Suddenly Dating (A Lake Haven Novel Book 2) Page 4

  Lola got where Casey was coming from—but Lola also knew there was a different side to Will, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he confessed he’d made a mistake. She had no intention of taking him back . . . at least she didn’t think she did . . . but she wouldn’t mind hearing a little groveling.

  She’d dressed carefully for the occasion, determined to give off the I-have-flourished-since-you-dumped-me vibe. She chose a very short, dark-blue dress that Lonnie McIlroy, a guy from work, had said was “smoking hot.” She wore tall navy pumps and some hosiery that cost almost as much as her electric bill. She casually draped a sweater around her shoulders, donned the pearls that she had scavenged from her grandmother’s things before everything had been sold, and tucked a tote bag under one arm. She was the cosmopolitan city girl, dashing by to humor her ex on her way to some place important. She was not the woman who slogged every day to work in a coat two sizes too big for her, carrying her lunch in one hand, and a canvas shopping bag with her laptop, office shoes, and files in the other.

  On the afternoon she was to meet Will, Lola had marched confidently down the street with the absolute certainty that she looked so good, she was going to knock his socks off . . . but when she saw Will, it was her heart that had melted. It was him, the same man she’d met her second day on the job at the law firm. He of the broad shoulders and carefully tousled blond hair that was helped along with a lot of product each morning. He was wearing a suit, his tie loose at the collar. He smiled when he saw her, and he sort of lifted his hand halfway as if to catch her eye.

  He caught her eye all right. Lola had felt a little fluttery. She hadn’t seen him in months, because stalking him on Facebook didn’t really count. He was here, in the flesh, smiling at her, and . . . and he was holding the leash of a fluffy brown dog about the size of a cat. It was sniffing intently around a tree.

  “Hey, Lola,” he said, and put his arm around her, drawing her into his chest, kissing her cheek as if they had never fought and argued and hurt each other as badly as they had.

  “Hi.” Lola didn’t know what to do with herself. He smelled like Will, he felt like Will. Jesus, she’d been so certain of what she was doing and now, suddenly, she had no idea what she was doing. She only wanted to lay her cheek against his chest, close her eyes, and pretend they were still married.

  “How are you?” he asked, stepping back.

  “I’m good,” she said cautiously. He didn’t look terribly upset. He didn’t look as if he was about to make some grand announcement that he’d been wrong.

  A wet snout on her ankle caused Lola to look down. “You got a dog?”

  “It’s Dani’s dog,” he said without looking at the dog. Dani, short for Danielle. Apparently, Will was living with two bitches now.

  Will put his hand on Lola’s arm and drew her towards a scattering of tables on the sidewalk outside the coffee house. “Seriously, Lola, are you all right? You seem kind of . . . weird.”

  He had to be kidding—she seemed weird? Like she found it easy to casually meet up with the man who had crushed her heart? And why did he have to know her so well? Lola did feel a little weird sometimes, like her life was spinning and turning and going nowhere fast, like she was stuck in an endless public transportation loop between work, and picking up and dropping off nieces and nephews, and then on weekends taking the train out to Long Island to check in on her mother because God knew none of her siblings would do it consistently. “Weird?” she repeated, a bit miffed. “I’m fine!” And probably, she was a little too prickly in her response, because it had never seemed fair that Will was living this great life in the middle of Manhattan with a beautiful woman, and now, a cute little dog, while Lola was still recovering from the gaping wound he’d left behind.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said apologetically, and pulled out a chair at one of the empty tables for her. “I’m just concerned.” He sat down across from her and frowned thoughtfully at her.

  “Will you stop looking at me like that?” she asked, and self-consciously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. He was supposed to say, God, you look fantastic, or Wow, I really messed up.

  The dog barked at another dog passing by, then scampered under the table. Will didn’t seem to notice—he reached across the table for Lola’s hand. “Listen . . . I know this is hard. And if I haven’t said it before, I want to say it now. I am really sorry for breaking your heart. I mean that sincerely. If I could take it all back, I would.”

