The Cottage at Firefly Lake

by Jen Gilroy

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Jen Gilroy

  Teaser excerpt from Summer on Firefly Lake copyright © 2017 by Jen Gilroy

  Cover design by Elizabeth Turner

  Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  First Mass Market Edition: January 2017

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  ISBNs: 978-1-4555-6959-5 (mass market); 978-1-4555-4033-4 (ebook); 978-1-478-96946-4 (downloadable audio)

  E3-20161221-DA-NF

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  A Preview of SUMMER ON FIREFLY LAKE

  Fall in Love with Forever Romance

  Newsletters

  For my dear mom, in loving memory

  Acknowledgments

  Although my name is on the cover, many people contributed to making the dream of my first published book a reality.

  I’m indebted to my literary agent, Dawn Dowdle, for her support and wise counsel. She took a chance on me and was tireless in her efforts to find this manuscript a home.

  My editor, Michele Bidelspach, has helped me grow exponentially as a writer, and thanks to her insightful comments, my characters and the world of Firefly Lake took on new depth, emotion, and life. I’m blessed with the care and attention Michele gives to me and my writing.

  Elizabeth Turner, art director at Forever, designed the cover, which captures the feel of my book so beautifully. Thanks to her, as well as Jessie Pierce, editorial assistant, Laura Jorstad, copy editor, and the entire Grand Central, Forever team for supporting my debut release with enthusiasm and professionalism.

  I’m also grateful to the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA) and the anonymous reviewers who critiqued this manuscript and others through the RNA New Writers’ Scheme. Their supportive critiques not only shaped this story, but also helped me see myself as a “real writer.” Among many RNA friends, special thanks are due to Julie Cohen. Her faith in this story, guidance, and cheerleading have been invaluable.

  Thank you as well to the Romance Writers of America (RWA) contest judges who saw early parts of this manuscript via chapter contests and gave helpful and encouraging feedback.

  To my 2015 RWA class of Golden Heart finalists, the Dragonflies: I’m happy to be on this journey with you. Thanks for the friendship, laughter, and support. The dragonfly reference is for you.

  Writing friends to whom I owe special gratitude for being there for me are Susanna Bavin, Jennifer Brodie, Tracy Brody, and Arlene McFarlane. You ladies are fab!

  My husband, Tech Guy, our daughter, English Rose, and Heidi, the sister of my heart, have been a constant source of love and support. Thank you for always believing in me.

  I’ve dedicated The Cottage at Firefly Lake to my mother. Mom was a small-town girl whose dad had her in a boat before she could walk. She shared her love of reading with me and, no matter what life brought, always encouraged me never to give up. Mom was killed in a road accident when I’d just started this book. In the months that followed, writing gave me brief respite from all-consuming grief.

  This one’s for you, Mom. Love you lots. Bye for now.

  Chapter One

  Sean Carmichael balanced the canoe paddle on his knees, scanned the lake and sandy shoreline, and lingered on the cottage hugged by tall pine trees.

  “Dad?” Ty brought the rental canoe alongside his. The white Carmichael’s logo gleamed with fresh paint. “You want to deliver this canoe to the Gibbs place or sit in the middle of the lake all afternoon?” His fifteen-year-old son flashed a teasing grin.

  “Just waiting for you to catch up,” Sean teased back.

  “Race you?” Ty’s blue eyes twinkled.

  “Sure.”

  Shadow, their black Lab wedged into the hull, thumped her tail as Sean dipped the paddle and the canoe shot forward through the pristine water of the Vermont lake. Twenty feet from shore, Sean slowed to let Ty cruise past him.

  Ty scrambled out of the canoe and waited for him in knee-deep water. He pinned Sean with an accusing look. “You gotta stop doing that.”

  “What?” Sean jumped out of his canoe and dragged it to the sandy beach. Shadow loped by and splashed Sean’s board shorts and T-shirt.

  “Letting me win.” Ty pulled the other canoe onto the beach, then fisted his hands in his T-shirt. Big broad hands like Sean’s that could already do a man’s work. “I’m almost sixteen. I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “I know.” Sean swallowed a sigh.

  “Some car.” Ty pointed to a black BMW parked by the cottage under the pines. “New people renting the Gibbs place this summer?”

  “Not that I heard.” Sean tugged on his baseball cap to shield his face from the July sun. Not much ever changed in this little corner of Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

  Ty tossed a stick for Shadow to chase. “Why’s it called the Gibbs place anyway? There’ve never been any Gibbses around Firefly Lake.”

  “Not since you’d remember.” No Gibbs had been back here in years. Eighteen years, if anybody was counting. Which Sean wasn’t. “We better get a move on. After we deliver this rental, we have to paddle back and do some more work on the racing canoe before your mom picks you up.”

