The Cottage at Firefly Lake

by Jen Gilroy

  Sean must be married. He had a son and he’d always been a conventional guy. Loyal and true. Her heart twisted tighter and there was a sour taste in her mouth. “So you stayed here.”

  “I always wanted to take on Carmichael’s.” Sean paused. “But since we’re taking this trip down memory lane, what about you? Did you get what you wanted?”

  When you ran out on me and on us. The words he didn’t say hung heavy between them.

  “I’m a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press, based in London, but I travel all over. Wherever the next story is, I go.” It was the life she wanted and had worked hard to get. And she loved it. At least until four months ago.

  “You always wanted to see the world.” Sean’s voice was flat.

  “Yeah, I did.” She looked at the beach where Ty and Naomi tossed a Frisbee. The dog darted between them. Naomi laughed at something Ty said and he laughed too, Sean’s laugh.

  Charlie’s stomach rolled. She had to get a grip. Focus on who she was now, not who she’d been. She wasn’t looking at herself and Sean on that beach.

  “Must be an exciting life.” Sean’s voice had an edge of steel.

  Excitement wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Charlie’s hands were clammy. She sat on one of the Adirondack chairs Mia had found in the shed and crossed her right leg over her left. Her pants covered the scar tissue that stretched from her left knee to her ankle. “It pays the bills.” But there wasn’t much left over to save for the future and she wasn’t getting any younger.

  “Charlotte…” He hesitated, and the name he’d never called her rang in her ears. “Why are you here?” His eyes narrowed into blue slits, framed by spiky lashes several shades darker than his hair. “You could have put that canoe in the boathouse as easy as Ty.”

  Her heart thudded, a dull throb that hurt more than the ache in her leg. “I didn’t expect you to turn up on the doorstep, but since you did, I don’t want you to hear this in town.”

  “Hear what?” He tugged on his T-shirt and smoothed it over a still-taut stomach, although his shoulders were bigger, the muscles more defined.

  “Mia and I and her two girls, we’re here for a month to sell the cottage.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. Selling was the right choice, the only choice.

  “Your folks, they…” Sean yanked off his hat and sat sideways to face her on the middle step, the weathered boards creaking under his weight.

  She nodded. The only sounds were the buzz of the cicadas and the whisper of the wind in the pines.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice was gruff.

  “We lost Mom last Christmas. Cancer.” Charlie blinked as tears pricked the backs of her eyes.

  “That’s rough.” He paused for a heartbeat. “My condolences. My mom will be sad to hear about your mother.”

  And the cottage was her last tangible link with her mom, and the place Charlie had always thought of as home. It was the only constant in her life after the summer she’d turned ten and they’d left Montreal for her dad’s new job in Boston. But she had to be practical. The money from the cottage sale would secure that future she worried about.

  Sean put his hat back on and looked out at the lake. “What about your dad?”

  “He died five years ago.” Charlie shivered. “He had a heart attack on the golf course.”

  “My dad went like that a little over a year ago. Over in the marina.” Sean’s voice caught and he tented his hands on his knees, the strong, capable hands that had taught her how to paddle a canoe and build a campfire. Hands that had comforted her when she’d been scared of the bear with the sharp yellow teeth Mia told her lived in the boathouse. And hands that had loved her and taught her how to love back.

  “He was a good man, your dad.” Honest, upright, and devoted to his family. Everything Charlie’s dad wasn’t.

  “He had a good life.” Sean gave her a brief smile. “Even though he went too soon, he went doing what he loved, with the family he loved around him. A man couldn’t ask for more.” His face changed, tenderness wiped away, and a muscle worked in his jaw. “You’re here to sell the cottage.”

  “Yes.” She’d made her decision and wouldn’t go back on it now that she was here. “It’s the last piece of Mom’s estate.” All the beauty, vibrancy, and love that had been her mom reduced to a dry sheaf of papers.

  “You could have sold the cottage from anywhere.” Sean’s voice rasped.

  Charlie hugged herself. “This place was special to Mom. I owe it to her to come back one last time.” Maybe she owed it to herself too.

