Читать книгу Return to Willow Lake - Сьюзен Виггс - Страница 9

Chapter Two

The wedding wound down like a noisy parade fading into the distance. In its wake was the curious mellow quiet of a just-passed storm. Sonnet stood on the broad lawn by the pavilion at Camp Kioga, surveying the petal-strewn aftermath and holding onto a well-earned sense of accomplishment.

As maid of honor, she’d been intimately involved with every aspect of the event, from coordinating Daisy’s bachelorette party to picking the colors of the table linens. But today hadn’t been about table decorations or small appliances. It had been about friends and family and a celebration so joyous she could still feel its echo deep inside her.

Rather than feeling exhausted after the long, emotional day, she was chased by a feeling of restlessness. It was strange, coming back to the place she’d once called home, seeing people who looked her over and remarked, “I remember when you were this tall” or “Why hasn’t some guy snatched you up by now?” as if being twenty-eight and unmarried was taboo in a town like this.

She smiled a little, pretending she didn’t feel the tiniest dig of impatience with her personal life. No. She wasn’t impatient. It was hard, caught up in the wedding whirlwind, to ignore the fact that nearly everyone in sight was coupled up.

Taking a deep breath, she went back to savoring the success of the day. The bride and groom had just departed. Her maid of honor duties were done. In the glow of twinkling fairy lights, the band was breaking down its set. The catering crew got going on the cleanup. The last of the wedding guests were slowly melting into the darkness of the perfect fall evening, the air redolent of crisp leaves and ripe apples. There had been a bonfire at the lakeshore, but it had burned to glowing embers by now. Some of the visitors headed for the parking lot, while the out-of-towners wended their way to the storybook pretty lakefront bungalows of the Camp Kioga, which through the years had been transformed from a family camp to a kids’ camp to its present iteration, a gathering place for celebrating life’s events. A good number of the guests were, like Sonnet, pleasantly tipsy.

A bright moon peeked over the dark hills surrounding Willow Lake, throwing silvery shadows across the still water and trampled grass. Childish laughter streamed from somewhere close by, and three little kids chased each other between the banquet tables. In the low light, Sonnet couldn’t tell whose kids they were, but their joyous abandon lifted her heart. She adored children; she always had. In a place deep down in the center of her, she felt a soft tug of yearning, but it was a yearning that would likely go unfulfilled for a very long time. Maybe forever. She had big plans for her future, but at the moment, those plans did not include settling down and having kids of her own.

In the first place, there was no one to settle down with. Unlike Daisy, who had found the love of her life and was going forward with clear-eyed certainty, Sonnet had no vision of who might be that person for her, that one adored man who would become her whole world. In all honesty, she wasn’t a hundred percent sure such a person existed. There was nothing missing from her life, nothing at all. It wasn’t as if she needed to add someone like the final piece of a puzzle.

Greg Bellamy, Sonnet’s stepfather, came walking across the now-trampled lawn, heading for the gazebo to shell out extra tips for the band. As father of the bride, he was all smiles. Sonnet went over to him, teasingly holding out her hand, palm up. “Hey, where’s the tip for the maid of honor?”

Greg chuckled, looking handsome but tired and slightly disheveled in his tux, the black silk bow tie undone and hanging on either side of his unbuttoned collar. “Here’s a tip for you. Take a couple of aspirin before you go to bed tonight. It’ll counteract those Jell-O shots you did at the reception.”

“You saw that?” She grinned. “Whoops.”

“It’s okay. You’ve earned it, kiddo. Great job today. You looked like a million, and that toast you made at the reception—hilarious. Everybody loved it. You’re a born public speaker.”

“Yeah? Aw, thanks. You’re not so bad yourself, for an evil stepfather.” Sonnet loved her mom’s husband. Through the years, he’d been a great mentor and friend to her. But he wasn’t her dad. Sonnet’s father, General Laurence Jeffries, played that role, although he had been virtually absent from her childhood, making a career for himself far from the bucolic charm of Avalon. When Sonnet went off to college at American University and then graduate school at Georgetown, however, she and Laurence had reconnected; she had dived into his world of public service and strategy and diplomacy, eagerly soaking up his knowledge and expertise.

She was the first to admit that hero worship made for a much more complicated relationship with Laurence than she had with Greg.

