The First Love Cookie Club (13 page)

The darkness surrounded her on a cellular level, pulling in, bunching up, protecting her from the shiny glow of the outside world. It was too bright— this light they generated with their stories and their friendship and their love—it felt like an assault. Anassault of the cheer and warmth and camaraderie she was not a part of.

She remembered a time when she was small. Maybe three or four, playing alone in the darkness of her bedroom closet, having a tea party with her imaginary friend, Sadie. It was near Christmas, maybe just after Thanksgiving.

Downstairs, her parents were having a party of their own. The air smelled of roasted meat and exotic spices. The sounds of laughter, jokes, and heated debate drifted up the stairs. In her isolation, in the womb of that room, Sarah felt incredibly safe. If she could just stay here, with Sadie, in the dark, in the closet, far away from the noise and activity, she became convinced nothing bad would ever happen to her. But as comfortable as that sweet notion was, she knew if she gave in to that impulse she wouldn’t make it. Her whole life seemed one huge struggle against that urge she’d first recognized at such a tender age. As much as she might want it, she could not afford to surrender to the imaginary world, because being swallowed up completely was worse than the raw, achy vulnerability she was experiencing right now.

Sitting here in this homey room with them, the smell of cookies in the air, the taste of eggnog on her tongue, the smiling faces all around her, caused tears to well up behind Sarah’s eyes. How could she process all this without losing herself? Her shell was too hard, Rapunzel’s tower too tall.

She fisted her hands, fighting back the feeling that she was going to explode into a thousand pieces and not be able to find her true self among the scattered debris. She felt yanked in two divergent directions. One part of her that pulled away because it was the only way she knew how to survive, and the other part of her, yearning, craving for connection, for wholeness, for a place to belong.

People were up, moving around, getting more food, pouring more wine, telling more stories. In that moment, she lost her battle against her instincts. Quietly, she got to her feet.

No one noticed.

Patsy and Raylene were arguing good-naturedly, everyone else was taking sides, throwing in their comments. Sarah didn’t even know what they were talking about. She’d stopped listening, swept up in her own emotional turmoil. “I’m going outside for some fresh air,” she mumbled.

No one even glanced over at her, confirming Sarah’s suspicion that she was basically invisible. She hitched in a breath, eased toward the door, praying no one noticed, no one said a word to her, even as she wished for that very thing.

To be noticed. To be included. To be one of them.

By the time she grabbed her jacket off the coat-rack and slipped out the door, her heart was pounding as if she’d run a hundred-yard dash. She’d made good her escape, and with it came a rush of euphoria.

But what she was escaping to or from, Sarah had no idea.

The sun hung low on the horizon, but the temperature was a mild fifty-eight degrees. Sarah thought about going back to the Merry Cherub, but the thought of traipsing through the lobby filledwith guests and a cheery Jenny dissuaded her. She was in the mood to be alone. Jamming her hands into the pockets of her jacket, she scurried away, headed for the walking path around the lake.

Passersby smiled and nodded, forcing her to smile and nod back. Missing the anonymity of Manhattan, she ducked her head and quickened her pace. A few minutes later, she was at the marina.

She hadn’t actually intended on taking out a pedal boat—she’d had no intent at all except to get by herself and examine the mix of emotions churning inside her—until she saw them bobbing at the pier. Six of them, painted bright red, with white Merry Cherub lettering that identified them as the B&B’s boats. She remembered that on the day she’d arrived, Jenny had told her the pedal boats were stored at the marina for use by her guests and she’d given her the combination.

“You can’t forget it.” Jenny had laughed. “The combination matches the word LOVE on a telephone keypad. Five to the left, six to the right, eighty-three to the left.”

Armed with that information, Sarah clattered down the wooden-plank decking to where the pedal boats were docked. She unlocked the chain from around one of the boats, secured the padlock back to the chain, and in a spur-of-the-moment jaunt, slid into the seat and started pedaling the boat backward into the slough. Water churned up behind her and once she was free from the dock, she reversed her pedaling and took off.

