Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 (15 page)

“If I don't see you then, I'm coming back.” He wanted to kiss her one more time but decided against it. She wanted his kiss. He sensed that from the way her lips softened and parted just a little, the way her eyelids lowered.

With an effort of will, he pulled back. Not a bad strategy, to leave her wanting more. “See you in an hour.”

F
or several minutes after Noah Shepherd left, Sophie stayed pressed against the wall as though he still held her there, imprisoned by her own desire to keep him close. The room seemed instantly dimmer, the popping sounds in the wood-burning stove louder. What on earth had come over her, falling into bed with this guy, the two of them acting like a couple of overheated teenagers? Was this living spontaneously? Letting go of control?

“Snap out of it,” she said aloud to the empty house, willfully pushing herself away from the wall. She was restless, but in a way that felt far too pleasant. She moved aimlessly through the house, perusing the books on the shelves, spying a number of fat, enticing novels of the sort she'd always intended to read but never seemed to have the time for. Now she had nothing but time. She picked one and set it on the nightstand.

Then she stopped and just stood there by the bed, regarding the mussed covers and rumpled sheets while everything she'd done with Noah replayed in her mind.

She bent down to tug the quilt back in place and make the bed. As she did so, she was inundated again with memories—every kiss, every touch, every word he'd whispered in her ear, every gasp of pleasure. When was the last time she'd been that happy making love? When had she ever been?

She dropped the quilt. To hell with making the bed. Tonight she would sleep amid the rumpled mess and remember everything all over again. She hugged herself and threw back her head and laughed aloud. Laughed. It was a rusty, incongruous sound in the quiet cottage.

Still smiling, she checked her e-mail and was surprised to see a note from Brooks Fordham, the reporter.

“Hello,” she said, clicking it open, “welcome back.”

The note was brief, just one line: What about that dinner you promised me? followed by a phone number with a New York area code. She went to get her phone, eager to hear his voice, hoping this meant he was fully recovered.

Before she had a chance to dial, her phone jangled to life with Max's ringtone, and she snatched it up. “Hey, there,” she said. “I've been waiting to hear from you.”

“Hiya, Mom. I got your messages.”

His deepening, nearly grown-up voice startled her. “I'm snowed in,” she said. “I'm dying to see you, and I can't because I'm snowed in.”

“Everybody's snowed in. It's awesome.”

“An enforced time-out,” she said. “Everyone can use one of those now and then. How have you been, Max? How is school going?”

“Okay.”

“And hockey?”

“Okay.”

“And life in general and the world at large?”

“Okay.” A note of humor sneaked into his voice. “So what's the deal, Mom? Daisy said you're staying at some house on the lake.”

“That's right. I did.”

“For how long?”

It upset her that he would instantly assume her status to be temporary. But it didn't surprise her. This was what she had led her son to expect from her. When he was very small—still nursing, in fact—she had given more milk to the breast pump than she had to her child, leaving bottles behind for others to feed him. Because, she had told herself, her work was so important. Because she wanted to make the world a better place for her own children. Everyone said it was all right to do that because she was serving a greater purpose. Everyone thought it was fine except the one person who really mattered—Max himself. He never got a vote.

“For good,” Sophie heard herself saying now, and the sound of the words coming out of her own mouth shocked her. She never did anything on a permanent basis. Even her marriage had reached an expiration date. She flinched from the thought, as though she'd touched a hot coal. At some point she would need to deal with what had happened in her marriage, but she wasn't there yet. One crisis at a time, wasn't that what Dr. Maarten advised?

“Seriously?” Max asked. “Come on, Mom.”

“Seriously. I'm really excited about this. I can't wait to see you. Maybe the roads will be clear tomorrow.”

“What's going on? Is this about that thing that happened in The Hague? Dad said—”

“Your father talked to you about it?” Her back stiffened, the way it always did when the subject of her ex came up. The thought of him talking to her son about
her
only added starch to the stiffness. She had talked to her kids; why did they need their father's input? She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax. “Like I said, Max, I have a lot to tell you. What's your schedule tomorrow? And the rest of the week?”

As he gave her a rundown on his daily life, it struck her that for the first time, she was going to be fitting herself into his world rather than the other way around. The notion both worried and excited her. She prayed she would measure up. She'd been a mother for nearly two decades. Now, for the first time ever, she was going to be a
mom.

Later that evening, the snow finally stopped. The snow-plows still hadn't made it out to Lakeshore Road, but they would be working all night. Sophie went to Noah's for supper. The puppy was ecstatic to see her, its whole fluffy body wriggling in a dance of joy.

“She needs a home, you know,” he said, taking Sophie's coat.

“Ooh, that sounds like a hint.” She expected to feel awkward, and yet she didn't. Given the shockingly intimate things they had done together, she thought she might have trouble facing him. Instead, she felt deliciously excited. And…happy. Pleased to be in his company.

“It's an offer.”

“I don't do puppies. And I know I lack credibility with you now…”

“How so?”

“I said I didn't do one-night stands, either, yet I fell right into bed with you.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I'm seizing the day. You know, carpe diem and all that.”

“You just slept with me in order to carpe the diem? Or because you like me?” He paused. “So we're talking about this. I didn't know whether or not to bring it up.”

“It would be silly to avoid it.”

He nodded. “I was hoping for an encore.”

She couldn't help herself. She felt an unbidden tug of concurrence. “That's why we should talk.”

“Okay.” He led the way to the kitchen. “Over dinner.” He fixed macaroni and cheese, salad from a bag. “I'm not much of a cook,” he said, not by way of apology, just explanation.

