Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 (29 page)

“So did he have a good weekend?” Noah asked.

“He got a puppy, hung out with a live band, met a baseball star and oh, I nearly forgot. He went skating with Tina Calloway, the daughter of an Olympic gold medalist. He had a
great
weekend.”

“Then what's the problem?”

“Now you're being disingenuous.”

“I'm not. I don't get it, Sophie.”

“The problem is that
I
want to be his great weekend.”

“Would you settle for being
my
great weekend?” Noah suggested. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the hall tree.

“Now you're trying to change the subject.”

“Hell, yeah, I'm trying to change the subject. You think this is fun for me, getting yelled at for doing you a favor?” He lowered his voice, stepping close to her, so close she could smell the outdoors on him. “Sophie. Are you really going to yell at me for giving your boy a dog?”

“Yes,” she whispered, forgetting to yell.

He grazed her jawline with his knuckles. “It'll be fine,” he told her, taking her hand and heading to the living room. He took a seat on the couch and pulled her down next to him. “I swear, it will.”

“It's a real blow to the ego to know I'm not enough for him.”

“He's in middle school. If you were his whole world, I'd worry about the boy.”

She couldn't argue with that. “The time when I got to be his whole world is long past.”

“Be the mom he needs,” Noah suggested. “Not the mom you think you need to be.”

“God, Noah. Where do you come up with this stuff?”

“It's common sense, is all.”

“I suppose it is. In my family—” She stopped herself, regarded him skeptically. “You can't be interested in this.”

“I'm interested in everything about you.”

For some reason, she found that statement incredibly sexy. She hugged a sofa pillow in her lap, keeping some distance between them. “Trust me, I'm not that interesting.”

“Tell me about your family—your parents. Brothers and sisters?”

“I am an only child. My parents are good people. And I learned a lot from them, like how important it is to have a career you love. I only wish they'd taught me that something like a job is peripheral to what matters most.” She was still discomfited by their phone call. Her parents believed they'd raised a perfect, high-achieving daughter. What they'd ended up with was an incomplete woman, someone who lived every day with regrets.

She regarded Noah thoughtfully. She was astonished to find herself talking this over with him. In such a short time, she had learned to count on him in a way she'd never counted on anyone before. She considered the conversation she'd had on the phone with her parents. The old Sophie would have kept it to herself, worrying the issue like a dog with a bone. But when it came to Noah, she wanted to let him into places she'd long kept private. Looking into his kind, caring eyes, she felt a kind of trust she'd never experienced before. She wanted him to know, absolutely, the true reason she was here in this town, having left a career fifteen years in the making. She wanted him to know she'd been searching for something else to hold on to, so much so that she had moved here to this strange town, a place where her ex-husband was a pillar of the community and where she was regarded as the cold, neglectful ex-wife.

She wished she could tell him the deepest things inside her—about that night, about the things that had happened to her, the way she had been taken apart by sheer terror and then put back together by an unexpected drive for survival. She wished she could tell him that, when everything was taken from her, when she believed her next breath would be her last, there was nothing inside her except thoughts of her family—all the ways she had failed them, the missed opportunities, the squandered chances.

“Do you think it's terrible?” she asked him. “What I just said about my folks?”

“Nah. At some point, everybody sees their parents as actual people.”

“They still think my being here is only temporary. It's a kind of denial, I suppose. They always do this to me, make me have second thoughts about the choices I make. No matter how old I get, I still feel the need to please them.” She took a deep breath, offering him a chance to interrupt, change the subject, run screaming into the hills. He did none of those things, just waited, listening.

There was something irresistible about the way Noah listened. She braided her fingers together and said, “When I found out I was pregnant with Daisy, I intended to raise her on my own. My parents questioned this decision until I started questioning it myself. They were very persuasive. They loved that Greg was a Bellamy. They loved that he would go far in his career. Ultimately, I was convinced that the right thing to do was tell Greg and marry him for the sake of the baby. So that's what we did. Through sheer force of will we made it work, but it was never right.” She crushed the throw pillow more tightly against her.

“I had these two beautiful children who only wanted me to be there for them, and I wasn't. Even when I worked at the UN in Manhattan, I was always somewhere else—mentally if not physically. I keep wondering now how things would have worked out if I had been more present in their lives.”

“You know,” said Noah, “when I was a kid, I used to fantasize about my dad being an astronaut instead of a dairy farmer. I still think about how totally different my life would have been if my parents had worked in outer space.”

She hurled the pillow at him. “Very funny.”

