “I won’t ask, then,” JD assured her, then added, “I’ll find out on my own. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.”

  She held out her wineglass. “I need a refill.”

  He managed to pour without taking his eyes off her. “You haven’t been seeing the right guys,” he said.

  “Not at all.”

  “Then I have good news for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your luck is about to change.”

  She felt warm and shivery all at once, a sensation she had not felt in ages, maybe never. “You sound awfully sure of yourself,” she said.

  “I am sure.”

  “I don’t even know you.”

  “I know how to read a menu in French, I suck at fly-fishing but I can fillet a trout. I’m handy with tools. Kids and dogs like me.”

  “I figured all that out on my own,” she said.

  “Favorite color, blue. Favorite song, ‘Radio America’ by the Libertines, but that changes weekly. I don’t like TV sports, heights or crowds. I do like pickup trucks, quiet places and loyal friends. And you. I like you. What more do you need to know?”

  Her head was reeling—in a good way—from his list.

  “What does JD stand for?”

  “Juris Doctorate, for one thing.”

  “Very funny. Does that mean you’re a lawyer?”

  “No. Pulling your leg.”

  “So what does it stand for? Really?”

  “Just dandy? John Deere?”

  “Oh, I get it. You were named after J. D. Salinger.” She glared at him. “Maybe Aaron is right. Maybe I do need to Google you on the Internet.”

  “You mean you haven’t already? I Googled you.”

  “What?” She felt her color fade, probably leaving nothing but freckles behind.

  “You’re either a professor of semiotics at Cooper Union, or the star of an Internet porno site.”

  “Guilty as charged,” she said, feeling her face fill up with color again.

  “Of which one?”

  “Maybe both,” she said.

  His grin faded. “I didn’t really look you up, Kate.”

  She felt such ease when she looked into his eyes. “I didn’t look you up, either. Search engines are overrated when it comes to getting to know someone.” She paused. “John David.”

  He looked at her. “What?”

  “I bet your initials stand for John and David.”

  He put his hand on top of hers, and she caught her breath. She could not believe the way that simple gesture set off a chain of such complicated reactions.

  It was the first time he had deliberately touched her. His first physical acknowledgment of the attraction she had felt toward him from the very first time she’d seen him. She studied their joined hands. Was there anything sexier than this man’s hand, cradling hers as though it was something precious and fragile?

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She cleared her throat, tried to drop the silly smile as she held up her glass of wine. “We are very agreeable this evening,” she observed.

  “Then my plan is working,” he said.

  “You have a plan?”

  He didn’t reply to that, but showed great appreciation for the cuisine—luscious scallops in buttery sauce, more wine and a good deal more flirting. Kate felt relaxed and natural with him.

  His gaze traveled over her, lingering here and there.

  Just as she started to squirm, the waiter approached the table. “Will there be anything else?”

  JD didn’t take his eyes off her. “Uh, yeah.” Then he blinked, struggling so visibly to snap out of it that Kate laughed. “Check, please.”

  At the door, JD held out her wrap for her, his hands cupping her shoulders and lingering there as the restaurant owner came to say goodbye.

  “Dinner was delicious,” Kate told him.

  “All the more so when consumed in pleasant company.”

  “Of course.”

  “Bonsoir, les amis.” He winked at JD. “C’est un bon soir pour sauter la femme.”

  “What did he say to you?” she asked as JD held the door for her.

  “He told us to have a good evening.” His ears were bright red, hinting at a different translation.

  “Liar. I can see right through you.”

  “What?” He looked perfectly innocent as he pulled open the passenger door of the truck.

  Kate refused to have a seat. She stared challengingly up at him. “Tell me what he said.”
r />   “It was very…French.”

  “French as in rude?”

  “French as in frank.”

  She touched his cheek. “My God. You’re blushing.”

  “I don’t blush.”

  “Yes, apparently you do. It’s so cute that you’re blushing.”

  “I don’t blush and I’m not cute.”

  “Now I have to know.” Kate braced her arm on the truck door. “I’m not going to budge until you tell me what that man said.”

  JD took a deep breath. He placed one hand on either side of her, leaning close. Humor glinted in his eyes. “He said—” JD bent and whispered the rest in her ear, his breath warm and tantalizing, the suggestion he whispered, scorching hot.

  “Oh, God,” said Kate.

  He grinned at her and stepped even closer, his hips brushing hers. “Who’s blushing now?”

  Fifteen

  “Come on, kid,” said Callie. “You promised if I read to you, you’d go to sleep by nine.”

  “Wrong,” said Aaron, wide awake in his quilt-covered bed. “I said I’d go to bed by nine. Sleeping’s a different story.”

  Sleep sounded delicious to Callie. She was tired. Lately, she felt tired all the time, and it wasn’t just the hard work that caused it. Sometimes she felt low and draggy even on her days off. At least she had a great place to stay, she reminded herself. She couldn’t get over what a good feeling it was to come home to Kate’s house at the end of a long day and find a place all straightened up, dinner on the table. Kate and Aaron always waited for her to get home so they could all eat together. They said a blessing before the meal. To Callie, they were remarkable and rare, even though they didn’t see anything unusual about themselves.

  It was driving her crazy to keep quiet about JD, even though she knew she would honor the promise she’d made him. But talk about unusual. He was the guy. The one who had been all over the news, who was still in the celebrity mags and on the TV gossip shows. She thought he was totally nuts to be hiding away instead of living like a celebrity. Cars, boats, houses, travel, parties…why would he shy away from that? These were the things most people dreamed about, and he could have them if he played his cards right. The weird thing was, he seemed perfectly content hanging out at the lake where nobody knew him.