Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 (32 page)

D
aisy pulled up in front of her cousin Olivia's house. She and her new husband, Connor Davis, had built the riverside haven together, and it was their dream house. The exterior was made of native timber and river rock, and it looked like a spread in a magazine. However, as she extracted Charlie from his carseat, she wasn't thinking much about the house. She was thinking about Julian Gastineaux.

He was Connor's younger brother—half brother—who had come to town for a visit. Everybody probably had a Julian buried deep in the past. The perfect boy, the one you think about even if you haven't seen him in months or even years. The one you wish you'd made a move on. That was Julian. He was the kind of guy parents worried about—dangerous and exciting, an adrenaline junkie who loved extreme sports, dizzying heights and edgy music. He had a sketchy home situation and bad-boy looks. He favored black T-shirts and low-slung jeans, and rode a motorcycle. All of which, of course, made him irresistible.

As she stood on the porch and knocked at the door, Daisy wondered if he'd changed much now that he went to an Ivy League college. Maybe his first semester at Cornell had turned him into a geek, or—

“Hey, Daisy.” And there he stood, holding the door for her.

Cornell had most definitely not turned him into a geek. Cornell—or the passage of time, or all the extreme sports he did—had made him even more gorgeous than she remembered. He still had that crop of dreadlocks, the broad-shouldered physique of a star athlete and a smile that lit up his whole face.

“Hey, yourself.” She grinned back at him. “It's really good to see you.” Were they supposed to hug? Shake hands? With the baby on her hip, it was awkward. Charlie pushed his face into Daisy's shoulder as though to hide. In his hooded snowsuit, he looked like a fleecy teddy bear she'd won at a shooting gallery. “He's kind of shy around strangers,” she explained.

“That's okay. I'm shy around babies.”

The honest admission made her laugh. “Most guys are.”

“Come on in. I was just about to load up the gear.” They were going ice climbing with Sonnet and Zach in Deep Notch today. Julian, always up for doing something totally extreme, had organized the expedition, bringing equipment from the climbing club at Cornell.

“Let me get Charlie settled, and I'll give you a hand.”

She left her boots at the door and headed down the hall, feeling a surge of excitement. Other than leaving Charlie with her mom for school, she didn't get out by herself very often.

She stepped into the kitchen to find not just Olivia, but Jenny Majesky and Nina. “Hi,” she said, and turned to Nina. “I didn't know you were going to be here.”

“Hi, yourself.” Nina reached for the baby.

“I thought I was babysitting today,” Olivia said.

Jenny laughed. “So young, and already he's got women fighting over him.”

“We'll share,” Nina promised, but she took charge of getting Charlie out of his snowsuit. He knew and adored her, and chortled with contentment as she unzipped him and held him out so Olivia could peel off the fleecy suit.

Daisy went to the fridge and unloaded the bottles. “So what's up?” she asked over her shoulder.

“Jenny has news,” said Olivia.

Nina beamed at Jenny. “Does she ever.”

“You're pregnant?” Daisy asked. That was sort of what she expected. Jenny had married Rourke McKnight a year ago, and she'd made no secret of wanting to start a family, ASAP.

Now she shook her head. “A different kind of news. You know I've been writing.”

“Only all your life,” Nina added. Jenny had a popular weekly food column in the local paper. She looked more excited than Jenny, as if she were about to bubble over. Nina and Jenny were true BFFs. They had met in grade school and had been best friends ever since. Daisy believed there was a special quality in that kind of relationship. The years, filled with shared good times and bad, gave a peculiar sturdiness to the bond.

Daisy didn't have a friend like that. In high school, she'd been too careless or maybe too preoccupied with keeping up her party-girl image. She and Sonnet were close, but they'd only been friends for a year and their lives had become so different that the bond didn't feel as safe and sure as it once had.

But Nina and Jenny, that was a different story. Daisy regarded the two of them as though through the camera's eye. They looked totally different—Nina dark and small and intense, a concentrated ball of energy. And then there was Jenny, who was quiet and beautiful, with delicate looks that made her seem as though she could easily break. Jenny had survived some terrible losses and tragedies in her life, but she had never let those things defeat her. Now she was lit up with some kind of happiness Daisy hoped she would find for herself one day.

“All right, so what's this news?” she asked. “Something about your writing?”

“Yep. My collection of memories and recipes from growing up at the Sky River Bakery is going to be published as a book.”

Daisy knew Jenny had been working on it for years. It was incredible to know someone whose dreams were coming true right before your eyes. “Way to go, Jenny,” she said. “Everybody loves the bakery so much. They're going to love your book, too.”

“I hope so. And I have a request.” She opened a big manila envelope and pulled out a collection of photos Daisy had taken at the bakery, back when she'd worked there part-time. “If it's all right with you,” Jenny said, “I'd like to show these to the publisher. If they use them, you'll be paid for your work.”

“Of course they'll use them,” Nina said. “Those pictures are fantastic.”

“I think so, too,” Jenny said. “They want to include a few archival pictures of the bakery, but most of those were lost in the fire.” She was referring to the fire that had burned her home to the ground the previous year. “I'd like to propose this image for the cover.”

She indicated the photograph on the top of the stack. Charlie made a dive for it, but Nina held him in check. The picture was a shot of a woman's hands, dusted in flour and expertly kneading a mound of dough. The hands belonged to Laura Tuttle, who had worked at the bakery for, like, a zillion years, and all that experience and strength showed in the hands. It wasn't that they looked that old, but they looked sturdy and competent. The photograph, which Daisy had rendered in sepia tones, was filled with intimate detail. It had been a part of the portfolio that had gained her admission to her current photography class.

