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  “Hi, Noah,” I said. “Are you waiting for Millie Jo?”

  “Yeah, she’s coming to Lilly’s birthday,” he explained, naming one of his brother’s children. “Is Camille around?”

  “She’s up at her place,” I said. I knew he didn’t want to encounter Mathias, and tended to avoid their apartment if at all possible. Too late for that now, as Mathias and Camille ambled along the path, each of them holding one of Millie’s hands, the picture of an intact, loving family—mother, father, daughter. Noah bit his bottom lip, hard enough to leave dents, as he observed this. His chest rose and then fell as one drawing a fortifying breath. He looked like a man who desperately needed a drink and I felt a splash of sympathy; he’d matured very little since the summer that he first dated and then impregnated my niece, currently a college dropout who lived with his parents and relied upon them to foot his monthly child support bill. But it had to sting to watch your former girlfriend looking so blissfully happy in the company of another man. Noah drew a second deep breath and then, seeming to have gathered courage, headed outside to collect his child.

  Chapter Four

  NOAH LOOKED ROUGH IN THE EVENING LIGHT, THERE WAS no denying. Sometimes I couldn’t believe I had ever found him attractive. Strain seemed to have aged him; he appeared much older than the past three years would warrant as he stood watching us approach. Before I could say anything, the graduate student from Moorhead walked around the far side of Shore Leave, carrying his canoe portage-style, and asked Mathias if he’d mind helping him strap it to the top of his car; Millie was still up on the porch saying good-bye to Rae and I seized this moment of relative privacy to confront Noah.

  “You haven’t been drinking today, have you?”

  There was no way in hell I would let my child go with him if I even suspected, but for all that he looked pale and rather drawn, I didn’t think he appeared under the influence. I could smell his cologne, no hint of booze, but still felt compelled to ask.

  He sighed and offered me a resentful look, eyes narrowing, mouth twisting. Matching my quiet tone, he said, “Of course I haven’t. Jesus, Camille.” And then, though he sounded more exhausted than accusatory, “I know you called my mom.”

  “Because I actually do worry about you.” And it was true; I did feel concern for him, along with a large slice of resentment and irritation, but there was no need to mention that.

  “Well, don’t waste your time.”

  Mathias finished lending the grad student a hand and sent me a message with his eyes.

  Everything all right?

  It is, I said in return.

  Noah looked over his shoulder at Mathias, following my gaze, and this time there was a flash of angry resentment in Noah’s eyes, no mistaking. As the Moorhead guy’s car rattled out of the parking lot, Noah cleared his throat. “I’ll have Millie home by ten or so, is that all right?”

  “That’s fine,” I said, not about to argue, just wanting him to leave. I called to my daughter, “Come give me a hug!”

  Aunt Jilly stepped onto the porch as Noah and Millie Jo drove away, shading her eyes against the glare of the evening sun. “You guys eating here this evening?”

  “No, we’re heading to Bull and Diana’s.”

  “Mom’s been complaining that we don’t come for supper enough,” Mathias added.

  “God, I’m jealous,” Aunt Jilly said. “Diana’s an incredible cook.”

  Five minutes later, we were headed around Flickertail in Mathias’s truck. I’d changed into a soft sundress, patterned with sunflowers, my hair in a braid that hung over one shoulder. I felt relaxed, better after having talked to Aunt Jilly on the dock, and Mathias was whistling softly, in tune with an old Randy Travis song on the radio, his right hand warm on my bare thigh.

  “Aunt Jilly told me that you talked to Mom,” I said, studying his profile. Summer sunshine had darkened his skin, making his eyes all the more blue by contrast. His black hair, fresh from the shower, was drying with a slight curl on his nape and along his forehead.

  He rubbed his palm over my leg. “I worry about your nightmares.”

  “I know,” I assured him. “I’m not upset. I just wish they’d go away so I could sleep all night without waking you. And that I could remember exactly what I dreamed. It’s like the second I wake up it gets snapped away. I know I’m missing something important. If I could just talk to—”

  “Malcolm?” he supplied, completely serious. We’d talked about it many times before. He saw the worry knitting my brows as I continued to study him, and said softly, “Honey, I’m all right. I swear.”