Nina came over to join them, her heeled pumps dangling from one hand. “What’s this I hear about Jell-O shots? You were doing them without me?”

“Trust me,” said Greg, “the champagne cocktails were a lot more fun.”

“I trust you. And you were an amazing father of the bride,” she said to Greg, smiling up at him.

“I cried like a baby girl.” He offered a sheepish grin.

“We all did,” Sonnet assured him. “Weddings seem to have that effect on people. Daisy’s even more so, because of all the trouble she’s had.”

“Speaking of trouble, I need to go make sure we’ve settled up with everybody else,” Greg said.

“I’ll come with,” Nina said. “You might need propping up when you see some of the final bills.”

Greg slipped his arm around Nina. “In that case, how about we have one last glass of champagne together? For courage.”

“Good plan.” Nina helped herself to a couple of flutes from one of the tables. “Join us down by the lake?”

Sonnet found a half-empty bottle and poured herself a glass. “I think I’ll stick around here and…” She paused. After all was said and done, the maid of honor had no further duties. “…drink alone.”

“Ah, baby.” Her mom offered a soft smile. “Your time will come, just like I was saying before the wedding. No one can say where or when, but it’ll happen.”

“Gah, Mom.” Sonnet grimaced. “I’m not mooning about my love life. That’s the last thing on my mind.”

“If you say so.” Nina lifted her glass in salute.

“I say so. Go away.” Sonnet made a shooing motion with her free hand. “Go drink with your husband. I’ll see you in the morning, okay? I’m planning to be on the noon train to the city.” She watched her mom and stepdad wander down the gentle slope toward the lake, their silhouettes dark against the moonlight.

They paused at the water’s edge and stood facing the moonlit surface, Greg holding Nina protectively from behind, his hands folded over her midsection. Sonnet sighed, feeling a wave of gladness for her mom. Yet at the same time, the sight of them embracing made her heart ache. Sonnet tried to imagine herself in that role—the bride. Would her own father walk her down the aisle, the tears flowing freely down his face? Doubtful. General Laurence Jeffries, now a candidate for the United States Senate, was more figurehead than father.

And when she pictured herself walking down the aisle, she couldn’t form a mental image of the guy waiting at the end of it. She wasn’t going to hold her breath waiting for him.

“I hate weddings.” Zach Alger sidled over and slammed back a bottle of Utica Club. “I especially hate weddings that require me to behave myself.”

Sonnet had spent most of the day sneaking glances at Zach, trying to accustom herself to this new version of her oldest friend. They hadn’t had a chance to talk at the wedding; the evening had sped by with her still doing her duty as maid of honor. Now, mellow from drinking and dancing, she regarded him through squinted eyes. It was hard to get her head around the idea that he had been a part of her life since preschool. That, perhaps, was the only reason she didn’t swoon sideways when he walked past, the way most women did. Still, it was hard to get used to his unique, striking looks—so blond he was sometimes mistaken for an albino, and now built like a Greek athlete, yet oddly oblivious to his effect on the opposite sex.

She gave him a superior sniff, falling into her old role as sidekick. “You mean there’s a kind of wedding that doesn’t require you to behave yourself?” She plucked an untouched flute of champagne from one of the tables that hadn’t yet been cleared.

“I’m a wedding videographer. I’ve filmed more weddings than I’ve been to baseball games. I haven’t seen a Saturday night in five years. And what do I do when one finally rolls around? I go to a freaking wedding.”

“Daisy’s wedding.”

“Any wedding. I hate them all.”

She scowled at him. “How can you be hating on Daisy Bellamy’s wedding?”

Just hearing herself say the words aloud filled her with a sense of wonder—not because Daisy had married the man of her dreams. That in itself was wonderful. But the real miracle was that Daisy had gotten married at all. Her parents’ divorce had been so hard on her. Back when Daisy’s dad and Sonnet’s mom were first getting together, both girls had agreed that marriage was too perilous and restrictive, and they’d made a pact to avoid it at all costs.

Now Daisy was soaring off to wedded bliss, and Sonnet was stuck keeping her end of the pact. She cringed at the picture of her own romantic future. Thanks to her impossibly busy career as a director at UNESCO, she had almost no time to date, let alone get swept away and fall in love. She dreamed of it, though. Who didn’t? Who didn’t want the kind of love Daisy had found? Or her mother and Greg Bellamy? Or the head couple of the Bellamy clan, Jane and Charles, who had been married for more than fifty years.

