Lakeside Cottage

“A few months.” The girl eyed the cherries with yearning.

Kate pushed them closer to her. She noticed that the old pine table, one of the original pieces in the house, had been scrubbed shades lighter than she remembered, and then waxed until it shone. Similarly, the floor and all the fixtures gleamed and not a single cobweb lingered in the corners of the windows. If this was Callie’s doing, it was impressive, though she needed to increase her understanding of boundaries.

“Um, are you going to tell her?” Callie asked.

“I should,” Kate said.

“Mom.” Aaron’s voice rose in protest. He hated it when people got in trouble, probably because that’s where he found himself so often.

Unjustly fired only a week ago, Kate was quick to sympathize. “I won’t,” she reassured her, “but I’d like an explanation.”

The girl sipped her water. “I, um, I’ve been staying in the houses I cleaned, the ones that are empty,” she confessed. “I never bothered anybody and I always cleaned up after myself, a hundred percent. I didn’t know you’d be coming today, I swear. I had you down for tomorrow.”

“We decided to come up early.” Kate studied the girl’s troubled eyes, the pinched and worried forehead. “Where’s your family, Callie?”

“I don’t have a family,” she said flatly.

“That needs a little more explanation.”

“My mom’s away and I’ve never known my dad.” She shook back her hair, acting as though it didn’t matter to her.

“So are you homeless?” Aaron asked.

Callie plucked a cherry and ate it. “I’m supposed to be in a foster home, but I had to leave the last one. I couldn’t stay there.”

“Why not?” Aaron asked.

Callie’s eyes, as gray and turbulent as the lake during storm season, expressed a truth Kate knew she would not utter in front of Aaron.

“I didn’t really get along with the family,” the girl said.

“You can stay with us,” Aaron said.

Kate nearly choked on a cherry.

Fortunately, Callie anticipated her reaction. “I wouldn’t do that to you and your mom, kid,” she said, pushing back from the table. “Totally time to clip. I’ll go up and get my stuff and then I’ll be out of your hair.” She headed for the stairs.

As Kate watched her go, something about Callie touched a chord in her. The girl moved awkwardly within an oversize gray sweat suit, and she kept her head partially ducked as though anticipating a blow. Yet despite the ugly sweats and dirty bare feet, there was a touch of teenage vanity. Her fingernails and toenails were painted a beautiful shade of pink.

Aaron eyed Kate reproachfully.

“Don’t even say it,” Kate warned, getting up. “I’ll go talk to her.”

“I knew it,” he said, shooting out of his seat and punching the air.

“You can go play with Bandit while I sort this out.”

In the big bedroom, Callie had opened the drapes to let in a flood of afternoon sunlight. A large backpack was propped by the door, and Callie was busy putting the sheets on the bed.

“I used my sleeping bag, honest,” she said. “I didn’t use your linens.” She tucked the fitted sheet around one corner of the mattress.

Kate tucked the opposite corner. “I’m not worried about the linens,” she said. “I’m worried about you. How old are you, Callie?”

“I’ll be, um, eighteen in July,” she said, her gaze shifting nervously. “That’ll be good because I’ll be a legal adult and I can do whatever I want.”

Kate wondered what she wanted but decided to start with a different set of questions. Callie didn’t look as though she was nearly eighteen. There was a subtle softness and roundness in her face and a haunted, lost look in her eyes that made her seem younger. “Talk to me, Callie,” she said. “I’m not going to turn you over to the authorities. Where are you from?”

Callie opened the top sheet with a snap. The motion stirred a golden flurry of dust motes as though the house was waking up. The air was filled with the sunny smell of clean laundry.

“California,” she said.

“That narrows it down,” Kate commented. “Do you mind telling me why you were in foster care?”

“Because my mother belonged to this creepy commune,” she said, giving up the information without resistance. “It was near Big Sur, and it was supposed to be this incredible self-sufficient utopia.” Callie must have noticed Kate’s surprised glance. “They homeschooled us, and some of us actually got a decent education. Brother Timothy—he was the founder—has a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Berkeley.” She opened the cedar chest at the end of the bed. “Is this quilt okay?”

Kate nodded and helped unfold the quilt, a sturdy, colorful family heirloom stitched by one of the Livingston women a couple of generations back.