  I didn’t want to bring up what had happened in the forest last winter, as it made me too ill, and likely always would. If I hadn’t trusted my instinct that night—if I hadn’t insisted that Bull come with me…

  “If I felt in danger, I would tell you. I’d tell my dad, I’d tell Charlie,” Mathias assured me. I’d been furious when he resumed walking his trap lines only two weeks after being attacked, before the stitches on his forehead were even removed, terrified that whoever struck him out there, who’d dragged him over the snowy ground for some purpose unknown to us, would return to finish the job. I’d insisted that he stop going alone, that he take better care of himself. Mathias insisted that he’d walked his trap lines since he was a boy and would not be afraid to do so; he stayed home after our first confrontation over the issue, but would not allow fear to dictate his actions and had resumed his usual routine with the winter lines. To be fair, nothing dire had occurred since—but my worry refused to be as neatly destroyed.

  “I know,” I allowed. A small but potent rush of gladness filled me as I said, “I can’t wait for our trip.”

  His answering grin could have lit the entire sky at the dark of midnight. “I can’t wait either, honey. I want to show you all the places we’d stay when I was little.”

  “I am excited for that.” I loved his characteristic enthusiasm. I confessed, “But mostly I just can’t wait to have you all to myself.”

  His grin deepened and his hand crept higher on my thigh, edging beneath my hem. “Why’s that?”

  “Because I like the way your jeans fit,” I said, giggling as his expression grew increasingly wayward. “And how your shoulders move when you walk. And I like the way you need to shave about ten minutes after shaving. And…” I gasped as he caressed a particularly sensitive spot beneath my skirt. “And the way you…do that…”

  We’d reached his parents’ sprawling cabin. Mathias parked in his usual spot on the long, curving driveway bordered by towering spruces and wasted no time hauling me close. I linked my arms about his neck and kissed his jaw, then his ear, where I whispered, “The way you do everything.”

  “I gotta confess,” he whispered, lips brushing mine with his soft words. “I want to do everything with you. Right here.”

  I giggled at the urgency in his teasing tone and kissed his sexy mouth; he groaned, grasping my jaws, and it was at that exact instant that someone rapped on the windshield with curled knuckles. We broke apart to see Mathias’s oldest sister, Tina, and her husband, Sam, who was shaking his head at us.

  “You two trying to scare the kids?” Tina teased through the open driver’s side window. Heat stormed my face even as Mathias grinned and kept me close.

  “We are in love,” he told his sister in the tone of voice you would use as the class know-it-all. He started singing “Forever and Ever, Amen,” one of the Randy Travis songs he’d perfected in the shower. I giggled, loving him so much that a familiar ache formed at the juncture of my ribcage.

  Tina groaned, opening the truck door for us. She invited, “Come on, lovebirds, get your asses moving. Mom won’t let us eat until we’re all here.”

  The Carters lived just a few minutes from their family business, White Oaks Lodge, in a spacious log home overlooking Flickertail; from their wide, second-level back porch, I could see Shore Leave across the lake’s silken surface, just to the left. I smelled charcoal from the gri
ll and heard the radio on top of the fridge, tuned to the local country station. Diana appeared at the open screen door to greet us, smiling widely. Mathias’s family reminded me a great deal of my own, as there was always an air of gaiety to their get-togethers, tons of food, kids running everywhere and making a mess, but no one really minding. Diana hugged me, her soft hair brushing my cheek; she smelled good, a combination of her perfume and whatever she’d been baking. “Hi, hon. No Millie Jo this evening?”

  “She’s with Noah,” I explained. I loved Mathias’s parents; I’d met them even before I knew him, when I worked at White Oaks last winter. Diana was petite, with lovely auburn hair she’d passed on to her three daughters, while Mathias resembled his father, who well deserved the nickname, “Bull.” They treated my daughter like one of their own grand-kids, and Millie adored them, more than I could have ever hoped.

  “Son, you look happy,” Diana noted as Mathias caught her close and kissed her cheek. He was a mama’s boy, the baby of his family after three demanding sisters. He called himself spoiled but he really wasn’t, not by any definition of the word. She added, “It does my heart good.”

  “Ma, I’ve never been so happy,” Mathias said, all smiley and sweet, grabbing me around the waist.

