Lakeside Cottage (23 page)

JD
attacked the wooden skiff with a vengeance, using the air compressor to clear the field for the next step. The wood had to be as particle-free as he could make it, so when he applied each layer of sealer it would be smooth and flawless. The entire hull needed to be airtight and prepared for multiple coats of marine epoxy and varnish.

He had a hard time keeping his mind on the job, though. Now what? he wondered as he worked, viewing the world through the distorted shield of his safety goggles. What the hell was he supposed to do next?

Like a fool, he’d started something with Kate Livingston. And like an even bigger fool, he’d destroyed it.

It was a freak accident, falling for her. An unplanned event beyond his control. It was not supposed to happen.

He cleaned every particle from the hull of the skiff, as meticulous as a surgeon sterilizing the field for an operation. He knew plenty about accidents. He’d been in the business of mopping up after them for years.

“It was an accident” was something people said to him on a daily basis when he was on the job. “It wasn’t my fault” was another favorite. “No one is to blame.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Hearing victims and families utter those words used to frustrate him. Now he realized that all those phrases applied to his tangled affair with Kate. He had come here this summer to disappear and lie low, not to discover a dream he’d never let himself have.

As he changed a plane blade, his hand slipped. He looked down at the deep gash in his finger, watching the blood well up and trickle down. A few seconds passed before he felt the sting. “Idiot,” he muttered. He went to the outdoor spigot and flushed the wound, made a field dressing of a clean cloth, then went right back to work. It wasn’t like him to be so clumsy. He needed to be more careful.

He was ticked off at himself for letting things go so far. Looking back, he couldn’t quite tell how it had happened. He was new to the whole business of giving his heart, and one of the first things he’d discovered was that he couldn’t control love. It controlled him. And it wasn’t just Kate he loved, but Aaron, too. Even Callie, with her secrets and her hurts, was part of the picture. They made a tight unit that was infinitely larger than each individual. JD wasn’t sure how he knew what being a family felt like, either, yet somehow he understood in a deep and hidden place that he’d found the essence of that this summer. It was a closeness and sense of security and contentment that pervaded every moment they were together, even when they were at odds with one another.

There were so many reasons that this wouldn’t work, yet he couldn’t help wishing he could find a way to be with them, not just for the summer but for good. Clearly Kate had other ideas. After their argument about Callie,
there wasn’t much more for them to say. Kate had informed him that she couldn’t be with him if he didn’t support her ambitions, and he couldn’t force himself to change his mind about her project with Callie.

That should have been the end of it. Instead, it was more like the onset of an illness he couldn’t shake. He thought about her constantly, with the kind of yearning that kept him up at night, took away his need for solitude, distracted him from all but the simplest tasks. Even the manual labor of restoring the boat was almost too much to manage.

He felt sick that he’d blown it with her, yet at the same time, a curious relief took hold. Being alone was part of the plan. He was supposed to lose himself this summer, not lose his heart.

“Congratulations,” Callie called out, coming down the driveway toward the workshop. She looked good, with a spring in her step and her bucket of cleaning things, ready to get to work.

“For what?” he asked, checking the bandage on his hand.

“You’ve been upgraded to
complete
idiot.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean.”

“All right,” he said. “I won’t pretend. I really don’t know what you mean.”

“Kate, that’s what,” Callie said. “It’s so stupid for you to get all mad because of the article. And no, she didn’t send me to say that, so don’t even ask me.”

“I’m not mad. I just think it’s a bad idea. You ought to reconsider, Callie.”

“It’s just one article.”

“As far as you know,” he warned her. “These things can take on a life of their own—”

“I don’t care, okay? I’m not like you, JD, all freaked out because you don’t like publicity.”

“You don’t, either,” he assured her. “Listen, when all this started happening to me, I systematically lost every element of my private life, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. And when all that was taken away, I had nothing. Then when the thing with my mother happened, I had less than nothing. Trust me, you don’t want the attention.”

“Then let me find that out for myself.”

