Suddenly in Love (Lake Haven#1)

by Julia London

  “Nothing, nothing.” She held up her hand as she tried to quell her laughter. “Far be it from me to—oh come on, really? You’re a musician?” She tried to contain another laugh but it came out as a snort.

  “Is that so hard to believe?” he asked, smiling, infected by her mirth. “Why not a musician? I write songs.”

  “Ooh, okay, a songwriter,” she said gaily. “Now it’s totally believable.”

  Brennan didn’t know what to say.

  “What kind of songs, anyway?”

  He shrugged. “Love songs. Songs about people and emotions.”

  “Nice. So that’s what you’ve been doing upstairs all this time. And here I thought you were watching endless loops of Jeopardy.”

  “Give me a break,” he said, grinning. Brennan sort of liked that she didn’t believe him, and he didn’t correct her. “I’ve been drinking and sleeping.”

  “Aha! I like a man with priorities,” she said with happy skepticism.

  “You like music, right?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Mostly classical. Give me Bach over the radio any day.”

  Well that explained it. No wonder he didn’t look even vaguely familiar to her.

  “So tell me, Music Man . . . do you relax and let the vibe come to you?” She laughed again at her ribbing.

  “I try.”

  “Maybe you can play some of your songs for me sometime. Do you play an instrument?”

  “How do you think music is made?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Computer?”

  “I play a little guitar, a little piano.”

  “Good for you!”

  She said it in a tone one would use to encourage a small child. He knew she believed him to be a slacker with grandiose visions of himself. He would have said as much, but Mia’s sparkling gaze was locked on his, and Brennan lost his train of thought. He seemed to forget everything but those eyes shining up at him. He realized what he was doing and abruptly looked down at the wet spot of turpentine. “I better leave you to find your vibe while I find mine.”

  “Good luck with that,” she said merrily.

  “You too,” he said, and pointed at the wall as he started for the door. “Because that wall is going to need it.”

  She laughed, the sound of it light and amused. It was the sound of happiness, which was something Brennan hadn’t heard in a while now. He liked it. It made him feel warm.

  He paused at the open French door to look back at her. She was staring at the wall, her head cocked to one side, a finger tapping against her bottom lip. He looked at her bare, shapely legs that ended inside a pair of Converse high tops. He looked at the snug fit of her skirt, and how the hem swung around her knees. At the flowing silk top she wore with it. His gaze moved to the skirt again, because he was a guy, and he couldn’t help himself . . . and that was when he realized the fabric was familiar to him.

  He walked on, remembering—he’d seen that same pattern on the kitchen table.

  The girl was wearing a skirt made from an upholstery sample.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having her around for the renovations. It might actually be amusing. Maybe Brennan would discuss starting small with his mom. Nothing too loud and drastic. But enough to keep Mia coming up here every day.

  He would like that.

  Eleven

  It was family tradition for Mia’s entire extended family to meet every Monday night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a potluck dinner.

  This Monday night, when Mia arrived with Derek, her mother met them at the screen door dressed in dark green ankle pants with tiny yellow flowers that matched her yellow sweater set. Her golden-red bob of hair was tucked neatly behind her ears.

  “Hey, Mom,” Derek said, bending low to kiss her cheek. “Guess what? Mia’s getting an apartment.”

  Mia gaped at her big brother. “Are you kidding me right now?” she demanded, and Derek snatched her hat from her head and twirled it on his finger. “I told you not to say anything!” Mia tried to snatch the hat back, but Derek held it high over her head.

  “An apartment?” Mia’s mother exclaimed. “You can’t afford an apartment! What’s wrong with your room?”

  Mia gave her brother a sideways kick to the ankle. “I’m almost twenty-eight, Mom. I’m too old to live at home.”

  “Who is?” Skylar had emerged from the kitchen, eating from a bag of chips. She had that glassy look, the same one she’d get when she’d smoke pot in the school parking lot before class.

  Mia’s mother ignored Skylar and glared at her daughter. Her hands found her hips as Derek stuffed Mia’s hat back on her head. “You have no business getting an apartment.”

  “You’re getting an apartment? Why didn’t you say so?” Skylar exclaimed. “We could have gotten one together.” She held out the bag of chips to Mia.