“So, this Brother Timothy?” she prompted, sensing Callie’s dislike.

“He’s not anybody’s brother and I’m sure by now Berkeley’s ashamed to claim him. He’s doing time for child molestation.”

Kate’s skin crawled. “Are you one of his victims?” she asked.

Callie worked with brisk agitation, creating perfect hospital corners. “When I was a kid, I had fun living there. We ran around and swam in the ocean and actually had a couple of good teachers. But once we hit puberty, pow. We didn’t get to be kids anymore. Brother Timothy called us—the younger girls—his angels.”

Kate abandoned making the bed. She sat on the side of the bed and motioned for Callie to do the same. “Didn’t your mother …” She hesitated, knowing she ought to choose her words carefully. “Do you think the adults in the commune were aware of this?”

Callie snorted and nodded her head. “None of the mothers lifted a finger to stop him. They were all, like, under his spell or something. He convinced them that we were their gifts to him. Even if a girl got hysterical and fought back, the mothers made her go to Brother Timothy. They did everything they were told, like they were Stepford hippies, you know?”

“That’s a nightmare,” Kate said. “You’re telling me.”

Kate noticed that Callie hadn’t answered her question about whether or not she was one of Brother Timothy’s victims. “So is this commune … still around?”

“Nope. This girl named Gemma O’Donnell, like, three years ago, she saved us all.” Callie studied the floor. “Gemma kept trying to tell someone what was going on, and every once in a while, somebody from social services or the school district would come up and take a look around but they never found anything. To an outsider, it looked like utopia—vegetable gardens, a flower farm, our own milk cows, everybody reading William Carlos Williams. Nobody listened to Gemma until she finally found a way to make them listen.” Callie paused, took a gulp of air. “She went to the Big Sur Family Services Agency and threatened to kill herself if they didn’t believe her.” Callie’s voice lowered to a shaky whisper. “She was pregnant by Brother Timothy. They took him away, and I never saw Gemma again. I don’t know what ever happened to her or the baby.”

Kate put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. The girl flinched and Kate removed it. “I’m sorry. I hope things got better for you after that.”

“They did for some of us,” she said. “For me, for a while. But in the last home I was placed in, well, that was bad so I had to leave.”

“Callie, where’s your mother?”

Callie dropped her gaze. She picked at her nails. “I haven’t seen her in over a year.”

“Do you think she might be worried about you?”

“She should have worried about me when we were all living with that pervert,” Callie snapped. Then she lowered her voice. “You going to call social services?”

“Not if you’ve been straight with me.”

“You can check out my story on the Internet,” Callie said. “Millennium Commune, look it up.”

“I don’t have Internet service here. If I need to go online, I have to drive to the library in Port Angeles.”

“Whatever. I’ve been straight with you.” She looked out the window as she spoke.

There were still secrets concealed within Callie, Kate was sure of it. She studied Callie’s profile. The girl was quite pretty, though that wasn’t immediately apparent thanks to the acne and some dark patches on her skin where she’d probably forgotten to wash. Her hair needed a trim, and the shapeless sweatpants and old Big Sur Folk Festival T-shirt didn’t flatter her heavyset figure. Yet when the sunlight from the windows outlined the tender curve of her cheek, Kate saw a different person sitting there, a girl who was still a child no matter what the calendar said.

The protective instinct rose inside Kate, stronger now, urging her toward a leap of faith. She knew she had to give this girl a chance.

“Would you like to stay in the guest suite?” she heard herself saying. Back in the early days of the lakeside cottage, the first Livingstons had traveled with a housekeeper and cook, who had occupied the small bedroom and washroom off the main floor. Later generations used it to accommodate visitors, giving them more privacy than the upstairs rooms.

Callie narrowed her eyes. “What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch. You need a place to stay, I have tons of room here, so—”

“I’d better not.” She stared at the braided rug on the floor.

“You’re going to run out of options,” Kate pointed out. “In the off-season, plenty of houses are vacant, but now that summer’s here, everything will change.”

“I’ve got camping gear.”

“I’ve got a six-bedroom house.”

“Why?” Callie asked. “There’s got to be a catch.”