“I think that picture perfectly complements the book's title,” Nina said.
“Food for Thought: Kitchen Wisdom from a Family Bakery.”

“So is it okay?” Jenny asked. “You'd be paid, of course.”

“Wow, it's totally okay,” Daisy assured her. “I just hope they're good enough.”

“They're wonderful,” Olivia said. “Everyone thinks so.”

This news, Daisy decided, was proof that even after terrible things happened, dreams could come true. For Jenny, of course, but also for her. She couldn't wait to tell her mom. How cool that she finally felt that way.

Things were still tense between Sonnet and Zach, but at least they weren't openly fighting. Sonnet conceded that the real feud was between her mother and Zach's father, not between her and Zach. Daisy sensed they even kind of liked being together during Sonnet's week home. Julian borrowed his brother's four-wheel-drive Jeep to drive to West Kill, the closest town to the ice climb at Deep Notch.

As they hauled their gear up to the frozen waterfall, Daisy took some pictures—Julian, so intent as he led the way up through the forest. Sonnet looking dubious, Zach intrigued. Winter light filtered through high, thin clouds, and the shapes of the bare trees were etched against the snow.

“So, ice climbing,” Sonnet said to Julian. “It's pretty much what it sounds like, right?”

“Depends,” said Julian with a good-natured grin. “What does it sound like to you?”

“Challenging. Extreme. Lethal. How am I doing?”

“You'll be fine,” he said. “I brought all the safety gear we'll need.” He explained rope systems, tying in, belaying, leading, rappelling and lowering. She was familiar with the techniques from rock climbing, but when the vast wall of ice came into view, rows of icicles glinting like daggers of glass, she realized the ascent was going to be something entirely new.

Sonnet was in open rebellion even before they reached the base of the climb. “I am
so
not doing this.”

“That's fine,” said Zach. “You can hold the rope for me.”

“You'd trust me to do that?”

“With my life,” he stated.

She caught her breath, clearly not having expected such a statement. They shared a long look, and Daisy could see a softening in Sonnet's eyes. On his relentless quest to win back her friendship, he was clearly gaining ground.

They reached the base of the ice wall and put on their gear—rigid crampons on their feet, harnesses for belaying, belts for the ice axes and screws. Julian demonstrated the techniques that were not, Daisy observed, terribly elegant. Basically, scaling a wall of ice involved digging in a pair of handheld axes while holding steady with the points of your footgear, and using the occasional screw Julian had placed on the ascent. Julian, with his strength and grace, made it look easy—swing and then plant, methodically working his way up the rugged pillars of ice. It didn't take Daisy long to discover that it wasn't exactly as easy as that. Even the short practice ascent challenged muscles she didn't know she had.

“You're crazy, you know that?” she said, arriving in a crumpled heap at the top.

“You're the one who followed me here. What does that make you?”

Zach boosted himself up and then sat on a rock outcropping, his feet dangling over the edge. “Next,” he yelled down to Sonnet.

“I already told you, I'm not going,” she said.

Zach got up and took the rope from Julian. “I got this. We'll practice here for a while.”

Julian motioned Daisy to a longer, steeper section of the ice wall. “You up for this?”

“Sure.” Despite the fact that the sport was a monumental struggle, she loved the exhilarating sense of freedom she had out here in the wilderness. Just for a few hours, she wasn't thinking about anything but being with friends, looking at the scenery, having a good time. She couldn't remember the last time she'd done something like this. During the fleeting, perilous minutes of the climb, she was just Daisy, not a single mother who had made a lifelong commitment to a child she'd never planned on having.

“You're all smiles,” Julian said when she joined him at the top of the icefall.

She took off her helmet and backpack and took the water bottle he offered. “I'm starting to get why you like doing this.” Her smile faded. “I feel guilty, though. Every time I leave Charlie with somebody, I feel guilty.”

“He was all smiles, too, when you left him at Olivia's.”

“I guess.” She took out her camera. The clouds had broken to reveal the kind of sky you only saw in winter—intense, eye-smarting blue, contrasted against the blinding white snow and shadowy mountains. She took some shots, then turned the lens toward Julian.

He sat still for a couple of frames, then jumped up. “I want to keep going.”

She shaded her eyes and leaned back to study the ascent to the summit. The last bit was dizzying, the ice not just vertical but bowed out over a series of rocky cliffs. “It looks impossible.”

He grinned. “That's why I want to keep going.”

“I wish you wouldn't.”

“My Spidey-sense tells me I can.”

She glowered at him. “I'll make a photographic record of your last moments alive.”

That made him laugh aloud. “You do that. It'll be good for your career.” He put his helmet and goggles back on, checked his safety ropes and headed up the pillars of ice, moving with a determination she captured beautifully with her camera. Chunks and fine shavings of ice rained down beneath him. At one point, he was clinging to a sheet of ice so vast that he did resemble Spider-Man, suspended in midair. She zoomed in on him, the powerful lens giving her a detailed view of his struggle.

And of the extremely loose-looking screw he was perched on. The ice around it was cracking, crumbling.

“You're going to lose your footing,” she yelled. “Julian, look out!”

Her warning came the same moment the ice gave way. He dug in with both ice axes and hung there while the screw fell in a hail of ice and rock. Daisy was transfixed, speechless with terror. Julian's feet swung free, and he seemed to be helpless. She rushed to the ascent rope, found her voice. “Julian, what should I do?” She sounded hollow, the words echoing off the walls of ice and rock.

“I'm good,” he said. “Don't…worry.”

She held her breath and watched. He gained a toehold and hugged the ice for a moment, and she could tell he was fatigued. Then he lifted one ax, moving upward. Upward? “Julian—”