The Summer Hideaway

He drew a firm line through item number seventeen and handed it to her with a flourish.

She studied the entry for a few moments. “Visit the place where I first fell in love,” it read. She handed back the journal. “You did this?”

“Today.”

“The resort lodge, you mean?”

He looked a bit bashful. “Before that.”

She mentally retraced their journey. “I don’t under—Wait. George, do you mean…?”

He nodded again. “The Sky River Bakery.” He sighed, stared down at the item for a few more moments with a distant light in his eyes.

“Are you hungry, George? Would you like to go to dinner at the lodge?”

“I’m a bit tired, actually. I’m happy just resting here awhile.”

“Of course. I’ll get your meds.” Steroids and other palliative meds were keeping the symptoms at bay, but the effects were only temporary. The upside was, he stood a chance of enjoying a decent quality of life as opposed to endless days of chasing painful, time-consuming treatments that ultimately would fail.

When she came across the Viagra, she tried not to react, but something must’ve shown on her face. George didn’t seem sheepish at all, just matter-of-fact. “In case I get lucky. Is that a foolish hope?”

“As soon as you stop hoping to get lucky, it’s all over,” she said with a grin.

He gifted her with a burst of laughter. “Something tells me we’re going to get along just fine.”

She brought him a Hudson’s Bay blanket of brightly dyed wool, and a few pillows. Propped against the pillows, he scowled at a page in his journal. Across the top, he’d written Charles.

“Your brother, right?” said Claire.

George nodded. “He’s the main reason I’ve come here.”

“I bet he’s going to be incredibly happy to see you, George.”

“Of that, I’m not so certain.”

“What do you mean, not certain?”

“Charles and I haven’t spoken in fifty-five years.”

Chapter Four

Claire woke up to silence. She wondered if she’d ever get used to the absence of honking horns and gnashing air brakes, the shouts and whistles of vendors and workmen. The void was filled with birdsong, the hum of insects and breezes ruffling the leaves and rippling across the water. The smells drifting in through the screened window—flowers and grass and the fresh scent of the lake—were utterly intoxicating.

She went to the window of her small loft bedroom and felt the irresistible pull of the outside. She had an urge to be a part of it—and it was the perfect time for a morning run. Hastily dressed in nylon shorts and an athletic bra and T-shirt, ankle socks and her favorite runners, she tiptoed downstairs. She tucked her monitor receiver into a pocket and drank a big glass of water. Then she stepped outside and headed for the trail, choosing the five-mile route marked Lakeside Loop.

In the city, she would be plugged into an iPod to cover up the babble of urban life. Here in the wilderness, she welcomed the sounds of nature and the feel of the fresh air on her skin, and she started her morning jog with a smile on her face. And of course, she had the requisite shot of pepper spray clipped to her waistband, but that was more out of habit than any real fear she’d encounter trouble on the lakeside trail.

The beauty of her surroundings seemed almost unreal, as though she had stepped into a dream.

This morning, she tried to clear her mind. It was exhausting, always trying to think ahead, plan the next move, anticipate disaster. She pushed aside the constant tension and sank into her enjoyment of the woodland trails of the resort. One couple jogged past, nodding at her, and there was a single person in a kayak out on the lake, out for a morning paddle.

Birds flickered in the trees, and she spotted the occasional deer or rabbit. Sunlight glimmered on the lake, and the willow trees at the shore gracefully dipped their fronds in the water. Such a beautiful world. Too beautiful, she thought with a familiar twinge of yearning. She wished she had someone to share this moment with. Yet the fact was, she had no one to bear witness to her life. Sometimes that realization was overwhelming.

Over time, she had taught herself to tolerate the self isolation. There really wasn’t any other choice.

The rhythm of her feet on the pavement alternated with the cadence of her breathing. She tried to imagine absorbing the beauty of the day through her pores, somehow keeping it with her. Maybe that was the magic of this place—that even after you left, you could take it with you. Maybe that was why George still thought about it even after half a century had passed.

We haven’t spoken in fifty-five years.

A lifetime, she thought. George and his brother had let a lifetime slip by. Last night, she’d suggested they call Charles Bellamy—he was listed in the local phone book. George had balked and looked tired. “When Ross comes,” he’d said.

Ross. The favored grandson. She hoped like hell the guy was on his way. For that matter, where was the rest of George’s family? According to George, his sons and daughters-in-law expected him to return to the city in a matter of days.

This morning, George had been out of sorts. He’d stayed close to the house, only venturing to the porch or dock to catch the sun’s early rays. There was no further talk of Charles Bellamy, and Claire didn’t bring it up. For the time being, George was in no shape to face the emotional turmoil of a reunion with his long-lost brother.

Her plan for the day was to let each hour unfold at a pace that seemed to suit her patient. In the resort’s eclectic library, she had read up on Camp Kioga, trying to fill in the blanks for herself. There was a multivolume scrapbook filled with photos of people and events connected to the resort. It had started out as a big agricultural parcel at the north end of the lake, deeded to the Gordon family to settle a debt. The camp itself had been founded by Angus Gordon in the 1920s. Kioga was, as far as anyone knew, a fake Mohawk word which Angus claimed meant tranquility.

The campground was later run by Angus’s son and then inherited by his granddaughter and her husband. The current owners’ names had leaped off the page at her: Jane and Charles Bellamy.

Exploring the woodland trails that wound through the area, Claire imagined the past here, and wondered if she would ever learn the reason for the brothers’ estrangement. A brother shared a person’s history and background the way no one else ever could. Yet something had torn George and Charles apart. Something had made George walk away and stay away for fifty-five years.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t notice someone approaching from an oblique angle behind her. At the last second, she spied a shadow—large male, baseball cap, arm outstretched—and reacted instantly, with all the force and decisiveness she’d learned in her self-defense training. In a fluid movement she turned, right leg kicking out at groin level, the heel of her left hand crunching upward into the assailant’s face. In less than a second, he was down, doubled over, and she was running for her life, her every nerve lit by adrenaline, the pepper spray in hand.

Claire gauged that she was about five minutes from the spot where her bag was hidden, going at top speed. As for George Bellamy, he would have no idea what became of her.

She felt bad about that. She hoped he’d find his brother, and she hoped the Bellamy family wouldn’t drag the old guy back to the city and force him to submit to brutal treatment.

The concern wasn’t enough to stop her.

A shout from her assailant, however, definitely was. “Tancredi,” he said, his voice a rasp of pain.

The single word—a name almost never uttered—froze her. It brought back everything she had left behind, including the person she’d been before she’d disappeared.

She allowed herself a quick look back.

Her assailant was on all fours, struggling to rise. Good. On all fours, he wouldn’t be drawing a weapon.

The baseball cap had fallen off him, revealing a mane of salt-and-pepper hair.

Oh, God. Mel. It was Melvin Reno, the only person Claire trusted with her secrets.

She instantly switched direction and ran to him, dropping to her knees by his side. “Are you insane?” she asked. “You huge idiot, you shouldn’t have sneaked up on me. I could have done you permanent damage.”

“Maybe you did.” He glowered at her through tears of pain.

“Sit,” she said, noting the shocky gray cast to his face. “Pull up your knees at a forty-five-degree angle and put your head between them.”

With a groan, he complied.