  “There should be a lot of interest.” Sean got up from the step. “It’s the biggest cottage on Firefly Lake. Since it’s only a few hours from Burlington and Montreal, it’s easy to get here on weekends. Even from Boston like you did. It’ll be sold before you know it, and you’ll be back on a plane.”

  Charlie pushed herself out of the chair and stood. “We might not sell it in the way you think. You see, there’s a developer interested.”

  “A developer?” Sean moved toward her so fast Charlie rocked against the porch railing. Pain radiated up her leg.

  “They haven’t made us an offer yet, but they’re talking about a tasteful little resort.” Pinned between Sean and the railing, the top of her head level with his broad chest, Charlie reminded herself to breathe. She’d forgotten how big Sean was, how male. “They’d give us a good price.”

  “What do you mean a good price?” Sean’s expression hardened. “Firefly Lake hasn’t changed in generations. People come here because it hasn’t changed.”

  “A resort development won’t change things much.” Charlie avoided his gaze.

  Sean’s laugh was harsh. “You really believe that? Everywhere else, life has sped up, everybody rushing without knowing what they’re rushing to or why. Here things stay pretty much the same. At least the same in the ways that matter. Don’t you care about keeping it that way?”

  “Yes, but in this economy not as many people are buying summer cottages.” Her heart raced, and she pressed a hand to her chest. “Besides, Vermont has legislation to protect the landscape, and developers have to meet certain criteria before they can get a building permit.”

  “Keep renting the cottage out until the economy gets better.” His blue eyes blazed with the anger she’d only seen once before. “That seemed to work fine for the last eighteen years. Don’t talk to me about some law. You can’t sell all this to a developer.” He raised an arm to take in the cottage, the forest behind it, the beach and the lake, hazy blue in the afternoon sun.

  “That’s not your decision to make. I need to let the cottage go.” And she needed to forget about sentiment and think with her head, not her heart. Let the past go and use the money she’d get for the cottage to live the rest of her life, a life she’d almost lost.

  “You were good at that weren’t you?” His face reddened. “Letting go of things you no longer wanted.”

  “That’s not how I remember it.” She forced a calmness she didn’t feel. “But if you mean what was between us, that was a lifetime ago, like the cottage is a lifetime ago.”

  “You really think so, Sunshine?”

  Charlie flinched as Sean’s old nickname for her drove a spike through her battered heart.

  “In all your talk about this place being special to your mom, it sounds like you’ve forgotten how special it was to you too.”

  He whistled for his dog, the shrill sound slicing through the air. And when he walked away, this time Charlie didn’t try to stop him.

  Chapter Two

  Sean pushed open the workshop door and sent it crashing back on its hinges. “Trevor?” The familiar smells of wood, canvas, paint, and varnish enveloped him. Three half-built canoes rested on struts, and a row of handcrafted paddles lined one wall, supported by rough pine pegs.

  “What’s up, bro?” His twin’s hands stilled on the paddle he was carving and his mild blue eyes met Sean’s gaze, his square face placid as always. A pair of sa
fety glasses dangled from a strap around his neck and bumped against the denim work shirt he’d paired with his usual faded jeans. “Was your ex bent out of shape because you and Ty were late getting back? She should be used to you by now.”

  “Not so you’d notice.”

  His ex-wife was always calm, always in control. The only unexpected thing she’d ever done was leave him, seven years into their marriage. She wanted someone different, something different. A life Sean couldn’t give her.

  Trevor ran a hand through his blond hair, several shades darker than Sean’s. “Well, you’re sure pissed about something, the way you barged in here like a bear with a sore paw, banging the door.”

  Shadow shot by them in a blur of black fur and disappeared into the office tucked at the back of the workshop.

  Sean drew in slow, steady breaths. He hated it when Sarah picked up Ty and took him back to her new life in Kincaid, leaving him alone out here. It always reminded him that his son had a whole other family that didn’t include him. As if he needed the reminder.

