Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel (20 page)

“Not very well,” she admitted, folding her arms protectively across her chest. She was still wearing the clothes she’d been wearing when he’d picked her and Wyatt up at their cabin last night. A tank top, pajama bottoms, and flip-flops. He tried, but failed, not to stare at her almost-bare shoulders. Her arms tightened across her chest.

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” he asked, trying to fill the conversational void.

She nodded. “I’d love one,” she said, coming tentatively into the kitchen. He poured her a cup.

“Half-and-half?” he asked.

“I’ll get it,” she said, standing next to him. He handed her the cup and she took it, then reached for the carton of half-and-half on the counter and sloshed some into the cup. He handed her a spoon, and she smiled appreciatively as she gave her coffee a quick stir.

He drank his own coffee and watched her. Her honey-colored hair, normally trained into a neat ponytail, fell loose and tousled on her shoulders, and her hazel eyes, usually closer to brown, looked strikingly green in the light streaming in through the windows. But it was her mouth he found especially captivating this morning. It was the palest shade of pink, and it looked so soft right now, so vulnerable. He felt an unfamiliar tightness in his chest, a constriction in his breathing.

“Is Wyatt still asleep?” he asked, trying to ignore the strange sensation.

She nodded. “He slept straight through the night.”

“That’s amazing,” Walker said. He hadn’t slept at all. But he didn’t know how much of that had had to do with the storm.

“It
is
amazing,” she agreed, sipping her coffee. “When he was a baby, he used to sleep so soundly, for so long, that a couple of times I woke him up just to make sure he was all right. Then my neighbor, who’d raised four children of her own, told me you never wake up your second child.” She smiled, shaking her head at the memory. “I guess I’ll never know,” she added, more to herself than to him. And then she blushed, hard, and looked away. She obviously felt like she’d said too much.

But Walker was thoughtful. Did she really believe that? That she’d never have a second child? He thought it was probably too soon to know, especially given how young she was. But he didn’t say anything. It wasn’t exactly his area of expertise. Not by a long shot.

“What about you?” she asked. “How’d you sleep?”

“I didn’t sleep at all,” he confessed.

“Not even a little?” she asked, surprised.

He shook his head. “No. At some point, I guess, I just realized it wasn’t going to happen.”

“Were you worried?” she asked, frowning slightly. “About the boatyard, I mean?”

“Worried?” he repeated, dumbly. He was thinking about how pretty her mouth was. Even frowning.

“No,” he said, finally understanding her question. “I wasn’t worried. I called Cliff, after you and Wyatt went to bed. He was there, and he gave me an update. There was very little damage, actually. We got most of the boats inside yesterday afternoon.”

“So you knew about the storm?”

“I thought everyone did,” he said. It wasn’t a judgment. Just a statement.

She sighed. “I didn’t know about it,” she said, guiltily. “I was completely oblivious.” She added, with a little shudder, “If it hadn’t been for you, last night might have ended very differently.”

He started to tell her something, but she put her empty coffee cup down on the counter with such force that it startled him.

“I’m such an idiot,” she said, her jaw tightening. “Otherwise, I would have had a cell phone. Or a generator. Or—”

“Hey, don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said, interrupting her.

“Why not?” she asked, her face flushing. “Why shouldn’t I be? I’m the one who had the brilliant idea of moving us up here. Of starting over again. Of having peace, and quiet, and solitude. None of which, by the way, Wyatt ever asked for. And I was so determined that we’d do everything on our own. So determined, and so
completely
unprepared. I mean, last night I realized I didn’t even have flashlight batteries, for God’s sake.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about it since I woke up this morning,” she continued, her tone softer, but still tinged with anger. “And I’ve decided that if our cabin is still there—and that’s a big ‘if’—I should probably just quit while I’m ahead. You know, sell it and head back to the suburbs, where we obviously belong.”

“Allie, stop,” Walker said, holding up his hand. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion. First of all, as I tried to tell you a minute ago, your cabin is fine. There are a few shingles torn off the roof, some trees down on your property, but that’s it. I’m sorry that I made that remark last night about it being a pile of twigs. Obviously, I was wrong.” He almost said something, too, about the other remark he’d made. The one about not having to work that hard to get a date, but he decided to let it go.

“How do you know how our cabin is?” she asked, perplexed.

“I went over there.”

“When?”

“This morning. As soon as the sun came up. I took the boat over there. I tied up at your dock and took a quick look around. You may have some damage I couldn’t see. But all in all, it looked pretty good.”

“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” she said, quietly. But it didn’t sound like an accusation. It sounded more like an apology.

“I couldn’t sleep, remember?” he said, smiling. “And I wanted to make sure you two had someplace to go home to. Unless you’re serious about selling your cabin . . .” He trailed off, afraid of the answer.

She bit her lower lip, considering his question. “No,” she said, finally. “I don’t think so. We can’t move back. Eden Prairie isn’t our home anymore, but this isn’t our home yet, either. We’re sort of caught between two places, Wyatt and me.”

“That must be hard,” he said, and he meant it. But he was relieved, too, that she wasn’t serious about leaving. And then he thought of something. “You know, if you’re going to stick around, I can help you with the whole emergency preparedness thing. I mean, you can start by investing in an emergency weather radio. It’s easy to use, and you can program it to alert you when a storm is coming.”

“Let me guess,” she said, teasingly. “You sell them at the boatyard?”

“As a matter of fact, we do,” he said, smiling. “But that wasn’t a sales pitch.” And then he turned serious. There was something else he wanted to talk to her about.

“You know, in retrospect,” he began, “coming over and getting you two last night probably wasn’t a very good idea.”

“Why?”