“Just trying to make a point. With your family—with your whole life, really—you don't get to have a control group. You don't have any way of knowing how things would have turned out if you'd done something differently, made another choice, followed a different path. My advice? Not that you asked for it, but you ought to try dealing with the things that are. Quit trying to rewrite the way they were.”

“Thank you, Dr. Freud.”

“I'll send you a bill in the morning.”

Strangely, talking to him did have a liberating effect on her. His way of looking at the situation was straightforward. Her own thought processes were more like a Venn diagram, with each decision leading to a perilous array of possibilities.

“Seriously,” he said, “try not to second-guess yourself so much—not about the past, or the dog. Or me.” He grinned.

She looked away, trying to figure out what it was about him. They were having a deeply personal conversation, and she kept thinking about what his kisses tasted like and how he looked without a shirt.

“Too much thinking,” he said. “It can't be good for you.”

“I could blame my training. In my job at the ICC, every single step I took, every decision had to be debated, every possible outcome projected. It's become second nature to me. Do you know, I once actually made a diagram to figure out a seating arrangement for a court dinner.”

“It's not the only way to navigate through life,” he said.

“Oh? And what's your way?”

“Just pick a horse and get on it.”

“Again, so simple.”

“It
is
simple if you let it be.”

“Noah Shepherd—veterinary genius by day, Zen philosopher by night. All right. I'll try to take your advice.”

He nodded gravely. “There is no
try,
” he said in a soft Yoda voice. “There is only
do,
or
not do.
”

“You're crazy,” she said.

“I know.” He moved closer to her on the sofa and kissed her softly on the mouth. Between kisses, he told her, “I missed you this weekend.”

I missed you, too.
She didn't let herself say it. Instead, she said, “We need to stop this.”

“Why?”

“Because it's foolish to be so impulsive. We need to slow down, figure out where we're going. I thought we weren't going to do this anymore.”

“Wrong,” he said, unbuttoning her sweater with slow deliberation. “We're going to do this every chance we get.”

“I don't think it's a good idea.”

“You're not supposed to be thinking at all. If you are, I'm falling down on the job.”

“Oh,” she said, her insides melting, “you're doing a fine job. Believe me, this is absolutely…fine.”

He laughed with his mouth against hers. “Good. I like your family, Sophie. But now all I can think about is this. I
am
crazy. I can't keep my hands off you.”

“I moved here for my family,” she reminded him. “Being with you, like this—”

“Is not stealing anything from them,” he said, sliding the sweater down over her shoulders, unfastening her bra. “You get to take off the hair shirt every once in a while.”

D
aisy's life felt different lately. Ever since her mom had been helping her with Charlie, things seemed easier in a way that was hard to explain. Just knowing her mom was looking after Charlie made Daisy feel more rested, more relaxed. She still wasn't mother of the year. Her house was still pretty messy most of the time, and she always felt as though she was running late for something, but she no longer had the sensation of running just barely ahead of a steamroller, apt to get flattened if she slowed down even for a second.

She wasn't sure this was due to her mom being around for her, or if Daisy was simply getting better at dealing with her own life. It didn't really matter, and she wasn't going to dwell on it, especially not today. Winter Carnival was almost here, and Sonnet's train was due in any minute.

“This is a bad idea,” Zach Alger said grimly to Daisy as they walked together toward the train station. “I shouldn't have come with you.”

“Nonsense.” She glanced over at him. His pale skin seemed more tightly drawn across his cheekbones than ever, adding to his air of tenseness. His straight blond hair fanned out behind him as he walked in long, quick paces. “You and Sonnet are bound to run into each other sooner or later, so you might as well make it sooner.”

“She and I wouldn't be running into each other at all if I hadn't let you talk me into this. It's a bad idea,” he said again.

Daisy tried not to feel annoyed. Her mom was watching Charlie for her, and Daisy was enjoying a rare sense of liberty. Plus, she was about to see Sonnet for the first time since their parents married each other in St. Croix. She didn't want Zach putting a damper on her excitement. “I think it would be sad if the two of you didn't work out your differences.” She put her hand on his arm to slow him down. “You can't smoke inside,” she reminded him.

He stopped walking beside a green-painted trash barrel and took a final drag on his cigarette. Daisy didn't judge him for smoking.
As if.
Before she got pregnant with Charlie, she had done worse than that.

“It'll be fine,” she told him.

“Did you tell her I was going to be here?” he asked.

“I texted her. I'm sure she's fine with it.” A white lie, that. Sonnet had texted her back: DONT U DARE.

