The Cottage at Firefly Lake

by Jen Gilroy

  Sean exhaled. “It’s been a lot of years, and we’re different people than we were back then.” And maybe their relationship then was flawed, but why had she lied to him about something as important as a child? Why hadn’t she let him be there for her?

  “In some ways maybe, but you’re settled here like you always were, and I’m still a free spirit. I have an apartment in London, but that’s it.”

  Whereas he had a son, a dog, and a family business to run. All of which usually made him feel good, but tonight all he felt was numb and curiously empty.

  “You’re heading back to London soon?”

  “In three weeks unless we wrap things up sooner.” The breeze brushed tendrils of her hair along the smooth line of her throat he’d loved to kiss, the spot that always made her quiver when he touched it.

  He rubbed a hand across his face, then caught her looking at him. Caught the sadness in her eyes and the uncertainty. And something else. Something primal that caught him deep in his soul. She was the only woman who’d ever touched the essence of who he was.

  But he wouldn’t act on it. Not this time. Not like when he kissed her. An impulsive, illogical kiss he couldn’t get out of his head.

  He got to his feet. “I trusted you, but you destroyed that trust.” His eyes met hers, and all of a sudden he wanted to hurt her like she’d hurt him. “By not telling me about the baby, you betrayed me, betrayed us. But you’re right about one thing. My life’s here and I like it the way it is.”

  It was a life with loyalties and responsibilities, which kept him rooted and safe. Whereas Charlie was his past and, in a few weeks, that past would be gone again. He swallowed the lump in his throat. Gone like their baby.

  In the woods, bats swooped, their wings a soft whir, and Sean breathed in the familiar scents of crisp pine, clean water, and cool night air. Illuminated by firelight, the years slipped away and Charlie looked a lot like she had back when she first captured his heart.

  Mustering all the willpower he had, Sean turned away. He wasn’t the guy he’d been back then. And the girl he thought he’d loved wasn’t that girl at all.

  Chapter Six

  Charlie didn’t want to think about what Sean would say when he found out about what Tat Chee planned. Or what she’d say if he asked what she was going to do about it. Or if she could live with herself if she ignored her principles and everything she held dear, and let the sale go ahead.

  She stretched and set aside the book she hadn’t been reading. The lake was sapphire blue, dotted with sailboats, green, red, and white striped sails taut in the wind. Puffy white clouds scudded across the sky, and sunlight flickered through the branches of the pine trees that surrounded three sides of the cottage, dappling the shaded porch.

  From her seat on the top porch step she looked down the rutted driveway where their Realtor Brent’s SUV had disappeared an hour before, taking Mr. Cheung and Mr. Lee from Tat Chee Properties back to town. She didn’t speak Cantonese, but the middle-aged men’s smiles and gestures when they spoke quietly to each other didn’t need any translation. They wanted the extra land and lake frontage.

  She didn’t want to keep picturing Sean’s face when she told him about the baby last night either. She hadn’t planned on telling him, but the words had spilled out and now she couldn’t take them back.

  “Hey, Auntie Charlotte.” Naomi sat beside her, sweet in a yellow sun top, legs long and lean like a colt’s below white shorts. “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing much.” Apart from avoiding Mia, pretending she could handle her feelings for Sean, and telling herself Tat Chee would have a change of heart about the cottage property. Charlie tried to smile at her niece. “You look pretty. Are you ready for the party?”

  “As if. I still have to wash my hair, fix my makeup, and decide what to wear.” She fanned herself with Charlie’s discarded book. “It’s lucky our birthdays are on the same day, isn’t it?”

  “Absolutely.” Although turning fifteen was a lot more exciting than thirty-six. She rested her elbows on the yoga pants that hid her scarred leg. At least it was only her leg and she was still here to celebrate another birthday.

  “Are you wearing your green dress?” Naomi set the book on the step.

  “What green dress?” Charlie stiffened.

  “The one hanging in your bedroom closet.” Naomi’s expression was earnest. “I didn’t snoop, but when you asked me to get your sweatshirt this morning, I saw it.”