  “I’ve got other stuff I want to do. Can’t the work wait till tomorrow? Or I could call Mom and ask her to pick me up later.” Ty’s voice was hopeful.

  “Sorry, but no. Your mom likes to keep to a schedule.” And his ex-wife’s schedule was the kind Sean had never managed to live up to. “Besides, the work can’t wait until tomorrow. We made a commitment to the customer.”

  Ty’s mouth flattened into a stubborn lin
e. “You made a commitment to the customer, not me.”

  Sean grabbed one end of the rental canoe and Ty the other, lifting it above their heads. “You’re as much a part of this business as me.”

  “What if I want something else?” Ty’s voice was sharp.

  Sean’s chest got heavy as worry for his son sparked memories of what—and who—he’d once wanted. “I have a good life here. All I want is for you to have a good life too. This business is part of our family. I wanted to take on Carmichael’s when I was your age.”

  “I’m not you.”

  “I know you’re not, but unless you talk to me, how will I know who you are or what you want?” Sean stopped by the patch of grass in front of the cottage, and he and Ty eased the canoe to the ground.

  “Whatever.” Ty clumped up the steps to the wide porch. White clapboard walls rose behind to a second story.

  Sean bit back the frustrated words he might have said before he pushed his son away. He couldn’t lose Ty. His father and grandfather were the past, but his son was the future. The future of the business they’d built together. A legacy.

  Following Ty, he rapped on the screen door. A radio inside was tuned to a news station, and light footsteps tapped down the hall. “Son, I want the best for you—”

  “Uh, Dad.” Ty’s voice cracked.

  Sean’s head jerked up and the world fell away.

  A girl in her early teens stood on the other side of the half-open door. She wore an aqua bikini top with a white sarong tied around her hips. And she had long brown hair and big brown eyes like melted chocolate drops.

  Sean took a step back and bumped into Ty. No, it couldn’t be Charlie Gibbs because Charlie was seven months younger than Sean. But she had Charlie’s face and hair and those eyes that had always seen straight through him.

  Forgetting the past was up there with all the other things Sean was good at. Except, sometimes, that past caught him when he least expected.

  “Can I help you?” The girl had a slow drawl, Southern definitely, Texas maybe.

  Ty edged forward, and there was a smile of pure masculine appreciation on his son’s face. “I’m Ty Carmichael, and this is my dad. Somebody here rented a canoe from us.” He pulled off his fishing hat and stuck it into the back pocket of his shorts. “We own Carmichael’s, the marina and boatyard next door.”

  “I’m Naomi Connell.” The girl smiled back and showed a mouthful of braces. “I don’t know anything about a canoe rental.”

  “Maybe your dad booked it?” Sean’s voice was higher, like it belonged to some other guy.

  Naomi studied him. “My dad’s not here, but I can ask my—”

  “No!” Sean broke in. “If there’s been a mistake, my brother will pick the canoe up later.” Sweat trickled down his back, beneath his shirt.

  Naomi quirked an eyebrow, and what was left of Sean’s heart, the heart Charlie had ripped out of his chest and shredded, thudded against his ribs.

  Inside the cottage the radio stopped. “Who’s at the door?” It was a woman’s voice, and her words were clipped. An accent Sean couldn’t place. His stomach churned.

  Naomi, the girl who was and wasn’t Charlie, spoke back into the shadowy hall where beach bags and summer shoes were piled in an untidy heap. “Some guys are here about a canoe rental.”

  She turned again to Sean and Ty and opened the door wider. “You want to come inside? We made iced tea.” A smile flowered across Naomi’s face. A smile that was sweet, innocent, and so much like Charlie’s it made Sean’s heart ache.

  “Sure.” Ty’s smile broadened. “Iced tea sounds great.” He shook sand off his feet and moved toward Naomi as if pulled by a magnetic force.

  “We have to get going.” Sean grabbed Shadow’s collar as the dog nosed her way into the cottage.

  “Sean?”

  He froze, and the past he’d spent eighteen years forgetting slammed into him.

  Charlie’s brown eyes met his, surrounded by the thick, dark lashes that had always reminded him of two little fans spread across her face when her eyes were closed. Instead of being laughter-filled like he remembered, though, her eyes were wary, framed by brown hair cut into an angular bob, which sharpened her heart-shaped face.

  “Charlie.” He forced her name out through numb lips. Above loose white pants, her lemon tank top molded to her lush curves like a second skin. His body stirred, and awareness of her, and everything they’d once meant to each other, crashed through him.

  She gave him a bland, untouchable smile. The kind her mom and sister had perfected. Not a smile he’d ever expected to see on Charlie’s face. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “Really?” Sean drew in a breath.

  Charlie’s smile slipped. “We were friends.”

  “Friends?” Sean caught her dark gaze and held it. Her jaw was tight, but her skin was burnished like a ripe peach.

