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Dockside at Willow Lake
Susan Wiggs


Find your own happy ever after with Susan Wiggs…With her daughter grown-up and flown from the nest, Nina Romano is ready to embark on a new adventure. As a young single Mum there were things she’d given up – no postponed! – and this is Nina’s time to start again, chase new dreams and find herself or at least a new self…!But just as she she’s beginning to enjoy being on her own, Nina meets Greg Bellamy, owner of the charming Inn at Willow Lake. Greg’s struggling being a single dad, his teenage daughter is pregnant and he can’t figure out how to fix things. Nina finds herself stepping in to help. Perhaps Nina’s new life will include a new love?For fans of Cathy Kelly












Acclaim for New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs


‘this is a beautiful book’

—Bookbag on Just Breathe

‘… Unpredictable and refreshing, this is irresistibly good’

—Closer Hot Pick Book on Just Breathe

‘… Truly uplifting …’

—Now Book of the Week

‘A human and multi-layered story

exploring duty to both country and family’

—Nora Roberts on

The Ocean Between Us

‘Susan Wiggs paints the details

of human relationships with

the finesse of a master.’

—Jodi Picoult

‘The perfect beach read’

—Debbie Macomber on Summer by the Sea


Also bySusan Wiggs

The Lakeshore Chronicles SUMMER AT WILLOW LAKE THE WINTER LODGE DOCKSIDE SNOWFALL AT WILLOW LAKE FIRESIDE LAKESHORE CHRISTMAS

The Tudor Rose Trilogy AT THE KING’S COMMAND THE MAIDEN’S HAND AT THE QUEEN’S SUMMONS

Contemporary HOME BEFORE DARK THE OCEAN BETWEEN US SUMMER BY THE SEA TABLE FOR FIVE LAKESIDE COTTAGE JUST BREATHE

All available in eBook


Dockside at Willow Lake

Susan Wiggs












www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


For boat commutes to our writers’ group in the

summer, for treacherous drives through frozen winter

nights, for sticking together through spring floods and

autumn rains, for my fellow writer

and friend for all seasons—

For Sheila! For Joy!




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Many thanks to the real innkeeper, Wendy Higgins of The Ocean Lodge in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Deepest appreciation to fellow writers Elsa Watson, Suzanne Selfors, Sheila Rabe and Anjali Banerjee; also to Kysteen Seelen, Susan Plunkett, Rose Marie Harris, Lois Faye Dyer and Kate Breslin for their humour, wisdom and patience in reading early drafts.

Special thanks to Meg Ruley and Annelise Robey of the Jane Rotrosen Agency, and to my terrific editor, Margaret O’Neill Marbury.








‘A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature.’

—Henry David Thoreau

Walden, ‘The Ponds’




Part One

Now


“You are part travel guide, social director, advertising and marketing specialist, housekeeper, chef, accountant, public relations specialist, buildings and groundskeeper, and local historian all rolled into one. If … you are willing to work hard, are dedicated to creating comfortable accommodations for visitors, have a love of your area and a desire to share that passion with others, then you may want to consider owning and operating a bed and breakfast inn.”

—The Bed and Breakfast Association of Alaska




One


After Shane Gilmore kissed her, Nina Romano kept her eyes shut. All right, she thought, so he wasn’t the world’s best kisser. Not every man was born a great kisser. Some had to be trained. Surely, Shane Gilmore was trainable.

She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. He certainly looked like a good kisser, with nicely sculpted lips and a strong jaw, broad shoulders and thick black hair. Maybe he was just having an off day.

“I’ve been waiting a long time to do that,” he said. “Your term in office couldn’t end soon enough for me.”

He didn’t mean it as a dig. Did he? The fact that her term as mayor of Avalon, New York, had concluded in scandal still stung; maybe she was just being paranoid. She decided to laugh it off. “All right, now you sound like one of my political enemies.”

“My reasons are romantic,” he insisted. “I was waiting for the right time. It wouldn’t have looked right for us to be together when you were mayor, not with me being president of the only bank in town.”

You look like such a hunk, she thought. Don’t act like a dork. And yes, she was being paranoid about the scandal, which was odd, because given her background, Nina was no stranger to scandal. As a young single mother, she’d held her head up and gone to work for the town of Avalon, eventually serving as deputy mayor. The salary was almost nonexistent, and hadn’t improved much when Mayor McKittrick fell ill and she became the de facto mayor, the youngest and lowest-paid in the state, as far as she knew. She’d inherited a city-finance nightmare. The town was on the verge of bankruptcy. She’d cut spending, which included her own salary, to the bone and eventually found the source of the leak—a corrupt city administrator.

Enough, she thought. This was a new chapter of her life in so many ways. She’d just returned from three weeks away. She and Shane were on their first date, and quibbling with a first date was a no-no. And aside from that kiss—awkward and way too … slobbery—things were going all right. They had shared a Sunday afternoon picnic at Blanchard Park, on the shores of Willow Lake, the town’s best asset. Afterward they had taken a leisurely stroll along the lakeshore, and that was where Shane made his move. He’d stopped right in the middle of the path, cast a furtive glance left and right and then pressed his mouth in full lockdown mode upon hers.

Ew.

Snap out of it, Nina scolded herself. This was supposed to be a new beginning for her. While she was raising her daughter, she’d never had the time or energy to date. Now that she was making her belated entry into the world of dating, she really shouldn’t ruin it by being hypercritical. She had ruined more first dates by being hypercritical than … come to think of it, she’d ruined all of them. First dates were the only kind Nina Romano ever had, because there was never a second. Except that one, years ago. The one that had resulted in her getting pregnant at the age of fifteen. After that, she’d concluded that second dates were bad luck.

Everything was different now. It was time—past time—to see if a date could actually turn into something besides a disaster. Nina’s daughter Sonnet was grown; she had finished high school early, at sixteen, and had been accepted at American University, neatly avoiding every youthful mistake Nina had made.

Don’t, she thought, feeling herself starting to drown in thoughts of Sonnet. In a moment of insane self-deception, Nina had convinced herself that it would be easy to let go of her daughter. To let go of the child who had been Nina’s whole world until high school graduation a few weeks ago.

Trying to pull herself back into the moment with Shane, she quickened her pace and felt a fiery sting along the length of her leg. Too late, she saw that she had strayed too close to a clump of thigh-high nettles.

Even when she gave a soft hiss of pain, he didn’t seem to notice as he strode along beside her, filling her in on his latest round of golf.

Golf, thought Nina, gritting her teeth against the stinging sensation. Now, there was something she’d always wanted to try. There were so many things she’d put off learning and doing. Now that Sonnet was gone, it was Nina’s turn to take her shot.

The thought put a spring in her step despite the nettles. It was a gorgeous Saturday afternoon and people were out in droves, like creatures awakened from hibernation. She loved the sight of couples strolling along the lakeshore, families picnicking in the park, catboats and canoes plying the clear blue waters of the lake. Nina loved everything about her hometown. It was the perfect place to launch the next phase of her life.

Though not financially rewarding, serving as mayor had brought her friends and allies who far outnumbered her enemies, even after the finance scandal. These connections, and Shane’s bank, were the key to her new endeavor. Now that Sonnet was gone, Nina was about to resurrect a long-buried dream.

“So you’ve been waiting for me to free myself of the mayor’s office,” she remarked to Shane. “That’s good to know. How are things at the bank?”

“Actually, there’ve been a few changes,” he said. “I was going to talk to you about that later.”

She frowned at the way his gaze shifted as he spoke. “What sort of changes?”

“We’ve got some new personnel who came on board while you were away. And can we not talk about business?” He touched her arm, sent her a meaningful look. “On the path back there—” he gestured “—it felt like we really clicked. I missed you. Three weeks is a long time.”

“Uh-huh.” She reminded herself to be fair, to give this date a chance. “Three weeks isn’t that long, not to me. I’ve waited for years to get going. This is it. My new life. I’m finally starting a future I’ve dreamed about ever since I was a little girl.”

“Um, yeah. That’s great.” He seemed uneasy, and she remembered that he didn’t want to talk about work, so she dropped the subject.

“I’m glad I got to make the trip with Sonnet,” she told him. “I can’t remember the last time we had an actual vacation.”

“I thought maybe you’d be seduced by big-city life and never come back,” he said.

He didn’t know her at all, then. “My heart is here, Shane,” she said. “It always has been. Here in this town where I grew up, where my family is. I’d never leave Avalon.”

“So you got homesick on your trip?”

“No, because I knew I’d be coming back.” The day after graduation, Nina and Sonnet had taken the train to Washington, and they’d spent three glorious weeks together, seeing the nation’s capital and the colonial monuments of Virginia. Though Nina wouldn’t admit it, she was also reassuring herself about Sonnet’s father, Laurence Jeffries, and his family. Sonnet would be spending the summer with him. Laurence was a high-ranking army officer, a military attaché. He’d invited Sonnet to travel with him, his wife and two daughters to Casteau, Belgium, where Laurence was assigned to the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.

Having a father who worked at SHAPE was a wonderful opportunity for Sonnet, who would be serving at NATO as an intern. It was a chance for her to get to know Laurence better, too. Laurence and his trophy family. He was a shining star, an African-American graduate of West Point. His wife was the granddaughter of a famous civil rights leader, and his daughters were honor students at Sidwell Friends School. Yet they genuinely wanted to make Sonnet feel welcome, or so it seemed to Nina. At summer’s end, Sonnet would matriculate at American University. Simple, thought Nina. All kids left home, right?

The fact that Sonnet would be living with her father, step-mother and stepsisters was simple, too. Blended families were the norm in this day and age.

So why was it, every time she imagined Sonnet in that so-perfect Georgetown brick house or the quaint Belgian town filled with SHAPE and NATO personnel, that Nina panicked? She felt her daughter becoming a stranger, more distant with each passing day. Stop it, she admonished herself again.

Letting her go was a good decision. It was what Sonnet wanted. It was what Nina wanted, something she’d been waiting for—freedom, independence. Still, saying goodbye had been a leap of faith. Thank goodness, Nina thought, she had something to come back to besides an empty house. She had a new life, a new future planned, a new adventure. Nothing could take the place of her daughter, but Nina was determined to move forward. There were things she’d given up, things she’d missed by becoming a mother at such a young age. No, she reminded herself. Not given up. Postponed.

Shane was talking again, and Nina realized she hadn’t heard a word he’d said. “I’m sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was telling you, I’m pumped about going kayaking. I’ve never been.”

Pumped? Had he really said pumped? “The lake’s a good place to start. The water’s pretty tame.”

“Even if it’s not,” he said, “I’m prepared. I bought some gear, just for today.”

They arrived at the town dock and boathouse, busy with people out enjoying the best weather of the year so far. She saw couples and families strolling or splashing in the shallows. Her gaze lingered on a couple sitting on a bench at the water’s edge. They were facing each other, holding hands, leaning forward in earnest conversation. They were ordinary people—he had thinning hair, she had a thickening waistline—yet Nina could sense their intimacy, even from a distance. There was a certain posture people took on when they loved and trusted each other. The sight of them made her feel wistful; she was no expert on romantic love, having never experienced it firsthand before. One day, though, she might unveil that mystery for herself.

Glancing over at Shane, she thought, probably not today.

He mistook her glance. “So after we go kayaking,” he said, “I thought we’d go to my place. I’ll fix you dinner.”

Please, she thought. Please stop trying so hard. She smiled up at him. “Thanks, Shane.” Once again, she reminded herself to loosen up. In a way, dating was like being an explorer, setting off into unknown territory.

“Nina,” someone called. “Nina Romano!”

There, in the picnic area near the boat shed, was Bo Crutcher, the star pitcher of the Avalon Hornets, a Can-Am Baseball League team. As usual, the long, tall Texan was drinking beer and hanging out with his buddies.

“Hey, darlin’,” he drawled. His accent flowed like sun-warmed honey.

“I’m not your darling, Bo,” she said. “And isn’t there a rule about drinking before a game?”

“Why, darlin’, I reckon there is. How’d you get so smart?”

“I was born that way,” she said.

“Seems like you know everyone in town,” Shane remarked.

“That was my favorite part of being mayor—meeting so many people.”

Shane looked back over his shoulder at Bo. “I don’t know why he hasn’t been fired from the team.”

“Because he’s good.” Nina knew Bo Crutcher had been cut from other teams thanks to his party-animal ways. The Can-Am League was pretty much his last chance. “When you’re good at something, people tend to overlook a lot of other flaws. For a while, anyway. Eventually, though, they catch up with you.”

The sound of boyish laughter carried across the water, catching Nina’s attention. She immediately recognized Greg Bellamy and his son, Max, launching a canoe.

Every unattached woman in town recognized Greg Bellamy, the ultimate in recently divorced guys. He was ridiculously handsome in a white-teeth, sparkling-eyes, broad-shouldered, six-feet-something way. For a long time, Nina had had a secret crush on him. He wasn’t for her, though. He came with too much baggage in the form of two kids. Nina knew and liked Max and Daisy, but she kept her distance. She had finally reached a place in her life where she could just be by herself. Taking on another woman’s children was not in her plans.

Besides, Greg wasn’t interested. When he first moved to town last winter, she’d invited him to coffee but he turned her down. Nina reminded herself of this when someone else joined Greg and Max—a woman in breezy white capri pants and a lime-green sweater. She appeared to be about eight feet tall and very blond. Although she wasn’t close enough to see, Nina knew she was attractive. That was the only type Greg Bellamy seemed to favor. Italian-American women under five foot two, known for their fiery tempers, cropped hair and lack of fashion sense, didn’t appear to interest him.

Resolutely pulling her attention from Greg Bellamy, Nina led the way to the boat shed where she kept her kayak. She’d had the kayak for years because she loved being on the water. Willow Lake—the Jewel of Avalon, as it was known in chamber of commerce brochures—was ten miles long, fed by the Schuyler River and bordered by the wooded rise of the Catskills. One end of the lake faced the town of Avalon and was fringed by the popular city park, which Nina had been instrumental in funding when she was in office. Farther along the lakeshore were summer homes and the occasional bed-and-breakfast hideaway. Privately owned property on the lakeshore was exceedingly rare, since the land was now part of the Catskills Forest Preserve. The few places that had been built before the preserve stood like storybook settings from another time. In the shape of a long, curved finger, crooked as though beckoning, the lake stretched deep into a pristine wilderness. At its northernmost reaches nestled a place called Camp Kioga. The property had been in the Bellamy family for generations. Of course it had. Sometimes, it seemed to Nina, the Bellamys owned half the county. The camp had recently reopened as a family resort. At summer’s end, it would be the setting for a much-anticipated wedding.

