by Sue Gibson
"By the way, we're hosting our annual fish fry tomorrow. Starts at one. You're welcome to come," she rattled off. There. I can truthfully tell Dad that I invited him.
She turned to check the gas gauge, allowing him privacy to formulate his refusal.
"I hope I don't have to bring my own fish."
"I understand completely-" Lily looked up from the engine. He was coming? Her stomach flip-flopped. "Um, of course not," she mumbled. "You're coming?"
He smiled, and her resolve to keep her distance crumbled slightly. "Wouldn't miss it, Lily."
She liked the way he said her name, his voice soft and deep.
With trembling hands, she reversed out of the docking area, clunking heavily against the dock's bumpers. She shoved her tackle box ahead with her foot and rolled the throttle forward with her thumb.
Was it Loon Lake that was in jeopardy or her selfimposed ban on men, she considered as the boat took her into the mouth of the bay. Just because Doug turned tail when her genetic profile revealed she had a slight chance of becoming blind in her later years, it didn't necessarily mean all men were incapable of a real commitment.
The boat bounced across the choppy water and she fought the desire to look back to the Nirvana. The Friends of Loon Lake Committee did a fine job watchdogging the shoreline and the fish, but when it came to protecting her heart, she was on her own.
Lily mingled with the Hideaway's guests, topping up glasses of iced tea and plucking empty glasses from tabletops. She'd traded yesterday's look, T-shirt and jeans, for a backless cotton sundress, and had gathered her hair up into a loose knot. Escaping tendrils already clung to the back of her neck.
Without a breeze to clean the air, wood smoke floated just above the rooftops. Twice she'd observed Ethan turn his back to his attentive audience and draw on an inhaler.
Her hands smoothed the light cotton of her dress. It was a different look for her and she hoped no one would comment. At least not in front of Ethan Weatherall.
A collective laugh drew her attention. Ethan stood a head taller than the milling guests who circled him like kids around an ice cream vendor. His white polo shirt and crisp gray pants fit his tall frame perfectly, better suited to an afternoon on a golf course, but spoke of success and confidence. His forearms already sported the beginnings of a tan and each time he consulted his watch, its golden band flashed a subtle message: I'm wealthy and tightly scheduled.
Ethan nodded his head in apparent appreciation as Merv-from-Cabin-One regaled the crowd with details of his morning's outing. Encouraged by Ethan's smile, Merv extracted his wallet from his back pocket. Creased photos of walleye and bass flitted to the ground. Ethan knelt to gather the pictures as the older man beamed his appreciation.
Earlier he'd sequestered her father by the barbecue for a good twenty minutes. He's working the crowd, Lily decided. My crowd. Her hands tightened their grip on the frosty glass pitcher.
"Lily, how are the salads holding out?" Marion Greensly touched her daughter's elbow and waved a hand toward the picnic tables, each one covered with a brightly colored vinyl cloth.
Lily scanned the Pyrex bowls. "Potato, halfempty, macaroni, hardly touched. Oops, Mr. Jenkins is scraping out the last of the caesar salad"
Last year her mother's fading eyesight regressed to the point of legal blindness. Lily and her father had happily taken on the job of describing her surroundings.
"Well, thank heavens I've got another batch made up," Marion said, her white-tipped cane clicking rapidly as she made her way up the path of interlocking brick.
"I'm right behind you, Mom."
Cooler air bathed their faces as they walked the oak-planked center hall and entered the kitchen.
Marion Greensly moved easily from the refrigerator to the counter. With one hand she withdrew an enormous bowl of romaine lettuce, counted over to the third bottle from the left and extracted a jar of homemade dressing from the door.
"It's going great, isn't it, Lily," her mother said, the heat and excitement of the day coloring her cheeks. "And your new friend, Ethan, is a big hit, isn't he?"
"You got that right," Lily muttered to her mother's already departing figure.
Lily watched as her father met his wife at the front door. With his arm resting companionably on her shoulders, he escorted her across the porch. When they reached the bottom step, the couple paused. Jared drew his wife closer and planted a kiss on her cheek. A pink blush suffused his wife's face and she laughed softly before slipping her free arm around his waist.
