Suddenly Single (A Lake Haven Novel Book 4)

by Julia London

  He was trying to concentrate and her chatter was not helping.

  Her hand suddenly appeared between the shoots of the bush. She had a leather tie and silver bracelet around her slender wrist that momentarily distracted Edan. “I can get it!”

  “No—” Edan tried to grab the lure before it slipped, but he was a moment too late—it sank deeper into the bush. And he had a nice long cut across the back of his hand for it.

  “Sorry. I thought I had it.” She withdrew her hand and began to scratch Wilbur behind the ears. Wilbur. The only dog on the face of God’s green earth that did not care to have his ears scratched. Not even by Edan, to whom the dog was ridiculously devoted.

  Edan was more concerned about the lure. He decided he’d have to fetch a tool to free it. He washed his hands in the water, then stood up, shielding his eyes from the sun as he looked up at Jennifer Turner.

  She was standing just above him on the bank, her legs braced apart, her hands on her hips, lightly swaying from side to side as if she were listening to a song in her head. She had changed from the tight-fitting clothing she’d worn to defile his tee box, and was wearing a silky dress that hung to her knees, a sweater over that and, of course, the hiking boots. Her hair, wavy and golden, hung loosely to her waist. She reminded Edan of the flower child of the sixties—natural and free and a wee bit barmy.

  “That’s really too bad you lost it.”

  She made him think of sex. Hot, grinding sex.

  “Sorry about that. It really sucks because you couldn’t have asked for better fishing weather. I’ve been looking around. This is one gorgeous spot, Mr. Mackenzie. I mean, look at the lake! It’s so many colors of blue, and it glitters, like it’s studded with crystals. And the hills are so green. I mean, seriously, have you ever seen a more beautiful day?”

  No. It would have been perfect for fishing. He swept off his hat and pushed his fingers through his hair, hopefully knocking loose all the thoughts about sex. What he needed was a machete. He couldn’t recall seeing one in the tool shed—after all, it wasn’t as if they had to hack their way through the bramble for anything.

  “Cool boots,” she said, nodding, as she checked out his waders. “Very hip. They make your look very outdoorsy.”

  His waders were not hip, they were a functional piece of his favorite pastime, and he was outdoorsy.

  “I’d be outdoorsy, too, if I lived here,” she announced. “But with sunblock. Gotta have that.”

  He stepped up onto the bank and looked down at her. She smiled up at him. “Is there a reason you’ve come down to the river, or is this merely a happy coincidence?” he drawled.

  “Oh! I almost forgot. Yes, I wanted to ask if there was a bus or something that might take me into East Beach.”

  “No.” He picked up his tackle and his pole and began to walk.

  “No? Really? I wonder how I’m going to get there,” she said, falling in behind him as he strode up the path. Edan glanced back for his dogs—the bloody beasts were trotting along behind Jenny as if they knew her.

  “That’s the big difference between California and here, you know,” she said. “Public transportation. Did I mention that’s where I live? I can’t remember. Have you been there?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad. Well, anyway, wouldn’t it be great if a bus came out here?” She suddenly materialized next to him on the path, her eyes bright as she smiled up at him. “Hey, that’s an idea. You could ask whoever runs the buses around here to stop at the top of the road, and then it would be easier for people to find your inn.”

  Did she honestly think he’d not thought about that? One did not build a golf course without thinking through a thing or two. “No’ enough people for it.”

  “Huh,” she said, as if surprised by that. “Then how does everyone get around?”

  “The usual way—car.”

  “Ah. Is there a driver?”

  Edan stopped. “A driver?”

  She nodded. “To drive the car. I don’t drive. And I obviously don’t have a car.” She laughed.

  “Here’s an idea, then—walk.”

