Lakeshore Secrets: The McAdams Sisters - Kate McAdams (By The Lake Series Book 1)

by Leah, Shannyn

  He hadn’t even considered that. Maybe it would have saved him the drive here as though an eye for an eye solution was mature. “I guess we both said things we didn’t mean.”

  She smiled shyly. “I suppose we did.”

  Awkwardness, that had never interrupted them before surrounded them both now.

  “How’s your knee?” he asked.

  She half smiled again. “I think I will survive.”

  Another wave of awkwardness.

  “Marc since you’re here, I think we should clarify that what happened yesterday, um, after the fighting, you know.” She looked flustered. “Anyways, that can’t happen again.”

  He definitely agreed with her one hundred percent and then some. “I wasn’t looking for anything here.”

  “Of course you weren’t,” she said giving her head a little shake. “You probably have a girlfriend, or fiancée. There’s no ring on your finger so I know there’s no wife and if there was a wife I’m sure Gran would have told me and...”

  She was rambling. It was very unlike her. He touched her hand to silence her. “I do not have any of the above.” That wasn’t embarrassing like Izzy had said it would be.

  Her head whipped up. “I wasn’t meaning to pry, I...” She took a deep breath and smiled. “I actually hate this, being here.”

  “Back in Willow Valley?”

  She shook her head. “No, not at all. I like being back here.” He wondered why she hadn’t come back before now. “It’s here.” She glanced at Grace and he knew where her thoughts had been when he’d arrived. Annabelle McAdams. Suddenly, he was lost with her, the quick name bringing back a slew of memories and emotions. He forgot she had left him broken hearted and he found himself simply standing beside his best friend, whose eyes he couldn’t stomach to see filled with so much grief. It was like they were back in time and her mother was in the coffin instead of Gran. After all the years of her being there for him while he was growing up, that had been his turn to be the strong person she needed him to be.

  Without thinking, he wrapped his hand around hers. They trembled but didn’t pull away. “Come on,” he whispered. She didn’t argue and let him lead her through one of the back doors, just as they had done on that sunny day she buried her mother, and ended up down a hall and in the staff kitchen. Two older, grey-haired ladies smiled at them as they entered.

  “Marc, what are you doing?” she asked sending them an apologetic and slightly embarrassed smile.

  “Do you ladies know if you might have some ice cream in that freezer?” He felt her hand tighten around his. His couldn’t tell if she was excited or mortified. The young Kate would have been thrilled, the older Kate he didn’t know at all.

  The shorter, more round lady stopped what she was working on, flashed them a friendly smile and said, “I think we do.” She bustled her way around the kitchen, fetching ice cream out of the freezer and bowls from the cupboard. She glanced at them. “One bowl or two?”

  “One is fine,” he answered. She handed them one bowl of heaping vanilla ice cream with two spoons, then went back to her work, casually, as though this was a common occurrence, which he was sure it wasn’t.

  There was another staircase in the back hall between the kitchen and visitation room and they stopped to sit.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” she said, passing him a spoon, a shocked grin spread across her face. He didn’t have the same passion for ice cream as she did, but he took a spoonful.

  “I wanted ice cream,” he said.

  She laughed. “I don’t really believe you.”

  He winked at her. “I guess you will never know.”

  She ate her ice cream and he could see the weight of her grief lift a little bit and the weight of his conscience lifted along floating into the air like petals escaping their stem. It was a win/win.

  “Why are you being so nice to me?” Her voice was grave.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “You know why?”

  He rested his elbows on his knees and gazed down at the side of her soft face. “You were my friend Kate, long before you were my girl. I wish you would have remembered that before you left.”

  Her eyes lifted to his, so beautiful and so full of sadness. “I never forgot,” she said and they stared at each other for a long, silent moment before going back to the ice cream. He chuckled to himself watching her devour that cold mountain. Some things never changed.

  “Do you remember the first time we met?” she asked out of the blue.