They made it look so easy.
"Real love smoothes out the rough patches," her father had explained to her after Doug had called off the engagement. Lily swallowed heavily and yanked open the refrigerator's tiny freezer door.
The cold blast cooled her frustration as she recalled how Doug had circled her shoulder with one arm and waved a thirteen page prenuptial contract with the other.
"Take the blood test, Lily," Doug had insisted, and we'll go on with our plans."
Hoping it was his lawyer's idea, she'd laughed it off at first. "Come on, Doug. What are you saying? If the blood tests say I might someday lose my sight, like Mom, you'll take your ring back?"
"Wouldn't you want to know, if it was reversed?"
Her world had tilted. "I suppose it's something ... but when I said yes to your proposal, I meant, you know, in sickness and health ..." Her voice had faded.
"Lily." A long pause foreshadowed his reply. "It changes everything."
"It's a nice little spot you have here," a deep voice boomed.
Lily smacked her head on the freezer door, knocking a tray of ice cubes to the floor. Slamming the door shut, she scrambled after the slippery cubes. Ethan bent to the task, rising with a handful. She nodded toward the sink.
"Are you all right? Let me have a look"
"I'm fine. Thank you," she said, retreating from his approaching hand.
She waved away his concerned glance and continued, "We're not stylish but our clientele is loyal. Keep coming back year after year."
The Nirvana's clean lines and spacious rooms were in sharp contrast with the Hideaway cabins' gingham and pine.
"Apples and oranges, Lily."
Her gaze slid to the tiny emblem discreetly displayed on the pocket of his country-club shirt. "Absolutely. Day and night."
Silence hung between them, demanding attention. Lily's gaze sought the western view. A ball of orange blistered the lake. Burnt-meringue tips of foam, too many and too fluid for the eye to understand, stretched across the bay. Crimson streaks backlit the sky, forecasting a clear day tomorrow.
Ethan's gaze followed hers. "Magnificent, isn't it?"
"Mmmm" Lily sighed. "Money can't buy anything that beautiful."
Ethan's brows furrowed. "Too bad the Nirvana is on the opposite shore. I hadn't realized how spectacular the sunsets would be."
Lily recalled how he'd explained that every detail of a new hotel was researched thoroughly before breaking ground. Was someone's head about to roll?
"Most of your clientele will be up early to fish, right?"
"Yes. I believe so" He eyed her with interest.
"Don't you remember the sunrise over Osprey Island when you and I were fishing?" Lily waited for his response.
A smile stretched across his perfectly straight teeth. "I certainly do. Priceless."
"I'd call it a gift, actually. But you get my point."
"Touche. And by the way, I faxed your comments about the boathouse to my architect."
"You did?" The comments where I totally trashed his design?
"He's agreed to do a mock-up in earth tones and with a lower profile. I had my construction foreman take me out on the barge. You're right. Lake approach is an entirely different consideration."
Lily's neck and cheeks warmed under the compliment.
"Thank you" She raised her grandmother's crystal pitcher and gestured toward his glass.
"Sure. Homemade I presume?" He slid his glas
s forward.
"It's just regular tea and ice cubes. Oh, and I popped a couple of mint leaves in too. It grows wild on the north shore."
He leaned in slightly before speaking. "Another one of your secrets revealed"
Her heart skipped a beat. Dad, you're so in trouble.
His face only inches from hers, his mintflavored breath warmed her cheek.
"Go on" She knew her father's stories were rooted in love but they tended to be of a personal nature. Like the fact that she was single, and would make a fine catch for some lucky fellow.
"It's been a day of revelations," he continued, the beginnings of a grin twitching the corners of his lips.
"Oh really?" Lily pressed into the edge of the Formica counter and steeled herself for the worst.
"A fellow ... Chuck, I think, told me that every Wednesday at dawn, you pick dew worms from your lawn into a bucket..."
He paused for a breath and grinned.
There's more?