Of course Sonnet wanted that—the love, the security, the lifelong project of building a family with her soul mate. It sounded so magical. And so unreachable. When it came to a serious relationship, she had never quite figured out how to get from Point A to Point B.

Lately, though, there was a glimmer on the horizon from a most unexpected source. Her father—yes, her super-accomplished, goal-oriented father—had introduced her to a guy. His name was Orlando Rivera, and he was heading up the general’s run for office. Like the general, he’d attended West Point. He was in his thirties, ridiculously handsome, from the eldest son of a monied Cuban-American family. He had the dark appeal of a Latin lover and was fluent in English and Spanish. And, maybe most importantly of all, he was in the tight inner circle of satellites that revolved around her father.

“I’m allowed to hate anything I want,” Zach said, grabbing the champagne from her hand and guzzling it down.

Defiantly, she picked up a half-empty bottle that was bobbing in an ice bucket and took back the glass. “It was Daisy’s big day, and if you were any kind of gentleman, you’d be happy for her. And for me,” she groused at him. “I got to stand up at the altar for my best friend—”

“Hey,” he groused back. “I thought I was your best friend.”

“You never come to see me.” She feigned a dramatic sigh. “You don’t call, you don’t text… Besides, I can have more than one.”

“Best is a superlative term. There can only be one.”

She refilled the glass and took a gulp, enjoying the lovely head rush of the bubbly. “You and your rules. Both you and Daisy are my besties and there’s nothing you can do about it, so there.”

“Oh yeah? I can think of something.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her down toward the dark, flat expanse of Willow Lake.

“What the heck are you doing?” she said, twisting her hand out of his.

“The party’s over, but I’m not tired. Are you tired?”

“No, but—”

“Hey, check it out.” He led the way down the slope to the water’s edge.

“Check what out? I’m going to ruin my shoes.”

He stopped and turned. “Then take them off.”

“But I—”

“Lean on me,” he said, going down on one knee in front of her. He slipped off one sandal and then the other. She felt an unexpected frisson of sensation when he touched her. “That’s better, anyway.”

She sniffed again, unwilling to admit that the coarse sand on the lakeshore felt delicious under her bare feet. “Fine, what are we checking out?”

“I saw something.…” He gestured at the water lapping gently up the sandy slope.

She saw it, too, a glimmer in the moonlight. Then she frowned and lifted the hem of her dress to wade out and grab it. “A champagne bottle,” she said. “Somebody littered.” Holding it up to the light, she squinted. “There’s a message inside, Zach.”

“Yeah? Open it up and check it out,” he said.

“No way,” she said. “It might be someone’s private business.”

“What? How can you find a message in a bottle and not look at it?”

“It’s bad karma to pry into it. I won’t be party to snooping around someone else’s emotional baggage.” Defiantly, she flung the bottle as far as she could. It landed unseen, with a decisive plop. “What kind of idiot leaves a message in a bottle in a landlocked lake, anyway?” she asked.

“You should have looked,” he said churlishly. “It might have been important. Maybe it was a cry for help and you just ignored it.”

“Maybe it was some teenager’s angsty poetry and I did her a favor by getting rid of it.”

“Right.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the dock jutting out into the lake.

She pulled back. “Wait a minute. Now what are we doing?”

“I told Wendela I’d take the boat over to the boathouse.”

Wendela was the wedding planner, and Zach did most of the videography work for her. In addition, she often enlisted him to do other odd jobs at events. In a small town, it was a way for him to cobble together a living, Sonnet supposed. He was talented at what he did; during the reception, Wendela had told her he’d won some prestigious awards for his work. But like all artists, he struggled. Awards didn’t translate into a viable income.

“You’re here as a wedding guest,” she protested. “Wendela wouldn’t expect you to work tonight.”

“What, driving a boat is suddenly work? Since when?”

“You have a point. What is it with guys and boats?”

“There are some things that cannot be resisted.” He slipped off his bow tie and opened the collar of his tuxedo shirt, his Adam’s apple rippling as he sighed with relief.

