Summer on Firefly Lake

by Jen Gilroy

  Nick’s dark brows shot up. “Mom’s always looked after herself. She’s fine. She doesn’t want me to hire anyone but you.” He laughed without humor.

  “Did she say so?” Mia had managed to avoid Nick when he’d come by to see Gabrielle, but tonight, when he’d dropped by Charlie and Sean’s place to talk to Sean about a Rotary Club golf tournament and stayed for dinner, she couldn’t avoid him any longer.

  “Of course not.” He gave her a tired look. “But I know my mother. She’ll be fine once she’s settled into the bungalow. Everything new and convenient, no stairs and an attached garage so she doesn’t have to go outside to get to her car in the winter. It’s perfect.”

  Mia got to her feet to put distance between them. Since she’d moved to Firefly Lake, Nick unsettled her in a way she didn’t want to be unsettled. A way that was more than friendly. “I understand, but maybe your mom doesn’t want new and convenient. Or perfect.”

  The unhappiness and loss in Gabrielle’s eyes when she talked about leaving Harbor House were stamped on Mia’s heart.

  “She has to want it. I can’t have Mom living in that big house alone. She’s fragile and…” Nick’s voice cracked, and he coughed before he joined Mia at the railing that encircled the wooden deck.

  Below, a sandy path curved toward the lake and Carmichael’s marina and boat yard, the family business Sean ran. Crickets chirped, and the wind whispered in the pine trees.

  Mia looked at Nick in the half darkness. “What is it?”

  “You lost your mom, so you know what it’s like. I’m not ready to lose mine. I can’t.” He clenched the railing. “After her surgery and chemo and…”

  “You’re never ready to lose your mom. You can’t control whether it’s her time, either.” Mia covered his hands with one of hers, and her fingers tingled with the warmth of his skin. “But Gabrielle’s doing great. I only want to help her get better and better.”

  “I know.” He took his hands away and turned toward the lake. “What I need you to understand is Mom’s been through a lot, and Harbor House is way too much for her to handle. My sisters agree.”

  Mia linked her hands behind her back. The way he’d pulled away from her said it all. Nick wasn’t interested in her as a woman, but why didn’t she feel more relieved?

  “Hi, Mrs. Connell, Nick.” The voice came from the path below, and the name Mia had answered to for almost seventeen years was all of a sudden wrong. Like the pair of pointy black shoes that pinched, but she’d kept anyway and squeezed her feet into for all those black-tie dinners her ex had insisted they attend.

  “Ty.” She fixed her face into a smile. “Call me Mia.”

  “Okay.” Sean’s sixteen-year-old son, Charlie’s stepson, smiled back and his sun-bronzed face reddened.

  “Hey, Ty.” Nick’s voice rumbled beside Mia.

  “Are Dad and Charlie in the house?” The setting sun glinted off Ty’s blond hair, and his blue eyes were honest and open.

  “In the kitchen,” Mia said. “Charlie saved dinner for you, unless you want dessert first.”

  “Cool.” Ty’s smile widened. “You hear from Naomi today?” He dug the toe of his sneaker into the sandy path.

  “She called me this morning. I talked to her and Emma both.” And there’d been a note in her daughters’ voices that had worried Mia, even though she couldn’t pinpoint what it was or why it made her uneasy. “She said her dad was taking them to a waterpark today.”

  “Yeah, she told me. We FaceTimed last night.” Ty hesitated. “You think she’s okay? She sounded, I don’t know, sad, I guess. She looked sad. Not like her. She’s not real excited about her birthday, either.” The flush on his face deepened as he came up the steps and joined Nick and Mia on the deck.

  Shadow, Sean and Charlie’s black lab, followed at his heels.

  “I’m sure Naomi’s fine.” Mia tried to make herself believe it.

  Naomi’s sixteenth birthday was in three days, and Mia would experience it via FaceTime. She wouldn’t be there to bake Naomi a cake or do anything else to make it a special day for her daughter to cherish. A lump lodged in her throat.

  Jay had laughed off her worries and said Naomi was a teenage girl, and all teenage girls were moody. Except, her ex had never spent enough time with Naomi to know what she thought or felt, moody or not.