  “No, we couldn’t.” Mia took some chips, then pushed the bag away.

  “Your father and I are more than happy to let you save up to get back on your feet,” her mother said petulantly. “He even made that studio for you out back!”

  Mia laughed. “He moved the riding mower out of the shed and set up an easel. It’s not exactly a studio.”

  “You know what I mean. It’s at least a place you can have some peace and quiet to work on your art.”

  The only problem was that Mia wasn’t working on her art. She felt stifled in her family home, a thousand steps backward from the woman she’d been in New York.

  “I’ll take her place, Aunt Randa,” Skylar said, shifting closer to Mia to share the bag of chips. She did indeed smell faintly of marijuana. “I’m thinking of writing a book. I could use the shed for that.”

  “I don’t think my brother is going to agree to that,” Mia’s mother said, referring to Skylar’s dad.

  Skylar shrugged. “Maybe Grandma and Grandpa will let you have one of the cottages,” she suggested to Mia.

  Their grandparents owned and operated the East Beach Lake Cottages, four one-bedroom cottages just below the pine trees on the edge of the beach. Grandma and Grandpa’s Victorian house with its enormous wraparound porch was nearby. This was where Mia had grown up—she’d spent summers here with her brothers and cousins in this house. She’d built snowmen with Grandpa, chased fireflies into the lake on long summer nights, had celebrated birthdays and holidays here. All of their lives were well documented by framed photos that hung on a long hallway wall, which Mia’s oldest brother, Mike, called the wall of shame.

  “Living in a cottage would be like living at home. Only Grandma would be watching me instead of you.”

  “I don’t remember inviting you to live in one,” Grandma said as she puttered into the living room with a crystal bowl newly refreshed with the soft, pastel-colored mints commonly found in nursing homes and octogenarian living rooms. She was a tiny thing, with a white head of hair. She was wearing red Keds—a shoe she’d been partial to for as long as Mia could remember. “Why do you need a cottage anyway?” her grandmother asked.

  “Apparently, she thinks living with her father and me makes her a loser,” Mia’s mother snapped as she sailed off into the kitchen.

  Mia sighed, then fixed a pointed look on Derek. “Happy now?”

  “Totally,” he said.

  “You could come and live at our house,” Skylar suggested.

  “Well, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Grandma said. “And right now, you need to go help your aunt.” She pointed toward the kitchen. “You,” she said to Derek, “go and find your brother.”

  “What’d I do?” Derek asked, but he swiped up a half-drunk beer from the entry console and went out.

  “I’ve got to put the rolls in,” Grandma said. “Mia, you can toss a salad—What is all that racket?”

  Someone was climbing up the porch steps.

  “Hel-lo!” Aunt Amy was standing at the screen door, her forehead touching it, and one hand cupped around her eyes as she peered in. “Mia! Can you open the door? Our hands are fu
ll.”

  Behind Aunt Amy was her daughter Emily with her two young children, Ethan and Elijah. Ethan was about two years old, Elijah six months old. He was strapped into a stroller. Both Emily and Aunt Amy wore Lululemon running tights and jackets. Aunt Amy had swept her blonde hair into a ponytail and wore a pink ballcap. She’d probably run five miles this afternoon. Emily had styled her short dark hair and was wearing makeup. Emily had not run five miles since high school cross-country.

  Mia opened the door for them. “There’s Cousin Mia,” Emily sang as she unstrapped Elijah from the stroller and handed him to Mia. He gave Mia a big, toothless grin.

  “That’s an interesting hat,” Emily said to Mia. Her slender nose crinkled as she stared at Mia’s repurposed fedora.

  “I like it,” Aunt Amy said a bit defensively as she stepped into the house.

  “I just said it was interesting,” Emily said.

  “Hey, weirdo,” said Skylar, having escaped the kitchen again. She wrapped Emily in a tight hug. Then said, “Let me see that baby,” as Ethan darted past Mia into the kitchen. She took Elijah from Mia’s arms.

  “Mia, guess who is getting married?” Emily asked as Skylar covered Elijah’s face with kisses. “Frederica Holland. She’s marrying a millionaire. He has a house on Greystone Drive. She met him at the beach last summer and now they’re getting married.”