  That green dress. The dress Charlie had to have from the moment she spotted the column of shimmering fabric in the window of the little boutique in Milan, the beaded bodice winking at her in the burnished glow of the Italian sun. The instant she’d tried it on it made her feel sexy and feminine. In a foolish moment she’d once imagined wearing it for Sean if she ever saw him again. Imagined the blue heat in his eyes as he took the dress off her with exquisite slowness and then pulled her against his hard body.

  The dress didn’t belong in the backwoods of Vermont but, at the last minute, she’d folded it into her suitcase, which went to show her imagination was way too vivid. She should’ve used the space for a few extra sweatshirts.

  “The party’s at Mario’s Pizza in town,” Charlie said.

  “It’s your birthday. You can wear whatever you want. Do you have shoes to go with the dress?”

  “I do.” Black stilettos with diamante straps, which made her feel sexy and feminine, too.

  “I bet Mr. Carmichael would like to see you in that dress.” Naomi gave her a knowing smile.

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t be the least bit interested.” Not if the expression on Sean’s face before he’d turned and stalked into the blackness of the forest the night before was anything to go by. It was full of sadness and anger mixed with disappointment—in her and what she’d hidden from him.

  “Sure he would. I saw how he looked at you when you were playing tennis. Even though you were all messy, he couldn’t keep his eyes off you.” Naomi’s smile widened. “My friend Alyssa says it’s one of the ways you know a guy likes you.”

  “Sean had his eyes on the tennis ball, pumpkin. Not me.” Charlie tried to keep her voice light.

  “I still think you should wear the dress to the party,” Naomi said.

  “It’s a small party, only you, me, your mom, and Emma.”

  Naomi twirled the ribbon tie on her top. “I invited Ty and he said he’d come. I said he could bring his dad if he wanted.”

  “You what?” Charlie stopped. “Honey, I…” Words were her business. Why was it sometimes so hard to find the right ones? “This is a family birthday meal.”

  “Since Dad canceled, it doesn’t seem special. It’s my birthday. I don’t know anybody else around my age here but Ty. He friended me on Facebook and he’s taking me canoeing on Monday.”

  Charlie sucked in a deep breath. If she’d been a mom, she’d have known how to handle stuff like this. “It’s great you’ve made a friend here, but remember what I said about Ty. I don’t want you getting in over your head.”

  “He’s fun and super cute. Besides, I can talk to him.” Naomi stared at her turquoise-painted toenails decorated with a daisy motif. “Mom’s always on her phone. Emma’s a little kid. I’m bored out of my mind stuck here in the middle of nowhere.”

  Charlie covered one of Naomi’s hands with hers. “I hope you can talk to me if you need to. Your mom must miss your dad. It’s bad luck he couldn’t fly here for the weekend, but he’s got an important job. Lots of people depend on him.”

  That’s what Charlie’s mom said all those times her dad stayed behind in Montreal and then Boston, and Charlie and her mom and Mia had come to the cottage on their own.

  “Sure I can talk to you.” Naomi’s smile was too quick. “But Ty’s near my age. I really, really like him, and I think he likes me.”

  “Did you tell your mom about this canoe trip?”

  “Not exactly.” Naomi crossed her legs at the ankles. “Well, she knows I’m going c
anoeing, but I said someone who worked at the marina was giving me a lesson. I didn’t tell her it was Ty.”

  A red squirrel ran along the porch railing, took a flying leap to the trunk of a pine, and then disappeared into the branches. “Honey,” Charlie began.

  “Emma’s coming,” Naomi added. “I told Mom since Dad rented a canoe for us, we need to learn about water safety.”

  All of which sounded to Charlie like a remarkable combination of the truth and an outright lie. Just what she would’ve said at Naomi’s age.

  “I’m sure Ty’s nice, but you know how your mom feels about you seeing boys.” Although she’d avoided Mia for years, not wanting to be confronted with her sister’s perfect life, the old loyalty was still there, buried deep.

  “I’m not dating him. It’s only a canoeing lesson.” Naomi’s brown eyes, the chocolate-brown eyes Charlie saw in the mirror every day, were pleading. “You won’t tell her, will you?”