“No catch, like I promised. You said you’ve been straight with me. You’ve had a rough time of it. Why not stay here where you’re safe?”

She snorted softly, a sound of bitter mirth.

“Is something funny?” asked Kate.

Callie shook her head. “I’ll stay tonight. After that, we’ll see.”

Don’t do me any favors, Kate thought. She reminded herself that if this girl’s story was even partially true, she’d lived a nightmare. She didn’t take Callie’s reluctance personally, though. Giving her a room here was the right thing to do. “I’ll call Mrs. Newman and let her know you’ll be staying with us.”

The girl looked amazed, her expression that of a starvation victim facing her first plate of food.

“It’ll be all right,” Kate said softly. “You’ll see.”

Callie sat very quiet and still for a few moments, and Kate suspected that gestures like this were rare in her life.

“You expecting someone?” Callie got up and went to the window.

Kate heard the crackle of tires over gravel, then the sound of a car door slamming. Bandit bugled his usual greeting.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“A really hot guy. He your boyfriend?”

For some reason, the suggestion brought a flush to Kate’s cheeks as she joined Callie at the window. “The guy who lives down the road. Come and meet him.”

Six

When Kate and Callie went out into the yard, Aaron was running circles around JD, talking a mile a minute. JD looked a bit discomfited by the boy’s enthusiasm. Possibly he was already regretting having stopped by.

Seeing Aaron’s efforts to get the man’s attention, Kate felt a familiar pang. Aaron wanted a father in the worst way. He always had. As a toddler, he sometimes tried to wander off in the mall or at a baseball game, and she’d catch him trying to follow random men around, imprinted like a duck.

The way he emulated the stranger suggested just a hint of hero worship. As far as Kate could tell, JD was Aaron’s ideal in faded work pants and Wolverine boots. He had a pickup truck and a chain saw. What more could a boy want?

She caught herself staring at his shoulders. They were broad without being bulky, and he moved with a certain athletic ease, suggesting a natural fitness rather than some kind of intensive training. There was something about JD. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it. His careless choice of clothes suggested a lack of vanity, yet he bore himself with a curious dignity.

“Hello,” she called, motioning for Callie to join her. “How is the victim?”

JD turned to her, and her heart flipped over. It was crazy, he wasn’t her type at all, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Okay, she thought, studying his hair, so it wasn’t a mullet. Just long hair, and like Brad Pitt’s in his best movies.

“The volunteers at the wildlife rehab place think he’ll make a recovery.” He indicated his truck. “I washed out your cooler.”

“Thanks. JD, this is Callie Evans. She’s going to be staying with us.”

Aaron’s eyebrows lifted almost comically, but he made no comment.

“Nice to meet you,” he said.

Callie blushed and looked bashful. Kate wondered if, given her background, the girl had issues with men.

“JD, you want to check out the dock?” Aaron had a fascination with the dock and the water. “You, too, Callie.”

“Sure,” she said. “Is it deep enough to dive off the end?”

“Yep. My cousins used to dive off it all the time.”

“What about you?”

“Nope.” Aaron’s cheeks reddened, but he didn’t explain further. Kate suspected he couldn’t. He didn’t have the vocabulary to put his emotions into words. Maybe, she thought, just maybe this would be the summer he’d finally swim.

Callie gave the dog a wide berth. “A kayak,” she said, lifting the tarp that covered a long, narrow boat. “You ever go out in it?”

“All the time,” Aaron said, clearly loving the attention. “It’s a two-man, see?”

Despite his refusal to learn to swim, he loved boats and always had. The ferries of Puget Sound, a Zodiac raft, anything that would float appealed to him, bringing him close to the thing he dreaded.

“Maybe we could take it out,” Aaron suggested.

“Of course we’ll take it out,” Kate assured him. She was determined for this to be a fun summer for him even though his cousins wouldn’t be around.

Aaron showed off the kayak, which had been around since powerboats had been banned from the lake years before. Kate stood back and watched him, this boy whose teachers said he was a poor student with poor skills of self-control, as he effortlessly went through the attributes of the boat.

They had never met two strangers in one day, Kate reflected. And certainly they’d never encountered a teenage runaway and a quiet but unexpectedly interesting guy. Now she watched him next to her son, and he was patient and respectful in a way that appealed to her deeply.