  “Okay,” Mia said. Freddie Holland had been the valedictorian of her class. Mia had hardly known her.

  “You should totally find a millionaire,” Emily said, as if one just went down to the corner store and picked one up.

  “Right. Because every woman’s goal should be to marry rich,” Mia scoffed.

  “Well if you want to be an artist, it might not hurt,” her father called from the kitchen, apparently having arrived by way of the back door.

  “Anyway,” Emily said, “she’s getting married and I need a dress for the wedding. Will you make me one?”

  “You want one of her dresses?” Derek asked, passing by them to open the screen door for his wife, Tamra.

  “Not one of hers,” Emily said. “One that I would wear. No offense,” she hastily added to Mia.

  “I’ll try not to take any.”

  “Hello, everyone,” Tamra said as she stepped inside. She was several months pregnant and had one hand on her distended belly, the other firmly wrapped around the wrist of her five-year-old son, Hayden. Ethan ran out of the kitchen, his steps slowing as he took in Hayden. Hayden was oblivious to the toddler, however, as he had spotted some toys on the lower shelf of Grandma’s entry console.

  “Skylar, I heard you’d come back. Good to see you.” Unlike the rest of the rowdy McCauley-Lassiter-Painter clan, Tamra was very reserved. What wasn’t reserved was her beauty—she had pale-blue eyes and blonde hair.

  “Come in, everyone!” Grandma called. “Let’s eat before it gets cold!”

  As the family came in from other rooms and outside, there was the usual confusion about where the children would sit, who needed to be on the ends, until everyone found a seat. Derek was dispatched to find Uncle John, and the two of them came in together, sliding into their seats just as Grandma began to say grace. She was almost through when Mia’s brother Mike flew in the back door and skidded to a halt at an empty chair next to Mia, bowing his head as Grandma finished.

  “Glad you could make it, Mikey,” Grandma drawled, and picked up a huge bowl of mashed potatoes.

  “Are you kidding? I never miss your cooking, Grandma.” He looked at Mia. “Nice hat.”

  “Shut up,” Mia said, smiling.

  “Grandpa said to start without him,” Mike said as he took the bowl of potatoes from Grandma and put a huge serving on his plate. He passed the bowl to Mia. “They haven’t finished the work on number two cottage.”

  “Speaking of that,” Grandma said, “do you know who is doing the work for Grandpa, Mia?”

  Mia blinked. “No. Should I?”

  “Jesse Fisher,” Grandma said and smiled slyly. “You remember him, don’t you?”

  “Of course I remember him. I grew up with him,” Mia said. Jesse was a jock—he’d played football and basketball, and he’d dated all the popular girls. Mia had not been in his stratosphere. She’d been the furthest thing from the kind of world Jesse lived in as a girl could get.

  “I remember him. He was a cutie,” Skylar said with enthusiasm.

  “He owns a construction company now,” Emily said.

  “I mention him because I thought maybe you’d want to come by some afternoon and say hi to him,” Grandma said to Mia. “He is the nicest young man—”

  “Grandma, no,” Mia said sternly, and put the platter of chicken down so firmly that her glass rattled.

  “I’m just saying,” Grandma said, unruffled. “There are a lot of nice young men in East Beach. Did you hear about Freddie Holland?”

  “Yes, I heard about Freddie Holland,” Mia said, trying not to let her annoyance show.

  “I really like Jesse, and he’s not married,” Grandma blithely continued.

  “No matchmaking, Mother,” Mia’s mom said. “I thought we’d agreed.”

  “What?” Mia asked, confused, but the sound of the screen door slamming shut startled them all. They heard the familiar footfall of Aunt Bev striding across the living room, and then she burst into the dining room carrying a cake pan. “Could you not wait five minutes?” she demanded of everyone. “John, I told you I was on my way!”

  “Calm down, Bev. We just sat down,” said Aunt Amy. She smiled and held up a plate to her sister-in-law.

  “You will not believe what’s happened!” Aunt Bev announced grandly, forgetting her impatience. She slapped the pan onto the long table and took the plate. “I got the bid. I got the bid!”

  “You have to explain what you’re talking about, Mom. No one can read your mind,” Skylar said.