  How could he forget, she took his brother, who was towering in height and age, to his knees without a doubt in her mind that she couldn’t. Marc had always been smaller than Corbin, his brother, even if there had only been four years between them. Corbin was also a bully and Marc had been an easy target. That day the two brothers had been waiting for their dad to finish in the office for supper. Marc had been reading a book and Corbin had been kicking the toe of his shoe on the floor bored when he decided he wanted Marc’s book and snatched it from him. Of course Corbin never did anything shoddy and began ripping pages out of his book and flagging them in front of him before crinkling them and throwing them at his feet. Marc asked for it back, politely, which in turn made Corbin laugh and continue tearing. Marc just stared in horror as he defaced the book he hadn’t finished unable to work up the courage to get it back. That was when Kate rounded the corner of the resort and intervened dropping her hands on her hips and giving Corbin a straightforward warning. He laughed at her just like he laughed and Marc and she took him to his knees and made him cry like a baby.

  “I do,” he said.

  She laughed. “You were so scrawny, like this skinny, geeky ten-year-old.” She laughed. “You had thin rimmed round glasses, like Harry Potter.”

  “I thought we were done with the insults.”

  She smiled.

  He thought back. “You were this wild, spark with such determination.”

  She smirked at him. “I’m sure I looked like a wild, unkempt brat,” she said. “Remember my hair?” She put her hands beside her hair making a full motion. “I bet my jeans had been ripped.”

  He nodded. “Yes, they were ripped.”

  “Probably oil on my face.”

  “Dirt down your shirt.”

  She laughed. “I don’t understand how we just clicked. You know.”

  He nudged her side lightly with his elbow. “You were my hero, didn’t you know?”

  “I don’t think that’s an accurate title.”

  “My brother never bothered me again after that day.” Of course he had only lived four years longer before the car crash that took his life. The two had been so different. Marc enjoyed books, Corbin liked television. Marc was calm like a warm breeze, collected with poise, Corbin was a wild bullet ready to thrash ahead without alarm.

  “I’m surprised your mom invited me back,” she said. “Is she here?”

  He nodded. “I was her favorite child and she couldn’t say no to me.”

  She laughed. “Oh stop it. Your mom didn’t play favorites. She probably thought you could use a bodyguard.”

  “That must have been it. You’re awfully full of yourself.”

  “Well, I was your hero.”

  He laughed. She laughed.

  “I should probably get back,” she said. They stood. “Wait, did you come with Izzy?”

  He nodded.

  She smiled in relief. “Thank you for the ice cream, the distraction.” She handed him the bowl. “Abby has disappeared since this morning but I bet your sister can pinpoint exactly where she is.”

  She began to walk away but turned and grabbed his arm gently, each finger marking his skin. “I’m sorry about your dad. No matter what he was to anyone, he was your dad.” He was an ass to everyone, but she knew that. “And,” she paused taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry Marc.”

  “For what?”

  Her eyes didn’t budge from his. “You know for what.”

  He nodded his u
nderstanding, he wasn’t sure that he accepted it, but he heard it.

  Chapter Seven

  Kate dragged Abby through the resort’s automatic double doors by encircling her own arm through hers and leading the way in a much faster pace than her rebelling sister’s short steps across the parking lot had been. She thought it much classier than the alternative; dragging her by the sleeve of her jacket, if you could even call what she was wearing in this cold weather, a jacket. It was more a knitted wind breaker. She had to pick her battles and her sister’s attire wasn’t among the ones worth fighting.

  After a tiresome daylong game of hide and seek, Izzy had broken down at the visitation and Kate found Abby at Mrs. Calvert’s, hiding away in that Mr. Brown Eyes, biker man’s apartment above the bakery.