As she and Shane brought the kayak from its berth in the boat shed, she felt a surge of nostalgia. She had bought the two-man kayak years ago at the annual Rotary auction. It was perfect for her and Sonnet. Remembering those rare summer days when she stole time from work to go paddling on the lake with her daughter created a pang of longing so unexpected that Nina caught her breath.

“Something the matter?” Shane asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just excited about getting out on the water again.”

He went to his car to get his gear. While Nina launched the kayak at the dock, she tracked the progress of Greg Bellamy’s canoe. He and his boy, Max, paddled in tandem while the blonde sat like a Nordic princess in the middle. Wasn’t she bored? What fun was it to just sit there, keeping every hair in place, white pants unwrinkled?

Nina wondered who the woman was. Thanks to the upcoming Bellamy family wedding, there had been lots of visitors to town and to Camp Kioga—event planners, florists, caterers, decorators. The bride-to-be was Greg’s niece, Olivia. Perhaps the Nordic princess was going to be his wedding date.

Since she came from a huge family, Nina was no stranger to weddings. But of course, she’d never been a bride. Maybe now that she was truly on her own, she would get married. Turning away from the scene on the lake, she glanced at Shane Gilmore, returning from the parking lot. Then again, she thought, maybe not.

He had geared up for kayaking in a crash helmet and float coat, a protective spray skirt that circled his waist like a floppy tutu, a VHF radio and amphibious shoes.

“Well, look at you,” she said. Fortunately, serving as mayor had taught her to be diplomatic.

“Thanks,” he said, preening in his gear. “I got everything at the preseason sale at the Sport Haus.”

“Lucky you,” murmured Nina. “You probably won’t need the helmet and skirt today. Those are usually only needed for extreme whitewater kayaking.”

He disregarded her advice and eased into his seat while she held the boat steady. “Ready?” he said, banging the fiberglass hull against the dock as he settled in.

“Not quite,” she said, and picked up the paddles. “We don’t want to be without these.”

“Dang,” he said, “I feel like this is going to tip over any second.”

“It won’t,” she said. “I had Sonnet in this when she was five years old. In good weather, there’s no safer way to be on the water.”

He clutched at the side of the dock as Nina got in. She told herself not to be so critical of this guy. He was the bank president. He was educated and good-looking. He said things like, “Do you know how long I’ve waited to ask you out?”

She showed him how the rudder worked and demonstrated a simple paddling technique. So what if he was a dork? So what if he was wearing a crash helmet and spray skirt? There was something to be said for exercising caution.

Besides, she could tell he was enjoying their outing. Once they paddled away from shore and glided across the smooth surface of Willow Lake, he relaxed visibly. This was the magic and beauty of being on the water, Nina reflected. This is why the lakes of upstate New York were so legendary, having been sought after by harried city dwellers ever since there was a city. The water was dotted with catboats with sails like angels’ wings, other kayaks, canoes and rowboats of all sorts. The weeping hills, veiled by springs and waterfalls, were reflected in the glassy surface of the lake. Paddling across the sun-dappled lake was like being in an Impressionist painting, part of a peaceful and colorful tableau.

“Let’s go over here,” she suggested, indicating with her paddle. “I want to take a look at the Inn at Willow Lake—my new project.”

A beat of hesitation pulsed between them. “It’s kind of far,” he said. “Clear across the lake.”

“We can be there in just a few minutes.” She tried not to feel annoyed by his hesitation. The Inn at Willow Lake was going to be her life. As bank president, Shane was one of the few people who was privy to that dream. The inn had gone into foreclosure and the bank now held the title. Thanks to Mr. Bailey, the asset manager, Nina had been given the management contract for the place. She would oversee its reopening and operation. If she did a good job, if things went as planned, she’d qualify for a small business loan and buy the place for herself. That was what she wanted. It was something she dreamed of doing all her life.

Without meaning to, she went faster, her rhythm out of sync with Shane’s so that their paddles clashed. “Sorry,” she said. But she wasn’t really. She was in a hurry.

As she paddled toward the historic property with its long dock projecting out into the lake, her heart lifted. This was the only hotel on the lake, thanks to deed restrictions that had been enacted after it was built. The property consisted of a collection of vintage residences around a magnificent main building, which lay upon the emerald slope like another place in time. The Stick and Italianate architecture was a superb example of the irrational exuberance of the Gilded Age. There was a wraparound veranda and gables along the upper story. There was an incredible belvedere rising like a wedding cake, its turret crowned by an ornate dome. The mullioned windows offered a matchless view of Willow Lake. From her perspective on the water, Nina could imagine the place in the old resort days, when the grounds were dotted by guests sunning themselves or playing croquet, and lovers walked hand-in-hand along the shady paths. There was a part of Nina that was a shameless romantic, and the inn fed that fantasy; it always had. Her favorite building was the boathouse, built in the classic style of the lakes of upstate New York with covered boat slips at water level, and living quarters above. It was made of the same whimsy and luxury as the main building of the inn.

In accordance with her agreement with the bank, the upper level of the boathouse was to be her private residence, and she had plans to move within the week. The boathouse had originally served as a lavish playroom for the children of the original owner, with quarters for the nanny. Lately, however, it had been used for storage.

Ever since she was a little girl, she’d pictured herself here, warmly welcoming guests from the world over as they gathered for lemonade and croquet on the lawn in the summer or for hot chocolate and cozy reading by the library fireplace in winter. She had always known exactly how each room would look, what low-key music would be playing in the dining room, what the baking muffins would smell like in the morning.

Her plans had been derailed by a teenage pregnancy and the responsibility of raising a child alone. No, she thought. Not derailed. Delayed. Now an opportunity had opened up and Nina was determined to seize it. She was ready for something new in her life. With Sonnet gone, she needed it.

To some people, being an innkeeper might not have sounded like much. To Nina, it was the start of a long-held dream. As they glided close to the dock, she felt a warm thrill of excitement, not unlike the sort of thrill she was supposed to feel for her date.

“So there it is,” she said. “I can’t wait to get started.”

He was quiet. She wondered if he was checking her out and twisted around in her seat. “Shane?”

“Yeah, about that,” he said, jerking his helmeted head in the direction of the inn. “There’ve been some interesting developments at the bank.”

Nina frowned. “‘Interesting’ sounds a bit ominous.”

“While you were away, Bailey retired and moved to Florida.”

She relaxed. “I know. I sent him a card.”

“And we brought in a new asset manager from the main branch, a woman named Brooke Harlow. She made some changes in her department. She had orders from the home office to improve her bottom line.”

Nina’s heart faltered. “She’s still going to honor my contract, right?”

“Rest assured, that contract is considered a valuable part of the package. You have a fantastic reputation. No question you’re the best general manager for the job.”

“Why doesn’t this sound so good to me, Shane?” she asked.

“Well, actually, it could be very good. The Inn at Willow Lake has been sold, and your contract with it.”

She turned again and scowled at him. “Not funny.”

“I’m not telling you to be funny. It’s just something that happened.”

“It can’t happen.” Yet the churning of her stomach told her that indeed, it could. “I expected the bank to give me the option to buy the place as soon as I’m able to qualify for a loan.”

“I’m sure you knew it was a possibility that the bank would divest itself of the property if a buyer came along.”

“But Mr. Bailey said—”

“I’m sorry, Nina. That’s what happened.”

She’d been aware of the risk. She’d known it when she signed her contract, but Mr. Bailey had told her the possibility was highly unlikely. As soon as Nina qualified for a small-business loan, she would be in a position to buy the place.

The Inn at Willow Lake. Sold.

For a few moments, she couldn’t get her mind around the reality. It just seemed like such a foreign concept. Of course the inn would be sold one day—to her. That had always been the plan.

“Anyway,” Shane went on, ignoring the fact that every word that came out of his mouth was another hammer blow, “it belongs to someone else now. You won’t believe who the buyer is.”

Nina Romano felt something snap inside her. This clueless man, this spray-skirt-wearing lousy kisser, was sitting there informing her that her entire future, the one thing she had counted on to fill her life now that Sonnet was gone, had been taken away. It was too much.

“Hey, are you all right?” he asked.

Not the smartest question to ask an Italian-American woman with steam coming out of her ears.

Nina’s body was not her own. As though possessed by demons, she reared up in the kayak and went for his throat.




Two


“Isn’t it a bit early in the season for swimming?” Brooke Harlow asked Greg Bellamy.

Curious, Greg turned to see what she was pointing at—a couple with a kayak in the distance. A dark-haired woman and a guy in a crash helmet appeared to be locked together in the kayak in a passionate embrace, churning up water all around them as the craft bobbed and rolled. Stillwater kayaking was supposed to be a relaxing sport, Greg thought. But it was none of his business. Whatever floats your boat. Ha, ha.

He tried to shake off his sour mood. It was a blue-sky, summer’s-coming day and he damn well better enjoy it. He was spending the afternoon with a woman who looked like a lingerie model. His twelve-year-old son was actually behaving like a human being for once. It didn’t take long for Greg to figure out why. Max was … Damn, he was checking out Brooke Harlow. The kid was only twelve. That was way too young to be interested in women. Wasn’t it just yesterday that Max was playing with Tonka trucks, making motor sounds with his mouth?

Brooke shook the water from her hand. “Brr. I think I’ll wait until later in the season to try swimming. How about you, Max?”

“I don’t mind cold water,” he said.

Greg suspected Max would be agreeable to walking across hot coals if Brooke suggested it. He tried to send his son a telepathic message—you’re too young to be thinking what you’re thinking. But Max was oblivious to everything except Brooke.

Greg told himself not to worry about the situation. But of course, these days, he worried about everything, including the fact that later in the summer, Max would be going overseas to visit his mother. Which was more depressing for the kid: having his parents together, but miserable, or having them an ocean apart? Also depressing—the fact that Greg was thinking about these things when he was supposed to be on a date.

This wasn’t a date, not technically. That wouldn’t happen until Greg took her to dinner tonight. She was the new asset manager of the bank, and she’d recently overseen a major transaction for him. For better or worse, Greg now owned the Inn at Willow Lake. He had paid cash for the place and Brooke had expedited the transaction so it took place in a matter of days. His ex, Sophie, would probably be the first to tell him he was crazy, which was why he hadn’t told her yet. The place had been vacated and was now closed for renovations. He’d dived in headfirst, hiring a contractor and spending his own days—and nights—hard at work on the place. The idea was to reopen as quickly as possible. Greg and his kids, Max and Daisy, had already moved to the premises and now lived in the owner’s residence at the edge of the property. The boxy Victorian house was a far cry from their first home, a luxury high-rise in Manhattan, but the three of them were adjusting well enough, all things considered.

He dug in his paddle and, at the front of the boat, Max did the same. Working as a team, they paddled in tandem and soon had the canoe gliding through the clear water. For a few blessed seconds, Greg felt connected to his son, the two of them engaged in a rare moment of cooperation. They used to live their lives according to the same rhythm, but since the divorce, they’d been out of sync.

“Holy crap, Dad,” said Max, pointing at the people in the kayak. “I think that guy’s in trouble. We should go check it out.”

“No, they’re just horsing around,” Greg said. Seconds later, the woman went overboard. A fount of water exploded around the kayak. The woman in the water was trying to hold the kayak upright while the guy flailed and shouted.

The kayak bobbed, then toppled sideways in a roll. The guy in the helmet yelled a word Greg liked to pretend Max didn’t know, then crashed into the water.

“Oh, my lord,” Brooke said, “I think that’s Shane Gilmore.”

The bank president. And, as Greg and Max paddled closer, he realized that the woman in the water was Nina Romano. Damn. What were the chances?

The dude in the crash helmet seemed to be shoving at Nina with a paddle. Maybe he knew something Greg didn’t about her.

“You guys need some help?” Greg shouted, bringing the canoe alongside the kayak. Stupid question. He extended his oar toward Nina.

She ignored it and said, “Help me hold this upright. He’s panicking.”

Great, thought Greg, his skin shrinking as he thought about the water temperature. “Hang on,” he said, then sucked in a big breath of air and dove into the lake. He emerged a few feet from the rolling kayak.

“The kayak’s taking on water,” Nina shouted. “He’s stuck and he won’t stay still.”

“Get him the hell out, then,” Greg said, going numb from the shock of the cold water.

“His spray skirt is caught on something,” she yelled.

The guy was flailing and coughing. “Can’t … swim.” His face was white, his lips a chilly blue. The crash helmet was knocked askew. His hands were locked like vise grips in the cross straps of the kayak.

“You don’t need to swim,” Greg said. “We’re going to get you to that dock over there, okay? But you have to sit still.” In his mind, he added, you pussy. A grown man who couldn’t swim, even with a flotation vest. What was up with that?

They made it to the dock quickly because it was so damn cold that Greg kicked at high speed. The dock, projecting from the grounds of the Inn at Willow Lake, had definitely seen better days. Some of the planks were warped and the nails rusted, and a fine film of algae covered the piers. A rickety ladder was attached to the side.

Shane clung to it, shivering, while Nina hoisted herself out of the water and bent over the hull of the kayak. “Hold still,” she said. “Let me figure out what you’re caught on. I think this cord—”

“Screw the cord.” With safety assured, anger took over. Shane clawed a pocket knife from his pants.

“Hey, don’t—”

Ignoring her, he sawed through the carrying cord of Nina’s kayak and clambered out onto the dock. “Thanks, Nina,” he said. “It’s been … real.”

“I’m sorry,” she said faintly. “I had no idea you didn’t know how to swim. You should have said something before we launched.”

“Nobody can swim hanging upside down underwater.”

“I know. I said I was sorry …” Nina gazed up at Greg, her eyes watering and her chin trembling. Poor thing, Greg thought. He was confused by a sudden urge to pull her into a soothing hug. He wanted to tell her the guy was being a jerk, not worth crying over. Then, seeing a tremor in her throat, he realized she wasn’t fighting tears, but holding in laughter. In the spray skirt and crash helmet, Gilmore looked like a grotesque, angry ballerina.

Don’t make eye contact, Greg cautioned himself. Too late. He and Nina looked straight at each other and immediately lost it. Between guffaws, Greg saw the bank president’s color turn a furious red.