  “I guess not. As long as you’re telling me the truth.”

  “Of course.” Naomi’s expression was innocent, maybe too innocent.

  “Your mom loves you and she wants what’s best for you. I do too.” Charlie pushed away her doubts. She couldn’t prove Naomi was lying to her. “We don’t want you to make a mistake, that’s all.”

  Like the kind of mistake she’d made with Sean. A mistake that had shaped her whole life and still had her churned up like the scared eighteen-year-old she’d once been. “You have to tell her you invited Ty to the party.”

  “Relax. I’ll take care of it,” Naomi said, a heartbreaking mix of child and adult. “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I hope so.” Charlie had thought she’d known what she was doing. Thought she’d made the right choice. Except she’d never been sure, and coming back here had made her even less sure. “While you’re at it, you’d better tell Ty you didn’t mean to invite his dad along. Promise me?”

  “Absolutely.” Naomi tightened the strap on one of her sandals.

  “Want to play with my Barbies?” Emma came out of the cottage, lugging a pink bag.

  “You two go ahead,” Charlie said. “I need to talk to your mom for a minute.”

  “Not about, you know?” Naomi put a finger to her lips.

  “No.” Charlie shook her head.

  “I knew I could count on you.” Naomi gave her a thumbs-up.

  “I hope I can count on you too.” Charlie got to her feet and patted the top of Emma’s head. The little girl rewarded her with a giggle.

  A giggle that made Charlie’s heart beat faster even as she tried to ignore the sweet image of another little blond head, the one that might have belonged to her daughter. The child she’d loved and wanted more than anything. That child would’ve been seventeen now with their adult life ahead of them. A precious gift from the man she’d loved and wanted more than anything. The man she’d have done anything to protect.

  Following the clatter of pans, Charlie made her way into the cottage. She was done avoiding. It was time for her to really talk to Mia.

  Bypassing the living room, she found Mia in the kitchen. Her hair was secured with a clip on top of her head, and she’d covered her shorts and top with a blue floral apron. A slab cake sat on a rack on the counter, golden brown and perfect.

  “You didn’t have to make a cake,” Charlie said. “It must be ninety degrees in here.”

  “I wanted to. It wouldn’t be a birthday without cake.” Mia retrieved a bowl of creamy white frosting from the table.

  “We could have ordered one from the bakery in town.” Charlie lolled against the counter and turned her face toward the fan whirring on the windowsill.

  “A store-bought cake wouldn’t be the same.” Mia slid a butter knife from a drawer and swirled it through the frosting. “I always make Naomi a birthday cake, and Emma too. Like Mom always made our birthday cakes, remember?”

  “We used to help her, but you were better at it than me.”

  “Only because you couldn’t be bothered.” Mia’s eyes twinkled as she dug in the drawer for another knife. “Here, wash your hands and help me.”

  “Really?” Charlie ran cold water and squirted liquid soap onto her palms.

  “I asked you, didn’t I?” Mia’s teasing smile blotted out any sting in her words. She slathered frosting along one edge of the cake. “I’ve got decorations. I brought them from home.”

  “You like all this, don’t you? Baking and cooking? Homemaking?” Charlie took the knife and tried to copy Mia’s practiced motions, which weren’t as easy as they looked. They were the same motions she’d watched her mom and Mia make countless times when they baked together all through her growing-up years, while Charlie sat at the kitchen table and pretended to read, the odd one out. She clenched her fingers around the knife handle, the buttercream frosting as slippery as a ski slope.

  “All I ever wanted was to be a mom, to make a home for my family. I didn’t want what Mom had with Dad. I set out to make sure my life was different.” Mia’s voice was tight. “It is different.”

  “I didn’t want what Mom had either. I heard the arguments.” She’d also lived with the cold silences, somehow worse than the angry words. Charlie stared at her sister’s beautiful face, trying to see the girl she remembered, not the woman she’d become—a woman whose life was the polar opposite of Charlie’s. It was the kind Charlie might have had if it hadn’t been taken away from her. Or if she’d made different choices. Her eyes smarted. “You did well at college. Didn’t you want anything more?”