  He looked like a whole lot of trouble that she did not want her sister engaged with. Tattoos down his thick built arms, holes where piercing once adorned his rugged and dangerous looking face and the leather jacket he wore only added to the mysterious uncertainty she felt about him. Even though he was connected with Mrs. Calvert, Kate was convinced he must have done something bad. No one like that just started working in a bakery. Maybe he was a fantastic chef, but his eyes spoke of havoc from a past and Kate didn’t want him taking advantage of Abby. Especially, not right now. Her thoughts were scattered like her attendance.

  They crossed the lobby’s marble floor, her heels clapping and Abby’s boots scraping with each drag like a pouting child.

  What different lives the two sisters lived. When Kate had been Abby’s age she’d moved away from home, been set up in school where she achieved a diploma and started interning at an advertising company. Abby was schooled, thanks to the money Kate had set aside for her, but spent her nights working at Jake’s bar and apparently dabbling in soap making. But who really knew how serious that was.

  The extraordinary crystal glass prism chandelier above them cast lightness across Abby’s tear stained face, quite the opposite of her regularly liquid eyeliner cat eyes and tanning blush that accented her high cheek bones. She was probably more exhausted and worn out from creatively hiding from them all for the past couple days than actually dealing with the grief.

  They turned the opposite direction of the check in desk, where a set of young ears were ready to listen to her sister murmur, “I don’t understand why you even care.” Her voice was lost with sorrow.

  Was she serious? Everything she had given up was for her, Abby, her other siblings, and her father! Did she think that their trust funds for college had just appeared out of thin air! No, she thought they were secretly created by their mother before her passing, just as arranged.

  “Oh enough,” Kate snapped, immediately allowing guilt to wash through her body, like a wild wave slamming against the sandy beach shore. Abby was hurting. “You know I care,” she said more softly, directing her around the corner towards the elevators.

  “You have a funny way of showing it, moving across the country.”

  Lots of people went away to school, that was life.

  When they arrived at the mirrored elevators, Kate pressed the button furiously, letting her sister go. If she ran, Kate was mentally prepared to chase her down the long halls in her heels, and she was prepared to tackle her to the ground, even in the tight fitted dress.

  “This was important today Abby, and you were expected to be there and you snuck away.” That wasn’t the worst part. “You didn’t even let any of us know where you were, or that you were okay.” If she couldn’t handle attending the visitations, she should have told them, not hidden unaccounted for all day long!

  Abby leaned against the wall and crossed her arms to match her ankles. “So, let me get this straight. You would like me to check in with you for the few days that you’re here and when you leave, we can reside our normal lives of no contact. Is that right?”

  They texted each other every day! All their sisters did, but this sister was just being abnormally frustrating. It is because she is hurting.

  “I would rather you talk to me instead of pushing me away with insults.”

  “I would rather not talk at all.”

  That would probably be wise, at least until they got to her room, where the walls weren’t listening. “Finally, we agree on something.”

  “Whatever’s easiest for you. It’s kinda like running away.”

  Argh! She was relentless!

  “Or sleeping with your married boss.”

  “Abby!” she cried horrified. Boy, Peyton had a big mouth.

  Her appalled squeal wasn’t the only sound that rang out Abby’s name. Isabelle Caliendo, the youngest of the clan, waved erratically making her way down the hall, directly towards them.

  From the not so innocent grin her sister flashed Izzy, it left no doubt in Kate’s mind that the finger clicking texting madness the whole ride here was them preparing a getaway plan.

  The friends embraced in a long, overly exaggerated hug, meshing together their similar outfits consisting of tights and long chiffon blouses like twisting sheets hung along a clothes line on a windy day.

  “Hey, fancy running into you here,” Izzy said, pulling away and squeezing her friend’s arms.

  Fancy? What young adult used such terminology, unless rehearsed, and was that a wink she caught from Izzy? No doubt. Little brats, she thought forcing a half smile. Kate was exhausted and now found herself preparing for another fight.

  “Abby, why don’t you come to dinner?” Izzy suggested. “With me and the family,” she added

  Kate crossed her arms skeptically watching the women’s getaway plan unfold. Dinner? She didn’t buy for one second they planned on going to dinner.

