by Hornsby, Kim
Elvis’s yipping from the cottage drowned out every sound now that he’d spotted Nikki. When she opened the door, another noise called from across the bay. This time it was not a man’s voice. It was softer, higher, like a whoop. She hadn’t thought that Pete Bayer might be entertaining a woman.
Moving to the dock’s edge, she sat facing the Dickersons’ house. Spying was what other people had done to her for two decades, and she chided herself for this cartoonish, snoopy version of herself. Still, she waited to listen. Just in case. But nothing else punctuated the night air. No laughing, no yelling, no screams of sexual satisfaction.
Too cold to stay longer, she returned to the house, set the security alarm and trudged up the stairs to bed, feeling rejected and old. People were probably having sex next door while she was swimming naked by herself.
Chapter 6
Skimming across the water at full throttle, the feeling of speed was both scary and exhilarating for Nikki. She’d been staring at the insides of her eyelids a lot lately. Napping, sometimes twice a day, had become the norm but soon the second trimester would allow her more energy. She’d have to break the news of her pregnancy to Quinn before the obvious look of pregnancy arrived. But what words would soften the news of her mother getting knocked up on a one-night stand? Anything said, sounded cheap.
Rounding the bottom of the lake, Nikki cruised lazily back up the opposite side, only fifty feet from shore. The privilege of staring at everyone else’s empty cottages was new to her. She usually hid from prying eyes on shore. But this was September and few people remained. Hardly anyone had a place on the side with no roads. And except for the town at the south end, no one visited the northern part of the lake in the winter. When the snow flew, the trails and old logging roads would be impassable.
When she was level with Half Moon Bay, Nikki turned the boat and headed for home. Skimming the surface at a low speed, the boat stopped, waves washing up the sides from the sudden halt.
Elvis fell from his perch on the chair and Nikki lunged to make sure he hadn’t hurt himself. Once satisfied her dog was fine, she said a silent prayer to the goddess of motors and turned the key with no success.
Damn. She knew nothing about boats. She’d wait and try again.
Elvis watched her. “S’okay, Elvis. Mommy meant to take a break in the middle of Louisa Lake.” She plunked down in the captain’s chair and exhaled loudly. Elvis wagged his tail and flew to his perch at the bow. One, two, three…Nikki counted to twenty and looked around. No other boats in sight. When she turned the key again, the silence baffled her.
She opened the engine compartment. Maybe there was an obvious problem, like a dead rat or a fish or something blocking the thingy that helps the boat start.
But she saw nothing unusual even though everything in an engine compartment was grossly unusual to her. She tried the key one more time with no success, and, as she checked her pockets, Nikki remembered her cell phone was back on the kitchen counter. Dammit all. The boat was closer to Dickerson’s property facing the backside of her neighbor’s peninsula, which was so overgrown with shrubs and blackberry bushes that a stranded boat would be invisible from the house.
Then she noticed the stern line still attached to the cleat, trailing into the water. It had probably been flapping behind the boat for twenty minutes before the propeller caught it. She looked over the side. The rope was pulled tighter than a drum—definitely wound around the propeller. She hit the button to raise the propeller but it wouldn’t budge. There wasn’t a knife, scissors or anything sharp on board to cut the rope.
“Elvis, can you gnaw through this if I send you over?” He tilted his head at mommy’s ridiculous words. Dammit. She’d have to go in and investigate. The phrase “up a creek without a paddle” came to mind. Remembering a paddle in the floor hatch, she pulled it out and checked the distance to the closest shore. The only way to avoid paddling was if someone came out to tow her. Ten minutes earlier, Nikki had been happy to be the only boat on the lake. Now she cursed her isolation.
Wait a minute…She looked to the mouth of the bay and saw something on the point. Someone was out on the point at Dickerson’s. Abandoning dignity, Nikki jumped up on the bow and waved frantically. “Pete!” He could phone the marina and have someone come to get her. Or, if he was resourceful, he could paddle her canoe out to bring a knife. Nikki made half circles in the air with her arms then held the binoculars to her eyes.