  “Milla, you’re going to be pregnant long before the wedding,” Tina said, also kissing her mom on the way inside.

  I admitted, “That’s the second time I’ve heard that today.”

  “Did Jilly call it? If she did then you know it’s true,” said Tina, who had graduated with Aunt Jilly. “Nobody bets against Jillian Davis.”

  “When would our baby be born, if you get pregnant tonight?” Mathias asked, true excitement and anticipation in his tone, and the flush on my face overtook my entire body. I had long ago realized that the Carters were open and honest, not great at secret-keeping in general, but I hadn’t even told my family about our decision to stop using birth control. Well, at least not anyone besides Aunt Jilly—which probably meant Mom would know by nightfall.

  Despite everyone’s good-natured laughter, I felt compelled to scold, “Mathias Carter.”

  “You’re just like your father,” Diana said to him, snapping a kitchen towel at his backside.

  “Around the end of March,” Glenna, the middle sister, supplied cheerily, from where she stood at the counter shaking salt into a bowl of noodles. The house was chaotic in the wake of the granddaughters running from the kitchen to the patio and back again; between Mathias’s three sisters, there were eight girls.

  As though reading my mind, Diana added, “I’m counting on grandsons, you know. I’ve got you two pegged for that.”

  “Six or seven, that’s what I’m thinking,” Mathias said. “Boys, I mean. Then we can get started on more girls.”

  “You’ve wanted to be a daddy since you were little,” Diana said, reaching up to smooth his hair, with maternal affection. “You told us you wanted a baby for your fifth birthday, remember? And not a little brother. You wanted your own baby, you said.”

  Even though I’d heard that story before—the Carters being storytellers of the highest order—my heart melted all over again. I made my way to the antique curio cabinet in the corner of the dining room, upon which Diana had arranged numerous framed pictures of the family. I sought my favorite and held it close, sending my man a smile over one shoulder as I teased, “I could handle having a half-dozen little boys just like this.”

  He grinned. “I was adorable, wasn’t I?”

  In the picture he stood near Flickertail in the heat of summer, eight years old, knobby-kneed and brown from the sun, dark hair cut into shaggy bangs that hung in his eyes. He was smiling widely, proudly holding up a stringer of bluegills. I resisted the urge to kiss the picture as I still sometimes kissed Malcolm Carter’s, and then lifted another image from the bunch. In this shot, he posed with his hockey stick, leaning over it, clad in his blue and white Landon Rebels jersey, number ten.

  “Do I hear Camille and my boy?” Bull called as he came inside. I loved my future father-in-law and had no trouble at all imagining him as someone from an earlier century. It was partially his gruff voice and partially the tendency to speak like he was in a Clint Eastwood-era western. He rumbled into the house for hugs all around, then caught me by the shoulders and gave me a quick, speculative perusal with one eye squinted. Looking at Mathias, he concluded, “Son, I remember Jackie Gordon real well. I feel I oughta give you a punch in the nose on his behalf.”

  I giggled and Mathias lifted both hands in surrender. He justified, “We’re in love.”

  “As even a blind man could see,” Bull agreed.

  We headed out to the porch, where the view of the lake was un-encumbered. Even having lived on its shores for the past three years, Flickertail never ceased to amaze me with its sheer beauty; I could live here forever (and planned to) and never take the sight of it for granted. Now, as evening cast its apricot-tinted beams over the surface, the water lay smooth, unmarred by the whitecaps stirred up in the day, when the wind was usually stronger and motor boats flew back and forth, creating crisscrossing and unceasing wake-patterns. The Carters’ house was just a stone’s throw from the water, their wide dock stretching perpendicular to the shore before turning two corners; Bull’s sleek outboard and a pair of bright yellow jet-skis were tethered to its length.

  “Hi, guys!” Elaine called. Tina and I joined her at the patio table on the upper deck while Mathias descended the wooden steps to the lower level, where the menfolk were drinking beer at the grill. Elaine poured us frothy margaritas from a round-bellied green pitcher and I felt guilty as I considered how exacting I was of Noah’s drinking. Besides that, I wasn’t quite twenty-one.

  “Thanks,” I told Elaine, accepting it nonetheless.