The wind kicked up, blowing against the back of the boat, propelling her swiftly out onto the lake. Around her, fish jumped up, grabbing for insects, their tails splashing as they broke the surface. Pedaling the boat helped free her mind. The darkness lifted and she felt a rush of exhilaration as the boat bobbled over the waves. The air swirled fresh and crisp and the cooling temperature added to her sudden sense of euphoria. Free. She was free. Alone and moving her body, paddling the boat on the lake, her mind free to roam.

The euphoria lasted until her legs grew tired and she tried to turn the boat back to the docks.

But the pedal boat wouldn’t turn.

She kicked harder.

The water churned noisily, but the boat stayed in one spot. She tried backpedaling, but that didn’t work either. A pedal boat was navigated solely by using the legs. There wasn’t any other way to steer the damn thing. Then she noticed that she wasn’t staying in one place. The gusting wind was sending her out into the middle of the lake as easily as if she was a water bug. No matter how hard she kicked, the current was stronger.

Okay, she was mildly concerned. She was adrift on a lake that encompassed over eight thousand acres with a depth of eighty feet and she wasn’t the best swimmer in the world. She didn’t have a life jacket because Jenny kept them stored at the Merry Cherub, and the sun was about to set. Still, the craft was intact and with the rate the wind was gusting, it would eventually blow her to shore. Hopefully, someone would come along before then.

She glanced around the lake, and that was when she realized she couldn’t see the shore, nor did she recall having seen any boats on the lake. In fact, the only cars she remembered seeing at the marinawere parked in front of the attached bar and grill. Surely, though, someone was out here. A diehard fisherman or two. There had to be.

“Cell phone,” she reminded herself, and fished it from the pocket of her jacket. She flipped it open and turned it on, waiting patiently while it powered up, only to discover she had just a single bar. It might not be a strong enough signal for a phone call, but she could at least send a text message.

The dampness of gathering dusk seeped into her fingers. Her normally nimble thumbs felt stiff. Who should she text? Good thing she’d gotten all their phone numbers.

Travis?

God, she hated looking like a dumbass. The cookie club ladies would no doubt have their feelings hurt that she’d run out on them. Jenny was surely busy. And Travis … well, the last thing she wanted was for him to see how stupid she’d been. That left the police.

Did she call 9–1–1? That seemed a bit drastic.

She paused, fingers poised over the keypad.

A fresh burst of wind slapped against the boat, rocking it hard, catching Sarah unprepared. She fumbled the cell phone. It slipped from her hand and tumbled headlong into the water.

She stared in stunned disbelief and then laughed at how preposterous this whole thing was. Lovely. Well, that solved the problem of whom to call.

One good thing, even though she wasn’t much of a swimmer, she’d never really been afraid of water. And as long as she stayed on the boat, everything would work out. Or so she told herself to keep from freaking.

She pedaled and felt water spatter her face. At first she thought it had started to rain, but a minute later, when a second splash of water hit her cheek, she realized it was coming from below, not above. Looking down, she saw water filling the pedal well. The wind must have blown the water in and now whenever she pedaled it was flying up to douse her.

Fine. She’d just bail it out.

Except there was nothing to bail out the water with and it was getting colder by the minute and the sun was playing peek-a-boo with the gathering clouds. Not the best situation she’d ever been in, but certainly not the worst either. She was smart, resourceful. She could think her way out of this.

The gale—because it truly was a gale now— rushed over the water with startling ferocity. It spun the boat three hundred and sixty degrees. Cold sliced through her, clean as a machete through sugarcane. In a matter of seconds, she was completely disoriented. She had no idea which direction she’d come from.

“This was not one of your most brilliant moves, Sadie Cool,” she muttered, more to hear her own voice than anything else.

The boat was listing to the right, the side she was on. The water in the well of the boat was even deeper now.