“Happy you’re so amused,” Shane said.

Greg struggled for control. “Hey, it’s just relief, buddy,” he said. “We’re glad you’re okay.”

Nina giggled helplessly while still shivering with cold.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Gilmore muttered.

Brooke and Max arrived in the canoe. She clambered out and ran to Shane, clucking over him like a mother hen.

“You’re freezing,” she said.

“So am I,” said Greg, but she almost stepped on him as she rushed toward Shane.

Greg eyed Nina, who was hugging herself, teeth chattering. She was a small, intense-looking woman. He found her oddly attractive—oddly, because he wasn’t usually drawn to her type. Yet there was something about Nina. He’d always been intrigued by her. And now he had big news to share with her. He’d pictured a different sort of meeting about the inn, though.

“Is he the first to wear a crash helmet on a date with you or have there been others?” Greg asked.

“Very funny. And clearly, it doesn’t help.”

“Listen, I’m parked at the inn,” Brooke said to Shane. “If you want, I can give you a lift to your car.”

Shane’s lips had turned from blue to indigo. “That’d be good.”

Brooke said her goodbyes to Greg and Max. Then she turned to Nina, offering the dazzling smile that had inspired Greg to ask her out in the first place. “I’m Brooke Harlow.”

“The bank’s new asset manager,” Nina said, her eyes narrowing. “And you’ve parked your car at the inn.”

“Sure. I drove myself over.”

“Shane was just telling me about you.” Somehow, despite being soaked to the skin, Nina managed to summon a kind of icy dignity. “Nina Romano.”

“Oh, you’re Nina! I’ve heard so much about you. We’ll have to catch up, but I should give poor Shane a lift before he freezes.”

“You do that,” Nina said.

Brooke offered Nina an uncertain smile. “Nice to meet you. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”

“Count on it.” Nina thrust up her chin as though trying to make herself taller.

“I’ll call you,” Brooke said to Greg.

No, you won’t, he thought. He could see it in her eyes, because he’d seen it before. His life was way too complicated to appeal to a woman like Brooke Harlow, a fresh transplant from the city, looking for a simpler way of life. He was divorced, had custody of two kids and was about to launch a new business, all of which meant he didn’t have unlimited time to give to a relationship. Okay, he had maybe five minutes a day to give to a relationship.

Still, he watched Brooke leave with a twinge of regret. She had runway-model legs, long blond hair, a great smile and … He tried to figure out if he liked her personality. Did she have one? With those looks, did she need one?

Max tied the canoe to a cleat. “I’m going to go fishing, okay, Dad?” he asked.

“Okay, but stay on the dock,” Greg said, glad that the kid wanted to do something more wholesome than checking out Brooke Harlow.

Greg turned to Nina. She was facing the inn, her dark eyes diamond-bright with … He couldn’t read her expression, but he could tell she wasn’t happy. Dripping wet, she looked even smaller than she usually did, her jet-black hair hanging limp and her spandex shorts and T-shirt clinging. He could tell at a glance that under the shirt, she was wearing one of those heavy-duty athletic bra things. Whoever invented that garment lacked imagination.

“Well,” Nina said as she bent down and started bailing water from the kayak. “Well, doesn’t this just make my day?”

Greg wondered why—besides being soaked to the skin—she was acting so hostile. This was not a good sign, since they would soon be working together. One thing he had never figured out was how to penetrate a woman’s anger. He hadn’t been able to do so back when he was married, and he wasn’t able to do it now. He’d known Nina off and on over the years—mostly off. He remembered her as a lively kid some years his junior, a local girl he saw when he came to spend his summers at Camp Kioga. He recalled more about her than she could possibly know, but it was probably not a good idea to bring that up, especially with her in this mood. When he’d first moved back to town last winter, she’d made what he thought might be an overture, but he’d been reeling from the divorce and hadn’t taken her up on it. Now, looking at her, he called himself a fool. There was more fire and appeal in a wet, angry Nina than in a hundred blond Brookes.

The old planks of the dock creaked as Nina bent to hoist the kayak out of the water.

“I’ll give you a hand,” said Greg. He felt mildly annoyed that she hadn’t asked for help. The kayak was heavy, and as they upended it a slew of water soaked their feet all over again. They set it up on the dock to drain some more. Greg watched Brooke and Shane cross the broad lawn. For their first—and apparently final—date, Brooke had brought her own car to the inn. Although he hadn’t been divorced for long, Greg had learned the separate cars ploy right away. When arranging a rendezvous—date, hookup, whatever—it was safer to arrive and depart separately. This evening, Greg had planned to leave Max with his older sister, Daisy, and take Brooke to dinner, after which—please God, it had been so damned long—he would get laid.

But no. Clearly, that was off the table. Now he was wet and cold and stuck with an equally wet, cold and ticked-off Nina Romano.

The last time he’d seen her was at high school commencement a few weeks before. He and Nina each had a graduating senior. Sonnet Romano and Daisy were friends, but the future lying before each girl couldn’t be more different. Sonnet was headed for travel and adventure and college, as he recalled, while Daisy was—

“I’d better be going,” Nina said, interrupting his thoughts. “My car’s clear across the lake at the municipal boat shed.” She bent to relaunch her kayak.

“Forget that,” Greg heard himself say. “Let’s go inside and dry off.”

He gestured toward the inn. The main building was a house of wonders, having been built in the 1890s as a vast family summer compound by a railroad baron with more money than common sense. Over the generations, the place had undergone a number of transformations, ultimately becoming the sort of cozy lakeside resort people thought of when they needed to escape somewhere.

“What do you mean, let’s go inside?” Nina asked. “The place is closed.”

“True.” He dug in his pocket. “Luckily, I have a key.”

She gaped at him. Her face paled and her voice was a rasp of disbelief as she said, “I don’t understand. What are you doing with the key?”

Oh, boy. This wasn’t the way he’d planned to tell her. He’d envisioned a business meeting, both of them in dry street clothes. What the hell? he thought. “The Inn at Willow Lake belongs to me now.”

Not only did Nina Romano have a Sophia Loren face, with those large, gorgeous eyes and full lips; she had an expressiveness about her that showed every emotion. She wasn’t reserved and cool like the girls Greg had grown up with—bloodless, sleek-haired schoolgirls or the queen of all suppressed emotion, his ex-wife, Sophie. Nina instantly expressed everything she felt. Maybe that was why Greg found her a little scary. Unlike the Brooke Harlows of the world, he sensed Nina could be a real threat, because she might actually make him feel something besides plain lust.

At the moment, she had an entire succession of emotions on display—shock, denial, hurt, anger … but no acceptance.

“So you’re the one who bought this place while I was away,” she said, anger shaping every word.

“Gilmore didn’t tell you?”

She glared at him. “I didn’t actually give him a chance.”

Greg didn’t know why she was so pissed off, or why he felt defensive. “It’s probably serendipitous that we both ended up here. I know you hold the general management contract. We’ll need to renegotiate that.”

Still radiating fury, she said, “Renegotiate.”

“You made the agreement with the bank. The contract was sold with all the other assets, but we’ll have to change some things.”

“No shit,” she said, and marched toward the inn.

The moment she stepped from the wraparound porch into the sunroom of the inn, Nina was transported. Even though the place had seen better days, an air of faded gentility and elegance lingered in the arched doorways and carved wooden mouldings and railings, the tall ceilings and carpenter-Gothic window casements. She had spent a lot of time here, both in person and in her dreams. The smell of fresh plaster and paint indicated that renovations were already underway.

When she was a little girl, she and her best friend, Jenny, used to watch the Rainbow Girls in their white dresses and gloves going there for their monthly meeting. The Rainbow Girls were a group of privileged young ladies who gathered to work on charitable pursuits, and they’d always seemed like a breed apart to Nina, like fairies who lived on a special diet of meringues and cream. She never actually wanted to be one of them—they seemed a bit boring to her—but she wanted to be their hostess. When she and Jenny would ride their bikes past the inn, she’d say, “I’m going to own that place one day.”

The owners, Mr. and Mrs. Weller, lived on the premises and ran the place as a quiet retreat for tourists and people from the city. Nina had worked there each summer, beginning when she was thirteen. The work was not glamorous, but she’d been fascinated by the operation of the hotel, the array of guests from all over. Later, as a young mother, she’d moved up from housekeeper to desk clerk, bookkeeper and assistant manager, learning every aspect of the business. Even dealing with plumbing woes and cranky guests hadn’t discouraged her. After Mr. Weller died, Mrs. Weller carried on, but never with the same spirit she had when he was alive. When she passed away, she left the place—along with its mortgage—to her only living relative, a nephew in Atlantic City. He entrusted its management to a contract firm that let everyone go and sent in their own staff. Nina went to work as the mayor’s assistant while she finished her education. The experience had led to her being appointed to office when the mayor had been incapacitated by illness. Her friends and family thought her head would be turned by city politics, but she always came back to the idea of the Inn at Willow Lake.

Due to neglect and mismanagement, the inn went into foreclosure. It seemed a perfect opportunity for her, a time to take a risk, to start something new.

Her first step had been to approach Mr. Bailey, the bank’s asset manager, and propose to him that she reopen the inn, managing it on behalf of the bank while she applied for a small-business loan. It seemed like the perfect arrangement.

Now she stood dripping on the faded cabbage-rose carpet in the salon and stared at Greg Bellamy, the new owner of the inn.

Funny, he didn’t look like the kind of guy who stomped people’s dreams into the ground. He looked—God—like Mr. Nice Guy. Like Mr. Nice Guy with an incredible body and killer smile and hair that was great even when it was wet.

Still, she had no trouble hating him as he hurried to a supply closet and grabbed some towels and a spa robe and slippers. “You can dry off and put these on while I throw our stuff in the dryer,” he said.

The man was clueless, she thought, grabbing the bundle and heading into the closest guest room. The Laurel Room, it used to be called. Oh, she remembered this place, with its beautiful woodwork and lofty ceilings, the white porcelain sink set into an antique washstand. Apparently, Greg had wasted no time fixing the place up. The walls bore a fresh coat of sky-blue paint and a new light fixture hung from the ceiling. From the window, she could see Max out on the dock, casting with a fishing rod.

She tried to numb herself to all feeling as she peeled off her cold, clammy things and put on the robe. The thick terry cloth fabric felt wonderful against her chilled skin, but she was in no mood to feel wonderful. Bitterness and resentment filled her up like poison, and it was hard not to feel utterly persecuted by fate. It seemed that every time her turn came up, something happened to snatch it away.

All her life, she had made every choice for practical reasons, governed by what was best for Sonnet. Finally she had reached a point where she could take a risk. If not the inn, then something else. It was true that because of area covenants, there could never be another inn on the lake, but there were other options. She could become a painter, a bookseller, she could train for a triathlon, open a dog-grooming parlor, drive a bus … a thousand possibilities lay before her.

The trouble was, she wanted this. The Inn at Willow Lake. Nothing else would do. Only she wanted it on her terms, not Greg Bellamy’s.

Snap out of it, she scolded herself, cinching the robe’s belt snugly around her waist. She had a great kid, a loving family, the chance to serve as mayor. She ought to be counting her blessings, not tallying up her losses.

Yet when she marched back to the lobby with her clothes in a squishy bundle, she was far from calm. She was still a seething ball of fury.

Greg had managed to scrounge up a pair of painter’s pants and had paired them with a slightly-too-tight T-shirt. His hair was attractively mussed. The fact that he looked completely hot only made her madder. The friendly, warm gas fire he’d ignited in the salon’s fireplace made her madder still.

“I’m glad I ran in to you,” he said. “I’d heard you were back from your trip. Is Sonnet okay?”

“She’s fine.” All right, so he was being nice, asking about her daughter. Of course, he could afford to be. He already had what he wanted.

“I wanted to set up a meeting this week. We have a lot to talk about.”

Hugging the oversize robe around her, she went to the settee in front of the annoyingly cheerful fire. “I don’t think there’s anything to say.”

He smiled. Smiled. “This is an opportunity for both of us. I’m going to need a general manager, and the bank already had a deal with you. Now, about your contract—”

“The contract.” She rubbed her temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache. “It was supposed to be so simple. How did this happen?”

“It is simple. Bailey retired from the bank and Brooke took over the asset management. She sold me the inn.”

Nina glared at him. “What did you do, sleep with her to get a good deal on the place?”

He glared back. “That’s none of your business.”

All right, Nina thought, that was probably a low blow, but she didn’t care. “I don’t get it. What on earth do you want with this place?”

“It’s exactly what I’ve been hoping to find. A business that keeps me close to home for my kids, something I like doing. And I know you’re the ideal manager. You’ve got a history with the place, experience running it. You’re perfect.”

This was so classic. The Bellamys were a favored family. It seemed to Nina that every last one of them had been born with a silver spoon in their mouth. It seemed that fortune denied them nothing. While ordinary people like the Romanos struggled for everything they had, the Bellamys swept in and helped themselves.

For Nina, even traveling was bad luck. “The deal’s off,” she said tightly.

“Are you always this angry, or is this something special, just for me?”

“I had plans,” she snapped. “I know that doesn’t matter to you, but—”

“Come on, Nina. At least hear me out.”

“Why should I?”

He didn’t react to her challenging tone. Instead, he said simply, “No reason. We barely know each other. For what it’s worth, I had plans, too.”

Plans. “You probably want to turn this place into some kind of overpriced corporate retreat,” she said. “And wouldn’t that be just charming.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“I’ve seen the numbers. It’s the best way to turn a profit.”

“And that’s what I’m all about. Turning a profit.”

To be honest, she didn’t know what he was about. She didn’t know much about him at all. That hadn’t stopped her from jumping to conclusions about him. She took her fury down a notch.

“So tell me. I really want to know.”

He studied her, and there was something in his gaze, some level of trust and confidence. “All my life, I’ve done what I thought I was supposed to do. Ten years ago, I started my own firm in Manhattan because it seemed like the responsible thing to do. What I ended up with was a job I didn’t like and one that made me ignore my family.”

All right. So he wasn’t a complete selfish bastard. But why on earth did his act of redemption have to step on her toes? “There are lots of ways to do that,” she told him. “You don’t need this place.” I do, she thought. I always have. When she was fifteen years old, the roadmap of her life had unfolded, and she’d always known her final destination was here.