“Well, for one thing, your cabin turned out to be a lot better built than I gave it credit for being. And, for another, that drive was dangerous. The visibility on the road was zero. I could have easily driven into a tree.”

“But you didn’t,” she pointed out.

“That’s true,” he said, watching her. Was it his imagination, or had she come a step closer to him?

“But, Walker, why did you come over last night? Why did you really come?” she asked.

He thought of a hundred possible responses, all of them untrue. Instead, he said, “Isn’t it obvious?”

She didn’t answer him. She put her coffee cup down on the counter and took a step closer to him, closing the distance between them. Then she reached out her hand, slowly, and ran her fingertips, lightly, along his razor-stubbled jawline.

“You look so tired,” she said.

Walker stood perfectly still. He knew if he said anything, or did anything, the moment would be over. She was like the doe he’d seen in the woods a few days ago. Alert. Tense. Skittish. One sudden movement, he knew, and she would bolt.

“I’m sorry I left the boatyard in such a huff the other day,” she said now, softly, her fingers still tracing his jawline.

“Don’t worry about it,” he murmured. He didn’t want her to stop what she was doing.

She didn’t. She leaned closer, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him on the lips. Softly, and tentatively. As if she was testing out the idea of kissing him, as opposed to actually kissing him. And, without touching any other part of her body, he kissed her back. As gently as he knew how to.

He was so hungry for her, he wanted her so much, that it took all his self-control to hold back now, to
not
do what he wanted to do to her. He wanted to run his fingers through her hair. He wanted to pull her, hard, against him, and feel every inch of her body digging into his. He wanted to kiss her neck, the hollow at the base of her neck, and her almost-bare shoulders. But he didn’t do any of these things.

This kiss, though, like most kisses, wouldn’t be contained. Her body swayed gently against his, and he felt her breasts against his chest, soft but firm, her nipples, as hard as pebbles, straining slightly against the thin cotton of her tank top.

And when he couldn’t hold back anymore, he still moved as slowly, as carefully, as he possibly could. He slid his arms gently around her waist, his hands settling on the small of her back. Then he pulled her, almost imperceptibly, against him.

In response, she opened her lips, welcoming his tongue into her mouth. And when his tongue touched hers, it delivered an electric jolt so powerful he almost went reeling back. But he didn’t. He just kept kissing her. Her lips felt so soft under his, and her mouth tasted delicious, too. Not like coffee—which it should, by all rights, have tasted like—but like something sweet and clean.

And as they kissed, she reached up and grasped his shoulders, anchoring herself against his body, and he strained against her, wanting to feel every inch of her softness against him.

And then something happened. He didn’t know what triggered it. One moment she was kissing him with all her heart, and the next she was pushing him away. It was a gentle push, but it was still a push.

“I have to leave now,” she said, breathlessly. “I have to wake up Wyatt.”

“Why?” he asked, mystified.

“Because
this
”—she made a gesture with her hand that included both of them—“
this
is wrong.”

“Wrong how?” he challenged, knowing there was no way in hell that something that had felt that right could be wrong.

“Wrong because I . . . I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she said, taking a step back. “It was just me being tired, or impulsive, or, or . . .
something
.”

“Well, it wasn’t just you,” he chided her, gently. “Trust me, I was a more than willing participant.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, dismissing his playfulness. “Look, Wyatt and I need to leave now. Just . . . trust me, okay? We can’t stay here.” She went to put her empty coffee cup in the sink, and he saw, to his astonishment, that her hands were trembling. She was afraid, he realized. Not afraid of him, but afraid of what had happened between them.

“I’ll take you two back in my boat now,” he said, feeling a wave of sympathy for her. “You wake up Wyatt, and I’ll get the keys.”

She nodded, wordlessly, and left the kitchen.

He opened a kitchen drawer and took out the boat keys. As he slammed the drawer shut he felt his cell phone vibrate in his front blue jeans pocket. He pulled it out and glanced at the caller ID. It was Reid. He let the call go to voice mail and put the phone back in his pocket. He couldn’t think about anything right now but Allie. He could still feel her, resting lightly against him, and he could still taste her lips on his own.

His phone vibrated again almost immediately. This time he answered it. “What is it, Reid?” he asked, without ceremony.

“I need a damage assessment on the Butternut Boatyard,” Reid said, curtly.

“I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes,” Walker said, slipping the boat keys into his pocket and pouring himself a third cup of coffee.

“It can’t wait,” Reid barked. “We need to file insurance claims as soon as possible. And don’t think Butternut was the only boatyard damaged, either. Those storms wreaked havoc with the whole northeastern part of the state.”

“I can’t talk right now,” Walker said, feeling weariness wash over him for the first time that morning. Until this point, he realized, he’d been running on pure adrenaline. “I’ll call you back, okay? There’s something I need to do first.”

“The hell there is,” Reid growled, impatiently.

“Good-bye, Reid,” Walker said, pressing end, and he walked over to the kitchen door, opened it, and pitched his cell phone into the nearby woods.

CHAPTER 17

W
e were lucky that none of those tornados touched down in populated areas,” Caroline said, leaning against the counter at Pearl’s. It was late afternoon, and she and Allie were sipping iced teas while Wyatt played with his Hot Wheels on the floor nearby.

“
Very
lucky,” Allie agreed, toying with the straw in her iced tea. “It could have been much worse.”

“I still can’t believe it took them three days to clear Butternut Lake Drive, though.” Caroline clucked disapprovingly. “You and Wyatt must have been going stir-crazy.”

“Actually, Wyatt was in heaven,” Allie said. “All I could think about when I saw the downed trees on our property was how much it was going to cost to have them all cut up and hauled away. But all he could think about”—she gave a little laugh—“was all the new fort-building opportunities they presented.”