Most men she met lost interest as soon as they discovered she had a child, or as soon as they discovered Aaron’s rambunctious nature. So far, this one seemed to be all right with her son’s constant chattering. He seemed to be sensitive to Callie, too, Kate noticed. He gave the girl plenty of space, didn’t ask her a lot of questions.

A sensitive diamond in the rough. Right here on the shores of Lake Crescent. Who knew?

You’re getting ahead of yourself, Kate, she thought. All he did was borrow your ice chest.

Aaron, on the other hand, seemed to have no reservations. “So you want to go kayaking right now, or after dinner?” he asked.

“Maybe another time.”

He was diplomatic, thought Kate. He seemed to sense that you didn’t just paddle out onto a remote glacial lake with a child you’d only just met.

A look of disappointment clouded Aaron’s face. Then Bandit came back from some inexplicable dog’s errand. He was flecked with twigs and sticker burrs and panting hard. Callie scooted away from him again, though she tried to be discreet about it.

“Well,” said Kate. “I need to finish putting things away …”

JD seemed to catch her tone. “I should get going, too.”

“Aw, come on,” Aaron said. “Stick around a while.”

“I’ll see you around the lake,” JD assured him. “Thanks again, Kate. See you, Callie. Take care of yourself.”

She frowned at him suspiciously. “Sure.”

Aaron walked with JD to his truck, bouncing along beside him as if he were a ball and JD was dribbling him. “Hey, guess what? When I was six, I walked the whole Spruce Railroad Trail all by myself.”

“You don’t say.”

“Yep. There are mountain bikes in the shed. Five of them. Want to go mountain biking?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “This is a really cool truck,” Aaron said, speeding ahead, scrambling up over the tailgate. “Is this the Schroeders’ truck?”

“Uh-huh. I’m borrowing it for the summer. The Schroeders live on the East Coast now.”

“Hey, my cousins moved to the East Coast.” Aaron started bouncing again. “All four of them. That’s all I have. Four cousins. No brothers or sisters. You got kids?”

Way to go, Aaron, thought Kate, holding her breath as she waited for his answer.

“Nope,” JD said easily, taking his keys out of his pocket.

“You married?”

“Nope.”

“Seeing anybody special?”

“Aaron.” Kate couldn’t take it anymore.

“I was just trying to figure out all the stuff you’d want to know anyway,” Aaron said, then turned again to JD. “If we were in the city, she would Google you on the Internet, but there’s no Internet here.”

“All right, buddy,” she said. “Why don’t you go make yourself useful and stop embarrassing me in front of company.”

He saluted her and sped off, waving to JD.

“Sorry about that,” she said as he got into his truck.

“Don’t worry about it.” He propped his elbow on the window frame. He looked as though he wanted to say something else, but he stayed silent for a few beats, staring out across the lake. His arm still rested easily on the edge of the window as though he was in no hurry to leave. “Do you really do that, look people up on the Internet?”

“Of course. Don’t you?”

“I figure if I need to know something about a person, I just ask.”

“What a concept.”

“Like what about Aaron’s father?”

“I beg your pardon?” She’d heard him perfectly well, but she needed to stall and reel in her thoughts.

“How does he fit into the picture?”

Oh, gosh, she thought. This is Date Talk.

“He doesn’t,” she replied. “Never has.” Then, because she couldn’t help herself, she added, “Why do you ask?”

“Why do you think I asked?” He still hadn’t smiled at her, but she caught a glint of humor in his eyes. At least, she thought it was humor.

When he looked at her like that, she felt a tug of … she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Recognition? How could that be? They’d never met before. Had they?

She narrowed her eyes and studied his face. What was it about him? Besides the fact that underneath the scruffy exterior, he had definite potential.

“I think you asked because you’re interested in me,” she said. “Am I right?”

“Lady, a guy would have to be comatose not to be interested in you,” he said, sounding annoyed. Then he started up the truck. The radio station—KXYZ out of Seattle, the only one that came in reliably at the lake—blared news at the top of the hour. He shut it off, gave her a wave and drove away.

