Lakeside Cottage

“Hope not. There’s a wildlife rehab station back in Port Angeles. If I can get it there, I’m pretty sure it can be saved.”

“How can he fight like that?” Kate said. “He’s half-dead.”

“Not even close. And the survival instinct is strong when something feels threatened.”

“Hey,” Aaron said, diving into the back of the Jeep. “You can use the Igloo.”

Kate helped him empty the forty-five-gallon cooler, which had plenty of room for a half-grown raccoon. Together, they pulled the cooler out and dragged it over, easing it over the raccoon. It scrabbled around, but the stranger managed to get the lid under it. Slowly and gently, the three of them tilted the cooler until it was upright, then pressed the lid in place.

“Will he smother?” asked Aaron.

Kate opened the drain plug. “He should be all right for a while.”

The man loaded the cooler into his truck. The back was littered with tools, cans of marine varnish and a chain saw. Behind the driver’s seat was a gun rack, which held fishing poles and a coffee mug instead of guns. When he turned back, she got a good look at his face. Even with those glasses, he had the kind of rough masculinity that made her go weak in the knees—strong features, a chiseled mouth, a five-o’clock shadow. Oh, Kate, she thought, you’re pathetic.

“Thanks,” he said.

Aaron’s chest inflated in that unconscious way he had of puffing up around another male. Kate ruffled his hair. “We’re glad to help.”

“Do you live around here?” the stranger asked. “Can I bring the cooler to you when I’m done?”

Kate felt a prickle of hesitation. It was never a good idea to tell a stranger where you lived, especially if you lived in a secluded lakeside cottage where no one could hear you scream.

“I’m staying at the Schroeder place,” he said as if reading her thoughts. “It’s on Lake Crescent.”

The Schroeder place. She used to play with Sammy and Sally Schroeder when she was little. Mable Claire Newman had even mentioned this guy, only half teasing: Wait till you see him. And the guy was a rescuer of raccoons, Kate reflected. How bad could he be?

“We’re a quarter of a mile down the road from you,” she told him. “The driveway is marked with a sign that says The Livingstons. I’m Kate Livingston, and this is Aaron.”

“Nice to meet you. I’d shake hands, but I’ve been handling wildlife.”

For some reason, that struck Kate as funny and she giggled. Ridiculously, like a schoolgirl. She stopped herself with an effort. “So, are you one of the Schroeders?” she asked.

“A friend, actually,” he said. “JD Harris.” “JD?” Aaron echoed. “Mr. Harris to you,” Kate told him. “Everyone calls me JD, Aaron included,” the man insisted.

Aaron stood even straighter and squared his shoulders. Kate kept staring at JD Harris. There was something … it was crazy, but she was sure that behind the dark glasses, he was checking her out, and maybe even liking what he saw. And instead of being offended, she felt a flush of mutual interest.

“I’d better get this thing transported,” he said, turning away. “I’ll bring your cooler over later.”

So, thought Kate as she put the Jeep in gear and pulled out onto the road, maybe I read him wrong. Still his image lingered in her mind as she headed west. He intrigued her, even with two days’ growth of beard. Even the sunglasses gave him an unexpected sexiness, reminiscent of that guiltiest of pleasures, Johnny Depp.

Snap out of it, Kate, she told herself. He probably had a wife and kids with him. That would be good, actually. That would be great. Kids for Aaron to play with.

Her son was turned around in the seat, watching the green truck heading back toward town. “You really think that raccoon will live?”

“It was acting pretty lively,” she said.

Around the east end of the lake, the road narrowed. Like Brigadoon, the lake community was locked in the past. Decades ago, President Roosevelt had declared Lake Crescent and its surroundings a national treasure, and designated it a national park. Only those few already in residence were permitted to retain their property. No more tracts could ever be sold or developed, and improvements were restricted. The hand-built cabins and cottages and the occasional dock tucked along the shore seemed frozen in time, and an air of exclusivity served to underscore the specialness of the summer place.

The families of the lake were a diverse group who generally kept to themselves. Mable Claire Newman’s property management company looked after the vacation homes, including the Livingston place.

Kate pulled off the narrow road and turned between two enormous Sitka spruce trees. Aaron jumped out to unhook the chain across the driveway. Bandit leaped after him, ecstatic to finally be here.

Even this small act was the stuff of family ritual. The opening of the driveway chain had the ponderous significance of a ribbon-cutting ceremony. It was always done by the eldest child in the first car to arrive. He would already have the dull, worn key in one hand and a can of WD–40 in the other, because the padlock inevitably rusted over the damp, dark winter. Aaron freed the lock and let the thick iron chain drop across the gravel driveway. He stood aside, holding out his arm in an old-fashioned flourish.

Kate gave a thumbs-up sign and eased ahead. Summer was officially open for business.

With the dog at his heels, Aaron ran ahead down the driveway. It was littered with pinecones and the occasional bough blown down by the winter storms. Kate felt a familiar childlike sense of anticipation as the property came into view. A grove of ferns, some the size of Volkswagens, filled the forest floor bordering the driveway. Speared through by sunlight, it had the look of a magical bower. In fact, Kate’s grandma Charla used to tell her that fairies lived here, and Kate believed her.

