by Amy Gamet
Love on the Lake Box Set
Amy Gamet
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Also read the Love and Danger series, available for sale or through Kindle Unlimited.
Chapter 1
Tori Henderson was standing in the middle of her gift shop, the feather duster in her hand long-since forgotten. She blinked, her eyes staying closed too long, trying to make sense of her mother’s words. “Excuse me?”
“Married.” Her mother smiled and bit her lip at the same time, making her look far younger than she was. “I’m getting married. I probably should have said something sooner, but I wanted to tell you in person.”
Her mom had just returned from an extended trip around the country, the first surprising thing Bonnie had done in years.
This was the second.
Her mom touched her arm. “Do you remember the Trainors? They rented Suzie and Bill’s place years ago, when you were in high school? Edward and his son?”
Time froze.
Remember?
How could she forget?
Gabe Trainor, eighteen and the sexiest boy alive, with abs like a marble statue and a smile that made every girl swoon. He’d been her first kiss, her first love. She felt her cheeks flush.
That was the summer before her dad passed away, when she still thought life was fair and love was forever and one single summer could change everything. It had taken her years to get over Gabe. Truth be told, she still thought of him sometimes, pretending he was in the car sitting next to her on a long drive, or featuring him prominently in her dreams, though she’d never admitted it to anyone, not even her best friend, Melanie.
“Summer before junior year,” Tori said. Did her mother even know about her relationship with Gabe, or had she been so absorbed in Dad’s failing health that she’d been oblivious?
“I ran into Edward in Tahoe, and…we hit it off, sweetheart. He came with me on the rest of my trip.”
Tori raised her eyebrows. “You’re marrying Edward Trainor?”
Her mother nodded. “We’ve been together almost two months. Oh Tori, please say you’re happy for me.”
Happy for her?
Her mother was in love with Gabe Trainor’s father!
Tori felt lightheaded. Of all the people in the world, what were the chances that mother and daughter would fall for father and son?
“I am happy for you Mom,” she heard herself say.
Her mother wrapped her in a big, swaying hug. “Oh, good. I couldn’t bear it if you were upset.”
“No, I’m not upset. You just surprised me.”
Her mother laughed, her giggle trailing like a schoolgirl’s. “The ceremony’s two weeks from Friday.”
Tori pulled back. “Two weeks from Friday! Why so fast?”
Bonnie laughed. “It doesn’t feel fast at all, from where I’m standing. Maybe at my age you just know when something’s right, and you don’t need to hem and haw and wait to see anymore. You just do it. He makes me happy, Tori. I love him, and I didn’t think I’d ever find love again after losing your father.”
Tori’s mind was racing. Her mother was marrying Gabe Trainor’s dad. She sucked in a breath.
Gabe would be at the ceremony.
She suddenly felt a little sick.
Her mother was talking. “I want your help with the reception. Would you, please? No one could make it as wonderful as you.”
“Wonderful?”
“You make everything so beautiful. I mean, look at this place! Do you know how proud of you I am for what you’ve accomplished with Tori’s Treasures?” she gestured around her to the shop. “I want some of this glamour on my big day.”
Her mother was proud of her?
She wouldn’t be so proud if she knew I was about to lose everything.
Tori swallowed hard against the knot in her throat. She couldn’t tell her mother that, couldn’t tell her about the bills and the creditors and the heartache, or her own desperate plans to save her shop from bankruptcy.
Forcing her worries aside, she trained her focus on her mother’s smiling face. There was a shadow of apprehension there. Bonnie needed her blessing, needed to hear it was okay to love another man besides Tori’s father. Tori reached out to tuck a long gray curl behind her mother’s ear. “I’m happy for you, Mom.”
“You’ll help with the reception?”
Two weeks from Friday.
Tori cringed. That was just two days before the town festival, the culmination of the treasure hunt promotion she was banking on to save her shop. She was already swamped with details for that.
But her mother called her work beautiful.
She said she was proud.
For Tori, the girl who was best known for her failures, those were heady words she didn’t want to let go of.
I’ll show her I can do this, that I can handle responsibility without screwing anything up.
Tori nodded. “Of course. I’ll do everything I can to help.” Even as she said the words, she feared she was biting off more than she could chew.
“Oh, I’m so grateful. Edward’s sons are coming to town for the wedding, and I want to make sure everything’s perfect.”
“Sons? I thought there was just Gabe.”
“No, he has another son, Jed, by his first wife.” Her mother patted her hand. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you kids will get along just fine.”
* * *
Jed Trainor slammed his fist onto his polished wood desk. “You can’t just walk in here and expect me to hand you the company I’ve spent ten years building up from nothing.”
The other man crossed his legs and leaned back. “The merger of McConnell and Howard Longman gives us a major shareholder stake in Trainor Enterprises. We now own fifty-two percent of the company. You can either agree to a peaceable settlement…”
“Or you’ll shut me out in a hostile takeover.”