“By the time you find out, it’ll be too late. Suppose someone digs up things about your mother.”

“She deserves it.”

“Nobody deserves it.”

“You know what?” she said in a huff. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. No, wait. I have one more thing to tell you. You’re crazy for making this some kind of deal breaker with Kate.”

“You already said that.”

“Then I’m done talking about it. The ball’s in your court.”

JD was more than willing to drop the subject. He liked Callie, and she brought out a strong protective instinct in him. He felt a grudging respect for her moxie in bringing up the topic. He didn’t want to discuss Kate with her further, though. His differences with Kate ran deeper than the fact that he thought she was making a mistake by turning Callie into the subject for an article. He and Kate had a fundamental difference in their values. When she finished with Callie, she’d move on to new topics, and that was her right. His reservations would always hang between them. She was a reporter in search of a story. He was sick and tired of being the story.

“Your doc say you’re well enough to work?” he asked Callie.

She nodded vigorously. He had to admit, the improvement in her health had improved everything about her. This was what he loved about medicine. Sometimes it truly did have the power to heal, to turn a life around, to transform tragedy into a second chance.

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said.

“Thanks. And, uh, I never said thank-you for what you did for me that night. The night of my birthday. Without you, I would have been a goner.”

JD worked all day, scarcely pausing except to pay Callie and tell her goodbye. The sweat and dust all but coated him and the bandage on his hand unraveled in tatters. Then, hot and aching, he peeled off his shirt and dived into the frigid lake. The soft, clear water flowed over him in gentle, cleansing waves even as its brutal chill took his breath away. By swimming out a few hundred feet, he could see Kate’s place with its emerald green yard, the house as commanding as a ship under sail. He wondered what she was doing right now. Was she working on her story? Was she messing around with Aaron, chatting with Callie? Maybe she’d gone to town. Maybe she had already met someone else, someone who wasn’t paranoid about reporters and didn’t sit in judgment of her.

Someone who wasn’t keeping a colossal secret from her.

If he hadn’t finished off their relationship with their last conversation, the fact that he’d been lying to her all summer would certainly do the trick.

In his imagination, he’d rehearsed the conversation dozens of times:

“Kate, I’m not who you think I am. Wait, I am who you think I am, but there’s something you should know about me…” Then, as simply as possible, he would explain about the incident at Walter Reed. And Kate, who had once told him he seemed too good to be true, would discover that she’d been right.

Perhaps she’d be understanding. She might even be intrigued by the idea, the novelty of knowing someone who had inadvertently been catapulted into notoriety. But ultimately, he knew, she would discover the destructive side of fame just as Janet had. It was like a monster with a life of its own, out of control. Here at the lake in summer, his identity didn’t matter. This wasn’t the real world.

The real world was stalking paparazzi, articles crammed with lies, TV-news reporters dogging his footsteps, constantly ringing phones, agents and publicists making wild claims, people who were down on their luck begging for favors. The human psyche just wasn’t made to withstand the constant pressure. God knew, JD was proof of that. In time, Kate would grow to hate the attention, particularly when it focused on Aaron. Eventually, she would come to resent JD for bringing on all the unwanted intrusions. Worse, his notoriety could endanger her and Aaron in ways he couldn’t even predict. If anything happened to them because of him, he’d never forgive himself.

Sam and Penny assured him that the furor would die down, his mother would get better and one day he’d have his life back. Maybe then….

With strong, smooth strokes, he swam back to shore and let the water stream off his shoulders, down his back and legs. The lake had cleansed him even as it chilled
him to the bone. Shaking off water, he went in search of a towel.

Time to deal with other things, he told himself.

He dried himself off and changed clothes, put a fresh dressing on his cut. Then he went to his desk, circling around the neat stacks of paperwork before forcing himself to take a seat. This was not rocket science, he told himself, but he kept hesitating to get the process rolling. In his mind’s eye, he pictured the admissions committee going over his application file. With his training and experience as a Green Beret medic, he’d be regarded as a promising candidate. Still, he had no idea how a venerable institution of higher learning might react to his being a celebrity, however reluctant. He’d heard plenty about starlets who interrupted their movie careers to attend Princeton or Stanford, but the difference was, a starlet didn’t share his aversion to the limelight.