Time to start bailing.

Setting her jaw, she leaned over, made a cup of her hand, and began to scoop. Her fingers, already stiff from the cold, tightened as they touched the icy water. She ignored the pain shooting up her nerve endings and scooped for several minutes, butthen realized to her dismay the water level in the well was going up not down.

That’s when she saw it. The tiny, but deadly hairline crack in the hull.

Wind hadn’t knocked the water in as she’d surmised. It was seeping through a breach in the fiberglass. No amount of bailing was going to stop the boat from sinking.

“Just your luck, Collier, you grabbed the one leaky pedal boat.”

How had this happened? In the span of forty minutes she’d gone from warm and safe and comfortable in a roomful of kind and loving women, to spinning in the wind in the middle of the lake, making like Kate Winslet in
Titanic.

As the right side of the flat-bottomed boat dipped lower, water ran over the front. Her pulse pounded a hard, thready rhythm. She could hear it beating against her eardrums. She let loose with a couple of choice swearwords and it made her feel a little better, but didn’t change the situation.

Move. You’ve got to move.

With her feet on the pedals, the water in the well came up to her ankles. Good thing she had boots on or her feet would be soaked.

A crow flew overhead, crying
caw, caw, caw
as if laughing at her.

“You’re right,” she said, “I deserve to be mocked.”

Stop talking to the crow and move.

She pushed against the pedals with her feet while at the same time scooting her butt to the left side of the boat.

For an instant, the unseaworthy craft seemed toright itself with the shift of her weight, and for one dumb moment she thought maybe water hadn’t come in through the hairline crack in the hull, but had indeed been blown in by the wind. That hope was short-lived as the boat quickly started listing to the right again.

She scooted as far left as she could, maintaining the balance a little longer. Her one hundred and thirty pounds against whatever the water in the well weighed. The sun crouched on the horizon. Soon, very soon, it would be dark. She gulped and stopped pretending she was even remotely in control.

The silence—interrupted only by the rush of wind and lapping of the water—stretched out like doom. The air smelled of impending rain and stinky fish. Great. It was going to rain on her and then she’d sleep with the fishes.

She laughed nervously. The water kept encroaching, slipping farther over the bow, first over the right side, then the left. The pedal boat tipped forward. Sarah sat balled up on the left side, her knees drawn to her chest, her wet boot heels dampening her bottom.

On the upside, the boat was sinking slowly. On the downside, slow wasn’t a particularly positive thing in reference to the end of your life.

Closer and closer the water crept. Lower and lower the sun dipped. Colder and colder, Sarah shivered.

Desperately, she scanned the lake, but all she saw was dark blue water. No shoreline, no boats in sight. Not even a buoy to swim toward. Before long, the water was over the entire front of thepedal boat. It was sinking faster now. At this rate, she’d sink along with the sun. She had nowhere else to go but the back of the seat. Carefully, she eased herself upward until her butt was resting on the back of the seat, her legs in the seat.

Eventually, the water claimed the seat and swirled around her ankles. She drew her legs up beside her, perching like a bird, shoulders drawn in, arms wrapped around herself, all out of options. In a matter of minutes, she’d be in the water. Sarah, who barely knew how to dog paddle, was going to drown. She imagined the headlines:
Antisocial Children’s Author Drowns on Lake Twilight.

This was it. It was all over. This was how she was going to die.

Sunset, like most things on the winter lake, settled in a slow, easy slide. The sharp yellow edges of sunlight slipped into a dreamy haze of purple-tinged blue, the same spectacular color as Sarah’s eyes, which deepened in indolent stages, progressively blurring the edges between the shoreline and the water, muting the details of bare tree limbs reaching skyward, smudging the outlines of ropes mooring boats to the dock. That evening, a fine mist and strong blowing wind hastened the drawing close of dusk’s curtain, casting the lake in a fog of gray wool and the marina in a milky rinse of rusty orange. The upshot was a sudden rush of silence, comforting as a hand-knitted sweater, tasty as a freshly baked cookie, reliable as a grandmother’s hug.