Rage seeped out of Jed’s pores, but he forced his lips to remain closed. Nothing good could come of giving Henry the tongue-lashing he so richly deserved. They were friends. They’d wanted the same things for so long.
Or so he’d thought.
What he needed was time to think, to strategize.
Trainor Enterprises was everything to him, his love, his life, his ambition. Wasn’t that what his ex-fiancé said over and over again? More of his self-worth was tied up in this place than he cared to examine too closely, and he resented the fact that someone else had crawled up inside it like some Trojan horse.
I should have seen it coming.
He felt stupid. Stupid to have trusted this man across the desk, stupid to have trusted anyone at all. How many times did he have to learn, the only person he could rely on was himself?
A knock at the door and it opened.
He raised his hand. “Not now, Bridget.”
“Sir, your brother is on the phone.”
Jed frowned, a fresh anxiety tingling up his spine. He hadn’t talked to Gabe in over a year, but here he was, calling in the middle of a workday out of the blue.
Maybe he wants to apologize.
Or maybe the old man is dead.
The thought brought with it a surprising sadness. The boy inside him was still waiting for Edward to be a better man, to remember he had two sons instead of one, even though Jed should have long since moved on.
A picture appeared in Jed’s mind, a photograph that sat on his father’s desk. Edward and wife-number-three, decked out in boating outfits like models in a catalog. Gabe had been in the picture, too.
Gabe was always in the picture.
Jed had never been on that boat, b
ut he’d all but memorized that photo, as it stood in such sharp contrast to his own reality.
He shook his head. Water under the bridge.
“Put him through. Henry was just leaving.”
“We have more to discuss.”
“On my terms. I’ll be in touch.”
Henry jerked his head back, but he picked up his briefcase and made his way to the door, Bridget following him out.
The phone on his desk began to ring and he picked it up. “Trainor,” he answered.
“You talk to Dad?”
Jed’s stomach sank. He hadn’t talked to Edward since last Christmas, and only then because the old man had invited him to dinner. Jed had reluctantly agreed and sat in stunned silence as Edward cracked crab legs and explained that he wanted to mend fences, have a real relationship.
It was everything Jed ever wanted from his father, all tied up with a bow and delivered, thirty Christmases too late.
He took a deep breath.
“Not in a while. Is everything all right?”
An accident, or maybe illness. I should have been nicer to him. Made more of an effort.
The guilt gathered again and he pushed it back down. Jed had gone over every word of that conversation with Edward in his head, and he couldn’t find a single thing he’d said that wasn’t true. Jed had a thousand reasons to dislike his father, and only one to give him another chance.
He loved him.
So far, it hadn’t been enough.
Gabe laughed. “You’re not going to believe this. He’s getting married.”
Relief and irritation flooded Jed in equal measure. “Why wouldn’t I believe that?”
“Swears he’s in love, that this is the one. Some woman from the Finger Lakes he met while they were on vacation out in Tahoe.”
“Wonderful. I hope they’re very happy together for a year or two, until he divorces her and runs off with a younger version.”
“She’s in her fifties.”
Edward Trainor marrying a woman close to his own age? Surely that must be one of the signs of the apocalypse.
“And Jed, he wants you to be his best man.”
Jed’s jaw dropped open. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Guess he’ll tell you that himself. But he spent twenty minutes trying to let me down easy before he told me last night. I figured you might want a heads-up to prepare your response. I know you two aren’t exactly close.”
I’m not exactly close to you either, brother-boy.
At least not anymore.
The memory of his brother’s betrayal was like bile in the back of Jed’s throat. “I’ve got to go. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Jed, are you going to come to the wedding?”
“No.”
“We need to talk.”
“Why, have you slept with someone else I was supposed to marry?”
Gabe sighed. “I deserved that.”
“You deserve worse. I’m hanging up now.” A whopper of a headache throbbed in Jed’s left temple by the time he replaced the receiver.
His mind shifted back to Henry.
A hostile freaking takeover. What a day.
He knew it was a possibility from the moment he put up more than half the stock, but he’d had no choice at the time, needing the capital to expand the company overseas. He thought his board was more loyal than they were turning out to be, and that was far too familiar a bell to be ringing just before the news of his father’s impending vows.
Best man. No way. He felt a little sorry for his father, like he would feel for any man who lived his life in a way he later came to regret. The man had no true friends to stand by his side, and had to resort to asking his estranged son to do it.
Jed had spent years learning how to get past his childhood, to believe he was capable and smart and worthy, even if his own father thought he wasn’t worth the time of day. And he’d done it, succeeding with flying colors, making his own fortune to rival the one he’d been denied a piece of.
He would tell Edward no.
There was no question.
Jed was a terrible liar, and he was anything but his father’s best man.