“You don’t know what I need. Maybe this will give you an idea.” He went to the front desk, already furnished with computer and phone. She heard the breathy whisper of a printer, and then he brought her a copy of the contract. She’d been so excited the day she’d signed it. Now she felt sick to her stomach.

“The modifications are in bold,” he said.

“You think you can come in here with your money, buy this place and me along with it, a single woman with limited options,” she said. “Well, think again. You can’t—”

“When you buy a business, you buy all its assets and liabilities. This contract with you is one of its assets.”

She grabbed the document from him and studied his suggested changes. She blinked to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks. He had increased the salary and added a profit-sharing option and pension.

Just for a moment, she wavered. This was real money. For once in her life, she would be financially secure. She could help out Sonnet, because even with the scholarships she’d won and her father’s contributions, it didn’t mean her education would be without cost.

No, Nina thought. No. She recoiled from the contract as though it had turned into a snake. For all the incentives he’d added, he’d still taken away the one thing worth having—the possibility of owning the place one day.

She got up and went to the window, knowing she probably looked completely undignified in a robe three sizes too big, but she didn’t care. She studied the view outside—a broad, sloping lawn dotted with Adirondack chairs, the belvedere, carriage house and caretaker’s quarters, the boathouse, dock and the lake in the distance. Max had apparently grown bored with fishing. A pole lay abandoned on the dock. “I’m not signing that,” she said over her shoulder. “Find someone else.”

“I suppose I could opt for a commercial management company from out of town, but I’m hoping to avoid that. I want you,” he said simply.

She swung around to face him. “You can’t have me.”

His expression indicated that this was not something he often heard from a woman. Well, of course not. He was a Bellamy. He looked like the American Dream come to life. He was not the kind of guy a woman refused. “You were perfectly happy to make a deal with the bank,” he pointed out.

“That was different. I—” She stopped herself. She wasn’t going to tell him her hopes, the future she’d imagined for herself. It was none of his business, and she already looked pathetic enough, standing here in her borrowed robe. “I have to go,” she said, heading down the hall to the laundry.

“Your clothes aren’t dry yet.”

“I’ll live.” She’d survived worse.

He intercepted her in the hall. For a second, his nearness shocked her and she didn’t know why. Her skin flushed and her heart sped up, and all he was doing was standing there. He smelled of the freshness of the lake, and unlike some guys, he looked even better up close. Kissing Shane Gilmore hadn’t affected her like this, and Greg wasn’t even touching her.

She glared at him. “You’re in my way.”

“I’m just not getting the rage, Nina. What is up with you?”

“You don’t get me, that’s what. This was supposed to be my time to shine. My whole life has been reacting to a change of plans. I never dreamed I’d be realigning my thinking about this and now here I am … I don’t walk away from a challenge.”

“Then why would you do that now?”

“There’s nothing here for me, nothing but a job, working for you. I don’t need this. I don’t need you. I have options.”

“I want you to stay,” he said, still close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath. “Let’s talk about this.”

She suspected he started a lot of sentences with “I want.” She kept her gaze steady as she said, “There’s really nothing to talk about. I suggest you get busy trying to find someone to sign your contract.” With that, she pushed past him with as much dignity as she could muster, and ducked into the laundry. She slammed the door and opened the industrial-size dryer. Sure enough, her clothes were at that lukewarm, half-dry stage that made them clammy and supremely uncomfortable. She didn’t care. She had to get the hell out of here.

She could feel the fury and resentment pouring off her as she returned to the salon with the damp clothes stretched over her, probably in the most unflattering fashion. Greg either didn’t notice or didn’t care about her appearance or her state of mind as he followed her outside, across the lawn and down the dock.

“Let’s put the kayak on my truck and I’ll give you a lift back to your place.”

“No, thanks,” she said pulling on her vest. Such a gentleman, ripping her future to shreds while offering her a lift to nowhere. In one angry movement, she launched the kayak, got in the rear seat and pushed off.

“Nina,” he called.

Forget it, she thought. He can beg all he wants. In so many ways, he was still that too-handsome, too-lucky guy she remembered from the past. She wondered what he remembered about her. Sure, it was a long time ago, but still…. Clearly the meetings had meant more to Nina than to Greg, which only fueled her anger at him.

“Nina.” His voice was a bit more urgent. “I don’t care how pissed off you are,” he said. “You won’t get far without this.”

She glanced back in time to see him standing on the dock, holding out a double-ended paddle.

So much for her exit. Leaning forward, she reached for the paddle. She couldn’t quite touch it, so he leaned a little farther over the water until she was able to grasp the blade. At the same time she gave it a slight tug—an accident, of course. For a split second, they engaged in a tug-of-war, angry gazes locked, the paddle between them. Seized by a childish impulse, she gave one final tug on the oar. He wobbled for a moment, then pitched forward into the water, making a splash that didn’t quite drown his curse.

“Nice, Greg,” she murmured, then dipped in her oar and glided away.




Three


After dinner that evening, Greg sat with his daughter Daisy, going over the hundreds of photos she’d taken for the inn’s new brochures, ads and Web site. He studied her as she concentrated on the images. Current mood, he assessed, was cooperative. With her face bathed in the pale glow from the computer screen, Daisy was fully absorbed by the task. She was so beautiful, his daughter, and at eighteen, so heartbreakingly young.

He wished he could talk to someone about what it was like, picking his way through the minefield that was his relationship with his troubled daughter. Since the divorce, he and Daisy had grown close, although it had been a struggle. Some days, the closeness felt more like a détente.

“How about these four?” she asked. “One for each season.”

She had talent, and it wasn’t just in his mind. Some of her work was on display in the bakery/café in town where she used to work, and people bought the framed, signed prints with gratifying regularity. Greg hoped like hell her gift—and her passion for it—would give her something to aim for in the future, something that would fulfill her and make use of her talents. She had a knack for picking the unexpected angle or perspective that turned something ordinary—a tree branch, a window seat, a dock—into something special. She preferred the fine detail over the wider view, showcasing nature’s splendor in a single perfect rhododendron blossom. A well-thumbed novel beside a claw-footed tub conveyed a sense of luxury, and panoramic shots of the whole resort showcased the grandeur of the place.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said to him.

“Your instincts are better than mine when it comes to things like this.”

She nodded and relabeled four of the shots. “So did you talk to Nina Romano about the inn?”

“Yeah, earlier today.”

“And?”

And he’d done a lousy job explaining himself to the woman. In fact, he didn’t know what Nina hated more—him, or the idea of working for him. The fact that he’d bought the Inn at Willow Lake was an affront to her. She acted as though he’d somehow stolen it away from her. “She’s thinking about my offer.” Right.

“Well, you’d better make sure she says yes,” Daisy admonished. “I don’t think we can make this work without her.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Come on, Dad. What do either of us know about running a hotel?”

He could have pointed out that he’d built a thriving landscape architecture business in Manhattan. And despite his education and expertise, despite the fact that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing when it came to hotels, he had learned that hard work and common sense went a long way. Yet he reminded himself why he was doing this. Making the firm a success had carried a cost he’d never anticipated. Lucrative didn’t always mean successful. He had been so consumed by work that, without his even noticing it, years passed and he woke up one day to find himself with two kids who were practically strangers and a marriage that was damaged beyond repair.

As his marriage ended, he had resolved to make a new beginning. He’d pulled his supremely unhappy kids out of their upper East side private prep school and moved upstate to Avalon. The Bellamys had long-standing ties to the community. Greg’s parents had operated Camp Kioga until their retirement ten years before. They’d held on to the property, and when his marriage raged out of control, the place had been his anchor.

Last summer, with his marriage in its death throes, he had made a desperate move, bringing the kids to Camp Kioga to help Olivia renovate the place for his parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary celebration. He thought he’d seen progress with Max and Daisy by summer’s end—his son was no longer obsessed with video games and his daughter had stopped smoking. But when they returned to the city, Daisy had started her senior year in a state of open rebellion and Max had adopted a who-the-hell-cares attitude, wearing it like body armor. Ultimately, when the time came to rebuild his life, he’d decided to do it here, in the riverside town he remembered from the summers of his boyhood.

It was too soon to tell whether or not this was the right move, but he was determined to change his life, engaging in work that revolved around his family. In his former life, he was all about building things for the world. Now he was determined to focus on building a world for his family.

“Your cousin Olivia didn’t know anything about running Camp Kioga, and look at her now,” he pointed out. A year ago, Greg’s grown niece had also made the move from Manhattan to the mountains. She’d been charged with renovating Camp Kioga, and the project had given her an entirely new direction and a future she’d never expected.

“But Olivia has Connor Davis helping her,” Daisy pointed out. “He’s a contractor. He fixes stuff up for a living.” She sighed romantically. “Besides, they’re, like, the most perfect couple ever.”

Greg made no comment. At summer’s end, Olivia and Connor were getting married at Camp Kioga, and the event had snowballed into the biggest Bellamy family affair since his parents’ anniversary the previous year. Relatives and friends would be coming from all over, many of them planning to stay at the Inn at Willow Lake. He wished Olivia and Connor well, of course, but being regarded as a perfect couple had its drawbacks—like trying to live up to an image that existed in other people’s minds. He and Sophie had been called the perfect couple, too, despite the rushed circumstances of their marriage.

He hoped Olivia would have better luck than he had.

Daisy shifted uncomfortably in her chair, folding her arms across her stomach. “So I wanted to ask you something, Dad.”

“Sure, anything.” But of course, inwardly, he braced himself, wondering, Now what?

“Classes start in a few weeks, and I thought …” Her voice trailed off and she got up, rubbing the small of her back. She turned, and the evening light from the window crisply outlined the incongruous curve of her belly.

And with that movement, Greg saw his daughter as though through a fragmented glass. The illusion that she was still his little girl fell to pieces. Even now that he’d had months to get used to the idea, the sight of her extremely pregnant silhouette still sometimes shocked him. She was a bundle of contradictions. The untimely ripeness of her form looked wrong with her still-soft, vaguely childlike features. She had painted her nails a vivid red-black and wore ripped jeans and a top that draped over the arc of her belly. She was a little girl, teenager and grown woman all in one, and she regarded him with a need and trust Greg wasn’t sure he deserved. She was his kid. And at thirty-eight, he hardly felt ready to be a grandfather.

Cut it out, he warned himself. He simply didn’t have a choice in the matter. Regrets and what-ifs were not an option, not at this point. “You thought what?” he prompted.

“Could you be my coach?” she asked. “For the childbirth classes, you know, and for the hospital.”

Her coach? The guy who stands by her in the delivery room? No, thought Greg, fighting a sick premonition. No way. Not in a million years would he be that guy, witnessing his child having a child of her own.

“My doctor said it should be somebody I trust and feel safe with.” She paused, bit her lip, and her expression was one he’d seen a thousand times through the years. “That’s you, right?” she said.

“But I’m … a guy,” he said lamely. A scared, freaking-out guy who didn’t trust himself to stay conscious in the delivery room or come through in an emergency. A guy who would rather have a root canal than see his daughter give birth. That seemed wrong on so many levels, he didn’t know where to begin.

“What about your mother?” he asked, his mouth working ahead of his brain, as usual.

Daisy’s expression froze, and although she would not appreciate knowing it, she looked just like Sophie. They both had that regal, withering ice-queen manner, able to belittle or intimidate with a razor-sharp glance.

“What about her?” Daisy asked. “The classes go on for six weeks. You think she’s going to put her life on hold and camp out in Avalon for six weeks?”

Sophie lived in The Hague, where she was a lawyer at the International Criminal Court. She came back to the States once a month to see the kids. After the divorce, Sophie had insisted that Daisy and Max live with her. Both kids, traumatized by the breakup of their family, had returned after just a couple of weeks, demanding to stay with Greg. He didn’t fool himself into thinking he was the preferred parent. It was just that the life he offered here in the States was a better fit for his two lost, hurting kids. So now Sophie had to make do with the visits, with phone calls and e-mail. The situation was sad and awkward, and Greg couldn’t tell if the kids had forgiven her or not. He figured his job was to stay neutral on the issue.

Daisy made a lofty gesture around the house. “Will Mom live with us? Yeah, she’d love that.”

“I own a hotel,” Greg pointed out. “We could put her in the Guinevere suite.” Like many of Avalon’s local establishments, the Inn at Willow Lake had an Arthurian theme with rooms named after characters from the old legend.

“Guinevere. Wasn’t she the one who cheated on her husband with his best friend?” Daisy asked archly.

“That was never proven. The French added it later.” Greg felt a strange and unjustified sense of solidarity with his ex. It was probably because of Daisy’s situation—unmarried and pregnant, with the monumental struggle of single motherhood ahead of her. Despite his differences with Sophie, he shared with her the sense that Daisy was going to need all the support and compassion they could offer. “I’m sure she’d be honored to be your coach.”

“And you wouldn’t?”

“Honey, of course I would. But I’m …” Damn. “It would be …” He paused, got up and paced the room, searching for the right word to describe attending your teenage daughter giving birth to your grandchild. “Weird,” he concluded. And that was putting it mildly.

“Listen, it’s just classes. You learn about the process and signs to watch for, and what to do when things start happening. And in the delivery room, everything is all draped, and you can just deal with me from the neck up. Maybe, um, hold my hand and talk to me, give me ice chips, stuff like that. It didn’t look like that big a deal in the video the doctor gave me to watch.”

“That’s assuming everything goes according to the video.”

“Okay, fine,” she said. “Whatever. A birth coach is optional, anyway.”

“Right, like I’m going to let you do this on your own.” Greg stuck his thumbs in his back pockets and stood at the window, looking out but seeing only memories of his own child being born. He hadn’t been there for Daisy’s birth, of course, thanks to the way Sophie had manipulated the situation. But he’d been present for Max. He remembered the long night, the glare of lights, the pain and the terror and the joy. God, it was yesterday.

Then he turned back to Daisy, his daughter—his heart. “I’ll do it.”

“Do what?” asked Max, coming in from the kitchen, trailing shoelaces and backpack straps in his wake. He was eating again. Of course he was. It had been a half hour since dinner. Max, who had the appetite of some hypermetabolic creature in a sci-fi flick, had taken to refueling a couple of times per hour. At the moment, he was eating a Pop-Tart, stone cold out of the wrapper.

“I’m going to be your sister’s birth coach,” he said. “What do you think of that?”

“I think you’re out of your freaking mind,” Max said with a shudder.

