Diamond Lake Series: Complete Series (Bks 1-7) Boxset

by T. K. Chapin

  “Lots of landscaping work needs done around there.” Emma reached for my pen next to the order pad on the table. Taking a slip of paper from the pad, she wrote down the inn’s address and directions from the diner. “Head over there after your shift, and I’ll let Jody know you’re coming.”

  Smiling as I took the slip of paper, I said, “Thank you.”

  Pulling into the driveway, my eyes widened at the mansion-like Bed and Breakfast. The still waters of Diamond Lake painted a lovely backdrop for a breathtaking view. Parking beside a double garage, I got out of my Pinto without taking my eyes off the lake. The double oak doors opened down a few brick steps, and a little white-haired dog came running out as a woman stepped out of the doorway. She walked up the steps and met me in the driveway.

  “I’m Jody Davis, and welcome to the Inn at the Lake. Do you have a reservation?” Her eyelashes fluttered and her hands came together at her waist. She was middle-aged, had short hair, and carried a constant smile.

  “Emma sent me. I’m Amy,” I replied.

  A perplexed gaze indicated she never received a phone call. “My mother did? How does she know you?”

  “The diner,” I replied. “I serve there. She said you were looking for some help around here.” My eyes surveyed the grass and pathways that led between the garage and the house and then the one that led around the side of the bed and breakfast and toward the water.

  “Head around back and down to the shed by the water. You can find everything you need in there and start pulling weeds from the flower beds that line the path down to the lake. If you can handle it for two solid hours today, you can come back tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I replied. Before I could get another word in, she turned and went over to her puppy and picked it up before returning back inside. With no discussion of money, I felt a little uncomfortable getting started, but I knew Emma was involved and trusted her, so I pushed my worry aside. The cement path along the side of the house led me down a slight incline before veering over to a walking path that wove between flower beds down to an open grassy area where the shed and a dock sat. Once in the shed, I found a pair of gloves, a hand rake and a yard waste container.

  Journeying over to the first flower bed I’d be working that day, I looked up to the balconies that hung off the bed and breakfast and took in the view of the overwhelming size of the house. It was bigger than any house I had seen since my arrival and even competed with the mansion John and I lived in back in Albany. Being on the lake, I couldn’t even fathom what a house that size would cost. Though the decks weren’t painted and the flower beds were full of weeds, it didn’t take away the majestic and larger than life feeling that the whole place gave off. A man in his mid- to late-twenties stepped out onto the upper balcony and was looking out to the lake with his arms resting on the railing. He had a thick head of brown hair and a physique that was drool-worthy. The stubble along his jaw line only enhanced his rugged appearance, and he looked to be in deep thought as his eyes scanned the lake. Mid-drool, I realized I knew him from somewhere. Who is that? He pulled out a pocket watch and looked at it with a grimace. His piercing green eyes caught me staring, and he immediately shoved the pocket watch back into his pocket and left the balcony.

  Starting in on the weeds that littered the flower bed, I blushed as I continued to attempt to place him. He caught me staring like a weirdo. How embarrassing . . . but where do I know him from? And how on earth would I forget a gorgeous face like that? It tortured me the entire two hours I worked. By the time I stood up from the flower bed, I still hadn’t placed him, but I did feel pain radiating through my lower back. How did my mom garden all those years while I was growing up? Returning the gardening equipment to the shed with a wobble in my step, I grunted and groaned. Rubbing out the soreness the best I could, I made my way back up the path and around the house to the front doors where I first saw Jody. Straightening my posture the best I could, I gave a couple of good knocks on the door.

  Jody answered and looked at my forehead, causing me to touch it. “You have a smudge of dirt on your face. Leave it. Come inside and let me get you a wash cloth from the kitchen.” Pulling my hand, she brought me inside without waiting for me to answer. As she led me through a large foyer and around a corner toward the kitchen, she continued to talk. “The pay will be $100 a week and two hours a day. I spoke with my mother an hour ago, and she said you were trying to pay for a roof, so I’m willing to front you the money, and you can just work it off.”