  “Walk!” She laughed again. “I can’t walk there. It’s like five miles! Granted, I am in great shape, but I can’t just walk five miles there and then five miles back. First, I’d be gone all day, which normally would be okay, but I really need to send that email to my dad, which between you and me is going to take some time to compose. I have to finesse it, you know what I mean?” she asked, wiggling her fingers. “And I so want a long bath. A soaking bath. I like to take long baths and read. Real books, not an e-reader. I bought this great book at the airport. It’s a thriller. The girl gets on the wrong train and ends up in a place she’s never been. I’m dying to get into it, but I can’t do all that and walk five miles to East Beach and five miles back.” She threw up her hands and dropped them again, signifying that was that.

  Edan stared at her. “It’s four miles. No’ five.”

  “It is?” she asked, looking at him skeptically. “Well, my point still stands.”

  Edan carried on to the shed and left her point on the path with her.

  She suddenly reappeared beside him. “I guess I could walk four miles,” she said thoughtfully, following right along. “It’s not that far.”

  It was precisely one mile less than the impossible five. Edan put his tackle aside and opened the door of the shed and walked in. He looked around. There was no machete and no pruner.

  “I ran a half marathon once,” she said.

  He glanced over his shoulder; she was leaning against the doorframe, holding a daisy. A bloody daisy. Where had she found that? Ah, of course—from the garden beds they’d passed. So she’d bent down and helped herself, had she? He’d have to keep an eye on her—he wouldn’t be the least surprised to see her wearing a wreath on her head made from all his daisies she’d pilfered.

  “That’s thirteen miles. I was dating this guy who was into running, and it seemed like a healthy thing to do. So I signed up and did it! I had to walk some of it. A lot of it. But I did it. FYI, we aren’t dating anymore.”

  “Non-negotiable, was it?” Edan drawled, and passed her in the doorway of the shed on his way to the garden shed a few feet away.

  “I think you’re getting it,” she said. “But that was my choice.” She proceeded to explain her brief history of dating a marathon runner as Edan discovered the garden shed was locked. Of course it was—Hugh was very protective of his tools. Bloody key was probably hanging from his belt even now, and Edan wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Hugh had worn the belt on his wedding night.

  “And who knows? They might swim across the lake.”

  “Aye? Pardon?” he said, turning back to the daisy girl. Except that the daisy was gone.

  “The bears.”

  What bloody bears? He hadn’t been listening.

  “Do you agree with me?”

  What was he agreeing to? “Aye,” he said uncertainly.

  Her face broke into a brilliant smile. “Fantastic,” she said, and her eyes narrowed. “Except that I didn’t actually say anything about bears or swimming.”

  “Did you no’?”

  “Nope,” she said pertly. “I was just talking about your adorable little dogs. But then I changed them to polar bears just to see if you were listening,” she said, pointing to his head and making a circular motion with her finger. “It’s a trick I use to see who is paying attention.”

  “One I would guess you employ quite a lot.”

  “Ooh, snarky,” she said, nodding approvingly. “I like it.”

  Aye, she was right. She was a guest at his establishment, the blue streak of words emanating from her lovely mouth notwithstanding, whether he liked it or not. “I apologize. But it’s a wee bit hard to listen to all you say, Ms. Turner.”

  Her big blue eyes widened and Edan thought he’d offended her until she burst into gales of tinkling laughter. “I know, right? Don’t look so horrified, Edan. It’s sure no
t the first time I’ve heard that.”

  Edan had to grudgingly admit to himself that he liked her laugh. It was light and almost lyrical. And he liked the way she had little patches of bird’s feet by her eyes when she laughed. “I’ll take you to the village,” he heard himself say.

  She gasped with delight. “You will?”

  What in God’s name had made him say that? “I need a pruner,” he said. At least that much was true. “The hardware shop is near a market.”

  “Thank you so much! I’m just going to grab my wallet!” she said, and skipped off, turning halfway up the path to shout, “Don’t leave without me!”

  She continued on, and damn it if his bloody beasts for dogs appeared from nowhere to romp after her.

  Now, to determine precisely how he could manage this foray into East Beach without being made deaf by her constant chatter.

  A half marathon, indeed.