No one remained. Hopefully he was phoning the marina to report Nikki’s predicament. After fifteen minutes, she was confused and started paddling again, wondering when help would come. Her arms ached, back burned, and Elvis had fallen asleep in the shade of the boat’s bimini cover.
Fifty minutes later, the wind came up and making headway became challenging. If she didn’t paddle, the boat would be carried into the most isolated part of the whole lake. She shuddered to think how she’d get back to civilization if that happened.
By the time she crossed the mouth of the bay it had been ninety minutes since the breakdown. Her dock was now in full view and when she pulled out of the wind, she took a break. A flash of color at the Dickerson’s window made her blood boil.
Although her first instinct was to yell “What the fuck?” she kept her swear words on the quiet side of her lips. Was he over there laughing that Goldy had to maneuver her boat two miles across the lake? She picked up the paddle and continued, eager to be out of his view. If Pete was a reporter, he’d have driven to the marina to rent a boat and squirreled away the favor she owed him for another time.
With Elvis perched in the bow, Nikki awkwardly closed the distance between the bay’s mouth and her dock. “Oh, Elvis, wasn’t that fun?” The little dog, who’d assumed the job of a piggish masthead, wagged his tail. “And such good exercise.” For a pregnant woman. She’d long since tied her T-shirt around her forehead to minimize the sweaty drips into her eyes and now pulled it off to appear more collected than she felt.
Forty feet from the dock, she jumped into the water, both to cool off and to ease the strain on her back. With the bowline in her hand, she towed the floating monstrosity the final few feet, her own beast of burden.
Once the boat was tied up, Nikki stomped across the grass to her house, her middle finger raised in case Pete was looking. She had a good mind to call over to Dickerson’s and ask if he had any Tylenol or ask him to rush her to the nearest hospital for muscle cramps.
Instead, she fixed a mug of strong tea, slathered a blueberry muffin in butter and when that found the insides of her stomach, she planted herself in front of the piano. She’d fix the boat later when she could stand the sight of it.
Fury dictated her music as she played with the emotions of someone who’d been forced to paddle a burdensome boat for almost two hours when a solution stood staring selfishly at her from the trees. There was a desperation that had been lacking in earlier musical efforts. By the time Nikki completed the musical passage, she was mentally exhausted from the effort of being so angry. At Pete.
****
The next morning, crippling stiffness set in and Nikki could barely drag herself out of bed. Stepping into the shower, she let the hot water rain over her aching arms to loosen her shoulder muscles. Even her abdominal muscles were screaming. Apparently being in top physical condition didn’t count for paddling a motorboat against the wind for ninety minutes.
She imagined the baby as a tiny roller derby queen. Despite twenty vigorous shows and an electrocution, it had grown inside her these last months. Soon it would be noticeable. To her at least.
Her level of anger had died down to a tolerable level and after tea and soda crackers, she decided to pay Pete a visit. If he said anything about watching her struggle the day before, she’d be tempted to vent her anger. But for now she’d saunter over there like her muscles weren’t shrieking at her and he wasn’t a jerk.
Nikki pulled out her baking sheets and gathered the ingredients for her grandmother’s buns—flour, sugar, sal
t, raisins, milk. The sweet hot cross confection was about the only thing Nikki knew how to bake and she was determined to deliver the mouth-watering buns to Pete Bayer with an equally sweet smile.
She packaged them warm and added a jar of Quinn’s homemade blackberry jam to the basket. Donning a skintight tank top and short shorts, Nikki set out to make him suffer. This was a man who’d kissed her, shown interest, then abandoned her in a time of need.
Along the way, she thought of what to say. Oh, it’s nothing. I love to bake and of course I can’t eat everything myself and keep this knockout body. By the way, were you too busy to help me with the boat yesterday or were you designing software? Or maybe writing a scathing expose about me?