Travis breathed in the moment. Being the father of a chronically ill child had taught him how to live in the now. How to fill his lungs with the split-second instant, hold it tight in a long caress, and savor the uniqueness. He loved winter in generaland the holiday season in particular. But this year was extra special. This year, for the first time in four long years, Jazzy was no longer a slave to her asthma. It was a Christmas miracle indeed, one he would never forget.

Unexpectedly, he found himself wishing Sarah was here with him. He tried to squelch the feeling as soon as it arose. There was no point wishing for what he knew he couldn’t have, but he just couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Travis wished he could enjoy her like the sunset, take pleasure in her company while she was here. But he had Jazzy to think about. He couldn’t do that. Nor could he in good conscience start something with Sarah he knew they couldn’t finish. She deserved more than just a momentary fling, and honestly so did he. He’d done the casual sex thing before. He knew that while it might feel good at the time, in the long run it could leave you feeling empty inside. No, he was ready for something more substantial in his life and maybe, now that Jazzy was doing so much better, the time was finally right. But Sarah was leaving town on Sunday. There was no time to explore this thing, see if it could grow into something more.

Honestly, he didn’t quite know what to make of his strong sexual attraction for her. Especially given the history between them. She’d been infatuated with him once and he’d been too old for her. Now he felt like he was infatuated with her and she was too big-city cool for this simple country boy.

He took in another deep breath, filling his airways with the scent memory of her—along with the smell of the lake—murky sweetness combinedwith womanly allure. Thinking about her sent a hot tingle of electricity running like a string from his head to his feet. Then he reminded himself what was at stake. He couldn’t let his desire get the better of his common sense. He’d been there before. Rash lust could cause a lot of problems.

The wind kicked up, skimming fiercely across the water and sending a fresh battalion of white-capped waves licking against the shoreline. There’d been a wind advisory issued for the local lakes and waterways so Travis didn’t expect to see any other boats on the lake as he maneuvered his game warden’s boat through the choppy waves, heading toward home. Since he lived on the lake, he took the boat home with him, docking it at the pier at the end of his private wharf.

Part of his job entailed going out in bad weather, looking for folks who hadn’t been prudent enough to check the weather conditions before venturing out onto the water. Most of the fishermen in the area knew better, but there was always a tourist or two in the mix and there was no telling what they’d do.

Today, he’d been out here for several hours and hadn’t seen a soul.

He thought of Sarah again, remembering the times he’d taken her fishing when she was just a kid. He’d done it as a favor for his next-door neighbor Mia Martin, who’d mothered him after his own mother died, but also because he’d liked Sarah.

She’d been a quiet kid, but curious. When she asked questions, they’d been intelligent and well-thought-out. Like why did fish bite more readily in cooler weather than in the heat of the summer? Or why was it that crappie preferred bushy, deep water, while catfish skimmed along murky slough bottoms? If she’d kept coming to the lake, he could have made a real angler out of her. She’d loved fishing almost as much as he did.

The cold wind gusted, ruffling his hair, nipping at his ears. He did up the top button on his coat and increased the boat’s speed. He was looking forward to getting home and diving into the big bowl of stew he’d started in the crockpot before he left for work that morning. He loved the way the house smelled of simmering chuck roast and earthy root vegetables. He’d pick Jazzy up from the sitter who kept her after school until he got home from work.

No wait, Jazzy was spending the night with her best friend, Andi. Although he was a little uneasy about the whole thing. She’d never spent the night away from home except with his Aunt Raylene. He didn’t want her far from him in case she got sick, but since she hadn’t had an asthma attack in almost two months, he’d agreed to let her sleep over at Andi’s when she’d begged. It was hard to let her go, but he knew she needed to expand her horizons. Already, she seemed much younger than her age.