"And his wife Hazel recalled the night you spent in your boat monitoring spawning trout. She said it rained, but said you were a real trooper and stuck it out."
"Is that all?"
"That's all I got for now."
She exhaled. It could have been much worse.
"You're a fascinating personality, Lily Greensly," he said. "My sister would love you. She has high regard for the unusual."
The unusual? What did that mean? Her insecurities kicking in, she wondered, did he think she was some kind of curiosity, a quirky personality whom his sister, no doubt a bored socialite, collected to show off at parties?
She straightened her shoulders. "Guiding is a service we Greenslys have proudly offered for over sixty years, and the environment, especially this environment," she said with an expansive sweep of her free arm, "is something we all should worry about"
A melting chunk of ice shot from the counter as her hand slammed down.
He pulled back. A glimmer of confusion flickered in his eyes before they shut her out, like a curtain dropping at the end of a play.
He reached for her hand, but she hastily tucked it into her pocket. "I'm sorry. I was joking. I completely respect your loyalty to the family business."
She nodded her head, indicating a grudging acceptance of his statement. He couldn't have known he'd inadvertently hit on a hot-button topic. While studying in Toronto she'd grown tired of explaining and defending the rural lifestyle to her urban classmates who'd bought into the country bumpkin stereotype.
"Sorry too. I'm a little sensitive when it comes to my work." She knew she'd been a rough on him, with the whole schoolteacher admonishment thing. Delaney was always telling her to tone it down a notch whenever she got up on her soap box.
Ethan stepped back and retreated to the far end of the counter. "Well, I'm sure our paths will cross again. I'll just go and say my good-byes to your parents now," he said.
She swallowed a lump the size of a peach as his empty glass clinked into the sink and he turned to leave.
Her sandals plopped a dismal rhythm as she headed up the back stairs to change. She paused on the landing and listened to his footsteps fade and wondered why she even cared that he was leaving.
Ethan retreated down the dim hall. Well, I sure blew that.
Oddly enough, Lily's disappointment in him stung more than the fact that he wasn't any closer to owning Osprey Island. Canceling yesterday's meetings and his flight back to the city hadn't netted him the island, so why didn't he regret the wasted time?
He continued to stride toward the door. A row of paintings, obviously commissioned in a time when no one smiled for a portrait, depicted what he assumed were stiff-lipped Greensly ancestors. He squinted to read the spidery script in the corner of the largest painting-THOMAS GREENSLY, 1927.
The man stood on a rocky outcropping with a string of fish dangling from his raised hand. A lone tree stood in the background, its peak topped with a cumbersome pile of sticks and long grass. Ethan rubbed the cloudy glass carefully with his finger. There was no doubt. It was Osprey Island. And judging by the date, the man would be Lily's grandfather, who, according to the locals, gifted his only grandchild with the island.
His gaze dropped to the threadbare welcome mat by the door and traveled through the screen door out to the dented aluminum boats rocking against the docks. Was Lily even safe in those old things?
The Hideaway obviously needed an infusion of cash as much as he needed the deed to Osprey Island, and he made a mental note to increase the offer.
Taking the porch steps two at a time he headed toward Jared Greensly. Now there was a man of reason, the polar opposite of his volatile daughter. Maybe Lily could be persuaded to part with the island if Jared sanctioned the sale? Lily's respect and affection for her father was obvious.
Ethan had little experience with affection but he understood parental authority perfectly.
"Leaving so soon, Ethan?" Jared said.
Ethan glanced around. The crowd had thinned, most heading to their cabins. Merv's earlier declaration, that the biggest fish were landed at dusk, had been followed by a collective nodding of heads. And judging by the age of this crowd, a snooze was in order before heading back out on the lake again.
"Afraid so, Mr. Greensly. My pilot is waiting at the Buttermilk Falls landing strip. Not all of us are lucky enough to live out here" He glanced about the grounds and pictured himself sinking into one of Jared's big Adirondack chairs, drink in hand, waiting for the sun to drop off the horizon. And Lily would be there too.
Could he stay? No way, he reminded himself, Emma was counting the days.