  Shadow strained forward, tail wagging a greeting.

  “It’s been a long time.” Her voice was cool, but when she bent to pat the dog her hand shook.

  Sean opened his dry-as-tinder mouth and closed it again before he said something stupid. Something he’d regret. In that time, he’d built a life. And the girl who’d been his best friend, his first love, and his whole world wasn’t part of it.

  He glanced at his son and Naomi where he and Charlie had once stood, Charlie tilting her face up to his for a good-night kiss. His stomach knotted at the look on Ty’s face. Long ago, he’d looked at Charlie that way. Like she was the prettiest girl in the world. The only girl in the world for him.

  “Let us know what you want to do about the canoe.” Even though his pulse sped up, his voice was as cool as Charlie’s as he pulled the rental agreement from the pocket of his shorts and held it out. He was thirty-six, not eighteen, and he’d made sure he never thought about those good-night kisses or any other memories he’d buried deep.

  Charlie took the paper at arm’s length. “I’m sure there’s an explanation for the order.”

  “Ty?” He inclined his head toward his son.

  “But, Dad—”

  “No.”

  With a last look at Naomi, Ty vaulted over the porch railing and landed on the ground below.

  Sean turned, his steps deliberate. This time he planned on being the one who walked away.

  Sean Carmichael looked good, too good, and he was as self-contained as always. Unlike her. Charlie sucked in a deep breath against the volcano of emotion that threatened to erupt from her chest.

  “Auntie Charlotte?” Naomi whispered. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine, honey.” The comforting lie she’d make herself believe. She forced her feet to walk across the porch and stop by the railing. “Sean?” Firefly Lake was a small town. She’d have to face him sooner or later and tell him a truth she’d rather avoid. At least one of them.

  He paused at the bottom of the steps, and his big body stiffened. “What?” Voice tight, he half turned, his dark-blue eyes fixed on her in the way that had always unnerved her because she was sure he could tell what she was thinking.

  “Wait.” She scanned the piece of paper he’d given her.

  “Why?” The black dog by his side looked at her and then back at Sean, eyes wise.

  “The rental’s fine.” She wouldn’t fall apart. Even though the sight of him almost brought her to her knees. “Can your son leave the canoe in the boathouse? Naomi will get the key and help him.”

  He glanced at Ty. The boy had Sean’s sandy-blond hair, thick, rumpled like he’d just rolled out of bed. He had Sean’s height, but his eyes were a lighter blue, his face thinner. The memory of what might have been squeezed her heart.

  In profile, Sean’s nose still had the bump from where he’d broken it playing hockey the winter he’d turned sixteen, but his sensuous mouth was bracketed by fine lines, no longer the face of the boy she’d known.

  “Of course.” Sean’s eyes were shuttered. Like Charlie was any other customer.

  Naomi
darted into the cottage and reappeared seconds later holding the boathouse key by its red cord. “Auntie Charlotte?” She looked at Ty and tossed her hair over her shoulders.

  “Please unlock the boathouse and then wait on the beach.” The past reared up and choked Charlie and made it hard to breathe. It reminded her of when she’d been a girl like Naomi and head over heels in love with Sean. Her whole life ahead of her, no mistakes yet. No regrets either.

  “Sure.” Naomi skipped down the steps.

  “Auntie Charlotte?” Sean rested one bare foot against the bottom step, his legs muscular and dusted with dark-blond hair. At eighteen, he’d still been lanky, but now he was a man, all lean, long-limbed magnetic strength.

  “Naomi is Mia’s daughter. You remember my sister?” Charlie’s legs trembled, and she wrapped a hand around the porch railing to steady herself.

  “Yes.” Sean’s voice was deeper than she remembered, rougher, with an edge to it that set her nerve ends tingling. “But Charlotte? You hated that name.”

  “People change.” When she’d left Firefly Lake, she’d left Charlie behind and turned herself into Charlotte. A person who wasn’t the scared girl she’d been, who’d convinced herself she’d made the only choice she could.

  Sean tapped one foot on the step. “If you say so.”

  “Ty, your son?” Her tongue tripped over the words. “You and your wife must be proud of him.” She pushed away the stab of pain sparked by the thought of Sean’s wife. Pain as sharp as it was unexpected.

  “He’s a good kid.” Sean’s expression softened to give her a glimpse of the boy he’d been. “He’s working with me for the summer.”

  “You’ve done some building.” Charlie gestured toward the beach that narrowed at the point, still framed by the trees and rolling hills she remembered from childhood summers. Carmichael’s was on the other side, and an unfamiliar tin roof glinted in the sun.

  “We put in a new workshop last year. I built a house there a while ago too. Moved out from town.” Sean smoothed the bill of his ball cap, and Charlie couldn’t help but notice there wasn’t a wedding ring on his fourth finger.