  Even now, driving up and down Juneberry Road, Lola could remember how she’d felt when he’d said those words. She’d stared into his hazel eyes, a little sick, a little hopeful. It was exactly what she’d hoped he would say so she could tell him to fuck off, but instead, she’d said, “You would?” and had sounded pathetically needy.

  “Yeah, of course,” he’d said, and had squeezed her hand before letting go and settling back in his chair.

  Beneath the table, the dog jumped up and pawed at her knee, and she’d had the fleeting thought that the little bugger had probably snagged her expensive hosiery.

  “I never ever wanted to hurt you,” Will said.

  Wait, what? What was happening right then? The right words were coming out of his mouth, but the body language had been all wrong. Too casual, too easy. “What are you saying, Will?”

  Will had looked at her blankly a moment. But then his eyes rounded. “Wait . . . you don’t think . . .” He sighed, bowed his head a moment, as if he was trying to think how to say what he meant in a way she would understand. “Please don’t misunderstand, Lola. I still would have left, no matter what.”

  No matter what?

  “We weren’t working out. What I’m trying to say, and badly, it would seem, is that in hindsight, I would have ended it differently.”

  And just like that, everything had twisted. Lola had felt ridiculous in her navy dress and sweater and was unreasonably furious with herself for having dressed for him at all. She’d been absolutely livid that there was some part of her that believed Will could be a different man, could still love her, and that she’d wanted him to love her. But no, he thought that she would somehow feel better if he’d ended it differently. What a rotten sonofabitch. And Jesus, Casey was right again.

  “Is that why you asked me to meet you?” she said, her voice icy to even her own ears. “To tell me there was a better way to break up our marriage?”

  “No,” he’d said, looking appalled by that accusation. “Why do you have to get so hostile?”

  “I’m not hostile, asshole. I’m furious.”

  “What has happened to you?” he asked, throwing his arms open like the forever put-upon male in a romantic comedy. “You looked a little down, that’s all. I just meant to help, Lola. I didn’t think you’d get all dressed up and get so . . . hopeful,” he’d said, looking for the right word.

  Lola had wanted to kill him. She’d wanted to reach down his throat for his penis and yank it out. “What do you want?” she’d asked sharply and grabbed her purse and stood up.

  “Keep your voice down,” he said, his eyes darting around them. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you. I’ve never seen you act like this.”

  “Because I was too damn nice to you. Answer the question. What the fuck do you want, Will?”

  “To see if you wanted the puppy!” he shouted, sounding angry, too.

  She’d gaped at him. Then at the dog. “What are you talking about?”

  Will leapt to his feet and towered over her. “Will you keep your voice down? Everyone is staring. I’m talking about a goddamn dog, okay? Some guy gave it to Dani and we don’t have room for it or the time for it. I thought maybe—”

  Lola never knew what he thought maybe because she’d slammed her hands into his chest and had shoved with all her might. The dog started barking as she marched away. She made it to the corner before she looked down and saw the terrible hole in her hosiery. Tears of absolute fury had begun to stream down her face, and she ran across the str
eet, almost colliding with a taxi, whose driver laid on the horn. Lola flipped him off and kept running until her hose were bagging at the knees.

  Thinking back on the afternoon now as she inched her way back down Juneberry Road, Lola muttered, “Thanks, Will. You actually gave me the balls to do this.” Because when she’d reached her apartment, she’d called Sara and accepted her offer.

  Lola had remained furious for days. With Will, for asking her to take the dog. But mostly with herself, for having become the person who everyone assumed would take care of their problems. And for having hope, no matter how small. When would she learn that hope was for pussies? How many times would her smallest of hopes be crushed by someone like her mother or Will?

  And still, even on that day of abject fury, Lola had taken care of Will’s problem. She couldn’t stand the thought of that little dog anywhere near such a heartless bastard, so she’d called a pet sitter she knew, who in turn called Will. A day later, Lola saw on Facebook that the dog had found a happy home.