  The elevator doors opened. Kate tugged her sister inside with Izzy chatting away and joining them inside. She couldn’t very well forbid the blonde from entering the elevator, since her family owned it, but the thought did cross her mind.

  Abby was agreeing to Izzy’s plans as the door was shutting. Kate was strategizing a game plan to prevent losing sight of her sister in fear she would lose the opportunity to speak to her before the funeral. And, they absolutely had to speak before that funeral, so Abby didn’t have her breakdown there.

  A hand slipped between the closing doors and a deep voice asked them to hold the elevator. Kate pressed the open button as Marc slipped inside and the doors slid together behind him, enclosing them altogether. The small elevator felt like her tiny childhood closet with his tall, thick body and the yummy smell of his cologne invading every space.

  He looked taken aback at the sight of all the girls inside. Probably just her. He had been nice to her at the funeral home, not an hour earlier, out of respect for her loss. It didn’t automatically put them into the same friends category.

  “Good evening.”

  Izzy quickly latched onto her brother’s arm and filled him in on the generous invitation, aka “secret escape plan.”

  Kate thanked her. “We are just going to retire to our room for the night and order room service.” Maybe with Marc’s presence she might get Abby all to herself without the game plan being put into effect.

  “Don’t be silly,” Izzy said. “We are eating at the pub and the food is way better than ordering in.” She made a face as to say the take-out was appalling. “You can come too, Kate.”

  “Oh, I can’t intrude.”

  “Yes you can. It’s been too long since we’ve seen you. Everyone would be so excited! I mean you used to always be around.” She only knew half the truth of that. The later years when Izzy would have remembered Kate, she was usually there to find her father, sober him up, help him finish his duties and then only have a few minutes to sneak with Marc before she had to go home and take care of her siblings.

  “That was a long time ago,” Abby muttered, the youngest unappreciative sibling.

  Kate ignored her sister. She wasn’t about to display their dirty garbage for Marc to witness. “We really can’t...”

  “Don’t speak for me,” Abb
y interrupted. “I’m going.” Stubborn little spark.

  Kate held her breath for a second, forcing herself not to show the exasperation she was feeling from her toes all the way up to her clenched hands that were fighting to seek out her sister and shake some sense into her.

  “Marc, convince Kate to join us,” his little sister whined, tugging his arm and laying her head on his shoulder staring up at him with big, round puppy dog eyes, dramatically making her point.

  Kate was sure he would agree they had spent more than enough time together.

  Marc smiled at Kate. “She doesn’t need my convincing but you’re more than welcome to join us. It might be a nice distraction for you two.” She never allowed herself to dream he would be so forgiving and welcoming. She never allowed herself to dream of ever stepping foot back in this resort in the first place.

  Izzy jumped away from her brother clapping her hands in delight. “A wonderful distraction, so it’s settled.”

  On a good day with Abby, Kate was thankful she was notches down from this blonde. Well, brunette sporting blonde bleached hair and definitely a few layers of hair extensions.

  Before she knew it, she had agreed to supper and they were entering the loud pub. The restaurant was packed with a lively bunch of people clashing their voices with the music flowing from the speakers. It was a bar and grill style eatery with flat screens on the barn board walls displaying different sports games, a bar room to the side with pub tables and stools, then a maze of separate booths and open tables.

  Izzy pulled Abby in front leading the way to their table in a speedy fashion, which left Kate to walk beside Marc.

  The walkways were snug with guests pushing their seats into the aisles as they ate and drank, enjoying their retreat getaway.

  “I’m sorry we’re intruding on your family,” she said to Marc as he paused to let her go first between two chairs.

  “We will call it even after I enjoy watching you squirm.”

  She turned suddenly, taken aback by his teasing words. “Why would I squirm?”

  His instincts didn’t react as quickly and his body collided against hers. Again. She flushed and quickly apologized.