They went through the salon and out onto the platform. Lots of people came to Avalon's Winter Carnival, tourists up from the city, mostly. Attracting tourists was the whole point of the festival, and the entire town pitched in. Daisy had been busy photographing the preparations all week long. The focal point of the festivities was a house-size ice sculpture in the form of a castle. There would be live music around the clock with a changing array of local talent, from grunge rock to a German oompah band; skating on the lake, a hockey tournament, a winter triathlon, booths for everything from face-painting to funnel cakes.

Tourists and locals mingled on the platform as the train pulled into the station. People poured out of the exits, and Daisy scanned each car, looking for Sonnet's trademark beaded cornrows, which made her stand out in any crowd. Sonnet was the first friend Daisy had made in Avalon, and now they were stepsisters. Daisy adored her. Even so, she knew there was a slender thread of tension between them. It was completely understandable. Sonnet, with her full scholarship and squeaky-clean reputation, was the all-American girl, even more impressive because she had been raised by a hardworking single mother—Nina Romano. On the other hand, there was Daisy, a product of the Upper East-side, private school society, who had blown all her advantages and become a single mother herself. And now there was this—the fact that Daisy wanted to be friends with Zach again. She was determined to make Sonnet understand. Staying behind and making her life in a town like this, Daisy had to keep her friends close, because she needed all she could get. It wasn't like living on campus, where students could find friends behind every door in a dorm or sorority.

“I changed my mind,” Zach said abruptly. “I'm leaving.”

Daisy grabbed the sleeve of his army surplus jacket. “You used to be best friends,” she reminded him. “You practically grew up together. That has to count for something.”

“Maybe it did until my father ripped off the city when her mom was mayor.”

Daisy flinched. When he put it so bluntly, she was forced to acknowledge that, yes, it was bound to be hard to get past that. Parents had such infinite power to hurt their kids. Every day, she promised Charlie she would never do anything to hurt him, but was she already doing that, raising him without a father?

Scanning the passengers, she spied Sonnet dragging a Pullman suitcase from one of the train cars. Daisy hurried down the platform. Sonnet saw her coming and let out a squeal of joy. They threw their arms around each other and held on tight. Daisy felt a surge of affection for Sonnet—her best friend. Her sister. So many good things had come from Dad marrying Nina.

Sonnet felt wiry and delicate in Daisy's arms. Then they stepped back, grinning at each other. Sonnet looked the same, but different. Same bright eyes and thousand-watt smile, same gleaming cornrows and beads. Different clothes—loose-fitting, more ethnic.

“I'm so glad you came home,” Daisy said, “even for just a few days.”

“Me, too. I miss it here. Where's Charlie?” she asked. “Does he know his favorite aunt has arrived?”

“He's with my mom.”

“How's that working out?”

“It's working out, which comes as a total shock to me.” Daisy took charge of the bag as they headed for the exit.

“Your mom was really good to me when I visited her in The Hague last summer,” Sonnet reminded Daisy. “So I'm not shocked at all.”

“It seems so strange—my mom, here in this little town. I fully expect her to flee to Manhattan as soon as the snow melts.” Something else that was strange was seeing her mom act like…a mom. No, she didn't wear an apron and bake cookies, but she drove car pool and babysat Charlie and had conferences with Max's teachers. “Sometimes, I get the idea she likes it here. Might be wishful thinking, though.”

“Maybe she'll find a job or something. How hard would it be?”

“For my mom? Working is, like, second nature to her. It's all she's ever done.” Daisy considered this a moment. Maybe her mom needed more to do. “I want her to be happy here,” she confessed. “I want her to stay.”

“There's something about this town…” Sonnet said. “I get homesick a lot.”

Daisy heard a wistful note in her voice, and looked closer at Sonnet's face. She had definitely lost her round, happy cheeks, and faint lines bracketed her mouth. “Is everything okay at school?”

“Everything's great at school.” Sonnet perked up. “But I'm here for Winter Carnival, and—”

She stopped talking and stood still, as though flash frozen. Daisy held her breath, knowing Sonnet had just spotted Zach. He approached her on the crowded platform. His face was somber, an expression that brought out his strikingly pale beauty. For a moment, Sonnet's face turned soft with yearning. They used to be so close, and the estrangement was painful to them both. But very quickly, Sonnet's face hardened, her eyes narrowing to accusing slits.

“Hey,” said Zach.

She thrust up her chin. “What part of ‘I never want to see you again' did you not understand?” Then she jerked her suitcase away from Daisy. “I don't believe you.”

“Sonnet, just listen—”

“Excuse me.” She brushed past Zach and all but ran for the exit.

Zach's shoulders sagged as he tracked her progress through the milling crowd. “That went well,” he said.