by Lori Whyte
After that, he would need to go shopping. He scratched his head as he mentally tallied what he'd need. It wouldn't be cheap.
A weird unease settled over his shoulders. Did he really want to do this?
As partial owner, maybe he didn't have a choice. They'd all need to chip in if they were going to see a return on investment. Still, even if he did help get the place back in working order, it didn't mean he was committed to staying here permanently.
Sure, he'd decided to sell his house in the city, but he didn’t feel like he belonged here anymore than he belonged there. He swallowed. He could stick it out here for a bit. A few months. Maybe a season. Then he'd move on.
Which meant he had to make some decisions about this boathouse and the rest of the recreational equipment.
The boats would be the biggest expense. The canoes were in pretty good shape, but the pontoon had seen better days. The fiberglass was scraped and dented, the seat covers were cracked and two of the lights were broken. And he wasn't willing to send anyone out on the water in these safety vests either, so he'd need a bunch of them too.
He left the dock and walked toward the inn to talk to the others about his plans. He glanced out across the water. It was peaceful here, as long as a guy didn't dig too deeply into his memories. But he couldn't help but feel that something was missing.
Not something… someone.
Sanctuary Lake was all twisted together in his head with Rachel Connors. Beautiful, loving Rachel.
Where had she ended up? He hoped she was somewhere exotic. She probably had five kids and a house with a pool by now. She'd always been so full of plans and ideas. She'd known what she wanted… and she'd wanted out of Sanctuary Lake almost as much as he had.
A squeal drew his attention back to the inn. Mason was spinning Anna around in a circle in the center of the rose garden they'd just finished constructing. Her face was alight with joy.
He hoped Rachel had found that kind of happiness. That was his wish for her.
Guilt twisted in his chest.
It would be selfish to wish anything else. It would be selfish to hope that he might ever see her again… even more selfish to dream that she might forgive him for breaking her heart all those years ago.
Hell. She wouldn't even remember him anymore.
Just because he was continually trapped in the past didn't mean anyone else was.
And wasn't that the truth?
Rachel Connors still haunted his dreams and he doubted he'd ever find another woman he could love like he'd loved her.
THE END
The first two chapters of Grady and Rachel's story is at the end of this book. So if you aren't ready to leave Sanctuary Lake yet… just turn the page!
Forgive Me (Sanctuary Lake #2) is currently available exclusively in the Crazy Cat Ladies Box Set. For more information, visit my website: loriwhyte.com/forgive-me!
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Thank you for reading Trust Me. I had fun writing it, so I hope you enjoyed it too! To find out more about my books, visit my website: loriwhyte.com
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FORGIVE ME (Sanctuary Lake #2) is currently available exclusively in the Crazy Cat Ladies Box Set. For more information, visit my website: loriwhyte.com/forgive-me!
Chapter One from Forgive Me
Grady Randall couldn't run fast enough or far enough to shake the memories dogging him, but he tried anyway.
It didn't help that he was back in Sanctuary Lake.
The influx of vacationers every summer weekend gave the town a fake, hollow atmosphere. He hadn't noticed it all those years ago when he'd last lived here, but now things were different. He was different. He had grown tired of lies and deceit, and in Sanctuary Lake they seemed to be everywhere.
The fact he couldn't figure out a better place to be at the moment grated on him almost as much as spending every day at the old family inn again. His job there—correction, his temporary job there—was to take vacationers on trips around the lake. It was a fluffy way to make a living and a far cry from his last line of work, but at least this one didn't haunt him at night.
Today's lake excursion had been canceled. The holiday crowd was staying close to town because of the gathering clouds and the rainy forecast. That was one good thing. It meant the trail was empty.
He pushed himself harder, relishing the way the cooling wind whipped over his sweaty face. There was one more bend before he would hit the bluff and have to turn back. His feet thumped along the worn dirt pathway that encircled the lake. To do the full circuit required one night of camping on the far side, but he was tempted to see how long it'd take if he just kept running. But there was no time for that today. He'd started too late.
As he sprinted to the top of the outcropping, loose rocks tumbled down the slope before plunging into the white capped water below. Wind beat at him as he reached the precipice. In the distance, the town site crowded against the shoreline, but it was too far away for him to make out if anyone was standing on the dock. From here, Sanctuary Lake appeared almost like the idyllic place it pretended to be.
His phone buzzed.
He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. A text from Mason popped up: We on for tonight?
Clouds roiled overhead, darkening the early morning skies. It matched his mood, and his thoughts about having his brothers over. They were concerned about him but, seriously, he didn't need this togetherness thing. He got it. But he still itched to call it off. The whole thing.
Then he could keep running, and maybe then he'd sleep.
He started back down the path without responding.
The phone buzzed again with another message from Mason. This time it was a single question mark.
Grady shook his head as he jumped over a tree root. He should wait to answer just for the hell of it. His steps thumped along the hardened dirt trail. The steady rhythm was calming. Maybe he could go for another jog after they left.
He needed to reply. Mason wouldn't stop until he got an answer.
Grady slowed enough to tap a Y in reply to Mason. The phone filled in the word to a yes. Sent. Done.
