My grandfather has to be turning over in his grave. This place meant everything to him. He babied every inch of the front fifty acres of this property surrounding the lake. He’d run a robust and popular houseboat rental business, and all the locals came here for their fishing supplies. That’s how I met Levi, while working in the store.
This time, thoughts of Levi don’t stick. I’m physically sick over the state of this place, and I have to fight to collect myself so I can look around and get a handle on what I?
??m seeing.
Teeth clenched, mind spinning, eyes wet, I cup my hands around my face and peer into the store. It’s a time capsule, the shelves stocked and the refrigeration units along the walls full.
“Oh my God. Oh. My. God.”
My heart slides even lower, throbbing in my gut.
I cover my mouth and pace away from the store, toward the lake. There’s no sand where the beach should be. The metal container holding kayaks and paddleboards and inner tubes is covered in graffiti. Graffiti in this little town?
By the time I reach the water’s edge, I’m beside myself. I have an urgent need to address this. To fix it. I want to turn back time and change the way I handled Grandpa’s death. Logically, I know I can’t, but emotionally, I feel like a hole has been drilled into my stomach and a dump truck of cement dropped in.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. Then another. Still, the tears come, and I let them. Within a few minutes, the release has steadied me. I’m tempted to channel Chloe, who has become a huge success in the spiritual community and now lives the life of her dreams. But truth be told, I couldn’t get through her last book. Not because it was poorly written, but because I’ve learned that training your inner spirit is one hell of a lot of work, and with my job, I just don’t have the bandwidth to devote to figuring myself out. And if I couldn’t gain meaningful insight into myself after years of therapy, I’m pretty sure further attempts are futile.
I open my eyes and release a long exhale. With the property behind me, I focus on the water and the whispering barely-there waves created by distant water activities. People Jet Skiing and boating and swimming on the public side of the lake.
And, yeah, now that I’m over the shock of it, I can turn all the blame on myself. I’ve been negligent. I should have known better than to let my parents handle this property. They’ve never valued it for anything more than the cost per square foot it could bring. Or the number of resorts they could build.
Situated a two-hour hop from Hollywood and just over a half hour from Santa Barbara, this was a prime location for an upscale getaway. Timeshares would be a huge draw. I get it. After two decades in the hospitality industry, I’d better. And my grandfather wasn’t dumb; he knew it too. But knowing what I know now, I think he kept it small because it was manageable. The popularity of this place would explode if there were a luxury hotel where people could stay.
A boat trolls around a bend in the lake, and I struggle to reset my perspective. My thoughts turn to KT and Chloe. They would be here soon, and, judging by the state of the marina, I expect the house will need a good cleaning and airing out. And, hell, I don’t even clean my own apartment, but for KT and Chloe, who have both been constant and dedicated friends since Niue, I’d scrub every inch of the floor with a toothbrush. It had taken an act of God to finally get us all together in one place, and I’m not going to kick our week together off on the wrong foot with a filthy house.
The boat makes an abrupt turn, veering toward the property, a fishing pole secured in the back. The man driving the boat is shirtless, wearing a ball cap and sunglasses. I hope he’s coming to check out a couple of the coves for fish, because I’m not in the mood to talk to anyone.
I stroll onto one of the docks and look over the railing. The wood is worn and rotted and rickety, but the water is still as crystal clear as it was when I was a kid, and seeing the smooth pebbles beneath the surface makes me smile. I used to love to skip rocks. I wonder where that girl went, the carefree, unassuming, genuine kid who took everything at face value.
The sun feels good on my face and shoulders, and the breeze is heaven against my exposed legs.
The boats engine cuts out, and I look up. The man behind the wheel stands, one hand at his hip, the other around a bottle of beer. “No fucking way.”
Oh God. I’m really not ready to face locals just yet. I lean an elbow on the railing, trying to figure out who he could be. But after twelve years, he could be anyone, and I sure as shit didn’t know anyone here with a body like that. Wide shoulders, muscled chest, abs, biceps. Some kind of tattoo encompasses the ball of his left shoulder.
“I must be hallucinating.” He lets the boat drift toward the dock. “Because you look a lot like a girl I used to know, but you can’t be her because she’s some world-traveling hot shot who would never deign to set foot in Wildfire.”
“Deign? Are you serious? Where in the hell did you pick up a word like deign?”
“Why is that a surprise? Because I’m a backwoods small-town hick?”
“I don’t know who or what you are, nor do I care.” I turn to walk off the dock, but the boards shift under my feet. I tense, sip a breath, and grip the rail.
“You made that clear when you walked away and never looked back, Ladybug.”
Ladybug.
A cascade of fiery tingles bombard my body. There is only one person who has ever called me Ladybug.
I swing back to face the man, my heart throbbing hard and fast. He pulls off his sunglasses and smiles, but it’s not a so-happy-to-see-you smile. It’s sharp, maybe even a little disgusted.
I search for Levi’s face, Levi’s body, anything that resembles the boy who’d once been my sanctuary, my heart, my world. But this man has days’ worth of stubble on the lower half of his face and a cap obscuring the top half.
“I guess it’s true,” he says. “You really did put everything about this place behind you. Otto, the marina, your friends, all the memories.”
His use of my grandfather’s first name throws me. Levi always called him Mr. Gibson, never Otto. As does the mention of memories, which seems way too sentimental coming from a stranger. Levi might have been the only person to ever call me Ladybug, but all his friends knew that was his nickname for me.
“If you’re going to insult me,” I say, forcing annoyance into my tone to hide the swirling unease and anticipation, “take off your goddamned hat so I can see who’s slinging arrows.”