Good Lord, had he been working out? She didn’t ask, because everyone knew that was just code for “I think you’re hot.”

And she didn’t. How could she? He was Zach—as familiar as a lifelong friend, yet suddenly…exotic.

“I shouldn’t have done those Jell-O shots,” she murmured. Pulling her attention elsewhere, she stood on the dock and looked out at the moon-silvered water. The sight of the lake never failed to ignite a rush of memories. She had been here before, many times through the years.

During her junior high and high school years, when Camp Kioga had been closed down, she and Zach used to sneak onto the premises with their friends on hot summer days, swimming and reliving the glory days of the resort, which dated back to the 1920s. And every once in a while, the two of them would slip into the boathouse and pretend to be smugglers or pirates or stuntmen in the circus. Sometimes, even as youngsters, they would fall so deep into the fantasy that they’d lose track of time. She remembered talking with him for hours, seemingly about nothing, but managing to encompass everything important. When she was with Zach, it never felt strange that she didn’t have a dad, or that she was biracial, or that her mom had to work all the time to make ends meet. When she was with Zach, she just felt…like herself. Maybe that was why their friendship felt so sturdy, even when they almost never saw each other.

An owl hooted from a secret place in the darkness, startling Sonnet from her thoughts. “It’s getting late,” she said softly. “I’m leaving.”

He gently closed his hand around her wrist. “Come with me.”

A shiver coursed through her, and she didn’t resist when he drew her close, slipping his arm around her waist and edging her toward the boat moored at the end of the dock. It was a vintage Chris-Craft runabout, its wooden hull and brass fittings polished to a sheen so bright it seemed to glow in the moonlight. The old boat had been used in the wedding, mostly for a photo shoot but also, and most romantically, to transport the bride and groom to the floatplane dock, where they’d been whisked away to their honeymoon at Mohonk Mountain House. A Just Married sign was tied to the stern.

“Hang on to me,” Zach whispered. “I don’t want you falling in.”

“I won’t fall—whoa.” She clung to him as the boat listed beneath her weight. The open cabin smelled of the lake, and the flowers that had been used to decorate it, and the fresh scent made her dizzy. The second wave of champagne was kicking in.

“Take my jacket,” he said, wrapping it around her shoulders. “Chilly tonight.”

She took a seat in the cockpit, feeling the peculiar intimacy of his body heat lingering in the folds of the jacket. She reveled in the slickness of the satin lining, which smelled faintly of men’s cologne and sweat. Oh boy, she thought.

There was an open bottle of champagne in the cubby by her knees, so she grabbed it and took a long, thirsty swig. Why not? she thought. Her official duties for the wedding were done, and it was time to relax.

Zach untied the boat and shoved off. He turned on the running lights and motor, handling the Chris-Craft with expert smoothness. He’d always been good with his hands, whether handling a vintage motorboat or a complicated video camera. As they motored across the placid water toward the rustic wooden boathouse, Sonnet admitted to herself that although she loved living in New York City, there were things she missed about the remote Catskills area where she’d grown up—the moon on the water, the fresh feeling of the wind in her face, the quiet and the darkness of the wilderness, the familiarity of a friend who knew her so well they didn’t really have to talk.

She had another drink of champagne, feeling a keen exuberance as she watched loose flower petals fluttering through the night air, into the wake of the boat.

She offered the bottle to Zach.

“No thanks,” he said. “Not until I moor the boat.”

She sat back and enjoyed the short crossing to the boathouse, which was bathed in the soft golden glow of lights along the dock.

Over the buzz of the engine, he pointed out the constellations. “See that group up there? It’s called Coma Berenices—Berenice’s hair. It was named for an Egyptian queen who cut off all her hair in exchange for some goddess to keep her husband safe in battle. The goddess liked the hair so much, she took it to the heavens and turned it into a cluster of stars.”

“Talk about a good hair day.” She was beyond pleasantly tipsy now. “I’d never cut off my hair. Took me years to get it this long.”

“Not even to keep your husband safe in battle?”

“I don’t have a husband. So I’ll be keeping my fabled locks, thank you very much. Berenice’s hair. I swear, your mind is a lint trap for stuff like this. Where do you learn it?”

“The internet. Yeah, I like geeking out over trivia on the internet, so sue me.”