“Neither am I. This is comfort food.” She couldn't help smiling at the way the dogs, Rudy and Opal, sat back and watched, their eyes following his every move. Then she realized she was stalling, so she took a deep breath. “So. As I mentioned earlier…a one-night stand isn't exactly my style.”

“If we do it again, then it's no longer a one-night stand.”

“That's not the point. The point is, we hardly know each other. We don't even know if we
like
each other. It makes no sense to start something.”

He placed two wineglasses on the counter and opened a bottle of white wine. “Look, I don't know you as well as I want to. But I can safely say, I definitely like you. And today made perfect sense to me.”

She opened the wine and poured while he put dinner on the table. “You're being incredibly matter-of-fact about all this. Is that because you do this all the time, or is it simply your nature to take things as they come?”

“I pick door number two.” He lifted his glass in her direction and took a sip of the wine. “Seriously, I don't do this all the time.”

“Do you do it sometimes?”

“Nope. But you…there's something about you.”

He was just so great. Too great, actually, to be some single guy living alone among the animals like Dr. Doolittle. “Have you ever been married?” she asked him.

“Nope,” he said again.

“That surprises me. You're a great guy, Noah. You have to know that.”
Commitment-phobe,
she thought. He wouldn't be the first.

“I'm not a commitment-phobe,” he said. “Counsellor.”

Only then did Sophie realize she'd spoken aloud. “Sorry. Am I being too nosy? Too lawyerly?”

He folded his arms on the table. “I want to get to know you, too, but playing twenty questions feels kind of phony.”

“Then what do you suggest?”

“How about we just hang out? See what happens?”

“Because—” She stopped, unable to think of a reason. “I've never done much of that. Hanging out. I'm not sure I know how.”

He refilled her wine and offered her dessert. “Mystic Mints,” he said, pushing a dangerous-looking package toward her. “They'll change your life.”

“No, thank you.”

“Tell you what. Why don't we head out and talk some more while I feed?”

She regarded the empty dishes. “Didn't you just do that?”

“The horses, I mean,” he said. “I have to feed the horses.”

“You have horses.”

“I've always had them. I never actually meant to keep some of the animals that have ended up with me. Most are adopted out to permanent homes. Some, though, aren't really adoptable. And some, okay, nearly all—they steal my heart.” He flushed, probably uncomfortable with getting sentimental, then asked. “Do you ride?”

“I used to ride. A long time ago.” As a girl, Sophie had adored horses. Until the age of seventeen, her best friend in the world was Misty, a beautiful Warmblood she kept at a barn and rode every single day, even when the weather was foul and no one else was around. Those, perhaps, had been her favorite times, when she put aside everything else in the world. However, when Misty died, Sophie was inconsolable, crying so much from the agony of loss that she made herself ill. Her parents sympathized, yet they didn't understand her attachment to Misty who was, after all, “only” an animal. They advised Sophie not to get so emotionally attached, warning her that everything came to an end. Sophie took the lesson to heart, and took up swimming instead, a solitary sport. There was danger in loving something with its own mortality, a factor completely out of her control. She never went near a horse—or any other pet—again.

To her relief, he didn't question her further. He insisted that she borrow a pair of warm ski gloves and his sister's barn jacket and they ventured outside just as twilight was edging into purple darkness. It was one of those rare, perfect winter scenes, with a crystal-clear sky filled with stars and a full moon that lit the landscape like a huge, celestial floodlight. The contours of the light on the snow created a scene of beautiful mystery, enveloped by a deep cushion of quiet. The dogs came along, Rudy kicking up a flurry of fresh snow while the puppy tumbled along in his wake. When she stepped inside the barn, Sophie was folded into a warm, familiar atmosphere that brought back unexpected, far-off memories of the girl she had once been. She thought she'd forgotten that girl, someone who laughed and dreamed with abandon, who loved the view of the world from astride her horse. She was unprepared for this wave of nostalgia, evoking a past she hadn't thought about in ages, a rare happiness that was pure and unconditional, and dreams that belonged solely to her.

Even the ritual of caring for the animals—four horses of varying ages—felt familiar. They stuck their heads out of their stalls, ears pricked and nostrils flaring in anticipation of their evening meal. Sophie loved the smell of their feed and their breath, the dry scent of hay and even the earthy odor of manure that pervaded the barn. She took off her gloves and stroked the long nose of a bewhiskered mare, reveling in the warm velvet texture against her hand.

“That's Alice. The others are Jemma, Shamrock and Moe,” Noah said. “I've had Moe for years, and the other three, I rescued.”

Sophie smiled. “I'm seeing a pattern here—you rescuing things.”

“I have a hard time turning my back on an animal. I lost one last month. He was old, and I had to put him down.”

She shut her eyes briefly, trying to imagine what that was like, actually being the one giving the injection. She could remember exactly how the loss of her own horse had felt—like a sledgehammer pounding at her until she was numb. In the aftermath, her heart had turned, cell by cell, to stone. “How can you bear to lose an animal?”

“Because it would be worse than never having them in the first place. I just enjoy the time I'm given with the animals.” He peeled a generous flake of hay from a bale and put it in the stall. “Shamrock's the newest. The idiots who owned him had no clue how to take care of a horse.”

He moved on to the next horse. “Jemma was abandoned, and too mean to put up for adoption,” he said as the horse nuzzled him gently.

“She looks very happy now.”

“It took a long time to teach her to trust me, but all that work and patience paid off,” Noah said.

“I guess finding yourself in charge of abandoned animals is one of the hazards of your profession,” Sophie observed.

“It's one of the perks. Even the worst cases of abandonment will get better eventually.”