“Gosh, and I was going to invite you, too, Max,” Daisy said. “Having you there, holding my hand, would have meant so much to me.”

“It would mean you finally lost what’s left of your marbles. Geez.” He shuddered again.

Greg ground his teeth. Despite the fact that she was pregnant, she still bickered like a third grader with her brother. Although it took some restraint, Greg knew it was best not to intervene when the two of them went at it. The bickering usually played itself out and sometimes even seemed to relieve tension, oddly enough.

With an older brother and two older sisters, he understood the dynamics of siblings. The main thing was to stand back and let the fur fly. He found this surprisingly easy to do, zoning out while they picked at each other about everything from the way Max ate a Pop-Tart to their cousin Olivia’s upcoming wedding, in which Daisy was to be a bridesmaid, Max an usher.

“You know you’re going to have to take ballroom dancing lessons,” Daisy told her brother with a satisfied smirk.

“Better than birthing lessons,” he shot back. “You’ll be, like, the world’s largest bridesmaid.”

“And you’ll be, like, the world’s dorkiest uncle. Weird Uncle Max. I’m going to teach the baby to call you that.”

Greg figured if these kids could survive each other, they could survive anything. He left them to battle it out and went to his study to check e-mail. There was a message from Brooke with a noncommittal subject line—thanks for today …

He didn’t even need to click on it in order to guess the rest of the message: … let’s be sure we never do it again sometime. She probably wouldn’t be that blunt, but he’d belatedly figured out that Brooke Harlow’s interest in him was as a client, not a boyfriend. That was his conclusion after today, anyway. After the boating fiasco, she’d been all too eager to bug out with the lame-ass bank president in tow.

The encounter today with Nina had caused his confidence to falter. What the hell was he getting himself into? No. Greg was happy enough with the transaction. He did realize it could be a disaster—long hours, a challenge around every corner. Then again, it could be the second chance he needed for his family—an enterprise that kept him close to home, the kids engaged in family life, not avoiding it. He practically flinched as he remembered the end of his marriage, when he and Sophie had given up pretending for the sake of the children, who saw straight through them, anyway. Their unhappiness was like a disease that infected the whole family. They’d engaged in battles of bitter recriminations that usually ended in slammed doors, the four of them hiding from each other. Ultimately, Greg and Sophie attempted a trial separation. There was a sense of relief, sure, but the separation opened a whole new set of troubles.

Greg blamed himself for not seeing how troubled Daisy was by the divorce. If he had, maybe Daisy never would have gone to that weekend party on Long Island, and she never would’ve gotten pregnant. Well, not so soon, anyway.

He’d spent his entire marriage waiting for disaster and then reacting to it. He was determined to change now. Buying the inn felt right, and he was focused on making it happen.

The soft doorbell sound of an incoming e-mail distracted him. He glanced at the screen and then did a double-take when he saw who it was from—Nina Romano. The subject line read We need to talk.

Well, he thought. Well.

Nina looked at her best friend, Jenny, and then back at the computer screen. “I just hit Send. I can’t believe I just hit Send.”

“That’s the best way for him to get the message.”

“But I changed my mind.” Nina swiveled back to glare at the screen. She wished there was some way to dive through the digital ether and snatch back her message.

She and Jenny were in Nina’s office. It wasn’t properly an office but a small nook in her bedroom where the computer sat on a card table. Everything about the house was small, including the rent check she gave her Uncle Giulio every month. She’d lived in the modest, cluttered house since Sonnet was little, trying to balance school and work and motherhood. She was blessed with a supportive family, but ultimately wanted to go it alone. She thought again about the offer from Greg Bellamy. No way.

“All you said was that you wanted to talk further about the inn,” Jenny insisted. “It’s not like you made a lifetime commitment.”

Nina’s chest hurt and she realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out in a burst of air. “He’ll see it as a sign of weakness. He’ll think I’m wavering.”

“You are wavering,” Jenny pointed out. “And that’s a good thing. It shows you have an open mind about the situation.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this was happening while I was away.”

“I didn’t know. Even if I did, it would have been completely pointless to ruin your trip with Sonnet.”

She was right. It would’ve ruined the trip, her cherished mother-daughter time. “Sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t your job to keep me informed. He’s probably already looking for someone else. I bet he won’t even call.”

The phone on the desk rang, and both women jumped. Nina grabbed the handset and checked the caller ID screen. The name Bellamy, G winked back at her.

“Oh, God. It’s him.”

“So pick up,” Jenny suggested.

“No way. I’d rather die.”

“Then I’ll do it.” Jenny grabbed the phone.

Nina made a lunge for it, but missed.

Jenny clicked the talk button. “Romano residence. This is Jenny McKnight speaking. Oh, hey, Greg.”

Nina collapsed on the floor in a heap of helplessness.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Jenny said pleasantly. “Rourke, too,” she added.

Of course she was fine, thought Nina. She was married to the love of her life, and she had just found a publisher for the book she’d written, a memoir about growing up in a Polish-American bakery. Of course she was freaking fine.

She chatted pleasantly with Greg about his kids, who also happened to be her first cousins, though she hadn’t known them very long. Although Jenny was related to the Bellamys, the situation had come to light only in the past year. Jenny had grown up never knowing who her father was. Only last summer did she discover that there had been a tragic love affair between her mother, Mariska, and her father—Philip Bellamy—who happened to be Greg’s older brother. So that made Greg her uncle. They’d met just recently, but now, hearing Jenny chat so easily with him, Nina wondered if that blood tie actually counted for something.

“Yes, she’s here,” Jenny said.

The traitor. Nina nearly came out of her skin. With nonverbal Italian-American eloquence, she asked Jenny, Do you want to die today?

“But she can’t come to the phone right now. I’ll make sure she returns your call. That’s a promise.”

Jenny hung up the phone, seemingly unperturbed by Nina’s fury. “Good news,” she said. “He hasn’t found anyone else yet.”

“How do you know? Did he say anything?”

“Of course he didn’t say anything. It’s none of my business.”

“Then how do you know he hasn’t moved on to his next victim?”

“If you don’t believe me, call him yourself.” Jenny held out the phone.

Nina shrank from it. “I need a drink.”

“I can help with that.” Jenny led the way to the kitchen with the familiarity of a best friend. She went straight to the cupboard and found a bottle of sweet red wine. “This will be perfect with the biscotti I brought from the bakery,” she said. Although the Sky River Bakery had decidedly Polish roots, there were a number of Italian selections on the menu as well, including cantuccini biscotti that were admittedly better than anything a Romano woman had ever baked. Dunked in the sweet dark wine, they made Nina forget her troubles for approximately twenty-nine seconds.

“So what did he sound like?” she asked Jenny.

“You already spoke to him today, right?”

“No, I mean did he sound conciliatory? Pissed?”

“He sounded like a Bellamy—you know, Manhattan prep school, Ivy League college and all that.” Jenny emulated the accent perfectly, then laughed at herself. “Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m related to those people.” The lighthearted reference belied the ordeal Jenny had gone through as she discovered her ties to the Bellamy family.

“They haven’t changed who you are,” Nina reminded her, “and that’s a good thing. Remember how the two of us used to make fun of the summer people when we were growing up?” As girls, she and Jenny would observe the summer vacationers who escaped the city for the cool relief of Willow Lake. They used to discuss the ridiculousness of the girls’ tennis whites and straight, silky hair, and that the kids were looked after by servants. The one thing neither Nina nor Jenny ever acknowledged, however, was the fact that their ridicule was rooted in envy.

“Don’t turn this thing with Greg into a feud,” Jenny warned her.

“I was mayor of this town for four years,” Nina said. “I’m good at feuds.”

“It would put me in an awkward position,” Jenny pointed out. “I’d have to take your side, and then everything would be all awkward with Philip.”

Even though he was Jenny’s father, she called him Philip, keeping a slightly formal distance between them. Nina felt a flash of pity for her friend, knowing from having watched Sonnet how hard it was to grow up without a father. Nina herself came from a large, loud family. She’d grown up way too fast, as it turned out, but that wasn’t her family’s fault.

She tried to imagine what it had been like for Jenny to wake up one day and discover this whole new side of herself. It would be like Nina finding out she had royal blood.

She’d made certain her own daughter knew who her father was as soon as Sonnet was old enough to understand. There was no veil of secrecy, no confusion. Nina had tried to raise Sonnet to be secure in the knowledge that she was loved and wanted; even though her parents weren’t together, she had a mother and father who adored her.

He damned well better adore her, Nina thought. He had plenty of lost time to make up for. Sharply focused on his career in the military, Laurence Jeffries had not played a large part in Sonnet’s life. Although he paid child support and came once a year to see Sonnet, that was the extent of their relationship. Now, on the brink of adulthood, Sonnet wanted to know more about her father. She’d seized the opportunity of the summer internship.

“Anyway,” Nina said, “I don’t want things to be awkward between you and Philip because of me.”

“They’re already awkward enough, but we’re dealing with it. We have no choice, what with Olivia’s wedding coming up. Which brings me to the actual reason for my visit.” Jenny unzipped the garment bag she’d brought along and, with exaggerated drama, ducked into the bedroom with it.

“The bridesmaid gowns just came in today,” she called through the door. “I wanted you to be the first to see my dress.” She stepped out on tiptoe to simulate high heels, and held her hair up off her neck. Nina gasped aloud. The dress was exquisite—a long fall of lilac silk charmeuse. Looking at her friend in the wispy dream of a dress, Nina felt an unexpected jolt of emotion.

Jenny was quick to notice. “Don’t go getting all misty-eyed on me.”

“I can’t help it. You look like Cinderella.”

“Hey, in the Bellamy family, I am Cinderella. So you like the dress?”

“I love the dress.”

“Me, too. Olivia has exquisite taste.” Olivia Bellamy, the bride, was Philip’s daughter, too. As her newly discovered half-sister, Jenny would be the matron of honor. Jenny was just starting to learn what it was like to be a Bellamy. The wedding was a full-blown family affair and already the talk of Avalon.

Nina blinked and cleared her throat. “Remember when we were little, and we had our weddings all planned out?”

Jenny laughed. “Totally. I’d still have the notebooks where we wrote down all our plans, except they were lost in the fire.” She had lost virtually everything she owned in a house fire the previous winter. The way she had rebuilt her life and moved ahead was an inspiration to Nina.

“We were supposed to marry in a double ceremony,” Nina recalled, reliving the memories. She and Jenny used to sit on Jenny’s chenille-covered bed, discussing their weddings.

“Yep, a double ceremony with Rourke and Joey. Best friends marrying best friends. It was all so nice and neat, wasn’t it?” There was a soft note in Jenny’s voice, a wistful affection for the girls they had been, and regret for all that had happened since they’d dreamed those dreams.

“The music was going to be the greatest hits of Bon Jovi and Heart,” Nina recalled. “And the dresses—Good lord, we drew so many versions. Yards of metallic fuchsia with puffy sleeves. And bridal gowns that were not of this world.” She laughed, remembering how they had planned out every last detail, from the vows they would recite—an e. e. cummings poem, what else?—to the menu at the reception—macaroni and cheese, barbecued chicken and Sky River Bakery donuts. After dual honeymoons—Hawaii, of course—they would buy houses next door to each other. Nina would run the Inn at Willow Lake while Jenny wrote the Great American Novel.

“I hadn’t thought about that in years,” Nina said. “We had some imagination, didn’t we?” If she tried very hard, she was able to remember the kid she had been, before everything had happened. She’d been so full of hopes and dreams, and all her goals seemed completely and utterly reachable. “Nothing went according to plan for either of us, did it?” she added.

Jenny smiled and fluffed out the hem of her dress. “I never could have planned for anything this good. And you could say the same. You ended up with Sonnet, after all, which is the equivalent of winning the amazing-daughter lottery.”

Nina couldn’t dispute that. “Does it bug you at all that Olivia’s getting the big formal wedding?” she asked her friend.

“Lord, no.” Jenny waved a hand dismissively. “Philip offered—did I tell you that? He said he’d pay for any wedding I asked for.” She grinned. “Lucky for him, all I wanted was a quick trip down the aisle with a minimum of fuss, and a honeymoon in St. Croix. And I have to tell you, it was perfect for Rourke and me. And I’m sure you remember, I had a great dress.”

“I’ll never forget that dress,” Nina assured her. Jane Bellamy, Jenny’s new grandmother, had insisted on taking Jenny to Henri Bendel’s on Fifth Avenue, where they picked out a cocktail-length couture gown. “No one in the history of Avalon will forget that dress, are you kidding? You and Rourke are a great couple. Olivia is going to have the greatest maid of honor—”

“Matron of honor, please.”

“Sure. You’ll look like a million.” Then Nina, to her dismay, recognized what she was feeling—a tug of envy. She caught herself thinking that Jenny should be Nina’s matron of honor, not Olivia’s. This was ridiculous, though. In order to have a matron of honor, she would need to be a bride, which was the last thing on her mind. There was a lot Nina wanted now that she was single and her nest was empty. Getting married surely wasn’t one of them. Not anytime soon. But falling in love? Who didn’t want that? Unfortunately, you couldn’t make it happen the way you made a wedding happen, by hiring a planner and picking out china patterns.

Jenny presented her back. “Here, unzip me. And let’s get back to talking about this thing with Greg.”

“There is no thing with Greg.” The zipper snagged. Nina gently teased it away from the delicate fabric.

“He wants you to be his partner at the inn. I’d call that a thing.”

“He wants to suck me dry and then push me aside.”

“Greg’s not like that. He really does need help getting the place back up and running, and he’s smart enough to know you’re perfect for the job.”

“I just don’t get it. There are a hundred business opportunities in Avalon. A hundred and twelve last time I checked—and I did check.” She knew what was out there. When she was mayor, one of Nina’s priorities had been to dedicate a page of the city’s Web site to local business opportunities to attract investment. “Why does he have to pick the one thing I want?”

Jenny pulled on her T-shirt. “The two of you want the same thing. Maybe it’s a sign.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know why you’re so upset by this. You were willing to run the place on behalf of the bank. Greg is offering you virtually the same deal, only he wants to pay you a much bigger salary. Better benefits.”

“It’s completely different. The bank would have sold me the place as soon as I could qualify for a loan. Greg took that off the table.”

“Did you tell him that?”

“What, and make myself seem even more pathetic? No, thank you.”