“I’m not going to sue you. Whatever floats your boat, ha ha.”

“You can find out anything online. Ever watch that video of the Naga fireballs?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Too busy overachieving?”

“Since when is that a crime?”

“Never said it was.” Zach guided the boat inside, cutting the engine to let it nudge its way into the moorage, gently bumping against the rubber fenders.

“There,” he said, taking the champagne from her, “I’ve done my good deed for the day. Here’s looking at you, kid.”

“Too dark in here to see,” she pointed out. “Oh, right. That’s a movie reference. I forgot, you’re a walking movie encyclopedia.”

“And you’re movie illiterate.”

“No wonder we bicker all the time. We have nothing in common.”

He handed back the bottle and rummaged around the console of the cockpit. Then a match flared and he lit a couple of votive candles left over from the photo shoot. Taking the bottle again, he said, “Now here’s looking at you.”

She looked right back at him, unsettled by feelings she didn’t understand, feelings that had nothing to do with the amount of champagne she’d consumed. Like Willow Lake, and the town of Avalon itself, he was both deeply familiar and, at the moment, unaccountably strange. There had been a time, many times, when they had truly been best friends, but after high school, their lives had diverged. These days, they saw each other infrequently and when they did, their visits were rushed, or they were busy, or one of them had a train to catch, or work, or…

Not tonight, though. Tonight, neither of them had anywhere they had to be, except right here in the moment.

She fiddled with a dial on the boat’s dashboard. “Is there a radio?”

“It’s a stereo.” Leaning forward, he hit a switch. Sonnet recognized an old tune from the days of her grandparents—“What a Wonderful World.”

“What’s this?” She pointed out a small screen.

“A fish finder. Want to turn it on and see where the fishies are?”

“That’s okay. And this?” She indicated a small cube-shaped object mounted in the center.

“A GoPro. It’s a camcorder, mostly used for sports.” He turned up the music. “You didn’t dance with me at the reception,” Zach said.

“You didn’t ask me.” She feigned a wounded look.

“Dance with me now.”

“That’s not asking.”

He heaved an exaggerated sigh and offered her his hand, palm up. “Okay. Will you dance with me? Please?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” She stood up and the boat rocked a little.

“Careful there. Maybe ease up on the champagne.”

He drew her up to the dock next to him. She was a full head shorter than he was. It hadn’t always been that way. She remembered the year of his growth spurt—junior year of high school. They’d gone from seeing each other eye to eye to her getting a crick in her neck from looking up at him. He’d been skinny as a barge pole, and she’d taken to calling him Beanstalk.

He wasn’t a beanstalk anymore. As her mother had pointed out, he’d finally grown into his looks. In the candlelight, he looked magical to her, Prince Charming with a boyish smile. She kept the surprising thought to herself, knowing instinctively she didn’t want to go there.

He held her lightly at the waist and they swayed to the music, their movements simple and in sync. At the wedding reception, she had danced with a few guys but dancing had never felt like this before.

“You’ve been wanting to do this ever since our glory days in seventh grade,” he said softly.

“Oh, please. You were short and obnoxious, and I had a mouthful of metal.”

“I know. But I remember wanting to stick my tongue in there several times.”

She shoved him away. “I’m glad you never told me that. It would have meant the end of a beautiful friendship. You’re still obnoxious. And I wouldn’t have let you, anyway. I’m sure you would have been a terrible kisser.”

“You don’t know what you missed out on, metal mouth. I was good. I am good. Let’s hope you’ve honed your skills.”

“Oh, I have mad skills,” she assured him, then realized that she was flirting, and whom she was flirting with. Extricating herself from his embrace, she said, “I want to get back to the pavilion. I missed out on wedding cake.”

“You’re in luck.” He reached down into the boat’s hull and took a large domed platter from under the dash. The music changed to “Muskrat Love,” a tuneless horror from the seventies.

“Zachary Lee Alger. You didn’t.”

“Hey, it was going to go to waste. A cake from the Sky River Bakery. That would be a federal crime.” He picked up a hunk with his fingers and crammed it in his mouth. “Oh, man. I just died a little.”

He held out another piece and she couldn’t resist. The chocolate slid like silk across her tongue. She closed her eyes, savoring it along with the bits of hazelnut that had been kneaded into the buttercream icing. “Oh, my. Are you sure this is legal?”