  “Enjoy,” she replied, with a grin that reminded me of Mathias. She sat to my right, bare feet propped on an adjacent chair. Her silky red hair had recently been cut short, falling to her jaws on either side. She tucked a strand behind her ear as she said, “You two are going to have such a great time on your trip. Dad’s cousins out in Montana are really fun. We used to visit them every other summer when we were kids.”

  “They have horses, too,” Tina said. “Or at least, they used to.” She caught Bull on his way back to the grill, a stainless steel spatula in one hand, a six-pack of Leinie’s in the other. “Dad, do Harry and Meg still have horses?”

  “They do,” Bull said. “Two or three, I believe. You and the boy can take all the rides you want. You ever been horseback, hon?”

  “My dad took Tish and me one summer when we came up here from Chicago,” I said, even though I’d thought immediately of Aces, Malcolm’s horse. Even though Aces had died well over a hundred years ago, I was certain I’d ridden him—but of course I didn’t mention this to Bull.

  “The boy can help you,” Bull said. “He’s a natural.”

  Mathias was a natural at a couple of other very specific things, and a telltale flush stole over my face. Bull winked with his usual good humor—I prayed he wasn’t a mind reader—and headed down to the lower deck, where the men were telling fish stories.

  “Matty will want to show you all the places we used to stop along the way,” Elaine said. “He’s a sucker for those roadside tourist traps.”

  “I like them, too,” I admitted. “I wish I could promise that we’ll take great pictures to show you, but I’m so bad about that. It’s all I can do to keep up with Millie Jo.”

  Tina said, “We all have that parental guilt about not taking enough pictures. Don’t worry. Just have fun on your trip. Besides, you and Matty will have…more than plenty to do.”

  Elaine laughed heartily at her sister’s suggestive pause.

  “I was out at the cabin today,” Elaine continued, poking me with her toes. “It’s looking so good. We’re all so happy you two are making it your own. It seems meant to be, you know?”

  A shiver fluttered up my spine; maybe it was only the chill of the margarita. Thinkin
g of what I’d discussed with Aunt Jilly, and determined not to fear my own happiness, I said, “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “I knew it last winter, I had a feeling,” Tina said, refilling her drink. Her russet-red hair was the wildest of the three sisters, fluffed out in curls. Using Elaine’s nickname, she demanded, “Didn’t I, Lainey? You’re not the only one with a sense of intuition.”

  “You did,” Elaine acknowledged. Her eyes roved to her little brother, who was sitting on a barstool near the grill, relaxed and laughing, one elbow resting on the porch railing as he joked about something with Bull. Mathias looked our way and blew me a kiss. In an undertone, Elaine added, “I haven’t ever seen him so happy. It’s all you, Camille.”

  My lips were cold from the icy drink, but just speaking the words warmed my mouth. “I love him so much.”

  “Late March,” Glenna reminded me, coming outside just in time to hear my comment, again provoking laughter. She displaced Elaine’s feet and claimed a chair, setting a bowl of pretzels on the glass tabletop and reaching for the margarita pitcher. “I would absolutely love a little nephew.”

  “We’re working on it!” Mathias called.

  Diana served dinner outside, everyone crowding around the patio table. Bull lit the strategically-placed citronella torches, staving off at least a few of the mosquitoes, and we ate while twilight danced slowly across Flickertail, moving closer at the pace of a waltzing couple. The temperature was perfect, as was customary near the lake on summer evenings, no matter how heavily the humidity hung in the air all day. The last of the sunset burned across the top of the water in reflected flames. Orange was the dominant color in the west, streaked through with violet and magenta. To the east, Flickertail was cloaked in the silver-grays of advancing evening, the small bright lights at the ends of docks blinking on from that direction.

  Mathias sat to my right and I counted my blessings for the countless time since I’d been welcomed into his family. My mind skipped through all of the if I hadn’t things that eventually led to us meeting—if I hadn’t gotten pregnant and stayed in Landon, if I hadn’t found the picture of Malcolm Carter, if I hadn’t taken the job at White Oaks. I leaned my shoulder against Mathias, who snuggled me close. I thought of what my life would be like if I’d moved home to Chicago at the end of that first summer, of where I would be now. And my soul seemed to shrivel, just imagining how close we’d come to never knowing one another at all.