Lakeside Cottage by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online

Congress to urge limits on clear-cutting federal lands. In the 1950s, his enemies denounced him as a Communist.
    A decade later, Grandfather came into his own. The flower children of the 1960s embraced him. He and his wife, Charla, an extremely minor Hollywood actress who had once played a bit part in a Marlon Brando movie, protested the destruction of the environment alongside hippies and anarchists. To the acute embarrassment of their grown children, they attended Woodstock and smoked pot. Walden became a folk hero, and he wrote a book about his experiences.
    When Kate was a small girl, he was widowed and moved in with her family. She had loved the old man without reservation, spending hours at his side, chattering on in the way of a child, certain her listener hung on her every word.
    With a patience that could only be described as saintly, he would listen to her describe the entire plot of Charlotte’s Web or every exhibit in the school science fair. Later, when she was a teenager, it was Grandfather Walden who heard all her Monday-morning quarterbacking about the weekend football games, parties, dates. Her grandfather was the keeper of all her secrets and dreams. It was to him that she first explained her ambition to become a famous international news correspondent. He was the first one she told when she was accepted in the honors program at the University of Washington. And it was to him that she had confessed the event that had changed the course of her future. “I’m pregnant, and Nathan wants me to get rid of the baby.”
    “To hell with Nathan.” The old man, wheelchair-bound by then, still managed a lively gesture with his hand. “What do you want?”
    Her hands had crept down over her still-flat belly. “I want this baby.”
    A gleam of emotion lit his eyes behind the bifocals. “I love you, Katie. I’ll help you in any way I can.”
    He’d given her the most critical element of all—his wholehearted, nonjudgmental approval. It meant the world to her. Her parents were supportive, of course. It was the role they felt compelled to play. But every once in a while, Kate sensed their frustration. We raised you for something more than single motherhood.
    Only Grandfather knew the truth, that there was no career or calling more thrilling, demanding or rewarding than raising a child.
    She loved her grandfather for his great heart and open mind, for his passion and honesty. She loved him for accepting her exactly as she was, flaws and all. Over the years, he gave her plenty of advice. The bit that stuck in her mind consisted of two simple words: Don’t settle.
    She wished she’d done a better job following that advice, but she hadn’t, in her career, anyway. She had settled for a popular but uninfluential newspaper that required little from her, only a clever turn of phrase, a canny eye for fashion and the ability to produce eighteen hundred publishable words on a regular basis.
    This was it, then, she decided, parking near the back door. This summer was her chance to find something she could be passionate about. She would do it for her own sake, in honor of her grandfather.
    Grabbing the nearest grocery sack, she got out of the Jeep and unlocked the back door. At least, she thought she unlocked it. As she turned the key, she didn’t feel the bolt slide.
    That’s odd, she thought, opening the door and stepping inside. The cleaners must have forgotten to lockup after themselves. They’d left the radio on, too, and an old Drifters tune was floating from the speakers. She would have to mention it to Mable Claire Newman. Crime wasn’t a problem around here, but that was no excuse for carelessness.
    Other than leaving the door unlocked, the cleaners had done an excellent job. The pine-plank floors gleamed, and all the wooden paneling and fixtures glowed with a deep, oiled sheen. The shutters had been opened to dazzling sunlight striking the water.
    Kate inhaled the scent of lemon oil and Windex and went to the