  Five

  Edan Mackenzie, with his dashing good looks and mysterious gaze and taciturn manner, drove a very sporty little car. “Wow,” Jenny said as she climbed into the passenger seat. “What is this? A Porsche? A Jaguar?” she asked excitedly, looking around.

  He looked at her strangely. “It’s a Ford.”

  “Oh.”

  “Are you ready, then?”

  “Let me just buckle in here,” Jenny said, and looked around for the seat belt. “You can never be too careful. I read that something like 90 percent of all traffic deaths are caused by people not wearing their seat belts.” She had the clip of the belt, and now she was trying to get it into the slot. “That’s pretty amazing if you think about it. I mean, with all the drunk drivers on the road, it seems so easy to just—”

  He suddenly reached around her, grabbed more of the belt and brought it forward, then batted her hand away from the clip and shoved it in.

  “Click it,” she finished. Her head was suddenly filled with the scent of Mr. Mackenzie—spicy and musky and wow, he smelled so good. She leaned toward him just a little to inhale his scent again—

  Edan sank back into the driver’s side and started the car, taking off like a shot and speeding around the curves on the road to the main road.

  Jenny momentarily forgot how good he smelled so that she could turn all her attention to freaking out, because the man drove like a maniac. He took one corner so fast that the tires squealed—but her squeal was louder.

  “Is your brake working, then?” he asked, his eyes on the road.

  “Not as well as I would like,” she answered truthfully.

  In response to that, he goosed it and sent the car moving a little faster.

  “I spent way too much time sitting in a car when I was a kid. That’s all you do in California—you drive. I mean, if you’re not taking the excellent public transportation options. That’s what I prefer. Give me a cab or a train or a bus.” She braced one hand against the dash and looked at him.

  He ignored her. But it would take a lot more than ignoring her to put off Jenny Turner. Edan reminded her a little of her best friend from high school, Caitlyn Emerson. She’d met Caitlyn in ninth grade in chemistry class. Everyone was tasked with choosing a lab partner, and Jenny had noticed no one was choosing Caitlyn. She knew why, they all knew why—Caitlyn had been labeled undesirable. Jenny couldn’t remember why any longer—stuck-up, or rude—but there was something about Caitlyn that had seemed vulnerable to her, and Jenny had always been one to rescue people from the fringe. She’d chosen Caitlyn as her lab partner and discovered that the girl was not stuck-up, but painfully shy—debilitatingly so. And when she was confronted with a situation that made her uncomfortable, she came across as aloof and detached.

  Sort of like her driver.

  Jenny hadn’t yet made up her mind about Edan, and she didn’t think he was shy like Caitlyn. It was different than that. He was antisocial. But even that didn’t seem entirely correct, because she could see something in those beautiful green eyes of his, and what she saw told her that Edan wasn’t entirely disinterested. She guessed he probably didn’t know what to make of her. Well, get in line, pal—no one ever did. Okay, so she swam in the pool of tree huggers and natural-food enthusiasts, and sometimes, she ignored big signs and she talked too much, that was a given. But none of that made her unlikable or hard to understand.

  The faster Edan drove, the more curious Jenny was about him.

  “This is a really interesting drive,” she said, with both hands against the dash now as they whizzed down the road. “It’s moments like this that make me love traveling. I just love to go to different places and absorb the culture.”

  “Riding in a car is no’ a culture,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Point taken.” Her heart was beating wildly as he took a turn on what felt like two wheels. “Still, this ride is very different than any other I’ve ever had. I didn’t know cars could go this fast. You’d think the physics would make it impossible.”

  He gunned the car onto a bigger road. “On the contrary, it is the physics that make it possible.”

  She tried to get a glimpse of the speedometer, but she’d have to lean too close to him to see. “People are always in such a hurry, have you noticed? They think a vacation is only a week, and that a week is too long. Trust me, you need at least a month to really get the feel of a place.”

  He looked at her sharply.

  “What?” Jenny asked.

  “I canna imagine anyone has so much time to travel about and absorb,” he said.