“Nina, be honest with me, with yourself. Did you really think the bank’s asset division was going to wait for you to qualify for a small business administration loan?”

Like most government programs, the SBA moved with leaden slowness. Nina had been told that the process could take months, even a year. “Mr. Bailey would have waited. I’m sure he assumed his successor would have, as well. Her name’s Brooke Harlow and I think Greg’s dating her. Cozy, huh?”

“Don’t jump to conclusions. This is a safer bet for you, anyway,” Jenny said reasonably. “Maybe you’ll hate it and want to get out. Maybe Greg will hate it, and he’ll be the one to get out.”

“Suppose it turns out to be perfect for both of us? Then we’d end up plotting to kill each other.”

“Or making a permanent merger.” Jenny wriggled her eyebrows.

“Don’t even.”

“Why not? Olivia filled me in on him. He’s her youngest uncle—twelve years younger than Philip, so that makes him … thirty-eight. He’s single. He’s a Bellamy. He’s a catch.”

“He’s got a half-grown boy and a grandbaby on the way.” Not that Nina had anything against pregnant teenagers. She herself was a member of that club.

“A big family is a blessing,” Jenny pointed out. “You of all people know that, Miss middle-child-of-nine.”

Nina didn’t contradict her, even though she could’ve come up with a thousand objections. She understood that Jenny had endured a particularly lonely childhood. Her father had been a mystery. Her mother had simply taken off, leaving Jenny to be raised by her grandparents in the quiet, neat-as-a-pin house on Maple Street.

“Maybe so,” Nina said. “But then again, there’s something to be said for being completely on my own. I’ve never done it before. I need to be on my own for the first time in my life. I want to figure out who I am when I’m not somebody’s daughter or Sonnet’s mom.”

“I understand. You deserve a chance to do that. I’m sure Greg will understand, too. He made you a business proposition, not a marriage proposal.”

“Yeah, heaven forbid I should get one of those.”

“Hey, you’re the one who said she wants a single life.” Jenny smiled and said, “Come on, Nina. This could be a great opportunity for you.”

“Oh, man, you’re doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“That mysterious wisdom-of-the-married thing. I can’t stand that.”

“I’m not doing anything of the sort.”

“You are, too. Look at you. You’re so … so happy.”

“And your point is?”

“That just because being married makes you happy doesn’t mean it’s what I need.”

“I know. What you need is to be running the Inn at Willow Lake. That’s what this whole discussion is about.”

“Fine. You know what? Maybe you’re right. Greg has no idea what he’s taking on. I do. He won’t last the summer—you mark my words.”

“You’re not thinking of scheming against him, are you?” asked Jenny.

“I won’t need to. He’ll fail on his own.”

“With you in charge?” Jenny eyed her skeptically.

“See, that’s the dilemma.” Nina finished her wine and poured another glass. “It’s crazy. One way or another, Greg Bellamy has been a thorn in my side ever since we were kids.”




Part Two

Then


The Galahad Chamber is named for Sir Galahad of legend, known for his purity and gallantry. Located high in the main lodge, the room pays tribute to the natural surroundings of the inn, appointed with a hand-crafted birchwood bed frame—topped by birdhouses—antler lamps and antique prints by pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Fresh flowers are provided in every room. A penny and an aspirin tablet dropped in the water will keep the flowers fresh longer. The copper acts as a fungicide and aspirin provides acidic properties to the water. Noted florist, author and social reformer Constance Spry reminds us, “When creating a floral arrangement, always allow some space between the flowers to prevent a crowded effect. One should leave room for the butterflies.”




Four


Nina blamed all her troubles on a boy named Greg Bellamy. It was irrational for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that he didn’t know she existed. That was maybe the main trouble of all.

The first day she met him, she had driven up to Camp Kioga with her best friend, Jenny Majesky. Once a bungalow colony for rich families from the city, it was now a tony summer camp for their children. Not that Nina was going to camp or anything. As if.

No, she was heading up the lakeshore road to the historic, exclusive summer camp in a bakery truck. The truck belonged to Jenny’s grandparents and the girls were helping with a delivery. Jenny’s grandpa let them play the radio as loud as they wanted, being as he was hard of hearing, and Metallica and a delicious breeze rushed over them with equal strength. As the van lumbered through the rustic archway that marked the entrance, Nina inhaled the green scent of the woods and tried to imagine what it would be like to actually be a camper here. Boring, that’s what, she thought defensively. Yet it seemed too good to be true, an entire summer away, with a cabin full of friends. She would never know, of course. Families like hers didn’t send their kids to camp.

Besides, she reminded herself, summer camp was for people who had too much money and not enough imagination. This was what Pop said, anyway—people didn’t know how to take their own kids on vacation these days so they packed them off to summer camp. Of course, Nina and all eight of her brothers and sisters knew this was Pop’s way of making everybody feel better. The Romano family could barely afford shoes, let alone a vacation. Pop was a civics teacher at Avalon High, a career he loved. But with nine kids, a teacher had to stretch his salary thin. Very thin.

Each summer, Pop got involved in politics. He worked as a volunteer for local candidates—Democrats, of course—campaigning passionately and tirelessly for candidates he believed in. Some people criticized Pop for this. They said with that many kids, he ought to be out mowing lawns or digging ditches in the summer to earn extra money, but Pop was unapologetic. He truly believed the best thing he could do for his family was to try to change the world for the better by supporting candidates who shared his ideals.

Nina’s oldest brother, Carmine, said Pop could accomplish the same thing if he would learn to use a condom.

When Nina’s mother wasn’t having babies—or nursing them or changing diapers—she worked during the summer as a cook up at Camp Kioga. She said she didn’t mind the work. It was something she could do in her sleep—cook for a ton of people. Getting paid to do it was a bonus. At the summer camp, she prepared three squares a day for kids who probably had no clue what it was like to wear the same pair of shoes until they pinched, or to beg your sister not to write her name on her backpack because you knew it would be yours the following year, or to pay for your school lunch with the shameful blue coupons, handing them over furtively and praying the kid behind you didn’t notice.

Nina had a summer job, too, at the Inn at Willow Lake, where she cleaned rooms and made beds. To most people, it didn’t sound like much, but Nina liked working there. Unlike home, it was quiet and serene, and after you cleaned something, it actually stayed clean for a while instead of getting immediately trashed by grubby brothers or messy sisters. And sometimes, a guest might even leave her a tip, a crisp five-dollar bill in an envelope marked Housekeeping.

Jenny nudged Nina out of her reverie. “Let’s get going,” she said.

Jenny’s grandfather went into the giant industrial kitchen of the camp where Nina’s mother worked. The girls hurried through their chores so they could go exploring. Even though Pop had nothing good to say about summer camp, Nina thought it was beautiful beyond all imagination, a wonderland of lush forests and grassy meadows, rock-strewn streams and the glittering lake. The main pavilion, where the campers were just finishing lunch, was a bare-timbered Adirondack-style lodge that housed a vast dining hall.

“There they are,” Jenny said, scanning the groups of campers from the stairway leading down to the kitchen. The different age groups were seated at long tables, raising a clatter of dishes and utensils, chatter and laughter. Jenny homed right in on the twelve-to-fourteens. “Isn’t he amazing?” she whispered in a smitten voice.

Nina couldn’t speak, although every cell in her body said yes. He was impossibly tall, with perfect posture, sandy hair and a killer smile. He wore navy blue camp shorts and a gray T-shirt stenciled Counselor.

Jenny saw where Nina was looking and gave her an elbow nudge. “Not him, ninny,” she said. “That’s Greg Bellamy. He’s old, like eighteen or something.” She pointed at the younger group. “I meant him.” Her adoring gaze settled on one of the campers, a quiet, lanky boy studying his compass.

“Oh …” Nina said, “him.” She studied the object of Jenny’s enraptured affection, a golden boy named Rourke McKnight. Jenny had first met him two summers ago, and she’d convinced herself that they shared some grand destiny. Destiny, schmestiny, thought Nina.

A smaller dark-haired boy went to sit by Rourke. “Joey Santini,” Jenny said on a fluttering sigh. “They’re best friends. I don’t know which one’s cuter.”

I do, thought Nina. Her gaze kept straying to the older boy. Greg Bellamy. The name played itself over and over in her head with full symphonic sound. Greg Bellamy. First of all, the name Bellamy was a clue that he was special. In these parts, being a Bellamy was like being a Kennedy in Boston. People knew who you were, and who your “people” were. You had this aura of prestige and privilege, whether you’d earned it or not.

“Hey, you two,” Nina’s mom called from the kitchen. “Lunch is just ending. Go on up and grab something to eat.”

Jenny hung shyly back, hovering between the kitchen and dining hall.

“Bashfulness is a waste of time,” Nina murmured. In her family, people got lost if they didn’t speak up and make their preferences known. She grabbed Jenny by the arm and drew her into the dining room. At the buffet, they helped themselves to sandwiches and drinks. Taking care not to slosh the lemonade from the glass on her tray, Nina made a beeline for Greg Bellamy. He was perusing the desserts table, laden with a rich assortment from the Majeskys’ bakery—lemon bars and peach shortcake, walnut brownies and slices of pie. There was one piece of cherry pie left. If there was anything that could make Nina forget a cute boy, it was cherry pie from the Sky River Bakery.

She reached for the plate. At the same moment, so did someone on the other side of the serving table—Greg Bellamy. She looked up and met his eyes. His Bon-Jovi-blue eyes.

He winked at her. “Looks like we’re both after the same thing.”

Usually when a guy winked at a girl it was totally cheesy. Not with Greg Bellamy. When he winked, it nearly made her knees buckle.

“Sorry,” she said, tossing back her thick dark hair. “It’s mine. I saw it first.” Wink or no wink, she wasn’t backing down.

He laughed, his voice like melted chocolate. “I like a girl who knows what she wants.”

She beamed at him. He liked her. He’d said so aloud. “I’m Nina,” she said.

“Greg. So are you a visitor?” He studied her as though she was the only person in the crowded dining hall.

“That’s right.” It wasn’t a lie. She simply omitted the information that she was the underage daughter of the camp cook. Fleetingly she wondered if that would change his opinion of her. Of course it would, she admitted to herself. It was the whole reason such things as “social class” existed right here in the good old US of A. At Camp Kioga, the lines were sharply drawn: the nobs versus the slobs.

But if she stayed anonymous, the lines went away.

She could feel a keen interest in the touch of Greg’s gaze, and it made her stand up straighter. Nina had always looked older than her age, a combination of dark, vivid features and early development. Though she flaunted this fact with pride, her confidence was merely a cover for the fact that she had always felt slightly different. Not radically so, but just a little, because she was a year older than the rest of the kids in her grade.

The reason for her being behind in school was humiliating. It wasn’t because she was a slow learner or had flunked an early grade. It was because her mother had forgotten to enroll her in kindergarten at the proper age. Forgotten. People smiled and nodded their heads when they heard the story of how Vicki Romano had neglected to send her middle child to school. It was completely understandable. The woman had nine kids, and had given birth to the final two—undersized, sickly twin boys—just a few weeks before Nina was to start kindergarten. The entire family was focused on the fact that the tiny twin boys were fighting for their lives while Vicki battled a postpartum infection. The last thing on anyone’s mind was quiet, well-behaved, five-year-old Nina. No one remembered that she was supposed to be in school until it was too late to catch up. She had to wait until the following year.

The anecdote was a family favorite, with an all’s-well-that-ends-well conclusion. The tiny twins—Donny and Vincent—were rowdy Little League players now and Nina was in the same class as her best friend. It had all worked out for the best.

Except the experience had a more profound effect on Nina than anyone could know. She always felt slightly out of step, off-kilter. She also transformed herself from the quiet, undemanding middle child into someone who figured out what she wanted and then went for it, every time.

Mr. Blue-Eyes Bellamy was still holding on to the edge of the plate. Her plate of cherry pie.

“So you gonna let go?” she challenged.

“Let’s split it.” Without waiting for permission, he tugged it from her grasp. He neatly divided the piece of pie into two portions, put one on a clean plate and offered it to her.

“Gee, thanks,” she said, but didn’t take the plate.

“You’re welcome.” He either missed or ignored her irony. He was a Bellamy, she reminded herself. He had a stunning sense of droit du seigneur, a term she knew from the historical romance novels she was addicted to.

“You’re used to getting your way,” she commented, taking the divided pie from him. She felt a little thrill as she talked to him. Flirting had always come naturally to her—unlike school.

Because she was older than everyone else in her grade, Nina had the dubious honor of being the first at a lot of things. She’d been the first to grow boobs and get her period. The first to turn boy-crazy. It had hit her like a speeding train last year. Before her very eyes, boys—other than her brothers—had turned from loud, smelly, supremely annoying creatures into objects of strange and compelling urges. The boys in her grade still acted like children, but those a few years older seemed to share the same urges that bothered and distracted Nina. At the end of the school year, she sneaked into a high school dance and made out with Shane Gilmore, a junior, until one of her uncles—a biology teacher and chaperone—had noticed her and sent her home to be grounded for weeks.

It was easy to give her parents the slip, and she did so at will. Sometimes she even drove her older sister’s ancient Grand Marquis. She had taken it to the drive-in movie at Coxsackie, where she’d let Byron Johnson, a senior, feel her up. Unfortunately, her brother Carmine had spotted her. He hadn’t told on her, of course, but he beat the crap out of Byron and promised to break his kneecaps if he ever came near her again.

Now, with Greg Bellamy, Nina forgot all those other flirtations. This was the guy. The prize. The one she knew she’d write about in her diary and dream about at night. The one who made her want to go further than second base. A lot further.

“So, Nina, are you busy tonight?” Greg asked her.

“Depends,” she said playfully. “What did you have in mind?”

He stared straight at her mouth when he said, “Everything.”

She felt as though she’d caught on fire from the inside out. “Sounds good to me.”

“Excuse me.” Something very tall and very shapely sidled up to Greg. It was another camp counselor, looking like a Bond girl in camp clothes. “Oh, good,” she said, helping herself to Greg’s plate of pie. “You saved me a piece.” She aimed a dazzling smile straight at him. “Thank you, Greggy. I owe you one.”

Greggy? thought Nina. Greggy? Okay, I’m going to barf.

“Binkie, this is Nina,” he said.

The towering bombshell turned, offering the kind of smile that could freeze an enemy at twenty paces. “Nina. Now, where have I heard that name before? Oh, yes. You must be Mrs. Romano’s little girl.”