She still did, a little, she thought, watching her son and the dog do a little dance of glee.

The driveway widened and lightened as the trees thinned. Ahead, like a jewel upon a pillow of emerald silk, sat the lake house.

She loved the way the lake property revealed itself to her, bit by bit. Its charms were cumulative, from the gardening shed with moss growing on the rooftop to the boathouse that not only housed a boat, but a homemade still left over from Prohibition days. As always, the lake water had a certain mesmerizing clarity, and indeed the drinking water had always been drawn from it.

The lawn had been mowed prior to their arrival. The house looked as though it was just waking up, the window shades at half mast. Over the eyebrow window were the numbers 1921, to commemorate the year the place was built. Godfrey James Livingston, an immigrant who had made a fortune cutting timber, had commissioned the lake house. The family, with somewhat willful naïveté, always referred to the place as a cottage because old Great-Grandfather Godfrey liked to be reminded of the Lake District of his boyhood in England.

Yet the term “cottage” was an irony when applied to this place. Its timber and river-stone facade spanned the spectacular shoreline, curving slightly as if to embrace the singular view of the long lake with the mountains rising straight up from its depths. The house was designed in the Arts and Crafts style, with thick timbers and multipaned dormer windows on the upper story and a broad porch that took full advantage of the setting.

Godfrey’s son—named Walden, with inadvertent prescience—was Kate’s own grandfather. He was a gentle soul who in one generation had allowed the family fortune to dwindle, mainly because he had the distinction of being a devout conservationist in an era when such a thing was all but unheard of. His passion for preserving the virgin forests of the Northwest had been spoken of in whispers, like an aberrant behavior. “He loves trees” had the same hushed scandal as “he loves boys.” Back in the 1930s when Grandfather was growing up, he had fought to protect the forests. Later, during World War II, he’d served as a medic, winning a bronze star at Bastogne. Having gained a hero’s credibility, he later appeared before Congress to urge limits on clear-cutting federal lands. In the 1950s, his enemies denounced him as a Communist.

A decade later, Grandfather came into his own. The flower children of the 1960s embraced him. He and his wife, Charla, an extremely minor Hollywood actress who had once played a bit part in a Marlon Brando movie, protested the destruction of the environment alongside hippies and anarchists. To the acute embarrassment of their grown children, they attended Woodstock and smoked pot. Walden became a folk hero, and he wrote a book about his experiences.

When Kate was a small girl, he was widowed and moved in with her family. She had loved the old man without reservation, spending hours at his side, chattering on in the way of a child, certain her listener hung on her every word.

With a patience that could only be described as saintly, he would listen to her describe the entire plot of Charlotte’s Web or every exhibit in the school science fair. Later, when she was a teenager, it was Grandfather Walden who heard all her Monday-morning quarterbacking about the weekend football games, parties, dates. Her grandfather was the keeper of all her secrets and dreams. It was to him that she first explained her ambition to become a famous international news correspondent. He was the first one she told when she was accepted in the honors program at the University of Washington. And it was to him that she had confessed the event that had changed the course of her future. “I’m pregnant, and Nathan wants me to get rid of the baby.”

“To hell with Nathan.” The old man, wheelchair-bound by then, still managed a lively gesture with his hand. “What do you want?”

Her hands had crept down over her still-flat belly. “I want this baby.”

A gleam of emotion lit his eyes behind the bifocals. “I love you, Katie. I’ll help you in any way I can.”

He’d given her the most critical element of all—his wholehearted, nonjudgmental approval. It meant the world to her. Her parents were supportive, of course. It was the role they felt compelled to play. But every once in a while, Kate sensed their frustration. We raised you for something more than single motherhood.

Only Grandfather knew the truth, that there was no career or calling more thrilling, demanding or rewarding than raising a child.

She loved her grandfather for his great heart and open mind, for his passion and honesty. She loved him for accepting her exactly as she was, flaws and all. Over the years, he gave her plenty of advice. The bit that stuck in her mind consisted of two simple words: Don’t settle.

She wished she’d done a better job following that advice, but she hadn’t, in her career, anyway. She had settled for a popular but uninfluential newspaper that required little from her, only a clever turn of phrase, a canny eye for fashion and the ability to produce eighteen hundred publishable words on a regular basis.

This was it, then, she decided, parking near the back door. This summer was her chance to find something she could be passionate about. She would do it for her own sake, in honor of her grandfather.

Grabbing the nearest grocery sack, she got out of the Jeep and unlocked the back door. At least, she thought she unlocked it. As she turned the key, she didn’t feel the bolt slide.

That’s odd, she thought, opening the door and stepping inside. The cleaners must have forgotten to lock up after themselves. They’d left the radio on, too, and an old Drifters tune was floating from the speakers. She would have to mention it to Mable Claire Newman. Crime wasn’t a problem around here, but that was no excuse for carelessness.

Other than leaving the door unlocked, the cleaners had done an excellent job. The pine-plank floors gleamed, and all the wooden paneling and fixtures glowed with a deep, oiled sheen. The shutters had been opened to dazzling sunlight striking the water.