Then he lost himself in his run again. Time and thoughts faded away. Perfection.
When he passed a jagged tree stump, he turned right. He was in the final stretch now. He sprinted up the embankment along a nearly invisible path. When he reached the top, the trees thinned and revealed a narrow asphalt road. The humid air grew still, eerily so, a sure sign the storm would crash down upon them soon. But it didn't matter now. He was almost home.
Home? Nah. This was temporary. Nothing more.
When he'd been younger, Brander's Hill had been notorious among the local teenagers as a make out spot. He and his brother Jake had come here on double dates a time or two, on those rare nights when their adoptive mother let them borrow the family car, but that was when they had only been known for being wild... Before Jake became branded a murderer.
At some point in the last twenty years, someone had paved the road and carved the hill into acreages. He wasn't sure why. The only time you could see the lake was in the dead of winter after the leaves fell from the trees. Maybe that explained why only three of the lots had been developed. Everyone else wanted a view of the water.
He caught glimpses of Mrs. Golder's pastel gray stucco house through the aspens as he followed the asphalt to his place.
She'd introduced herself within half an hour of him showing up with the moving van. At first she hadn't recognized him as one of those Randall boys her son Seth used to hang with. On the other hand, he knew her immediately. She hadn't changed at all. She took fifteen minutes to outline her expectations of him as a neighbor. She'd been somewhat mollified to learn he was a former private investigator. Well, until he'd handed her his b
usiness card, that was.
When she'd seen his name in black and white in front of her, she'd gaped. Her mouth opened and closed like one of the trout he and his brothers used to catch on the lake. He didn't bother telling her Seth was hanging with the Randall boys again.
Not that they'd encouraged the friendship.
The guy wouldn't leave them alone. He badgered them daily about becoming one of the inn's investors.
No, Mrs. Golder didn't need to know that.
If she knew, she would be over at his house lecturing him about not letting her son do anything foolish, like she had when they were teenagers. He could still vividly remember one day when he'd been mowing the lawn at the inn. She'd charged up to him in an old wood panel station wagon, accelerated across the grass and damned near hit him. Then she'd shouted at him, telling him that he wasn't to allow Seth to go out waterskiing with them anymore. Her baby had pulled his groin the day before and apparently that was the last straw.
No, Mamma Golder must not have found out about Seth's investment dreams, because she hadn't been back to see him since he'd moved in. But she hadn't lost interest in him either. What did the locals always say? Something about 'you couldn't trust a Randall'? She took that to heart. Her curtains fluttered every time he entered or left his house.
Just as they did now.
He waved at her, but the shadowy figure behind the filmy drapes didn't move. She was probably too busy scribbling in a notebook, documenting his movements, to spare him any other type of acknowledgement.
As he neared the next house, he slowed. A woman in a large-brimmed straw hat was sitting in front of a weedy flower bed. She appeared to be talking to a ginger cat who was staring at her. He hadn't met the woman who lived there yet, although he'd caught a few fleeting glimpses of her, but that had always been from a distance.
According to the sign on her driveway, she ran some kind of cat hotel, Pretty Paws. That seemed a bit odd for Sanctuary Lake, which was a resort town. People wouldn't bring their pets all the way here to stick them in a garage under a stranger's care, would they? Wasn't the whole idea to leave the animals close to home so they weren't agitated? Grady wasn't the business-minded Randall and even he could figure that much out.
He paused to stretch his legs as he watched her. If she looked up, he could introduce himself. It was always good to know the neighbors, but he didn't want to intrude. Most people in Sanctuary Lake didn't take kindly to a Randall walking onto their property uninvited.
Then she turned to toss a weed in the wheelbarrow at her side. He caught a glimpse of the side of her face. She was smiling at the cat and a small dimple in her cheek winked at him.
It couldn't be…
The rumble of an engine cut through the pre-storm quiet, but he didn't turn to look at the car leaving Mrs. Golder's place. She might track his movements, but he didn't need to follow hers. Besides, he couldn't tear his attention away from the woman in front of him. Was he imagining it? He narrowed his eyes.
It couldn't be her.
Someone had told him she'd sold her dad's place after he died. He was sure she'd left town to go to the city. She'd always talked about doing that.
But when she smiled at the cat, who'd come to sniff her dirt-covered hands, there was no mistaking her identity. Now that he knew who she was, he let his gaze drift over her. She was all sexy, enticing curves. Gorgeous.
He had always known she would be a beautiful woman.
His neighbor was the only girl he'd ever brought up to the top of Brander's Hill. The only person who hadn't shunned him when Jake had been arrested. The only one he had ruthlessly cut from his life because he couldn't handle the way people had looked at her when she was with him.
His neighbor was Rachel Connors, the only woman he'd ever allowed himself to love and the only one he swore he'd never see again.
Chapter Two
It was blackmail, plain and simple. Don't think I won't do it. The old witch's threat rang in Rachel's ears.
She couldn't believe the old biddy had actually threatened to complain about her cat hotel being too disruptive to the neighborhood if Rachel didn't weed her flower beds. The neighborhood consisted of three houses, and the new guy was never around. Besides, the few extra cars a week were hardly overwhelming.