Nina was watching Greg, not Binkie. It was kind of amazing to see her image being dismantled before her very eyes.

“You know, Mrs. Romano,” Binkie reminded him. “The camp cook.”

In the space of a few seconds, Greg went from flirting and making a date with Nina to staring at her as though she had sprouted horns and a tail.

“Right,” he said, turning red to the tips of his ears. “I need to get back to work.” He glared at Nina. “See you around, kid.”

Binkie offered a chilly smile. “Nice to meet you, honey.”

Nina stood unmoving, having been put in her place so decisively that she felt as though she’d been rooted to the spot forever. Everything was boiling inside her—thwarted lust, resentment, yearning, shame and injured pride.

“You coming?” Jenny asked, returning from what had probably been a more age-appropriate conversation with Rourke and Joey. She seemed oblivious to Nina’s turmoil. “Gramp’s ready to head back to town.”

“Sure,” Nina heard herself say. She thought Greg Bellamy might be watching her as she left the dining hall. She refused to look back, though. He was a mistake she was only too happy to leave behind.

As she was beating a retreat, she was horrified to feel the hot press of tears threatening to spill. Fighting back, she paused, pretending to study the bulletin board, a patchwork of announcements for the camp staff. Someone had lost a pair of sunglasses. Someone else had two tickets to the new hit musical Miss Saigon, for sale. Everything was a blur, but then a bright yellow flier resolved itself before her eyes. Welcome Cadets! Community Mixer at Avalon Meadows Country Club. Each year, the new crop of West Point cadets was treated to a pre-enlistment party, their final hurrah before stepping into the rarified world of rigors that was the United States Military Academy. 18 and Over Required.

At the bottom of the flier was a fringe of phone numbers for the RSVP. Nina already knew one appointee—Laurence Jeffries, from Kingston. She’d flirted with him at football and baseball games, and he had no clue how old she was. He’d be the one to get her into the country club. She defiantly ripped off an RSVP number and stuck it in her pocket.

She glanced over her shoulder at Greg Bellamy. If he’d been nicer to her, she’d still be in the dining hall, eating pie. So really, if she got in trouble, it would all be Greg’s fault.

Nina never had any trouble passing herself off as an eighteen-year-old. She and her sisters all looked alike. At church and catechism, people always mixed them up. On any given Sunday, Nina had been called Loretta, Giuliana, Maria and even Vicki—their mother. Nina had learned everything she knew from her pretty, popular sisters. She eavesdropped on their giggling conversations about boys and sex. She’d sat with them late at night, listening to them dissect their dates, moment by moment. Thanks to her sisters, Nina knew how to crash a party, how to flirt with a boy, how to French kiss and what safe sex was.

The West Point reception was scheduled for a Sunday night. Nina planned to wait until Maria was in the shower. Then she would go to her sister’s wallet and help herself to the driver’s license.

That morning, as everyone was running around, getting ready for church, she told her parents the usual story—her friend Jenny was having a sleepover—though she probably didn’t need to bother. Everyone was preoccupied, and her father was organizing yet another fund-raiser for a candidate.

“Isn’t it frustrating to see Pop raise all that money for someone else?” Nina asked her mother as they all tumbled out of the van at St. Mary’s. Pop had leaped out first to join a group of local businessmen in front of the church. Carmine was left to play parking valet with the lumbering van, which had once been an airport shuttle. Their dad had bought it for a song. It was the only car that fit them all.

“I mean,” Nina continued, “he’s raising money to buy radio ads and we can’t even afford to get Anthony’s teeth straightened.”

Ma only smiled when Nina said stuff like that. “This is your dad’s passion. It’s what he believes in.”

“What about what you believe in, Ma? Don’t you believe in getting a new winter coat more than once a decade, or paying the light bill without going into debt?”

“I believe in your father,” Ma said serenely. And boy, did she ever. Giorgio Romano could do no wrong in her eyes. To be fair, Pop was just as crazy about Ma. He went to high mass with her every Sunday and sat there without blinking as she unhesitatingly placed ten percent of their weekly income in the collection basket, because Ma believed in tithing.

At a young age, Nina decided that men who followed their passion were of limited interest to her. She did, however, harbor a passion of her own, and it was for boys. Even in church, she caught herself checking out the boys. The altar boys, for Pete’s sake, who used to look so dorky in their red robes and white surplices. Now they looked impossibly sexy to her, with their Adam’s apples and big, squarish hands, dress shoes peeping out from beneath their robes. Nina had heard the term boy-crazy before; now she understood what it meant. They did make her crazy, in the sense that they totally distracted her from everything but thoughts of making out, all day and all night long.

As everyone lurched forward to kneel after the Lamb of God, she glanced over her shoulder at Jenny, a few rows back with her grandparents. The three of them looked so neat and self-contained, not like the whispering, rustling, unwieldy Romano bunch. But Jenny didn’t notice Nina trying to get her attention. As she often did, Jenny looked as though she was a million miles away.

Nina turned her eyes to the front and tried to keep her mind blank through the Canon of the mass. It was always a great internal debate with her, deciding whether or not to go for communion. Catholics took their communion very seriously. No wonder you were supposed to unload all your sins beforehand. Supposedly, the sacrament was reserved for people whose souls were spotless, who had emerged from the confessional as squeaky clean as an athlete stepping out of a postgame shower.

Nina did go to confession—and often. Only yesterday, in a voice rough with shame, she’d told the ominous presence on the other side of the screen about shirking her chores, lying to Sister Immaculata about her catechism homework, having impure thoughts about altar boys. And even that was a lie, come to think of it. Her thoughts were very pure, indeed. Pure lust.

Sure, she’d done her penance, reciting Our Fathers and Hail Marys until her knees grew numb, but afterward she went right back to her sinful ways. This very moment, she was sitting before God and thinking about how she was going to the party at the country club tonight to find a boy to make out with.

“‘Lord, I am not worthy to receive you,’” she recited along with the congregation, “‘but only say the word, and I shall be healed.’”

This did not help her decide whether or not to partake of communion. She weighed the pros and cons in her mind: If you just sat there like a bump on a pickle, everyone would know for sure you were a sinner and a slacker for failing to do your penance after confession. If you jumped up and went for it, people would figure you were lying or insincere, because no kid was free of sin, except maybe Jenny. Nina wished there was some designation for the in-between people who weren’t perfect but tried to be. Strivers, you could call them. Shouldn’t there be some reward for people who strove to be good, even though they fell short most of the time?

Lines were forming along the aisles in preparation for communion. Nina had resigned herself to staying put, letting friends and family speculate about what heinous stain on her soul was keeping her from Holy Communion. Then she saw that Father Reilly’s right-hand attendant, the boy designated to hold the chalice of hosts, was Grady Fitzgerald. A year ago, Grady Fitzgerald had been scrawny, pimply and dull. Now he was tall and cute, right down to the peach fuzz mustache on his upper lip. And he kept looking at Nina in a certain way. She was sure of it.

This had to be a sign. She was meant to go to communion. She shot to her feet and took her place in line. Each step brought her closer to Grady. When it was her turn, she was supposed to tip back her head and delicately open her mouth as the priest said, “The body of Christ.”

Instead, she kept her eyes open and glued to Grady. “Amen,” she whispered huskily, feeling the insubstantial wafer dissolve on her tongue. She returned to her place, where she was supposed to kneel and contemplate the ecstasy of the miracle. Instead she knelt, closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her forehead, realizing she had hit a new low. She had used the sacrament of communion as a chance to flirt with a cute boy.

She was going to hell for certain.

After Mass, as the congregation filed out of the church, Father Reilly made a beeline for her and she braced herself. This was it, then. The jig was up. He was going to expose her as a liar and a fraud.

“Miss Nina Romano,” he said in full view of her parents. “A word with you.”

“Yes, Father?” Nina’s stomach churned. She was going to barf, right here, right now.

“The way you were at communion today …”

No, don’t say it. I’m sorry. I didn’t meant to—

“It was quite something, that bold look and loud ‘Amen.’”

“Father, I—”

“I wish more young people had your conviction. Your fervor. Well done.”

Oh. Oh. “Thank you, Father.” Nina lifted her chin, squared her shoulders.

As her parents beamed at her with pride, Nina packed away a life lesson. In every situation, people tended to see what they wanted to see.




Five


Nina found herself swimming in a sea of boys, and it wasn’t even a dream. She was surrounded by ninety percent men. She was wide awake, in the ballroom of the Avalon Meadows Country Club, attending the annual salute to West Point’s incoming class of cadets. The founder of the country club was a West Point alum, and the large, lavish party had become a tradition. Some of the appointees drove for hours to get there. The following week, basic training would begin for the cadets, so this was their farewell to fancy food and music, girls and partying and long hair. Soon they would have their heads shaved, their uniforms pressed and their every moment scheduled for them. No wonder they were all acting a little wild.

So many boys, Nina thought, bedazzled, so little time. Maybe she would go to West Point for college. Fat chance, she reminded herself. You had to be a brainiac and have perfect grades and play a sport. Nina had none of the above—not the smarts, not the grades and certainly not the sport. Her only athletic activity was outrunning Sr. Immaculata when cutting class.

Her date was Laurence Jeffries, and she’d walked into the country club on his arm, hiding her terror that any second someone would recognize her and rat her out. But there was almost no chance someone would recognize her at the country club tonight. Carmine didn’t work here anymore, and as far as she knew, no Romano had ever belonged to Avalon Meadows. Golf and tennis and martinis on the patio were for WASPy types who sent their one-point-seven kids to prep school and summer camp. This only made her deception all the more delicious.

When the festivities first started, she thought she’d made a mistake coming here. There were boring tributes to the appointees—”Those who dare to serve our country, blah blah blah …”—and no alcoholic beverages, because the new recruits were all underage, in the seventeen- to nineteen-year-old range. Nina was contemplating finding Laurence Jeffries and slipping away immediately. But everything changed when the adults headed into the cocktail lounge, the lights dimmed and a hired DJ took over. That was when the sea of boys flooded the dance floor, surrounding Nina like a testosterone forest. A bottle of something sticky-sweet appeared, and they passed it around until it was gone. Nina was fairly new to drinking, but she gamely swigged down the strawberry-flavored Ripple. It made everything seem easier and funnier. It made her a better dancer, for sure.

Nina knew some girls would be intimidated by being in the midst of so many guys, especially guys like this—football captains and wrestling champions, the elite from high schools across America. Not Nina, though. She knew the truth about boys. No matter how smart and athletic, they were all just a mass of hormone-driven urges.

She felt like the belle of the ball, dancing with one guy after another. One of them told her that all fifty states were represented in the class.

Laurence was the perfect date, and perfectly clueless about her true age. She’d first met him last fall, when his football team came to town and defeated the Avalon Knights. Most of the town hadn’t taken the loss well, but Nina couldn’t care less. Laurence was the quarterback, he was super-hot and he believed she was a senior, like him. In the spring, she’d been delighted to learn he was the pitcher for his school’s baseball team, and they took up their flirtation again. They’d made out under the bleachers before, so technically, this was their second date.

He had wanted to pick her up at her house, but she’d made an elaborate excuse and convinced him to meet her at the club. Now he appeared before her like a pagan god, tall and broad-shouldered, his lean, ebony face beautifully chiseled. Even the reflected light from the revolving fixture on the ceiling seemed to highlight his importance, illuminating him from behind, like a rock star. He was by far the best-looking guy in the room, and the best dancer. Nina happily took him as her partner. Over the gut-deep thump of “Get It Started” by M.C. Hammer, they got to know each other better. He was just seventeen and was leaving home for the first time. She was lying about her age and had sneaked out for probably the hundredth time, but she didn’t tell him this.

They danced closer and closer, until they were touching, and Nina was on fire, as if he was a match striking to life against her. Maybe this was it, she thought. Maybe tonight was the night. And why not? He was the perfect guy to be her first—kind, handsome and honorable. Nina had eavesdropped on her older sisters enough to know these were the sort of qualities you didn’t find every day in a guy. She’d be nuts to turn him down.

After a while, he bent down and said, “Let’s go outside,” and led her by the hand to the terrace overlooking the golf course. She tipped back her head, welcoming the faint breeze over her face and neck.

“It’s so hot tonight,” she murmured, feeling wicked and powerful and filled with a crazy need to touch and be touched.

“Thirsty?” He held out a bottle of Snapple. “It’s spiked with vodka.”

“I’m cool with that.” Boldly she tipped back her head and drank half of it, forcing herself not to gag on the sharp taste.

They walked together down to the darkened golf course and left their shoes at the edge of the eighteenth green. The perfectly groomed grass felt like a cool carpet beneath their bare feet. A hush of luxury and privilege seemed to pervade the atmosphere.

Laurence chuckled appreciatively. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” he said.

“How do you mean?”

He explained that he grew up in public housing—a hulking project on the south end in a part of town you didn’t see in Hudson Valley tourist brochures. He’d been raised by a single mother who worked for the welfare department. “Demographically speaking, I’m the kid most likely to be doing time by now.”

“And look at you,” she said. “You’re a star. You’re going to West Point. In four years, you’ll be an officer.”

“It doesn’t even seem real.” He grabbed her and kissed her then, and it was an amazing kiss, sweet and sexy at the same time. “You don’t seem real, either,” he said.

“Maybe I’m not,” she said. “Maybe it’s all a dream.” She looked back at the brightly lit clubhouse. The ballroom was dark, flashing with the occasional strobe light. In the opposite wing, the dining room glowed golden, filled with genteel people ordering things Nina had learned about by reading fancy magazines, like Steak Diane and mashed potatoes with truffle oil. She could easily pick out the six members of the Bellamy family, who were known to dine at “the club” every Sunday evening in summer. There were Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy and their four grown kids—Philip was the eldest, followed by two sisters in the middle, and finally there was Greg. Impossibly good-looking in khakis and a crisp Oxford cloth shirt, a tie worn slightly loose at the throat, he exuded an easy charm, looking completely relaxed, as though posing for a country-club brochure.

“… come here often?” Laurence was asking her.

“Sure,” she lied breezily. “We’ve been members for years.”

Holding hands, they strolled to the middle of the fairway, and Nina was consumed by a curious certainty—she was going to go all the way with this boy. They both wanted it. She could tell. The knowledge and the anticipation breathed from their skin.