  But it was more than the ache of missing Ty. Seeing Charlie again had stirred up emotions he’d thought he was long over. One look in her eyes and the love, the loss, and the regrets bubbled to the surface.

  “It’s nothing.” He shrugged.

  Trevor’s eyes narrowed, and he studied Sean the way he had since they were kids. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Charlie Gibbs, does it?”

  “You knew she was back in town?” Sean resisted the urge to grab his twin by the shirt collar and shake him. “And you didn’t tell me? You let me take that canoe over there.”

  “I didn’t know before you went.” Trevor’s voice was calm. “The name on the order’s Connell, not Gibbs.”

  Sean ground his teeth. “How did you find out Charlie’s back?”

  “When I was in town picking up lumber, I heard talk at the diner that the Gibbs girls were nosing around. That’s gotta be a big deal for you.” Trevor ran a hand across the paddle and fingered the half-completed design of maple leaves.

  Sean forced a laugh. “Seeing Charlie again was a surprise, that’s all.”

  “The kind of surprise you wouldn’t want.” Trevor stared at Sean several seconds too long before he pulled the safety glasses over his head and set them on the workbench. “Linnie has this friend, Marcie, who’s single again. She’s a real nice woman. Linnie could set you up.”

  “Have you forgotten what happened the last time you two set me up?” Sean gave his brother an amused look.

  “How were we supposed to know when she found out your son was a teenager, she’d make up some emergency and get a friend to crash the date?” Trevor raised his hands in mock surrender. “Linnie was so mad she hasn’t spoken to her since.”

  Sean gave a wry laugh, then sobered. “You and Linnie have been married forever, but I’m fine on my own. Between Ty and Carmichael’s, I haven’t got time for a woman.”

  “You would if you found the right one. Why can’t you at least have a drink with a woman who’s not only nice but seriously hot?” Trevor’s face was unusually somber. “A girl like Charlie wouldn’t have been happy here. Sure, she ran out on you, but if you’d been thinking straight, you’d have broken up with her first. I don’t want you getting hurt again.”

  “Not going to happen, little brother.” Trevor was the younger twin by ten minutes, and Sean never let him forget it. “Charlie Gibbs is ancient history.”

  “You’re getting that look again.” Trevor slid a hammer into an open toolbox.

  “I don’t have a look.” Sean scowled. “Anything between Charlie and me was over years ago. I haven’t thought of her in…I don’t know how long.”

  But after seeing her today, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Thinking about the two of them together.

  How they’d raced their bikes along the dirt paths that edged Firefly Lake. Fished for brook trout in the beaver pond in the woods behind the marina and had bubble-blowing contests with the gum they’d bought for pennies from the jar in the bait store.

  And how when they were older, Charlie’s mouth had curved into a special smile for him, her cherry-red lips swollen by his kisses. How her luscious body had fit with his like the two were made for each other.

  She was part of almost every memory Sean had of summers in Firefly Lake. He’d told her his hopes, his dreams, and his fears, and before she’d betrayed him, he thought they’d known each other mind, body, and soul.

  “The word in town is Charlie and Mia plan to sell the cottage to some developer for one of those hotel complexes.” Trevor’s worried voice yanked Sean back to the present. “Do you think they’ll do that?”

  “Charlie said they’re thinking about it.” Sean grabbed the broom propped against the wall near the woodstove and swept scattered wood chips into a pile. The Charlie he’d known would never have sold out, but that Charlie was long gone, if she’d ever even existed. The girl he’d called Sunshine because she’d been his sunshine, coming back to Firefly Lake each year as spring slid into summer, lighting up his life like a birthday sparkler.

  “Folks in town said that kind of development could ruin us.” Trevor ran a hand over the paddle again, burnished gold in the late-afternoon sun that flooded through the windows overlooking the lake. “Especially if they put in a marina.”

  “Where did you hear that?” Sean gripped the broom tighter.

  “It’s only talk, but lots of hotels rent boats, or people might bring a boat with them to explore the lakes and rivers around here.” Trevor looked at Sean with a trusting expression. “I told everyone you’d fix it.”