“Would you care if it wasn’t?”

“Nope.” She helped herself to another bite. “And how cool is it that the Sky River Bakery did the cake?”

The old-fashioned family bakery had been a town institution for generations. It was also the place where Zach had worked all through high school, dragging himself to town before dawn to mix the dough and operate the proofing machines and ovens.

“You used to bring me a pastry in the morning,” she reminisced.

“I spoiled you rotten.”

She washed down a bite of cake with a slug of champagne. “It’s surprising I didn’t get as big as a house.”

“Not surprising to me. You could never sit still for more than ten seconds. Are you still that restless?”

She considered this for a moment. “I guess I was really eager to get going on something.”

“Always the overachiever. Always striving.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is when it takes you away from what’s important.”

She frowned. “Such as…?”

“Well, let’s see. Such as this.” With a gentle tug of his hand, he pulled her against him, planting a long, hard kiss on her surprised lips. She wasn’t sure what shocked her more—the kiss itself or the fact that it was coming from Zach Alger. Equally shocking was the fact that he hadn’t been lying about his expertise. Holding her with gentle insistence, he softened the kiss and touched his tongue to a secret, sensitive place that took her breath away. It struck her that this might be the best kiss she’d had in ages. Maybe ever.

The biggest surprise of all was that she was kissing Zach Alger—the same Zach Alger whose apple she had stolen from his lunchbox in kindergarten. The one who had tormented her when she was in the fourth grade. The boy who had pushed her off the dock into Willow Lake innumerable times, with whom she’d shared homework answers and after-school snacks, repeat viewings of Toy Story and Family Guy, and on whose shoulders she’d cry each time her heart was broken—and the first one she called with good news, whenever good news came around: “I got into college. My mom’s getting married. The internship program in Germany accepted me. My birth father finally wants a relationship with me. They’re making me a director at UNESCO.…”

Their points of contact over time were innumerable. They’d shared big moments and small, joy and grief, silliness and seriousness. He was the friend who had been there through all the moments of her life, yet the present moment felt entirely different, as if she were meeting him for the first time. Now she was with him in a way that felt completely new, and the world seemed to shift on its axis.

Through the years she had known him every way it was possible to know a guy and yet…and yet… Now there was this. It was some crazy emotion more intense than she could fathom, brought on by the champagne but by something else, too—a need, a craving she had no power to resist.

She fought herself free of the intensity and pulled back, though both of her fists stayed curled into the fabric of his dress shirt. “I had no idea you had that kind of kiss in you,” she whispered in a shaky voice.

“I’ve got more than that in me,” he replied, and bent down to kiss her again, lips searching and tasting, his arms holding her as if she were something precious.

Lost in sensation, she simply surrendered. She was melting and it was confusing because this was Zach—she had to keep reminding herself it was Zach, the very essence of the boy next door, as familiar as an old favorite song coming on the radio. But suddenly she was seeing him in a way she hadn’t noticed before. Particularly when he started doing what he was doing now—holding her arms above her head and whispering, “You taste delicious. Kissing you is like eating a fresh peach pie,” which made her laugh, and then they would start again. Tucked away in the back of her mind was the knowledge that this was a supremely bad idea that could turn out very badly for her. But all the standard objections stayed tucked away, hovering at the far edges of consciousness.

“We’re making a huge mistake,” she said, “but I’m too…I don’t know how to stop it,” she said.

“Then quit trying,” he said simply.

“Zach, I don’t think—”

“Exactly. Don’t think.”

He made it easy to drift away from rational thought. There was something about the soft night and the lush leather bench seat of the vintage boat, and him, and the two of them together again after such a long time. His kisses tasted of champagne and chocolate cake and memories so old she couldn’t tell if they were memories or dreams.

He pulled back and parted the coat he’d wrapped around her, sliding it away. His hands glided over the form-fitting dress as he whispered, “I want to take this off.” Without waiting for her to respond, he reached for the side zipper of the silk dress.

Somewhere, floating amid the mind-fogging kisses and the champagne and Jell-O shots, a tiny no formed, waving its arms like a drowning victim. Then the no floated away and disappeared, and what was left was something she had never before said to Zach Alger in this situation, even though she’d known him all her life.

“Yes.”