He turned to her and bent down and kissed her, and she felt herself lighting up with a burning need. She silently reviewed all the information she had from her sisters. Sex was natural, it was fun with the right guy … but a girl should never leave safety up to the guy. Nina had a tri-fold pack of condoms in her purse. She was fully, embarrassingly prepared to whip them out if necessary.

The starlit night surrounded them with magic. Then Nina heard a quiet popping sound, followed by a staccato hiss. A slap of cold water hit them.

“Hey,” she yelled.

“The sprinklers just turned on.” Laurence grabbed her hand and they tried running for cover, but the sprinklers had sprouted everywhere, forming a gauntlet of arching fountains along the fairway. By the time they escaped the spraying water, they were completely drenched. Ducking the sprinklers, they made their way to a gazebo between two fairways.

Nina got the giggles, and couldn’t stop until Laurence kissed her again. These were new kisses, imbued with a searing intimacy, almost a desperation. It was a relief when he stepped back and peeled off her soaking wet dress, spreading it across a privet hedge. She needed this, needed to be close to him, skin-to-skin with nothing between them, nothing at all.

He laid his blazer on the deck of the gazebo and they sank down together, spellbound, intoxicated, consumed by urgency. He paused to grope in his pocket, coming up with a condom, which made Nina weak with relief. Thank goodness he’d spared her the embarrassment.

So this was it, then. Here and now, in the shadowy gazebo with the sprinkler system hissing all around them, the veil of secrecy was swept aside. She wrapped her arms around him and dropped her head back, opening herself to him, and then they kissed and fit themselves together, and it was more incredible than she ever could have imagined. More uncomfortable and awkward, too, but with a sweetness that brought tears to her eyes. And quicker. Laurence almost instantly made a surprised, strangled sound, and then shuddered, covering her like a blanket. Then they both lay still, their hearts beating as one, their bodies still joined together.

After a while, he drew back. “You all right?” he whispered.

She was intrigued, feeling as though she teetered on the edge of something big. “I’m all right.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Hush. I wanted to. Maybe we can have another go at it.”

“I only brought one condom and—oh, shit.”

He wasn’t as experienced as he seemed. Somehow, the condom hadn’t gone where it was supposed to go. “Damn,” he said. “I’m sorry. I swear, I don’t have a disease or anything—”

“Me neither.” Suddenly embarrassed, Nina jumped up and struggled into her wet clothes. The issue of the failed condom put an end to the evening’s romance.

Laurence must have felt the same way as he shook out his clothes and put them on. “Hey, I feel bad,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Nothing’s hurt, but I’d better go,” she said, suddenly eager to get away. “My car’s at the far end of the parking lot.” Another lie. She’d brought her bike.

Carrying their shoes in their hands, they crossed the parking lot. “Tell me your phone number,” Laurence said. “I’ll call you.”

She was tempted, but only momentarily. The kind of lies she was telling tonight couldn’t be sustained for long. “I don’t think so.”

“You’re probably right.” Relief rang clearly in his voice.

“And you’re awfully quick to agree with me.” She was only half teasing.

“Look, I think you’re really something, but I got to think of the future. I’m a kid from the projects. If this doesn’t work out for me, well, let’s just say the options aren’t good. I better stick with the academy. As soon as I start, I take an oath of honor.”

“And I’m, like, this huge stain on your oath.”

“No, but—”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not going to cause any trouble for you, and that’s a promise.”

“You’re no trouble, girl.”

Just then, a shadow loomed over them.

She stopped walking and looked up. Uh-oh. Maybe Laurence had spoken too soon. “Greg Bellamy,” she said with forced brightness. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Greg stood over the fallen cadet, wondering if he’d broken anything. It had all happened so fast. One minute he was getting a sweater from the car for his sister. The next, he was driving his fist into some cadet’s jaw. The guy was gigantic, but Greg had the element of surprise. Shock was more like it. Shock had cut off the oxygen to his brain, causing him to lose the ability to judge whether or not he was right to clean the guy’s clock.

One thing he knew for certain, he definitely had a problem with a West Point cadet banging Mrs. Romano’s underage daughter. Greg had met her that one time up at the camp, but he couldn’t remember her name. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was still a kid. Yet there was no mistaking that just-got-laid look of these two—the damp clothes buttoned crooked, grass in their hair, the sheepish, sated expressions on both their faces.

The girl’s face changed instantly, sharpening with accusation as she glared at Greg. “He’s hurt,” she said. “You had no right—”

“I had no right?” Now, that pissed him off. He gave a disgusted laugh.

On the ground, the cadet moved his jaw from side to side. Okay, thought Greg, so at least he hadn’t done anything permanent to the guy. He wasn’t sure he was relieved by that or not. He nudged the guy with the toe of his shoe. “Get up,” he said.

The guy frowned, blinked in confusion until he spotted the girl. “Nina? What’s going on? Who the hell is this?”

Greg made a mental note of the girl’s name. Then, treating the guy like a recalcitrant camper, he said, “Party’s over, pal. So get your ass up and go back inside.”

“Laurence, I’m really sorry,” the girl—Nina—said in a small, horrified voice.

She was sorry. Sorry. Greg rounded on her. “Do you have a ride home?” he demanded.

She hung her head, turned away from Laurence and mumbled, “I rode my bike.”

He almost laughed. A bike. She’d ridden a damn bike to the country club to get laid. “It’s pitch-black outside,” he said. “Were you planning to find your way home by radar?”

The guy called Laurence climbed to his feet. Damn, he was tall. And still a little dazed. Or drunk. Or both. “Nina?” he asked again.

“Shut up,” Greg snapped, ready to be done with the whole drama, and eager to send the guy on his way before he decided to fight back. “Get back inside, now, and pray I don’t report you. I’m taking her home.”

“Are not,” Nina snapped back, then grabbed Laurence’s hand. “He’s not taking me anywhere.”

Greg ignored her and glared at Laurence. “She’s fourteen, you moron. What the hell were you thinking?”

Laurence dropped her hand as though it was a red-hot coal. He even stepped back, hands up, palms facing out, as though Greg had a gun pointed at him. “Shit—”

“Fifteen,” she said defiantly. “I just turned fifteen last month.”

The guy’s panic was genuine. He truly hadn’t known, the same as Greg hadn’t known that day in the dining hall. Until someone had clued him in, Greg, too, had been fooled by her impossibly curvy body, her smoldering eyes that pretended to know things she had no clue about, her full lips that made reckless promises to morons like this one.

“Go back inside,” he repeated. “Like I said, the party’s over.”

The guy took a step back. “I’m sorry,” he told Nina. “I didn’t know, I—Girl, you should have been straight with me.”

“I said,” Greg reminded him, “it’s over.”

“Laurence, no,” Nina protested. “This … this person has no idea what he’s talking about.”

The cadet offered a wordless look of helpless regret, then turned and hurried back to the clubhouse. Nina started after him. Greg grabbed her arm and held her back.

“Let go of me,” she said. “I have five brothers, and I know how to defend myself.”

Greg relinquished her. “How many of those brothers would approve of what you’re doing here?”

“None of your business.” She began to stomp toward the clubhouse, which was still bubbling over with golden light and music, as though nothing had happened.

“You go after that kid now,” Greg called to her, “and you’ll end his chances at West Point before he even starts.”

She was young, but she was far from stupid. She stopped walking and turned to him, and he could see the understanding rise in her eyes. An incident like this—fraternizing with an underage girl—was more than enough to get a guy dismissed or worse. Reluctant acceptance softened her face for a moment. Then, with a haughty sniff, she marched past him, grabbing a bicycle from a rack at the edge of the parking lot. The thing didn’t even have a light, just a cracked reflector on the rear fender.

“Hey,” he said, “you’re not riding that home.”

“Watch me.” She threw her dancing shoes into the basket and expertly pushed off, swinging her leg up and over the back. The skirts of her party dress fluttered around her bare legs.

Being a camp counselor had taught Greg a few things about catching kids who were trying to escape. He charged, grabbing the back of the seat, pulling her to a halt. She stood on the pedals, putting up a fierce resistance, but to no avail. Greg refused to let go of the bike until she surrendered to him with a surly glare.

“I’m driving you home,” he told her.

“The hell you are,” she shot back.

He saw her weighing her options and making a silent calculation, balancing her need for defiance and rebellion against the consequences he promised. Greg recognized the struggle. Just a few years older than her, he vividly recalled the raging clash of urges in a teenager. Hell, he still had those urges himself.

“You do not want to know how bad this can get,” he warned her.

He could tell the moment she resigned herself to common sense. Her shoulders slumped in defeat as she dismounted the bike. Greg let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He didn’t want her to see how relieved he felt. He hadn’t been eager to get her in trouble. He just wanted her home, safe. And, okay, when he thought about the fact that someone had been banging her, he also felt an undertone of envy, which shamed him. This girl was trouble. He didn’t know why he felt so protective of her. It was just that she was so young, so foolish. Somebody had to look out for her.

Now he had a dilemma, though. Driving her back to town could take ten minutes; returning to the country club—another ten. His parents were going to wonder where the heck he’d gone. He could tell Nina to wait right here while he went inside to explain, but he knew she’d seize the chance to bolt. He’d have to risk his parents’ displeasure, because the idea of keeping this underage pretty-baby from pedaling home through the dark night was more compelling.

He slung her bike into the trunk of his car and held open the passenger-side door. “Get in.”

“I’ll get the seat wet. It might ruin the upholstery.”

“Don’t worry about the seat, just get in.”

Nina gave an elaborate shrug. “I guess you Bellamys don’t worry about ruining things.”

Greg was startled by the resentment in her voice. “Us Bellamys? So I take it you’re acquainted with my family.”

She sniffed. “I know your type. Spoiled. Bossy. Interfering. Who needs you?”

He wondered why she had such a chip on her shoulder about his family. She probably just had a chip on her shoulder, period. Unconcerned, he got behind the wheel and peeled out, the trunk lid banging on the bike.

“You could have broken his jaw. Why are you so mad? Are you some kind of racist who can’t handle seeing him with a white girl?”

“With you being underage, I don’t care what color he is. He’s got no business messing around with you.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a kid. I know what I’m doing. And FYI, Laurence Jeffries is seventeen. So we’re not that different at all.”

Great, they were both kids. “You’re light years apart. You’re a schoolgirl and he’s about to go into the army.”

“I can quit school at sixteen without parental permission,” she pointed out.

“Good plan. That’ll get you far.”

“I’m just saying.” She sulked a little. “So is your family, like, going to kill you for disappearing?”

Probably. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“They were all, like, ‘it’s time we talked about your future, son,’ weren’t they?” she persisted. “I bet that’s what they like to do when they take you to the club.” Switching gears, she moved on. “What are your sisters’ names?”

“Ellen and Joyce.”

“And your brother is Philip. He looks a lot older than you.”

“He is. He’s got a wife and kid but they stayed in the city this weekend.”

“You’re an uncle, then,” she said. “Uncle Greg.”

She switched gears yet again with another nosy question. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

He wanted to tell her it was none of her business, but he didn’t. Just the thought of Sophie chafed at an old wound. He and Sophie Lindstrom had met in Econ 101 last September and he’d been a total goner. From her Nordic beauty to her prowess at Scrabble to her startling hunger in bed, she had fascinated and mesmerized him.

“She took a semester abroad,” he told Nina.

“Ha. That means she dumped you.”

She was annoyingly perceptive, he’d give her that. “Where to?” he asked, determined to drop the subject of Sophie.

“Just let me off at the corner of Maple and Vine. And you don’t have to do this, you know. I’ve lived here all my life. I know my way around.”

“If you’re so smart, you wouldn’t be sneaking around with guys who are too old for you.”

“Screw you,” she said.

He decided not to react, since he knew that was exactly what she wanted. Mercifully, she didn’t try to provoke him again, but turned her attention out the window. The road outlined the lakeshore, and it was mostly dark, an unspoiled wilderness. They passed an occasional cottage or cabin with lights winking, but the dwellings were sparse. Most of the lakeshore was a protected wilderness, and no further development would be permitted. The few places along the shore had gone in prior to the 1932 protection agreement.

They drove by the Inn at Willow Lake, somewhat shabby but popular with tourists because of its idyllic location. A quaint roadside sign marked the entrance, and Nina turned her head to stare at it as they passed.

Greg sensed her sinking mood. He wasn’t sure how, but he could feel it dragging at him, pulling all the air out of the car. And he felt responsible for her, in a way, as though he ought to process this with her. “Listen, I probably shouldn’t say anything—”

“Then don’t.”

“—but I’m going to, anyway. There’s no reason for you to be running around with guys who only want one thing from you.”

“Oh, God. I am so not listening to this.”

She was trapped, though. A captive audience. He eased up on the accelerator. “I don’t pretend to know anything about you, but guys like that, well, they’re not real complicated.” In fact, they were all exactly the same, letting a certain male appendage do all their thinking for them. Greg was well aware of this. There was something about women that seemed to suck the brain cells dry, turning a guy into a hopeless life-support system for an erection. And a girl like Nina—well, certain parts of him didn’t care about her age.

Trying to explain all this to her would be futile. There was no way he could tell her these things without sounding completely stupid. Besides, it was hypocritical. Because the only difference between him and the West Point kid was that Greg knew how old she was.

Still, he felt as though he should say something. Because one of these days, she was going to … He didn’t let himself finish the thought.

“So anyway, it’s plain old common sense,” he told her. “You’re better off hanging around people your own age.”

She snapped, “Right. Because boys my age are such delightful company.”

He had no answer for that. Greg had kids that age in his counseling group at Kioga this year, and he certainly couldn’t vouch for their social appeal. “You’re one of them,” he pointed out. “You’re in the same peer group.”

“Yeah, lucky me.” She turned to stare out the window, her party dress pulled over her drawn-up knees. Then he realized her tough-girl demeanor had crumpled. He heard a tragic sniffle, saw her hand sneak up to surreptitiously wipe a tear.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” he said.

“So is that some sort of a bonus, or what?”

There were few things more daunting to Greg than a crying girl. It was with some relief that he pulled over at the corner of Maple and Vine, went around and held the door for her. She sat unmoving, her arms still looped around her knees. A car trolled past. In one of the houses behind him, a porch light switched on.

He felt a surge of panic. This might look bad, Nina Romano getting out of his car. He quickly turned and went to pull her bicycle from the trunk. She got out, but seemed to be in no hurry to go home.




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