  “I was never ambitious, not like you. I got what I wanted. I have a good life and a lovely home.” Mia opened one of the white-painted cupboards Charlie remembered from childhood. “I volunteer at Emma’s school. I play golf.”

  “Mom volunteered and she played golf.” Charlie brushed a hand across her eyes. “But did you ever think she stayed with Dad because she didn’t have any other options?”

  Mia shut the cupboard without taking anything out. “Dad wasn’t the easiest man to live with, but Mom took her marriage vows seriously.” Mia’s voice was low. “I do too.”

  Charlie dug her knife into the bowl again and snuck a taste of icing when Mia wasn’t looking. “If she was so serious about her marriage vows, why do you think Mom didn’t tell Dad she owned the woodlot?”

  “We don’t know that for sure.” Mia gave Charlie a hard stare. “But whatever she did or didn’t do doesn’t matter anymore. The land is ours. We can sell it. I’ll go home to Dallas, you’ll go back to England or wherever you’re sent, and everything will be like it was before.” She tapped Charlie’s fingers away from the bowl.

  “No, it won’t.” Charlie leveled more frosting onto her knife and started on the corner of the cake farthest away from Mia. “Mom’s gone. The cottage will be too if Tat Chee gets ahold of it.”

  Mia pushed back the curtain and looked out the kitchen window, where smoke from a campfire drifted across the tree line. “Mom’s at peace. You know what she was like at the end. The cancer went right through her and she wasn’t Mom anymore.” Her voice wobbled, and she dropped the curtain to tuck her hands into her apron pockets. “As for the cottage, what does it matter what Tat Chee does with it?”

  The knife slipped from Charlie’s grasp and scored a corner of the cake. Crumbs showered across the counter. “A small, tasteful resort is one thing, but now they’re talking about a big hotel and marina complex. I’m not sure I can go along with that idea.”

  “Why not?” Mia grabbed a paper towel and wiped away the crumbs without looking at Charlie. “An easy sale to get us out of here fast. What’s to disagree with?”

  Charlie’s stomach roiled, and she forced herself to breathe. “It’s all so much bigger than we first thought. That water feature Mr. Cheung mentioned, there’s a whole lake out there. He also talked about a casino, remember? How can you think Mom would have approved of something like that here?”

  “Maybe the new plan isn’t what we expected, but I thought you wan
ted to sell the cottage and leave. There’s no point in keeping it. That’s what you said.” Mia balled up the paper towel and tossed it in the trash with a jerky motion.

  “After hearing them today, I don’t think Tat Chee is the right buyer. Not for Firefly Lake and the Northeast Kingdom, and not for Mom either.”

  Mia’s shoulders slumped and her mouth got a tired, pinched look. “Maybe not, but would anybody ever be the right buyer for you?”

  Charlie opened her mouth and closed it again. Maybe if they found a nice family, a happy family, she could let the cottage go. “Don’t you remember coming here every summer? Don’t those memories mean anything to you?”

  “They mean something all right.” A single tear slid down Mia’s face and she brushed it away, leaving a streak of icing sugar across the high cheekbones Charlie had always envied. “I remember Dad complaining about the traffic and going on about bass fishing and golf, me trying to keep you quiet because he didn’t like anybody talking while he drove.”

  “You…” Charlie stopped. There was a coiled tension in her sister, and her dark eyes were bleak.

  “I also remember how I was trapped here all those summers. You were always off with Sean or Linnie, but Mom depended on me and I couldn’t…I couldn’t make things better between her and Dad, no matter how hard I tried.” She rubbed her face again.

  “I never knew.” Guilt stabbed Charlie. “I thought you wanted to be at the cottage with Mom. You two were so close. You liked all the same things, and you always knew exactly what to wear and say like she did. And you’re so beautiful, like she was. I never belonged.”

  So she’d left and she’d kept on leaving. Sean, her family; even in her job she never stayed long in one place or with the same team.

  “Oh, honey.” Mia’s voice caught, and she reached for Charlie’s hand. “How could you think you didn’t belong? Mom loved you and she worried about you because she didn’t know what you needed or how to help you. I love you and worry about you too.”