But she couldn't risk having her business license revoked, and the old cow knew it.
Mrs. Golder was a tyrant. Old age hadn't softened her one little bit. Didn't she know people had lives?
Well, okay, so Rachel's life was filled with cats, books and old John Hughes movies, but that didn't mean she wanted to give all of that up to pull weeds. Her life was perfectly balanced and exactly the way she liked it. She didn't need to add gardening or anything else.
At least the humidity on the air promised a storm.
"As soon as the first drops of rain hit the ground I'm going inside," she muttered under her breath.
She pushed her fingers into the soft dirt, hunting for the rest of the quack grass root that had broken off when she'd pulled it. Why couldn't Mrs. Golder have believed her argument that it was an ornamental grass?
Aha! There it was.
She grabbed the pearly white root and tugged. A small part of it came up easily. Yes. She had it.
Then it broke again.
Damn it. How far did these roots go, for pity's sake? She'd never get rid of all this. She should pay someone to do this, like the new guy across the street had done. The day after he'd moved in, a landscape company arrived and rolled through the whole place.
But that cost money she didn't have.
She shook the dirt from the clump, then tossed it toward the wheelbarrow. Jupiter, the only one of her cats she allowed outside, leapt and grabbed it out of the air before it reached its destination.
"Hey, quit that," she scolded half-heartedly.
Jupiter, so named because of the large oval pattern on his orange belly, didn't even blink at her. He jumped on the roots, then tossed them up. When they landed, he batted at them a few times. Then he abandoned them to crouch behind the peony and eyed her, as if waiting for her to throw something else.
At least someone was having fun.
She sat back and surveyed her progress. She'd weeded about two square feet of the planting bed. Only twenty bazillion left to go. Maybe she should hire a high school student to do the rest. They would be cheaper than a professional company, wouldn't they?
She pulled off her hat and flopped back on the grass. The sky was filled with clouds the color of charcoal. Come on, rain, start falling already.
Jupiter came over and nuzzled her hand.
"I know," she muttered as she scratched his head. "I should be working."
The door to the house opened and heavy footsteps clopped over the wooden deck and down the steps. Rachel didn't bother asking why her younger sister Liana was stomping around like a sullen teenager; she'd find out soon enough.
"How could you?" She leaned over Rachel with her hands on her hips. Her long blond hair swayed around her flushed face like a veil.
"What did I do now?"
"You got another cat." Her voice rose to a painfully high pitch.
Rachel bit her lip and propped herself up on her elbows. Damn. How had she figured it out so quickly? The cute little calico had only arrived last night. Liana wasn't supposed to be poking around in the house. She was only there to help with the books for the business. Rachel took a deep breath before diving into the too familiar argument.
"I run a cat sanctuary and hotel, remember?"
"You are a frigging addict," her sister muttered. "You barely make enough from the hotel to feed all of the ones you've adopted. And, really?"
Liana's foot was tapping a staccato on the grass, catching Jupiter's attention. Her wedge sandal was open-toed with a small fringe that bounced with each tap. The cat was mesmerized. Rachel reached out and covered it with her hand to stop it. The last thing she needed was for him to attack Liana's foot.
"Really wh
at?" she asked after the toe stopped moving under her fingers. She didn't bother pointing out Pretty Paws was booked solid for the next few months as people went away on their summer holidays. Nothing prompted the locals to get far away from Sanctuary Lake like seeing the tourists arrive by the carload. Liana knew that. She did the books. She was just being obstinate.
"You're breaking the municipal bylaw," her sister said, triumph written on her face. "I found out all about it on the town's website."
"You did what?" Rachel rushed to her feet. "I have a business license. I—"
"For the hotel, but no one is supposed to own more than three cats. That's the bylaw."
Rachel glanced over her shoulder to the pale gray house next door. Thank God Mrs. Golder wasn't in her yard right now. The older woman already wanted to report her. The last thing the biddy needed was more ammunition.
She walked to the house, hoping Liana would follow. If they were going to have this conversation, they should at least be inside. Away from Mrs. Golder's earshot.
"They have nowhere else to go," she spoke softly as she climbed the steps to the deck. "It's either here or be euthanized. Don't you remember? Jupiter's owners decided they wanted a dog instead, so they took him to the vet to put him down. Mercury's humans moved into a care home. Saturn's said she caused too much damage to their furniture—"
"Enough," Liana said, waving her hand through the air. "Yes, I know all that, but you can't take in any more. There is a limit to what is reasonable. And you”—she thrust her finger at Rachel—"are way past reasonable. You damn near have the whole solar system covered."
Okay, so she liked to rename them when they came to live with her. She considered it their rebirth into a new life. Jupiter had come first. His markings made naming him simple, and then she'd stuck with the theme. So far her fur babies were named after all the planets except Uranus, for obvious reasons, and Earth. She planned to name her latest calico adoptee Pluto, even though the astronomers had demoted his namesake to a dwarf planet. And Liana was right, she was running out of planetary names, but there were tons of other things in the universe she could use for inspiration: other solar systems, moons, comets…