  “So yeah, Will, this is all because of you,” she said loudly. “You are the reason I am driving around like an old woman with dementia looking for a house that clearly does not exist—” She suddenly gasped. There it was, the house number she was looking for—4450.

  Lola yanked the wheel right and turned into the drive, almost slamming into the pretty wrought iron gate. She rolled down her window, punched in the code Sara had given her, and watched the gate jerk and then slowly begin to retract. “This is it!” she said excitedly and, gripping the steering wheel, she pulled through the gate. She paused inside, just to make sure the gate closed behind her, then sent the rental puttering down a winding drive, through stately oak trees and blooming rhododendrons. It was beautiful, like a lovely country lane from a picture book.

  Then she rounded a bend in the road. “Holy shit,” Lola muttered to herself.

  This was a capital L, capital H lake house. It was timber and stone and glass, with decks off the sides and back of the house, and the lake glistening below. It was the sort of house HGTV showcased and then gave away every year. The sort of house that showed up in romantic comedy movies with sets designed by Nancy Meyers. It was fabulous, and Lola could hardly believe she was here. That she was going to live here, in this house, for an entire summer while she finished her book.

  She pulled to a halt at the front door and gleefully hopped out of the car. Sara said there would be a key under the big flat rock next to the front porch. “You can’t miss it—it looks like a flying saucer,” Sara had said, and had sketched the rock onto the napkin when she and Lola had met for lunch last week.

  There was only one big flat rock, and Lola practically skipped to it, giggling . . .

  But there was no key.

  She stood up, dusted off her hands, and looked around.

  There was no other flying saucer, but there were a few rocks. She looked under every one of them. No key. She stood on the porch with her hands on her waist. “Now what?” she muttered to herself. Maybe the caretaker had left the front door open.

  “Oh, by the way, I emailed the caretaker and fired him,” Sara had said in passing as they were leaving the coffee shop.

  “Why?” Lola asked.

  “Why? Because you’re going to be there. You can skim the pool and haul the trash up to the road as well as he can. And besides, he’s a snitch.”

  Lola wondered what he would have to snitch about, but she thought it best not to ask Sara, who had a lot of conspiracy theories in general.

  She tried the handle of the front door. Locked. Apparently, the fired caretaker wasn’t so mad about losing his job that he’d left the door open. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered in through the sidelight. She could see a sunken living area just ahead, and wow, a stunning view of the lake through some big plate-glass windows and doors.

  Okay, there had to be a way in. Lola walked around the house, picking her way through the garden on the south side, climbing over the small retaining wall, and jumping the couple of feet down to the terrace. Here, there was upholstered lawn furniture, and just below the main terrace, one of those fancy pools with water that looked as if it were spilling over the edge and into the lake. “Oh. My. God,” Lola said beneath her breath. “How did you luck into this?”

  She put her face to the first window she reached and peered in. It was a bedroom. The bed was made, and there were some clothes neatly folded and stacked on a chair near the bathroom door.

  Lola moved on to the big sliding glass doors, and gave one a half-hearted tug. Amazingly, the thing slid open like it was on bacon grease. “Oh, hey!” she said. She stepped cautiously into the house, pausing just over the threshold to take it all in.

  The living room was amazing. The floors were handscraped walnut. An enormous, thick shag rug was anchored by two white couches and a low marble coffee table. A pair of rocking chairs sat side by side at the window, a glass end table between them. A large stone fireplace dominated one wall, and on the other end of the room was a gleaming kitchen with stainless appliances, quartz countertops, and shiny white cabinets with glass pulls. The lights that dangled over the bar separating the kitchen from the living space looked like old lanterns. A small fireplace with a brick hearth for sitting anchored the kitchen.

  It was amazing. It was beautiful. And it was so far above any of the rundown, dilapidated two-bedroom apartments Lola had grown up in that she felt as if she ought to get a sheet and carry it around with her to sit on, just in case any of the grime of her life still lingered.

  She wandered down a hallway painted pristine white with built-in bookshelves. She found two more bedrooms, each with their own baths, glass showers, and claw-foot tubs. There was an office, which, she noted, looked as if the caretaker had recently used it, judging by the stack of papers and the fact that the printer was blinking.