  “I don’t know about doing that . . .” I replied as we came into the kitchen.

  Jody stopped and turned, placing a hand on the kitchen’s island counter. Her eyebrows raised, and she said, “Amy. I understand you want to work for the money you get, but don’t be dumb. Let me pay you in advance so your roof doesn’t get more damage. I once had a roof that leaked, and we had to wait to repair it. Luck would have it that the place we were living at the time had the biggest storm in forty years that week of waiting, and I paid for it big time. So, please.” Jody paused and smiled big as she let out a laugh before she continued, “just take it.” She opened a drawer that was attached to the island and pulled out a checkbook. Writing out a check for six hundred, she ripped it out and handed it to me.

  “Okay,” I replied as I took it from her. Jody was a bit aggressive, but she was good-natured and had a sweet way about her.

  She put the checkbook back in the drawer and went over to the sink. Grabbing a dampened washcloth, she held it out for me. I folded the check and slipped it into my back pocket before taking the rag to wipe the dirt off my forehead. Emma must have told her to do that. A smile crept up from the corner of my lips as I turned and looked across the kitchen and into the large, open dining room. What a perfect view of the lake through a pair of French doors. I said, “I love this property.”

  “It’s beautiful. You can see the lake from every room in the inn. We are blessed to have it.”

  Handing her the rag, I said, “Thank you for the check and the washcloth. I appreciate you guys having me come out and help.”

  “We’ll use you around here.” She smiled and took the rag over to the sink and draped it across the faucet. She walked me to the front doors to leave.

  On the way home, I called Joe, the contractor that Emma told me about, and set up a time for him to come by Thursday morning for an estimate on the roof. Things were going to work out, all thanks to the kind hearts of Emma and her daughter. It warmed my soul to have people in my life who not only cared, but were willing to help in any way they could.

  Chapter 5

  On the following Thursday, I waited for Joe to show up at the scheduled time of eight o’clock. By ten minutes past the hour, I was becoming a bit impatient as I had to be at work by nine. Leaning on the railing on my porch, I tried to see through the thicket of trees that lined the property, but it hid the gravel road from view. This was despite the fact that I knew I’d hear him before I saw him. Pressing up on my tiptoes, the weight of my body was too much for the railing, and it shifted forward. Jumping back, I crossed my arms. This place is going to fall apart!

  The sound of wheels kicking up gravel a moment later brought relief over me. My tense shoulders relaxed and I dropped my arms as I walked over to the porch steps. He was finally here. Only fifteen minutes late. He pulled his truck up beside my Pinto in the driveway, got out, tipped me a nod, and then moseyed to the back of his truck. His worn-out jeans and tank top didn’t scream professional, and his lack of urgency didn’t do him any favors either. He bobbed his head as he dropped the tailgate. I had enough and headed out to his truck.

  “You’re late,” I said curtly as I walked to his truck.

  He raised an eyebrow and said over his shoulder to me, “Sorry ‘bout that, Miss,” as he reached into his truck with one of his muscular arms draped across the bed. The top of his shoulder flexed as he slid out a ladder from the bed of the truck. It’s been too long since I’ve felt the touch of a man if this guy can catch m
y interest. He began walking over to the house. I followed him like a game of cat and mouse.

  “Do you always show up late to jobs?” I pressed him.

  “No.” Arriving over beside the porch, he positioned the ladder against the ledge of the roof and squinted as he peered up. There was little interest on his face about his lack of punctuality. It didn’t seem to matter to him in any way whatsoever.

  “Do you even want to see where the leak is coming from inside?” I asked, slightly confused why he wasn’t talking much.

  He looked at me with piercing brown eyes and broke into a smile. “Well, yes. That’d be helpful.”

  Leading him inside, I held the screen door open for him as he walked through first. The whiff of his cologne caught my nose, and I felt a part of my stomach jump. Stop it, Serenah! He’s a paid professional . . . well, he’s getting paid. Sauntering around the pot of water in the middle of the floor, he glanced up.