  “The Ross house!”

  “The Ross house,” Emily repeated thoughtfully. “Is that the one the Saudi sheik bought?”

  “Close, Emily. But it was actually a crazy bitch from Seattle.”

  “Beverly!” Grandma protested.

  “Well, she is,” Aunt Bev insisted as she shed her sweater and purse. “Anyway, that woman has been stalling me and stalling me, but I put together a great bid, and she called this afternoon and said we could do this in stages. The north wing first, then the south. She’s sending the retainer down tomorrow and we can get started right away.”

  “Way to go, Bev,” Uncle John said, and lifted his hand, which Aunt Bev promptly high-fived.

  Aunt Bev leaned across the table and heaped some mashed potatoes onto her plate. “Even better, Mia is going to be our on-site representative.”

  Mia’s fork froze midway to her mouth. “I am?”

  “You are. All you have to do is report what’s going on every day. I’ll schedule everything, and if anything comes up, I’ll handle it.”

  “Aunt Bev—”

  “Now, Mia, I know the woman is a little looney, but you’ll be fine.”

  “It’s not the woman, it’s her crazy son she’s afraid of,” Skylar said with a snort. Surprised, Mia looked at her cousin. How would Skylar know? Wallace. His gums had been flapping again. Mia reminded herself not to talk to Wallace about anything that mattered.

  “Her son?” Mia’s father asked, looking at Mia. He had that look in his eye, that worry that he’d carried for months after the summer of Mia’s senior year.

  “Mia discovered him up there,” Skylar said. “Nancy Yates never even mentioned him!”

  Wallace was thorough in his report, apparently.

  “I don’t always mention my children, either,” Grandma said.

  “What—are you worried about him?” Aunt Bev asked, and waved a spoon at Mia. “Oh, Mia, you wouldn’t believe some of the stuff Wallace and I have seen. Not to worry, sweetie. The son is probably just passing through. None of those rich kids ever stay out here for long.”

  “My theory? He’
s a mama’s boy with issues,” Skylar suggested.

  Mia regretted ever mentioning Brennan to anyone. She wished she’d given him the benefit of the doubt instead of jumping to conclusions about him. “That’s not really true,” she tried.

  “I’ve figured it out,” Skylar continued, pointing a fork at Mia. “He’s an addict. Addicts are paranoid and erratic. Trust me, I’ve known a couple.”

  “An addict!” Mia’s mother exclaimed. “I don’t like the sound of that, Bev.”

  “He’s not paranoid. Not in the classical sense,” Mia said. Whatever that meant.

  “He’s harmless,” Aunt Bev scoffed, even though she’d never met him. “He’s probably one of those summer people who thinks his eccentricity is charming.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s cooking meth up there,” Skylar said darkly.

  “God, Skylar,” Mia said, and laughed. “No one is cooking meth up there. Drago Kemper is the security guard and he would never allow it.”

  “Just hear me out,” Skylar said. “It’s a huge house. And you told Wallace he looks drugged out half the time.”

  “I said he looked tired,” Mia corrected her. At least she hoped that’s what she’d said. She wanted to add that he’d looked completely different in Eckland’s. And again today, in that empty room, looking at her stupid wall. He’d looked . . . sexy. That was it. His body was so hot, and when those blue eyes locked on her . . . a tiny shiver flitted up Mia’s spine and spread warmly into her cheeks.

  “Maybe it’s agoraphobia,” Aunt Amy said. “I saw that on Dr. Phil once. Agoraphobes don’t like to be around people.”

  “You’re mixing up your phobias, Mom,” Emily said.

  “Maybe he’s just a jerk,” Aunt Bev said with a shrug. “It’s probably nothing more complicated than that.”

  “He also could be recovering from something. A death in the family?” Mia’s mother suggested.

  “Oh, poor baby,” Derek said. “It’s like, if you have money, you have the luxury of wallowing in heartbreak. The rest of us have to get back to work.”

  “Well if that’s it, he’ll probably take off on one of those eat, pray, love things before long,” Aunt Amy said. “And then you won’t have to worry about it, Mia. Listen, one thing is for sure—he’s not going to hang around boring East Beach. Pass the ham, please.”