Another reason for his hesitation was that he wanted to be accepted on his merits as an applicant, not as a guy whose face was once on the cover of
Time
magazine.

Pretending the incident hadn’t happened was stupid, Sam always said. The Christmas Eve rescue was part of JD now; he couldn’t separate himself from it. Besides, Sam pointed out, in order to get into med school, you used any means at your disposal, even if that meant letting on you were the lead story on the evening news. JD knew damn well he was qualified. He just needed a break.

He massaged his temples, picturing life as a student. Monklike, he would study late into the night and rise early each morning. Becoming a doctor was going to consume him. He’d seen this in other Special Forces medics, many of whom went on to med school. Once they decided to go for it, their studies took as much time
and concentration as training for the Green Berets. JD reminded himself that there would be no room in his life for anything but study and practice.

Enough, he thought, flicking the point of a pen in and out, in and out. He had plenty of reasons to stay the hell away from Kate, and only one to keep her close.

And even though he told himself not to, he wondered what she was doing right now.

K
ate looked more nervous than Callie actually felt about this photo shoot for
Vanity Fair.
“Don’t freak out on me,” Callie told her. “Then I’ll start freaking, too.”

“Okay. I’ll work on it.” Kate flexed her hands on the steering wheel as she pulled into the strip-center parking lot and headed for the Curl & Twirl, where Callie was supposed to go to get her hair and makeup done.

It was intimidating as hell, Callie thought, and Kate wasn’t helping the situation.

“I’m not freaking out,” Aaron said from the backseat. He kept fogging the window with his breath and drawing faces with his finger. Jeez, give the kid a Game Boy, Callie wanted to tell Kate. “What’s the big deal?” he asked.

“I don’t like getting my picture taken.”

“Why not?”

“Because I hate the way I look, okay?”

“It’s not okay,” Kate said, navigating around potholes and speed bumps. “And you don’t mean that.”

“Fine.” Callie didn’t want to get into some big
discussion with Aaron as audience. Besides, Kate was maybe a little bit right. Since starting the whole diabetes-prevention thing, she’d lost weight and her skin was better—no dark patches and zits. She had learned with some relief that the acanthosis nigricans and acne were not some sort of cosmic punishment but symptoms of diabetes. Once she got that under control, the skin troubles subsided, thank God. “I don’t mean it. I love the way I look, and the pictures are going to be gorgeous.”

“Now you’re being facetious.”

“What’s facetious?” Aaron asked.

They both ignored him. “I can’t help the way I feel,” Callie said. “
I
like the way you look,” Aaron piped up.

They kept ignoring him. “Of course you can,” Kate replied.

“I
said,
” Aaron bellowed, too loudly to ignore, “
I
like the way you look. I like your whole stupid face, so there.”

“You crack me up,” Callie said.

“You crack me down.”

“You’re a nut,” she added.

“You’re the one who’s going to get your hair ironed and face painted on,” he replied. “Who’s the nut now?”

Kate found a parking spot near the salon. “All set?” she asked brightly.

“Um, listen,” Callie said, “would you mind maybe dropping me off? I mean, that way Aaron wouldn’t get bored waiting around—”

“I don’t mind watching,” he said.

Callie met Kate’s eyes and they shared a silent accord. “I’ll be back in an hour,” Kate said.

“Thanks.”