  “So?” I asked, taking a step closer as I folded my arms.

  “You have a leak,” he replied, holding a cheeky grin as our eyes met again.

  “Ha,” I pushed out. This guy might have looked better than Wendy’s homemade apple pies, but he was losing my interest fast. Jumping to the point, I asked, “So what’s it going to cost me? Still the $550 you quoted me on the phone, I hope?”

  He glanced up again and said, “I’ll have to check the extent of the damage, but that’s usually what I’d charge for something like this.” His eyes met mine. He sure looks at me a lot. “But you’re a friend of Em’s, so I’ll do it for $400.”

  “$400?” I shook my head. What is it with this town? Everybody just wants to help and give people the best deals.

  He let out a slight chuckle, followed by a shake of his head, as he could see my confusion. “People in this town are good folk. You could learn something from them.” He popped an eyebrow up and walked back outside, leaving me with a lingering question. Learn what, exactly? Pausing for only a moment as I heard the screen door shut, I decided to follow him.

  “When can you get started on this? And how long will it take?” I asked, seeing him go out to his truck. He stopped and shrugged as he turned around, eyeballing the house. “I can order the shingles today and start next Tuesday. It’ll take about a day of work unless I discover something different in the full inspection here in a few.”

  “Great. I have to leave for work here in a minute.”

  “Okay. I can just come back next week and finish checking it out. It’ll delay everything a little bit.” He went toward the ladder that was propped up against my roof.

  “No. You can just stay and lock up when you’re done. Call the diner if you need anything. I’ll be there until six.”

  He nodded and flashed me a trusting smile. Leaving someone at my home unattended worried me some, but Emma knew the people in Newport more than I did, and I trusted her.

  I rested one hand on the monitor while the other one typed in my server identification number to clock in. Miley approached, chewing on a piece of gum, and said, “Hey, girl.”

  “Hey,” I replied as I counted my hours up in my head. Six, nine, four, three . . . Plus today. Thirty.

  “Wendy’s talking about cutting hours again,” Miley said, jolting me out of my thoughts.

  I looked at her. “Seriously?”

  She nodded.

  I murmured under my breath, “Why not just fire that new girl who just texts and takes a million smoke breaks?”

  “Hey,” Miley said, pulling me out of my wallowing self-pity.

  I looked at her with a raised brow.

  She tilted her head back behind her toward the nearly empty diner. “Can you take table five? I need to call my mother to see if she can pick up Gwen.”

  Peeking over, I saw it was the man from the Inn at the Lake, and my heart fluttered. “I knew I knew him from somewhere!” Seeing Miley’s inquisitive expression, I continued, “I saw that guy at the Inn at the Lake a couple of days ago, but I couldn’t place him. He’s that guy.”

  Miley glanced over her shoulder at him. “Really? Black coffee and toast guy?”

  I nodded slowly as I smirked. “Yep.” He was a frequent customer, but it wasn’t random or a few times a week. It was the same time and day each week that he came in. It had been going on for two years, according to Miley, and nobody ever dared ask him what the deal was. It was strange. We all had our theories around the diner. Miley believed he just liked routine, Wendy suspected he was just crazy, and I, well, I didn’t know what to think of it other than that he was cute. I was too busy to really care, but the fact that I saw him outside the diner had me intrigued now. The guy didn’t live in Newport, or at least, nobody thought he did since nobody ever saw him outside the diner.

  “Go talk to him.” Miley nudged me. “You obviously like him. It’s written all over your face.”

  Wrapping my apron around my waist and grabbing a pencil from the cup next to the computer, I headed over to the table. Mystery man was reading the daily newspaper he would snatch from the stack on his way in each time he came. As I approached the table, I pulled out my order pad as he lowered his paper.

  “Usual?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” When his eyes met mine for those brief few seconds, I felt a bolt of electricity course over my body. I felt something I hadn’t expected, but it didn’t matter. He raised the paper back up to continue reading. He doesn’t remember seeing me at the inn? Tapping my pencil against the pad, I hesitated at the table for a moment as I tried to come up with something more to say because I wanted another glimpse into his eyes. The plan backfired, though. The pen’s tapping irritated him, and he lowered his paper back down. “Is there something more you need?”