She stood looking after him for a long moment. “Then why don’t you look happier about meeting me?” she asked no one in particular.

Seven

Each year after she got to the lake, it always took Kate a few days to decompress. She still tended to wake up and spring out of bed, already making a mental to-do list. Back in the city, it was likely to be a lengthy one: her deadlines at work and any number of errands, appointments and notes to herself about Aaron. Looking after her son meant checking his schoolwork, making his lunch and organizing his backpack, driving carpool. After school, the schedule was packed with karate, Cub Scouts, homework and playdates.

Playdates. Now there was a concept, she thought. Sadly, Aaron’s dating life was more successful than her own. Other kids liked him even if their mothers thought he was a terror.

On their third morning at the lake, she got up and put the kettle on for tea. No coffee here. Coffee meant rush hour and work and stress. Tea meant serenity.

She was determined not to rush or to allow herself to get frantic about being jobless. She had a decent income from the Seattle properties. Her father had left her a wonderful legacy. If she was careful, she could get by for a long while without her salary from the paper. What she missed, though, was her identity. Writing defined who she was. She wanted to feel like herself again, producing copy, getting it published.

Stop, she told herself. You’ve got the whole summer to figure this out. Taking a deep breath, she looked out at the lake. Just the sight of it calmed her. Clear and flat as a mirror, the surface of the water reflected the surrounding mountains covered in evergreens, some with tiny veins of snow hiding in the topmost crevices. She checked the temperature—51 degrees at 7:30 a.m. Perfect. Maybe she’d take Aaron and Bandit for a hike later.

As they had so often over the past few days, her thoughts drifted to JD Harris. Thinking about him was probably a bad idea, yet that was exactly where her undisciplined mind went. At the ripe old age of twenty-nine, she was still softhearted and romantic, capable of imagining what it was like to have a love affair or even a full-blown relationship, to plan a future with someone. While her friends at college had partied, falling in and out of love with the seasons, Kate had gestated. After Aaron was born, she’d lactated. She’d been much more productive than her friends. But she had never flung herself into an affair. As a single mom, she didn’t have time for that.

Still, a girl could dream, and Kate did. She wondered what was going on with JD Harris—who he was, how he had come to be here at the lake. She had definitely sensed a spark of interest between them. He’d said so, though she couldn’t be sure whether he was joking or not.

Though he’d made no promises, she’d half expected him to come calling.

But when in her life had she not been disappointed by a man?

The kettle rattled on the burner, and she turned off the flame before the whistle blew. A few minutes later she settled down with her tea and opened her laptop at the old-fashioned desk in the corner. Yesterday she’d composed a note to an old friend. Tanya Blair was a friend from college, a resounding success story from the UW’s School of Communications. She worked as an editor at Smithsonian Magazine, and she was Kate’s first and best prospect. It was quite a leap from local weekly to a national magazine, but Kate decided to think big. In the past, she’d tried thinking small, aiming low, and look where that had landed her.

She read over the note, and when she was satisfied with it, she printed out the letter, folded it and put it in an envelope. She felt a vague sense of dissatisfaction. Though she’d told Tanya her pen was for hire, she had no material to offer. Not yet, anyway. She needed to write, that was true, but she wasn’t sure what to write.

A few minutes later, Callie came shuffling out, dressed for the day in her customary sweats. Her face was puffy from sleep. “Morning,” she said, stifling a yawn.

“Hi,” said Kate. “Tea?”

“I think I’ll go straight for breakfast,” Callie said, helping herself to a bowl of Total. She held out the box to Kate, who shook her head.

“I’ll wait for Aaron,” Kate said.

Callie indicated the window. “He’s been waiting for you.” On the lawn, he and Bandit were playing tug-of-war with what she hoped was an old towel.

“I didn’t even hear him get up.” Kate shook her head. “So what’s on your agenda for today?”

“Yolanda is picking me up. We’ve got three houses to do on Lake Sutherland.” She grimaced. “I so don’t feel like working.”

She looked a bit peaked, Kate observed, though there was nothing wrong with her appetite. Teenagers, Kate thought. They stayed up too late, no matter what time they had to get going in the morning. Kate had no complaints about the girl, though. She helped around the house, Aaron adored her and she seemed to be behaving herself.