  Lola wandered back through the fabulous living room, and down another corridor that led to the master bedroom, the same one she’d seen through the window. She walked to the middle of the room, and turned a full circle as she took in the fireplace, the expensive modern art, and the bookcases. The closet was insanely huge, and still had a few of the caretaker’s clothes hanging in it. She walked into the bathroom, and admired the view from the enormous garden tub. She could picture herself in that tub, with that view, and a stack of books nearby.

  Lola returned to the bedroom and, with a squeal of delight, she fell back onto the bed, her arms splayed wide, and kicked her feet like a little kid.

  Was this for real? This was exactly what she’d dreamed it would be! She suddenly sat up and looked at her watch. Okay, first things first. Clear out the last of the caretaker’s things. Bring her stuff in, turn in the car, and get a cab back. And tomorrow? Tomorrow, she would become the writer she’d always dreamed of being.

  Five

  For ten days, Harry had been living in a roadside motel that smelled like dog and cigarette smoke, and going from one meeting to the next, trying to line up his subcontractors for his first solo bid for a full bridge project. It was a small job, an elevated pedestrian walkway. But bidding on the whole project was a lot more work than he’d anticipated, and he was already worried if he had enough money in the bank.

  But he was back in East Beach, headed up Juneberry Road, exhausted, wanting a beer and to dive into the pool and just chill before sleeping in a soft bed with clean sheets. He pulled up to the gate of the lake house, punched in the code, and waited as the gate slid open.

  The lake house was too good to be true. Harry would never be able to thank Zach enough for this opportunity, which he’d told him profusely three weeks ago when he’d moved in.

  “It’s all good, dude,” Zach had said.

  It was better than good. The house was an amazing high-end showcase of modern conveniences and luxuries. Everything was automated and digitized. One only had to push this button or flip that switch, and entire glass doors slid quietly away so that you were practically living outdoors.<
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  It was a dream to come home to after a hard day’s work—especially after ten days. It was great to unwind by walking down to the lake and throwing in a fishing line. Harry felt at peace here. He could put his worries in his back pocket for a few hours. He could put Melissa out of his mind here, too. He thought about her a lot, missed having someone to come home to every night . . . but he’d been so busy and so focused that he hadn’t dwelled on it. In all honesty, he was happy not to have to justify himself on a daily basis.

  He definitely missed the sex. It had been such a regular part of his life that now he felt as if something was off, like the feeling he’d had when he cut back on sugar a few years ago. Like if he allowed himself, he’d sprinkle a whole five-pound bag on a bowl of cereal—it was that kind of feeling.

  Harry tried not to think about it.

  At the end of the drive he got out of his truck and looked at the house. As great as this space was, and as lucky as he was to have landed here, Harry did feel a bit like an intruder, given the situation with Zach’s divorce. He kept expecting a constable or someone to show up and tell him to get out. He was careful not to leave his mark on the house, careful not to get too comfortable.

  But today? Today he was going to leave his mark all over the place, starting with the pool. Harry grabbed his bag and briefcase and walked up to the entry as he sorted through his keys looking for the one that would open the front door. Through the door’s wavy glass, he could see the sunlight shining in through the enormous sliding glass doors that opened onto the terrace.

  Harry unlocked the door, stepped inside, and put his things down at the threshold. He suddenly noticed the smell of something that confused him. He paused, looking around. What was that? It smelled like lasagna. What was lasagna doing in his house? Harry cautiously took a step forward and scanned the sunken living room, and then the adjacent kitchen. He let out a tiny breath of surprise—things had been moved in that kitchen, new things added.

  He stood there, hands on hips, completely disoriented. Had he somehow walked into the wrong house by mistake? Of course not—he’d come in through the same gate he always used. So whose laptop was that on the dining table, or the notebook beside it? And was that a bra hanging off the back of the barstool? Why were there dirty dishes piled high in the sink? It was as if someone had come in to party while he’d been gone.