Callie stood on the curb and watched them drive away. They headed down the hill toward the ferry landing, where there was a tall lookout tower Aaron could climb and see clear to Vancouver Island in Canada. She checked her watch, fifteen minutes to kill until the appointment. One thing being homeless had taught her was how to kill time. She was some kind of expert at it. She walked a little ways down the street, catching a glimpse of herself in a shop window, a girl walking by herself, hands in her pockets. Even with Kate and Aaron, she sometimes felt so alone. They were great, but it had been so long since she’d had a friend her age that it felt like a physical ache. Often, she fantasized about being surrounded by a group of friends, laughing together like…

She studied the group of kids at the far end of the block, standing around outside the recruiting office.
Luke.
She was sure it was him. Her heart sped up in her chest. She hadn’t seen him in a while. A couple of weeks ago, he’d said he couldn’t hang out with her as much as he used to. He was busy, because the parks department had increased his hours.

He wasn’t busy now. In a group with two other guys and three girls, he looked happy and animated, his lanky posture relaxed. Callie had asked him if it was weird that she wasn’t quite as old as she’d said she was, and he’d said no. She’d asked him if it was weird that she had this medical condition, and he’d said no.

But something was definitely weird.

She hung back and contemplated the situation. He hadn’t spotted her yet. She could just slip back around the corner and forget about the whole thing. She knew she wouldn’t forget, though. She’d stew about it. All summer long, he’d told her he didn’t have any friends up here in
the Peninsula, and she’d believed him. He was pretty damn friendly with the kids he was with now.

Finally, he’d made some friends. This could work out really well, Callie told herself. It would be fun to spend the last few weeks of the summer hanging out with a group of kids. The girls wore miniskirts and crop tops that showed their midriffs. They probably had belly-button rings, something Callie had promised herself she’d get once she reached her target weight. One of the girls, who had perfectly straight, blue-black hair, was flirting with Luke, leaning in to him when he spoke, laughing and putting her hand on his arm.

All right, thought Callie. Enough’s enough. She squared her shoulders and headed toward him. It was funny how he was standing near the recruiting office with the JD poster, now faded from the sun. Sometimes Callie burned to tell Luke. It was the coolest secret ever. Maybe he’d hang around with her more if she told him who JD really was.

As she neared the group, she put a smile in place. The other kids didn’t recognize her, of course, but she could tell Luke did. He acted as if he were seeing a ghost.

This is bad, thought Callie, instantly regretting her decision. This is really, really bad. “Hey, Luke,” she said, hoping her friendliness didn’t seem forced.

He leaned back against the building. “Hey.”

She waited for him to introduce her to the others. She felt them taking her apart with their stares. “So what’re you up to?” she asked.

“Staying busy,” he said in a bored voice. His gaze was flat, his eyes narrow.

“I can see that.” Callie wanted to die. She prayed for the earth to open up right then and there and swallow her whole. She knew it was chickenshit to back down when
she ought to get in his face right now. Still, she chose the chickenshit route. He wasn’t even worth it, she told herself. He wasn’t worth sticking around and fighting for. “Well, I need to be somewhere,” she said. “See you.”

“Yeah.”

She pivoted and headed back the way she had come. Although she tried not to hear, her ears were perfectly tuned in and she overheard Luke giving a short, nervous laugh.

“…nobody,” he said. “Just some kid who cleans houses for my grandmother.”

Callie kept walking and didn’t stop until she reached the lookout tower at the landing. She spotted Kate’s Jeep parked at the base of the tower, and high above, Kate and Aaron tossing oyster crackers to seagulls, who caught them in midair. Just the sight of them seemed to ease her despair, if only a little. They were so cute together, the two of them, a matched set of redheads. Watching them, she felt a funny lightness in her chest. A sense of…ownership.

She waved at them and they hurried down, their footsteps bonging on the open steel stairs. “That was quick,” Kate said a little breathlessly. Her face changed when she got closer. “What happened?” she asked.

“I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going,” Callie said.

“But the photographer—”

“I’ll still get my picture taken. He’ll just have to take me like this.”

As it turned out, he did just that. They met at Kate’s house—Mr. Saloutos and two assistants—and he worked fast, with great confidence. At first, Callie was nervous and self-conscious, but being outside, with the lake spreading out behind her, she started to feel as vast and
expansive as the scenery itself. To hell with Luke, she thought, looking right into the camera. This was her time to shine.