At the last bend in the dirt road, she heard a rustling noise in the bushes ahead and stopped short. A hundred feet in front, was a young boy. From the looks of him he was probably nine or ten. He stood with his back to her, slashing the bushes with a long stick, oblivious.
Pete Bayer was a father? The high voice from the other night must have been the child, not a girlfriend in a state of sexual pleasure. As she stood watching the boy slay imaginary dragons at the side of the house, thoughts raced through Nikki’s head, falling into her path like sparks from fireworks. Pete’s excuse for not helping her might have had something to do with the boy.
She backed up a few steps. He couldn’t paddle out when there was a child to supervise. He had responsibilities as a father. This put a whole new slant on the situation.
When the boy whirled around to thrust his sword, he caught sight of Nikki and froze, eyes wide.
“Hi,” Nikki called, waving her fingers at him. He instantly dropped the stick, ran toward the house and disappeared inside, probably telling his father there was a lady with a basket, standing in their driveway. She waited motionless for so long that a chipmunk scooted past her on its way across the road. Still, no one came out to welcome her.
Maybe the boy was alone? She spun around to see the truck was gone. Perhaps the boy was not allowed outside with his father off the property.
When the curtains rustled at the window, she held her breath. He’d be alone in there. She didn’t want to frighten the kid any more than she already had. An eerie feeling warned her to walk away and she did, knowing she was being watched.
****
Pete glanced at the top monitor like he did a hundred times a day and saw the back of Nikki walking down the road. She was crossing the bridge on her way home. He hadn’t heard a knock, but he’d just taken a one minute shower.
He took a deep breath and watched the screen. Nikki disappeared out of camera range. Maybe she’d come over for that cup of coffee and thought no one was home. He’d hidden his truck in the garage. Good. He never should have introduced himself to her in the first place. Or kissed her. He thought she’d be gone by now.
But there she was, walking down the road, swinging a basket, like Little Red Riding Hood. Probably coming over to snoop, maybe wondering why he hadn’t come out to help her yesterday. He’d tried, but no one answered the phone at the Louisa Lake Marina. He’d even phoned Sandy’s Bait Shop and left an anonymous message that someone was stranded in the north end. But he couldn’t leave the property even if he’d had a boat. Which he didn’t. He’d finally phoned the sheriff and the old guy chuckled and said he’d send someone out in the police boat. Pete seriously doubted there was a police boat. He felt bad—she’d had to bring the boat in herself—but he couldn’t let himself get wrapped up in a neighbor’s problems.
When he’d agreed to renting this house, the owner said the neighbor wouldn’t be there. “She comes one to two weeks a year, always in the summer.” But here she was, for God knows how long. Aside from the obvious perk of seeing Goldy in a bikini on a daily basis, living next door had drawbacks, especially when he had a crush about as big as the lake. Something in her eyes told Pete that she might be feeling it too. He knew attraction when he saw it. He’d spent his life reading people. On the few occasions he’d spoken to Nikki, she seemed to be trying too hard, almost nervous to be around him. He had to walk away from this. This plan was already fucked in so many ways. He hoped it would all be over before she saw he had a wife at the house.
****
With a blank sheet of watercolor paper in front of her, Nikki stared at Birch House from her easel at the end of the dock. Finally she had the time to do something as normal as paint a picture. Assuming she had enough talent to do this, she mixed a color for the morning sky and put brush to paper.
The sweet high soprano of a child’s voice drifted on the morning air across the bay. It was the boy. She smiled at the innocence of a young child composing his own sound track to his life. She didn’t look over. Instead, she filled the top quarter of the page with a dusty blue and wondered if Pete was a good father. September meant school to most kids unless you are the child of a rock star and aren’t even safe at a private girls’ school. The boy obviously wasn’t in the school system or he’d be gone during the day. Maybe Pete homeschooled him. Maybe school started in October.
Her strokes increased in intensity, and Nikki found herself painting in time to the boy’s singing. Lots of high action drama was indicated by the staccato of his song. Nikki chuckled, trying to remember if she’d done that sort of thing when she was young. Or had Quinny? Had her precious daughter ever been young and carefree like this?