Suddenly, his office was too small, too cluttered, too closed in. He gazed out the window at the sunny day beyond. He needed to get out of this room, clear his head, figure out what to do. He buzzed his secretary. “Bridget, clear my calendar. I’m leaving the office early today.”
“But you have an important meeting…”
He laughed without humor. “It’s not important anymore. Cancel it. And Bridget, if my father calls…”
Tell him to go to hell.
Tell him I got hit by a bus.
He scrunched his eyes tightly shut. “Go ahead and give him my cell phone number.”
* * *
Tori Henderson carefully lined the carved wooden box with purple satin, her hands lightly shaking. “I don’t know why I’m nervous.”
Her friend Melanie stepped closer, peering over Tori’s shoulder. “Because that’s a boatload of cash you’re loading into that box, and you’re going to go bury it in the ground.”
It was crazy when you thought about it, which Tori was trying hard not to do. She picked up a gold pendant with a wide green stone, pausing to stroke its edge before laying it gently down. “Seed money,” she reminded herself. “It’s going to grow into a money tree.”
“Amen to that.” Melanie picked up a pair of earrings, their delicate filigree highlighted with turquoise, and whistled appreciatively. “I love these. You do such nice work.”
“Thanks.” She’d worked for days on those alone, and knew Melanie was right, they were beautiful. The workmanship and design would have commanded a high price at her shop—if she wasn’t giving them away for free.
She’d deliberately had to miss her last student loan payment to afford the gold she needed for these pieces. A wave of anxiety went through her as she remembered slipping the bill into a drawer and closing it away, with a silent promise to pay it as soon as she was able.
And she would be able.
She must.
Her stomach turned and flipped over. It was so hard to spend money on this promotion when she desperately needed it for other things. She thought of the creditor who called her home at nine o’clock last night, and the hours she had lain awake afterward in a nervous sweat. This contest was her last chance to save her shop, and everything had to be perfect.
Reaching into a drawer, she withdrew three small velvet bags and emptied them one at a time into her palm. Each contained a gold ring, the first a sapphire, the second a ruby and the third an emerald, but it was the unique metalwork that really made them sparkle.
Tori placed them in the chest, consoling herself that the value in materials was hardly enough to pay back even one of her loans, and she had several outstanding. No, her best chance to save her business was to increase sales for the entire season, not to hang on tightly to these baubles.
“Tell me where you’re going to hide it,” said Melanie. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
“Your mouth leaks like an old sink. I’m not telling you anything.”
Melanie huffed and pouted for a moment. “When are you going to bury it?”
“Tomorrow.”
“And when is it going to be on TV?”
“New clues will be on the six o’clock news every day.” She was more than a little nervous, given that she’d written the press releases herself, starting with an open invitation to participate in a real live treasure hunt for more than ten thousand dollars in jewelry from Tori’s Treasures.
Every part of the treasure hunt had been carefully planned, coordinating the event to tie-in with the peak tourist season and the town’s annual grape festival. She even worked with local real estate agents and rental agencies to be sure a flyer for the treasure hunt hung in every rented cabin for a hundred-mile radius.
If this went well, it could turn everything around. The sheer number of people who ren
ted cabins on Moon Lake and the surrounding Finger Lakes was enough to make her sole-proprietor mouth drool with anticipation.
She raised her eyes to those of her dearest friend. “What if it doesn’t work, Melanie? What if I have to close the shop?”
“Oh, you stop that negative thinking right now, or I’m going to smack you upside the head. Nothing good is going to come of thinking like that. The treasure hunt is an awesome idea. Everyone around here’s going to play. You’ll be the talk of the town.”
Tori nodded. Melanie was right. It was a good idea, and she knew it.
I just have to stay positive. Focus on success.
A bell rang, signaling the entry of someone into the shop, the fifth person today and it wasn’t even eleven. From the outside looking in, Tori’s Treasures was thriving. Melanie was the only one who knew Tori was struggling to make ends meet, and she didn’t even know the full extent of Tori’s debt. It was a secret that grew heavier on Tori’s shoulders with each passing day.
Tori mentally ticked off the sum total of her debts. The staggering student loans. The mortgage on this beautiful house, an old Victorian with gingerbread trim, and the second and third mortgages she’d had to take against it. Worse yet, she lived here. If she lost the house, she’d be losing her home, too. Carefully she folded the satin over the last of the rings and secured the lid of the wooden box with a silent prayer.
Melanie scooted past Tori and grabbed a diet soda out of the mini fridge. “I can’t believe your mom’s getting married.”
“I know. Crazy, right?”
“Good for her. She’s been by herself for a long time.”
“I know. I just hope she’s not rushing into this.”
“Speaking of rushing into bad relationships,” said Melanie. “Where has Jason been lately? You chop him up into little pieces and bury him in the backyard?”
Tori cringed. “We broke up.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you didn’t like him.”
“Exactly. You were deliberately withholding information that would make me happy.”
