Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel (10 page)

And as she did so, she felt her spirits lift. She needed to get away from this cabin, if only for an hour. Since she and Wyatt had gotten here they’d left it only a few times, to go to the grocery store, or the hardware store, or Pearl’s.

She wouldn’t go far, she told herself, as she slid the canoe down the gently sloping lake bank. No more than a few hundred yards from the dock. And she’d stay close to shore, too, in no deeper than shoulder-deep water. If the canoe started to leak, she’d come straight back. And if it didn’t, well, then taking it out would be a nice diversion.

When she reached the lake, she pushed the canoe, bow first, into the water, and walking out on the dock, pulled the canoe out alongside her until it was in water deep enough to paddle. Then she sat down on the edge of the dock, climbed carefully into the canoe’s stern, and sat down on the seat. Using the paddle to push off the lake bottom, she maneuvered out away from the dock. Then she started paddling and, after a few clumsy strokes, settled into a comfortable rhythm. She was surprised at how natural it felt after all these years. How right.

She’d gone about a hundred yards, parallel to the shore, when she realized she was heading in the direction of Walker Ford’s dock. Even from this distance, though, she could see that no one was on it.
Good,
she thought, since for reasons she didn’t entirely understand, their meeting at Pearl’s continued to rankle her. She made a conscious effort now not to think about him, and she kept paddling until she noticed that a few inches of water had accumulated in the bottom of the canoe. She stopped paddling, then, and drifted for a few minutes while she bailed the water out. She should probably turn back now, she thought. But if she did, it would be the end of her little adventure. And she wasn’t ready for it to end yet.

So she kept going, staying close to the shoreline, in water only deep enough to paddle comfortably in. The canoe, she knew, wasn’t going to sink like a lead weight. Not if she kept bailing it out every few hundred yards. Which she did, alternately paddling and bailing, until she realized her arm was getting tired, and the back of her neck was getting sunburned. The weather, which had seemed so delightfully pleasant when she’d started out, now just seemed hot. Besides, she was almost at Walker Ford’s dock, and even if he wasn’t down there now, she didn’t want to take any chances by lingering too long. It was time to turn around. Or it would be, as soon as she could get some more water out of the canoe’s bottom.

But as she stopped to bail again it occurred to her that the canoe might be taking on water a little faster. She bailed furiously for a few minutes before she realized with dismay that the water level in the canoe wasn’t falling anymore. It was rising. She bailed faster, but the water only rose faster. She stopped, exhausted, to catch her breath, and saw with alarm that lake water was rushing into the bottom now, covering first her feet, and then her ankles.

She looked back at her own dock, shocked by how far away it suddenly seemed. There was no way she was getting back there now, not in this canoe. She looked around the bay. It was deserted. Even if she could have swallowed her pride long enough to ask for help, there was nobody there to help her. Walker Ford’s dock, on the other hand, was only about a hundred yards away.

She sat in the canoe
,
watching it fill with water, knowing what she had to do, and not wanting to do it. But right before the water reached her knees, she made her escape. She dove out, taking the paddle, the life cushion, and the plastic milk jug with her. Then she stood up, in shoulder-deep water, and watched the canoe sink. It wasn’t very dramatic. When it had come to rest, forlornly, on the lake bottom, she swam awkwardly over to Walker’s dock, tossed everything she was holding on to it, and dragged herself up after them.

Then she stood up and looked around, feeling utterly ridiculous. Lake water dripped off the hem of her cutoffs, trickled down her legs, and pooled in her sneakers. Thank God Walker Ford hadn’t chosen this moment to go for a swim, she thought. She glanced up at his cabin, perched on a bluff above the lake. There was no sign of him up there, either. Good. She was going to have to tell him about the sunken canoe eventually. But at least she could skulk back to her cabin now with her dignity intact. Well,
partially
intact.

Still, there was the question of
how
to get back to her cabin. She looked back at her own dock again. Across the open lake, it was less than half a mile away. She was a good swimmer and could cover that distance easily. But as tempting as it was to do that, it would break one of her cardinal rules as Wyatt’s only surviving parent. Never take an unnecessary risk, no matter how small. Because the thought of leaving Wyatt without any parent at all, was, well . . .
unthinkable.

That meant her only option was walking back to her cabin on the main road. She groaned, inwardly. She’d have to skirt around Walker’s cabin to get to his driveway and to Butternut Lake Drive beyond it. If he was home, there was a chance he’d see her, and the ridiculous situation she was in. She briefly considered bypassing his cabin and bushwhacking through the woods to the road, but she dismissed the idea. Too many mosquitoes, too much poison ivy.

So she started walking up the dock, towing her gear along with her. The lake water squelched in the bottom of her sneakers, as her fury at herself settled into a slow burn.
Stupid, stupid, stupid,
she said to herself, every time a sneaker slapped against the dock.
What were you thinking?

She reached the end of the dock and walked right past the boathouse, not bothering to look inside of it. She already knew it housed at least half a dozen boats. All of them, she imagined, in pristine condition. She felt a fresh wave of irritation at Walker Ford.

And when she started climbing up the stone steps to his cabin, that irritation only intensified.
Was it necessary to have so many steps,
she thought, the backs of her calves aching, and her breath coming faster. But when she reached the top of the steps and turned around, breathing hard, even she had to admit that the view of the lake from there was spectacular. Then again, she thought, as she turned back around, the cabin wasn’t too shabby, either. It managed to be both contemporary and traditional at the same time, its simple A-frame shape enhanced by fieldstone trim and an entire wall of glass that opened onto the back deck. Whatever else you could say about the man, she admitted, grudgingly, he obviously had good taste. Better than good, really. Everything about this place—the dock, the deck, the cabin—was impeccably designed and beautifully built. It managed to be both luxurious and harmonious at the same time, blending in effortlessly with its natural setting.