Between colors, she noticed the child’s small frame dash through the trees to the side of the house. He was easy to spot in a white T-shirt. Then, the boy’s fantasy was interrupted by a woman’s voice. “…Get in...thinking?”
Nikki couldn’t make out all the words. The meaning was clear though. An arm waved from the side porch, like a mother who has asked ten times for her son to come in for lunch.
If this was the boy’s mother, Pete must be married. If so, what was he doing acting all handsome and flirty with her? And he’d initiated a kiss. What was that all about? She dropped the brush and covered her mouth with her hand.
Recalling her indignation at the kiss, she was somewhat relieved. She’d told Pete he’d taken advantage of the situation. It was a more than a cheap shot to kiss her and think he could get away with it. She felt used now. Something needed to be done to show him she would not be played like this. She’d offer the buns and jam again, this time with a different approach, this time as an offering to the woman. If she was his wife, it would hold an underlying meaning that Nikki was sorry about being stuck with a husband who kisses other women. This visit would put her and Pete on a new track—one that didn’t include flirting.
“It’s the right thing to do,” Nikki said to Elvis, who looked thrilled at the prospect of a walk. Having traded her tracksuit for tan capris and a filmy blouse, Nikki headed down the driveway for the Bayer house with her expectations only an inch off the ground. Her goal was to knock on the door no matter what she saw or heard. She knew an adult was home this time.
Elvis sniffed his way along the road, prancing off into the forest to emerge every few minutes to check on Nikki’s whereabouts. Rounding the corner after the bridge, she saw someone ahead. Pete Bayer stood on the deck of the house, leaning against the railing, staring at her, waiting for her.
“Hi.” The husky word caught in his throat, making it sound more like a whisper. Today he looked entirely different as a married man.
“Hello.” A breeze had been blowing all morning off the lake and Nikki was glad she’d tied her hair back in a ponytail. Pete’s uneven hair was just long enough to blow around his face, like fire licking the sides of a log. She came to a halt twenty feet off the deck, trying to look androgynously innocent.
He descended the four stairs and closed the distance. “What’s up?”
The amulet at his neck bounced when he talked. Did the symbol have anything to do with a society who kissed women who weren’t your wife? “I baked and thought you might like some buns.” She held up the basket.
When he flashed his endearing smirk at her, sh
e had to remind herself that this was the man who knew his wedding ring was only one house away when he’d flirted. And this was the same man who’d watched her struggle with the boat. He wasn’t her friend.
“That’s very nice of you.” He didn’t look grateful.
Was he being facetious? Reaching for the basket, their fingers touched and his hand lingered longer than necessary, showing her that on his left hand, fourth finger, was a definite gold wedding band. Had he worn it before?
“My daughter and I make this jam and it’s pretty good, if I do say so myself.” Nikki waited for him to mention his son, or wife...or sister. “My daughter, Quinn,” she added to prompt him. “She makes the jam.”
In the five seconds they stood facing each other, she got the distinct impression Pete Bayer knew exactly what was going on. She did too. Nikki was being nosey and Pete was hiding something. She needed to put an end to the nonsense. “I thought your son and wife might like the buns.” She stuck her chin in the air and waited.
“Thanks,” he said, holding back an obvious grin.
It was a struggle to not break down and say, “Hey, what planet are you from? I just acknowledged that you have a son.” Anyone else would’ve said something about the son and wife, or asked what kind of jam it was or if she wanted to come in for a cup of coffee. That’s what normal people did, she’d heard. But this guy just stood there, rattling the keys in his hand.
Elvis broke through the trees and charged toward them, barking at Pete. Unfazed, Pete bent down to let the dog sniff his hand, even though Elvis looked like he might take a few fingers from him. “It’s just me, boy.”
“Elvis, stop.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I like dogs.”
Elvis stopped barking and let Pete scratch him behind his ears.