The sun was almost gone by the time he entered the main part of the lake. He was only a few minutes from home now and his focus was on the familiar landmarks guiding him in—the old dead tree that poked from the water, the grinding sound of machinery at the rock quarry a mile north of the lake, the cluster of bats that flew from the underground caves every evening about this time. Hisstomach grumbled, anticipating that stew. He was so wrapped up in the simple ordinary splendor of the end of his day that he almost did not take one last look around the lake.

But a spidery prickling at his neck drew his attention to the right when he was headed left.

At first he saw nothing but the mix of sky and water merging into one wash of deep majestic blue, but then he heard a soft, reedy sound and the hairs on his arms stood up. It was a human voice, crying out for help in the darkness.

He slowed the boat, cocked his head, and listened as he scanned the water. There, several hundred yards away, he spied her. A woman crouched atop what appeared to be a sinking pedal boat. The listing craft was almost completely submerged. In a matter of minutes, maybe seconds, the woman would be in the water.

Alarm had him yanking his boat around. He barreled straight for her. She should be okay, even if she ended up getting wet, since he’d seen her. But he hated to think what would have happened if something hadn’t told him to take one last look around.

The woman spotted him and began waving her arms.

When he got closer, he recognized the sinking pedal boat as belonging to the Merry Cherub, and when he saw the woman had long caramel-colored hair pulled back in a single braid, his mouth went dry.

Sarah?

Could it be? What in the world was she doing out on the water in a pedal boat at dusk in the middle of December?

He felt at once both angry and concerned. Hadn’t she listened for wind advisories before taking the boat out? Why hadn’t Jenny warned her against it? Sarah was from Manhattan. Yes, she spent a few summers here as a kid, but she was ill-equipped to take a pedal boat out on the lake alone in high winds and she should have known better.

When he was within a few feet of her, he killed the engine so the wake from his boat wouldn’t be the thing that sent her into the drink and he went for the life preserver. She was now standing on the back of the seat of the pedal boat, the water lapping at her boots, her balance impeccable. He decided against the life preserver, hoping that he could do this without her ending up in the water, and instead picked up an oar from the bottom of the boat.

“Steady, steady,” he called. “I’m going to row over and if we gauge this correctly you can just step right into my boat.”

Calmly, she nodded.

How in the hell did she stay so calm when he was an experienced boater and his pulse was thundering through his veins? Maybe she didn’t fully understand the danger she’d put herself in. He wanted to yell at her,
What in the hell were you thinking?
But the minute he saw the quiet fear in her eyes, he knew she’d been through enough and she didn’t need him jumping down her throat. Thank God she was okay. His gut squeezed when he thought of the alternatives.

Once he was near enough, he tossed the oar back into the boat and held out a hand to her.

She started to inch toward him, but the woundedpedal boat sank deeper. Startled, her eyes widened and she raised her arms to leverage her balance. The water swirled at her calves.

“Easy now.”

She paused, took a deep breath, tried for another step. The pedal boat made a gurgling groan. It was finished, no buoyancy left in it. Time to make a move or she was going in all the way.

“Jump!” Travis commanded. She hesitated for a split second. He met her eyes, cemented her to him with one long, hard look.
Come on, sweetheart, you can do this.
“Jump!”

Clutching hard to his gaze with her own, Sarah jumped.

He caught her in mid-air, dragging her into his boat, while the lake swallowed her boat in a watery embrace.

The force of her momentum knocked him off balance and they ended up on the bottom of the boat. The wet oar was pressed into his back and Sarah Collier, the awkward girl next door who used to have a crush on him, turned famous children’s novelist, was lying on top of him. They were both breathing hard—from fear, from exertion, from raw animal attraction they’d been dancing around for a week—and in perfect tandem rhythm, as if inhaling the same single breath of air.

They stared deeply into each other’s eyes.

