Lakeside Cottage by Susan Wiggs Read Free Book Online Page B

Already he smelled like new leaves and fresh air. “All right already,” he said.
    Kate set the sack on the scrubbed pine counter. In the sink was a tumbler half-full of water. She dumped it into the drain. The cleaners had probably left it. She put things into the freezer, then opened the fridge and found a covered disposable container with a plastic fork.
    “What the…?” Kate murmured. She removed the container and put it straight in the trash. Lord knew how long it had been there.
    “What’s that?” Aaron asked.
    “Nothing. The cleaners left a few things behind. I’llhave to speak to Mrs. Newman about it.” She finished putting away the perishables and let Aaron go outside again to toss a stick for Bandit.
    Then she grabbed two suitcases, heading upstairs. Since it was just her and Aaron this summer, she decided to take the master bedroom. It faced the lake with a central dormer window projecting outward like the prow of a ship. She’d never occupied this room before. She’d never been the senior adult at the lake. This room was for couples. Her grandparents. Then her parents, then Phil and Barbara. Well, she’d have it all to herself, all summer long, she thought with a touch of defiance.
    Juggling the suitcases, she pushed open the door. Another thing the maids had forgotten—to open the drapes in here. The room was dim and close, haunted by gloom.
    With a frown of exasperation, Kate set down the luggage. Her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the dimness. When she straightened up, she saw a shadow stir.
    The shadow resolved itself into human form and surged toward her.
    A single thought filled Kate’s mind: Aaron.
    With that, she bolted down the stairs.

Four
    JD felt the woman’s eyes on him. His pulse sped up as he sensed her gaze lingering a few seconds too long.
    “Is that all the information you need from me?” he asked, pushing the form across the counter to her.
    “That’ll do.” She offered a smile he couldn’t quite figure out. These days he was suspicious of every look, every smile. “Thanks, Mr….” She glanced down at the form. “Harris.”
    She was young, he observed. Pretty in a fresh-faced, college-girl way, probably volunteering at the wildlife rehab station for the summer. Darla T.—Volunteer, read the tag on her pocket.
    He hoped like hell she wouldn’t volunteer any information about him to her friends. Even out here, in the farthest corner of the country, he was paranoid. Sam had assured him that in Port Angeles he could escape all the hoopla that had disrupted his life since the incident last Christmas, particularly if he changed his appearance and kept a low profile.
    After being accosted in every possible way—and inways he hadn’t even imagined—he was wary. When a tabloid photographer had popped out of his apartment complex Dumpster to get a shot of him in his pajama bottoms taking out the garbage, JD knew his life would never be the same. The notion was underscored by a woman so obsessed with him that she injured herself just to get him to rescue her. The day he’d received an important classified delivery containing a toy company’s prototype of the Jordan Donovan Harris Action Figure, garbed in battle-dress uniform and hefting a Special Forces weapon the real Harris had never even seen before, was the day he’d filed for a discharge. Then, on a rainy night in April, a call came in, a reporter asking him about his mother.
    JD had ripped the phone from the wall that night. It was bad enough they hounded him. When they turned like a pack of wolves on his mother, something in JD had snapped, too.
    Enough.
    If he had to put up with any more attention, he’d end up as loony as the guy whose bomb he’d stopped.
    JD needed to disappear for a while, let the furor die down. Once he fell off the public radar, he could slip quietly back into private life. Sam had offered his family’s summer cabin and wanted nothing in return. That was just the kind of friend he was.
    So