  Sean dredged up a smile. “Carmichael’s has been in Firefly Lake for almost seventy years, ever since Grandpa started making boats for summer tourists. It would take a lot more than some resort to put us out of business.” He swept the last wood scraps in jerky motions.

  “What about the boatyard?” Trevor rubbed at the paddle with sandpaper. “People who come here to get away from it all won’t want that on their doorstep, us hammering and sawing all day long.”

  “Any resort won’t be on our doorstep. The woodlot’s between the Gibbs place and ours, and that’s state land.”

  “I guess folks in town don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  And his laid-back brother would put the worries out of his mind as easily as he’d change from his work clothes at the end of the day.

  “I intend on keeping this business going for Ty.” Sean had promised his grandfather and then his father he would. “Maybe those girls of yours will take an interest someday or have kids who do.”

  “Crystal’s the only one who might be interested, but she’s always had her heart set on working with animals.” Trevor put the sandpaper away. “You coming to the softball game? It’s Friday night. Everyone will be there.”

  Everyone meaning Sean’s mom, his three older sisters and their families, and Trevor, Linnie, and their four girls. His family, his friends, and his neighbors, people he counted on and who counted on him. “With Ty at his mom and stepdad’s this weekend, I want to put some quotes together.”

  “You need to get a life.” Trevor grabbed his lunch box and tucked it under one arm. “If you change your mind, come by anyway. Linnie’s made those oatmeal raisin cookies you like.”

  “Save a couple for me.” Sean grinned. “Put them in one of those pink baskets Linnie gives Mom. Bring it to work tomorrow.”

  “Like hell I will.” Trevor grinned back. “You want those cookies, get them yourself. I’m not your cookie gofer.”

  “Smartass.” Sean tossed Trevor the sweatshirt he’d left on the workbench.

  When the door shut behind his twin, Sean moved into the office. The oak desk that had belonged to his grandfather, then his father, spanned one wall. It was bare of papers, apart from a tidy stack in the in-tray his sister, who helped out three mornings a week, had left for him earlier. He sat in the swivel chair, flipped open his laptop, and powered it up. A
bank of filing cabinets covered the wall across from the desk. Shadow snored in her dog bed at one end, two brown leather armchairs in front.

  With its wood floor, white walls, and high ceiling, the office was one of Sean’s favorite places. Uncluttered, spare even, the only ornament a painting of Firefly Lake his grandmother had done in the 1950s. Sean always found solace here. Order. A sense of permanence and of belonging.

  He took a folder from the top of the tray, then set it aside and scrubbed a hand across his face. There were half a dozen quotes he could work on, should work on. Instead, he pulled the chair closer to the desk, slid his reading glasses on, and typed Charlie’s name into the Internet search engine.

  Over the years, Sean had told himself he wouldn’t look for her. What they’d shared was over. But now it was different. Charlie was a threat to his business.

  Who was he kidding? It was more than business. He wanted to know about Charlie’s life and who she was now. Even if it was like ripping skin off his hand with a table saw, it was time to face truths he’d avoided for years.

  An hour later, when the brightness of the day had softened into a purple twilight and loons called on the lake, their haunting cries echoing, Sean clicked the last file closed and slipped off his glasses. He propped his elbows on the desk and rested his chin in his hands.

  She’d kept it from him. Yet what had happened to Charlie was bad. So bad she’d been lucky to come through it alive.

  Except she was now Charlotte, a stranger. She lived in London, a place he’d never been, and seen and done things he couldn’t imagine. Charlie Gibbs had disappeared without a trace, but Charlotte Gibbs was everywhere.

  Her face, familiar yet unknown, stared out at him accompanying articles with sharp, insightful writing that cut to the heart of a story, dug deep and exposed its human face. From Middle Eastern riots to the plight of small African farmers, Charlotte Gibbs gave ordinary people a voice.

  And her voice rang out as well. A voice that demanded justice, fairness, and, most of all, compassion.

  He’d known she’d become the journalist she’d aimed to be. News had trickled back to Firefly Lake over the years, but the gossip died down and folks had moved on. Everyone except him apparently.