She glanced now at the stone path that skirted around to the right of the cabin. That was the way to the driveway and the road beyond. But she hesitated, her curiosity about this place getting the best of her. There was obviously no one around, she thought, and if she just took a quick peek through the glass wall, no one would ever be the wiser. She edged out onto the deck, and over to the glass wall, and, stopping at a sliding glass door, pressed her face against it. The inside of the cabin, she saw, was as spectacular as the outside. The room she was looking into—the living room, obviously—had a cathedral-style ceiling with exposed wooden beams and an enormous fieldstone fireplace embedded in one wall. Two vast, cognac leather couches faced each other on either side of that fireplace. And on one of them, she realized, with a little jolt of surprise, was Walker Ford. Though why she was surprised to see him inside his own cabin, she couldn’t exactly say.

The good news though, if there
was
any good news, was that he was flipping through a magazine and, as far as she could tell, hadn’t seen her yet. She stood there, perfectly still, trying to formulate a plan of action, but her options were limited. If she moved now, she might attract his attention. And if she stood there long enough, he’d eventually look up from his magazine and see her standing there. Looking like an idiot. A total idiot. Which was exactly what she was, when you considered the long list of mistakes she’d already made today.

And it was while she was considering this that Walker Ford looked up from his magazine and stared straight at her. Oddly enough, he didn’t look surprised. Not exactly.
Disturbed
was a better word. And who could blame him? She could only imagine what she looked like. The creature from the black lagoon, probably.

As he set down his magazine, stood up, and walked toward the sliding glass door, Allie made a last-ditch effort to make herself look a little more presentable, peeling her sodden T-shirt away from her wet skin. She tried to ring some of the lake water out of it, too, but it still stuck to her like glue. She tugged, too, at the hem of her dripping cutoffs but couldn’t seem to make them any longer than they were, which right now seemed to be about two inches long. She sighed and gave up. She looked like a horror show. And a scantily clad one at that.

As Walker reached the glass door and slid it open, she wondered what else could possibly go wrong today. She had a feeling she was about to find out.

CHAPTER 10

I
t was the strangest thing. One minute, Walker was sitting on his couch, flipping through an issue of
American Fisherman
magazine, trying not to think about his new neighbor, and thinking about her anyway. And the next minute, he was looking up and seeing her, standing there on his deck, holding, of all things, a canoe paddle.

That’s when it occurred to him that he might actually be losing his mind. That he might be hallucinating. But when he shut his eyes and opened them again, she was still standing there, still holding a canoe paddle.

He stood up, crossed the room, and opened the sliding glass door. And that was when he realized that she was dripping wet. His first thought, obviously, should have been,
What the hell was she doing here?
And, more important,
What the hell was she doing before she got here?

But his first thought, instead, was that she looked amazing. Like some kind of freshwater mermaid who’d just washed up on his deck.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, a little sheepishly, “but my canoe sank and—”

“Where’s your son?” Walker interrupted, his brain kick-starting itself.

“Oh, no, he’s not with me,” she said quickly, reading the expression of alarm on his face. “He’s picking blueberries with Jax and her daughters—”

“Wait,” he said, interrupting her again. “Did you say your canoe
sank
?” He looked out at the lake. The water was as smooth as glass.

“Yes. I know, it sounds strange, but—”

“
Sank
or
capsized
?” he clarified. An inexperienced canoer could capsize a canoe, but canoes did not, as a general rule, sink. Not on a day like today, under weather conditions like these. If he’d special ordered a summer day from a catalog, it could not have been more perfect than this one.

“I know the difference between capsizing and sinking,” she said, a frown line forming between her hazel eyes. “Believe it or not, I’m an experienced canoer.”

Walker didn’t believe it. And her tone, when she spoke again, told him she
knew
he didn’t believe it.

“Look,” she said, “I took out my grandfather’s wooden canoe. It’s at least fifty years old, maybe older. It was taking on a little water when I started out. But I thought I could handle it.” She indicated the plastic bailing jug she was holding. “It turned out to be more than a little leak, though. It turned out to be—”

“A big leak?” he interrupted, again. Somehow, the spell had been broken. She still looked irresistibly lovely standing there, her wet clothes clingingly appealingly to her slender body. But he was beginning, belatedly, to see the humor in the situation.

Her jaw tightened. “Yeah, okay. A
big
leak. Anyway, long story short, taking that canoe out was probably a mistake.”

“Probably?” Walker repeated, one corner of his mouth lifting a quarter of an inch.

“I’m glad you’re finding this so amusing,” she said, obviously exasperated. “But the only reason I’m even telling you this is because I need to cut across your property to the road. If it’s all right with you, I’ll be on my way now.”

“Be my guest,” Walker said, with a shrug. But then his curiosity got the best of him. “Where’d your canoe sink?” he asked.

“About a hundred yards to the right of your dock. In about five feet of water.”

“It was that close, huh?” he asked, the corner of his mouth lifting again.

She flushed, and he watched, fascinated, as a warm pinkness collided with the pale gold of her complexion.

“I wasn’t spying on you,” she said, “if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything,” he said innocently.

“Anyway, if it’s okay with you, I’ll come back for it as soon as I’m able to. I don’t want it to be a hazard to other boaters.”