  “I saw you . . .” My words stumbled over one another as I attempted to put sentences together while looking into his gorgeous green eyes. “Outside the diner. At the inn? At the lake.” I sighed and cleared my throat as I turned red. “Sorry. I saw you at the Inn at the Lake.”

  He grinned and said, “Oh, you’re the one who was spying on me. You must know Jody.”

  “I do. I mean no! I wasn’t spying on you.” I laughed. “I work there part-time helping out. Jody and I just met the other day, but she’s great.”

  “I hate her,” he replied, raising his paper back up to read. Really? The awkwardness wrapped itself in the air between us, and I turned and left the table. He called out to me, “I didn’t mean that!”

  Furrowing my eyebrows, I turned around and went back over to the table. “What?”

  “I don’t hate her. She’s just . . .” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Now I’m stumbling over words.” He laughed nervously. “I’m Charlie.” Eyes falling to the clip on my apron, he said, “nice to meet you, Amy.”

  Smiling as I turned red, I nodded. “Nice to meet you, Charlie. You come on Thursdays, right?”

  “Every Thursday morning.”

  “Cool.” As the word came off my lips, I immediately felt like a child. Cool? Are you a teenager? “I’ll get your order in. Was there anything more I could get for you?”

  He shook his head. Charlie’s eyes stayed on mine, and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel invisible. I felt like he could see me, something I hadn’t felt in years. I knew right then that he wasn’t just a passerby in the world, but someone with whom I could feel a connection—one of those rare but marvelous people that stirs a part of your soul that doesn’t come alive but once, maybe twice in a lifetime. My prayers began to gravitate toward wisdom to know what to do next. With so much bad in my past, I held a constant fear of meeting someone new today only to repeat the mistakes of my yesterday.

  “Okay.” Darting away from the table, I felt like a school girl in a cafeteria who just spoke to the most popular boy. He thinks you were spying on him! The rest of his visit, we exchanged smiles as I refilled his coffee and we shared glances across the restaurant as I worked. My heart told me we both knew there was something more to each other, but I thi
nk we just weren’t sure how to handle it. He was cute and left my head spinning.

  Chapter 6

  A cool early morning breeze nipped at my bare shoulders two days later on my way out the door to go work at the Inn at the Lake. I went back inside and retrieved a sweater. My eye caught a picture of my late mother on the dresser as I put on a red sweater that she had gotten me the Christmas before she passed. My heart longed to see her again, even to just hear her sweet voice once more. But I knew it’d have to wait until the day we reunite in heaven. Her passing was hard, but the regrets I had afterward were harder. I should have visited a bit more, nagged a bit less, and thanked her for all she had done. She wasn’t perfect, but she was my mother and I loved her. Though she gave me the advice to stay with John, I believe she would have been proud of all I had achieved after I left John. I imagined my mother playing with my sweet baby, Hope, in heaven. I know she would’ve been so thrilled to be a grandmother.

  After letting the moment slip away, I headed out the door and drove to the inn for a couple of hours of work before I enjoyed my day off. Pulling into the driveway of the inn, I saw Charlie’s car. For not liking Jody, he sure comes around here a lot. Fumbling in my mind for an excuse, I arrived at the idea that I needed a drink of water and thus, the reason I was going to go in. The real reason, though, was Charlie. He was too mysterious and cute to not want to know more.

  Quietly, I went in through the front door of the inn. Jody had told me I could let myself in whenever I needed. Tiptoeing to remain inconspicuous, I glided through the foyer and toward the kitchen. I could hear them around the corner in the kitchen, so I pressed myself up against the wall and lent an ear to listen.

  “Charlie, like I’ve told you before, there is just nothing we can do.” Jody’s words were strained.

  “Yeah, I know, Jody. I guess I just expected more.”