His heart thundered. His mind spun. Every place her body touched his, he felt completely and utterly alive. This was the closest he’d come to sex in so long he’d lost count.

And that’s when Travis Walker knew he was in serious trouble.

“I’ve got you, sweetheart, you’re safe,” Travis murmured.

Sweetheart.
He’d called her sweetheart. That much got through her numb terror.

“Travis,” she whispered, still unable to believe it was he, that he’d pulled her foolish hide from the water’s cold embrace just in the nick of time. Okay, so the utilitarian brown boat with the hopped-up motor wasn’t exactly a valiant steed, but at this moment, he sure looked like a knight in shining armor to her. And that made her babble idiotically, “You came for me.”

He laughed, not making fun of her, but low and comforting. “I imagine it feels that way right now, but honestly, I was just on my way home. If I hadn’t turned my head when I did, I probably wouldn’t have seen you.”

“If you hadn’t seen me …” She left the rest unspoken.

“But I did and everything is okay now. You’re one tough cookie, Sadie Cool.”

“I don’t feel the least bit tough. In fact, I feel very, very stupid.”

“Most people would have completely lost it by now,” he said. “Instead here you are worrying about looking stupid.”

“I have lost it,” she said around her chattering teeth. “This is me losing it.”

“Kudos, then, on the dignified hysteria.”

He was trying to reassure her. Travis’s MO hadn’t changed over the years. He grinned and teased to put people at ease. His arm was around her, his hand holding her steady as he reached fora woolen blanket that lay folded on the seat beside him. He tucked the blanket around her, the backs of his knuckles accidentally grazing her breasts.

She heard his quick intake of breath. Her nipples, already painfully hard as pebbles from the cold, constricted even tighter at his touch. Sarah huddled on the edge of the seat, shivering underneath the blanket he’d thrown over her shoulders. It smelled like horses. She felt embarrassed and completely stupid. She’d almost gotten herself killed simply because she hadn’t possessed the social skills to mix it up with the ladies of the cookie club.

“Let’s get you back to shore. Hang on, I’m opening the throttle.” He pushed on the gas and the boat surged, skimming over the water, rushing cold air over her even colder body.

She hunched deeper into the blanket and tucked her head down. Her teeth clattered like castanets.

He stood at the wheel, the wind whipping around him, his hair blowing back. He wore a brown uniform topped with an all-weather coat that was a slightly darker shade of brown. What a virile man.

Her emotions were a wild tumble—fear, regret, gratitude, foolishness, joy at being alive. She could have died on that lake. But one strong, throbbing emotion beat out the rest.

Raw desire unlike anything she’d ever experienced clawed at her. Need stoked by danger, near death, and sudden rescue demanded attention. She looked at Travis and saw the same need reflected in his eyes. She couldn’t deal with the tumult of it and ducked her head, pretending to shield herself from the wind.

Swiftly, he docked the boat at the back of his house, tied it up, and then helped her to climb gingerly onto the wooden pier. He sheltered her from the wind with his body, drawing her up against him, ushering her up the jetty, onto the deck, then into the house.

The minute they were through the door, he broke away. “I’ll draw you a hot bath. You need to get out of those wet clothes immediately.”

He hurried to the bathroom and she heard the water come on. Slowly, she stripped off her wet clothes. The house smelled of stew. She wrapped the blanket around her nakedness and glanced around. Once upon a time her grandmother’s overstuffed fabric couch and love seat sat in this living room. Her lace curtains hung from the windows. And beige Berber carpet covered the floors. Now, the couch was leather and blinds covered the windows and the floors were hardwood. The flower-print wallpaper had been replaced. Now the walls were textured and painted a warm honey color.

Beside the window stood a Christmas tree decorated with multicolored lights, handmade ornaments, and candy canes, just like the illustration of the Christmas tree in
The Magic Christmas Cookie.
Jazzy and Travis had decorated their tree in the likeness of her book. It brought a lump to her throat. Was this some kind of sign?