  “Well, sure, most people don’t have the time or money to do it. Honestly, it takes a certain amount of privilege to get away with it. I did it once. I went to Thailand one summer between semesters to study with a yogi there, and I totally absorbed the country. It’s in my blood now. Although counter argument—maybe I was there too long. I mean, in the beginning, it was magical. Then I started to notice how hot it was. And the food, forget it—just too spicy. I was actually glad to come home to a good old-fashioned cheeseburger, and I don’t even eat red meat. But you know how it is, sometimes, you just gotta get a burger under your belt, right?”

  Edan looked at her with the dazed expression she’d seen a few times on him. Sort of like she imagined someone might look at an unidentifiable stain on the countertop as they tried to work out what it was.

  They sailed into a small development of businesses and houses, and Edan screeched to a sharp halt in a parking spot.

  “Just out of curiosity, how fast were we going?” Jenny asked breathlessly.

  He opened the driver’s door. “I might have reached seventy on the main road, aye? Here we are, then. I’ll fetch you in a half hour from the coffee shop.” He pointed to a storefront with the words, Lakeshore Coffee painted artfully on the window. He got out, shut the door, and began striding down the road.

  “Okay,” Jenny said to the empty car, unhooked her seat belt and got out, too.

  They were on the main street of the village of East Beach, where storefronts faced the cobbled street. Bright summer flags and flowers hung from street poles, and merchants had pulled their sale items out onto the sidewalk. It was a lovely, charmingly quaint little lakeside village, the sort you’d expect to see in a brochure advertising summer tours.

  Cranston’s, a small market, was situated next to the coffee shop. Jenny went inside and picked up a basket. For such a small market, it was surprisingly well stocked with whole foods. Fresh produce beneath signs proclaiming it from a local farm was placed near the entrance. Jenny was generally very conscious of her diet, but these days, she was doing more stress eating than worrying about nutrition, and she headed for the aisles in the back. After she’d collected enough snacks to keep her through the Apocalypse—she did not like to leave things to chance—she made her way to the register. “Good morning!” sang the round little woman behind the counter. She had a mop of gray hair and oval glasses perched on her nose that made her brown eyes seem twice their size. “Is this all you’ll be needing? We’ve got a sale on blackberri
es. They’re local, of course.”

  “Thanks, but this ought to do it,” Jenny said.

  “Are you with one of the bus tours?” the woman asked as she began to ring up her items. “We usually don’t see them for another hour or so.”

  “Oh, no. I came from the Cassian Inn.”

  “The Cassian!” the woman said as she scanned a bottle of bubble bath. She turned her magnified brown eyes to Jenny. “I thought the Cassian closed.”

  “I think it is,” Jenny said. “Or closing. Not quite closed, but close enough to closed.” She grinned.

  “Well, it’s no wonder. That place has been limping along since Clara died, and I told my husband when that poor man lost his fiancée that he’d be out of there but quick.”

  What? Jenny stared at her. Edan’s fiancée had died? No wonder he was so...churlish.

  The woman began to punch numbers into her old cash register. “Yeah, I didn’t actually see the closed sign when I arrived last night,” Jenny said, which was obviously not true, but she felt compelled to offer an explanation for being there. “The manager was kind enough to let me stay.”

  The woman stopped punching numbers into the cash register and looked up at Jenny. “Mackenzie?”

  “Yep. Edan Mackenzie,” Jenny said. “He let me stay because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. Other than the bench outside his inn.” She smiled sheepishly. “I had an unplanned stop without a back-up plan. But he gave me a room and made me a sandwich.”

  “Edan Mackenzie made you a sandwich!” The woman gave a bark of disbelief. “Well, maybe he’s finally getting over it.” She resumed her punching of numbers. “I heard he took it pretty hard. The wedding was planned and everything, and since then, I never see him out and about. He used to come around for coffee, but I don’t think he does that anymore. If it weren’t for Rosalyn and Hugh, he’d probably rot away up there.”