Echo Lake

“He’s not my puppy,” she said. “I just helped look for him.”

“Vic Scarlatti has a puppy?” Brody grinned as if the prospect both amused and surprised him. “I guess retirement will do that even to a guy like Vic.”

“He’s a stray. Rohan, I mean. Vic found him wandering around alone out here a few days ago and took him in.”

“Well, good for Vic.”

“Another guest named him Rohan. Adrienne Portale. Are you two friends?”

“Nope. Don’t know her.”

Rohan snuggled deeper into Heather’s arms. “I should get back. It’s cold even for January.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

She sucked in a breath. When it came right down to it, she had no idea who this man was. “Thanks, but I can manage.”

“Mind if I walk with you as far as the guesthouse?”

“How do you know Vic?”

“We go back a ways.”

A vague answer. “You’re a lot younger than he is.”

“Yes, I am.”

Heather hesitated. “I should let Vic know that Rohan is safe.”

“I already texted him that a dark-haired woman in a brown coat had just rescued a puppy from the brook.”

“That was efficient.”

“He hasn’t responded. I also told him you could use some dry clothes.” Brody nodded up through the woods toward the main house. “Shall we?”

Heather could feel Rohan settling into her arms. He wasn’t a light puppy. She needed to get moving if she was going to carry him all the way back to the house.

She took a step up the hill. “I guess if you’re one of Vic’s friends, it’s safe to go off with you. You’re not going to bonk me on the head and dump me in the guesthouse cellar. It doesn’t have a cellar, for one thing.”

“That’s a dramatic imagination you have there.”

“It’s not drama. It’s being practical. I’m very practical.”

“Do you say everything you think?”

“No. Do you?”

His gaze slid over her. He smiled. “No.”

Despite the frigid temperature, she felt heat in her cheeks. Maybe she should think before she spoke. She adjusted Rohan in her arms again as she took another step up the hill. “I’m also good at taking care of myself.”

“Come on. You pushed hard through the snow, and you’re frozen. Let me take Rohan.”

Heather didn’t protest when Brody scooped up the half-asleep puppy. She tried not to shiver or let her teeth chatter, but with the cold weather and her partial dip in the icy brook, she had to admit she was frozen. “I didn’t expect Rohan to end up down here by the lake.”

“He bolted past the guesthouse. I saw him out the window but couldn’t get out fast enough to grab him before he hit the brook. You’re okay to walk, aren’t you?”

“Yep. No problem.”

“Didn’t think it would be. Tough as nails, right?”

“Just used to New England winters.”

“Sure thing.”

There was something in his tone Heather couldn’t quite place. Familiarity? Sarcasm? Amusement? A mix of all three? She couldn’t deny she was madly curious about him, but maybe he just had funny ideas about Knights Bridge and the people who lived there.

She resisted asking him the four thousand questions she had. She needed to get Rohan back to Vic’s. With her wet pants and case of the shivers, she ought to get dry and warm herself

She was happy to let Brody lead the way back to Vic’s house, thus allowing her to step in his footprints instead of in virgin snow. It was much less tiring, and the snow didn’t seem to faze him.

“How do you like Knights Bridge so far?”

He glanced back at her. “Do you really want to ask me that right now?”

“Seventeen degrees, snow, ice, a golden retriever puppy on the loose?” Heather grinned at him. “What’s not to like?”

“Oh, yeah, Heather Sloan.” Just the faintest of smiles. “What’s not to like?”

* * *

Vic Scarlatti bought his house on Echo Lake twenty years ago, when he was a rising star in the US diplomatic corps, and had done virtually nothing to it since. That suited Heather. The previous owner, the granddaughter of the Boston financier who’d built the house, had updated the plumbing, wiring and heat about ten years before the property went on the market upon her death. It was classic Arts and Crafts, oriented to take in the best views of its long-neglected garden and the lake.

Brody showed no sign of appreciating the house’s charms and potential as he set Rohan on his puppy bed in the small, cluttered mudroom off the kitchen. The little golden retriever immediately gave a deep sigh and rolled onto his side, dozing.

“The bed looks new,” Brody said.

“It is,” Heather said, walking past him through the open doorway into the kitchen. “I bought it at the country store in town. I figured Rohan needed a bed.”

“Does Vic plan to keep him?”

“He says absolutely not.”

She sank onto a chair at the kitchen table. She was stiffer than she wanted to admit after her adventure, but at least she was warming up fast. She pulled off her ankle boots. Both socks were wet, but her left one was sopping. Another of her out-into-the-cold sins was her choice of thin cotton socks. She peeled them off and stuffed them in her boots. She’d figure out what to do about them later, when she didn’t have Brody for an audience.

He grabbed Rohan’s water bowl and filled it at the deep porcelain kitchen sink, one of the granddaughter’s additions. He brought the bowl to Rohan and set it close to his bed. The puppy stirred. At first he was too lethargic to care about anything except yawning, but he managed to get onto all fours and lap at the water.

“You should have some water, too,” Brody said as he rejoined Heather in the kitchen. “It’s easy to get dehydrated in this dry cold and not realize it.”