"We're so glad you dropped by, Ethan," Marion chimed in, linking arms with her husband. "You said your good-byes to Lily while you two were in the kitchen?"
"Ahh ... yes. Lily mentioned the Friends of Loon Lake Association earlier. When," he asked, pulling out his day timer, "does the group meet again?"
Jared tipped back his Tilley and rubbed his brow for a second. "Normally tomorrow night, but it's canceled until Lily gets back from Toronto. She's got a meeting at the university. Handing in her research papers and trying to drum up support for her next project."
Lily in his town, his territory? His pulse quickened. Another chance to talk to Lily? Instantly, he decided against speaking to Jared about Osprey Island. Lily wouldn't appreciate being treated like a child or anything that smacked of manipulation.
He clicked the black case closed and pulled a small card from his breast pocket and directed Jared toward the toll-free number. "When you know the date of the next meeting, could you leave a message with my secretary, please?"
As he turned to leave he caught sight of Lily picking her way through a scattering of pinecones, a life jacket dangling from each hand. A breeze fanned strands of blond hair from her face and he thought she might be the prettiest woman he had ever seen.
Okay, here goes nothing. Encouraged by her faint smile he edged closer and cleared his throat.
"Lily," he blurted out, "fly away with me tonight." That didn't come out right. He was definitely losing his touch. Too much fresh air or something.
Jared and Marion's heads swiveled toward his voice. Apparently as comforted by Lily's look of horror as he was embarrassed, they crossed the porch and disappeared into the house.
"Ethan! You're back," Emma called out, the excitement of her twin brother's return spotting her cheeks with pink. She hurried across the condo's slate-tiled floor on her tiptoes and snuggled into his outstretched arms.
That's my Emma, Ethan thought with affection, always complaining about the cold floors but never remembering to wear her slippers. Her tousled hair brushed his chin and the familiar smell of his sister's apple blossom shampoo meant that he was home.
Man, it felt good to be back. "You were asleep when I got in last night, Em," Ethan said. "Told you I would be home today"
She drew him over to the dry-erase board that hung in the kitchen. "You were gone too long. Look at all the x's we put on the
calendar."
Thirty white squares, filled with tiny black lettering detailing his itinerary, allowed Miss Scott to locate him at a moment's notice. Heavy black lines obliterated the information. But he knew what he'd so confidently jotted in yesterday's spot: Purchase Osprey Island.
His grip tightened on his leather attache case where the offer lay undisturbed among his papers. Lily's polite refusal to fly to Toronto with him last night had left him with no opportunity to present it. And it was an excellent offer, he reminded himself, but timing was everything.
"I know I was gone too long, Emma. But soon we'll go there together. You'll love my new hotel. When you look out the windows you can see the lake and acres of trees, and when the sun rises it comes up all at once. A huge ball of sunlight that makes the lake sparkle. Like diamonds."
He suppressed the urge to tell her about Lily. And what was there to say, really? I met a fascinating woman who thinks I'm the bad guy, bent on destroying the environment-and her life.
Emma clapped her hands. "When can we go, Ethan?" She searched his face for an answer with chocolate-brown eyes that matched his own. "Please, can we go today?"
I shouldn't have said anything, he realized as guilt rolled through him. "Not today, Emma. I've got to go to the office right now. But we'll have our Friday night dinner out. I promise. Anywhere you want to go," Ethan said, edging toward the door.
"Mamma Mia's?" she responded immediately, predictably choosing their favorite Italian restaurant.
"It's a deal. See you later," he called out, knowing full well the odds of him returning before midnight were next to none. The reinforced steel door clicked shut, and he stood for a moment listening for the automatic locks.
Over the low hum of the rising elevator he heard Miss Scott's voice encouraging Emma to get ready for a walk in the park.
He reached for his stash of antacid tablets and popped one into his mouth. Dinner together a couple times a week didn't cut it-for him either.
He hitched his Armani suit's left sleeve and consulted his watch. 7:35 A.M. He stabbed "Lobby" again and dragged his focus to the first of his many meetings.