  “Of course the girls are fine,” Nick said. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

  Mia guessed he meant to reassure her, but how could he know? He’d never had kids, whereas her daughters were her whole life and Emma was only eight, too little to be away from her mom. “Naomi sent me some pictures.” She dug in the pocket of her sundress for her phone. “See?”

  Ty took the phone and stared at the screen. The longing in his eyes tugged at Mia’s heart. Naomi was almost grown up, and Mia wasn’t ready for it. She wasn’t ready for her daughter to get more serious about Ty than she already was, either.

  “Naomi’s still going to the high school here, isn’t she?” Ty handed Mia the phone.

  Shadow nosed at her shoes and Mia scooted backward.

  “That’s the plan.”

  After a lifetime of living by plans and schedules, that was Mia’s only fixed plan. There was no way she’d break up her family and send Naomi to that Connecticut boarding school Jay insisted would do her good and prepare her for college.

  Ty’s ready smile spread across his face. “She’ll make friends in no time.”

  Mia’s stomach knotted. Ty and her daughter were already friends, more than friends, despite what they both wanted her to think.

  “Hey, Shadow.” Nick whistled and the dog ambled away from Mia’s feet. “You know she likes shoes.”

  “Not my Jimmy Choos.” She gave him a half smile. “Another reason I prefer cats.”

  “Cats claw furniture.” Nick tossed a battered slipper to the dog.

  “No cat of mine would.” Mia moved back to the chair, sat, and tucked her feet under it.

  Nick’s deep laugh rang out. “Haven’t you learned you can’t control everything?”

  Yeah, she had, over and over again. Instead, she gave him her perkiest smile. “Wise words you might want to think about.”

  “Okay, I’ve got chocolate and vanilla cupcakes and ice cream.” Charlie came through the patio door from the house, followed by Sean with a tray. “And watermelon for Mia.” She put a bowl of fruit by Mia’s place. “I even used that scoop you gave me because you like fruit cut like Mom did.”

  “Thanks.” Mia’s vision blurred.

  She picked up her fork and moved the pieces of fruit around in the bowl. Across the table, Charlie and Sean talked to Ty about his day at work, their plans for Charlie’s birthday, the same day as Naomi’s, and when his mom, stepdad, and two stepsisters would be back from vacation. The three of them were a family her sister had blended with patience, kindness, and a whole lot of love.

  Mia chewed and swallowed a watermelon ball, the fruit tasteless in her mouth. She stole a glance at Nick and shoved the bowl away. “What kind of ice cream do you have, Charlie? If there’s enough to go around, I’d like a cupcake too.”

  “You what?” Her sister stopped midsentence, her mouth half open in surprise. “Except at birthdays and Christmas, you never eat ice cream or cake.”

  “Maybe it’s time for me to make some changes.” In the flickering light cast by the candle lantern on the middle of the table, Nick’s gaze caught Mia’s and held. Her heart pounded and she looked away.

  “There’s strawberry, vanilla, chocolate, maple walnut, and tiger tail.” Charlie counted the ice cream flavors on her fingers. “There are plenty of cupcakes. I feed a growing boy, remember?” She grinned at Ty.

  “Tiger tail ice cream from Simard’s Creamery?”

  “The same and your favorite.” Charlie took the ice cream scoop and another bowl from Sean. “I got tiger tail for Emma, but all she wanted was chocolate.”

  “I’ll have two scoops.” Back when Mia was Emma’s age, the orange
ice cream with the black licorice ripple was one of the few good things about coming to Firefly Lake every summer. She’d looked forward to it all winter in Montreal, and then in Boston after they’d moved there when her dad got a job at Massachusetts General.

  Her mouth watered as she picked up her spoon again. She didn’t have to answer to Jay anymore. She didn’t have to starve herself to stay the size her ex-husband wanted her to be. The size she’d been before she’d had two children. When she’d walked those endless runways to claim the crown for the prettiest girl and the one with the best smile. The one who’d hidden what she thought and felt. The girl all the other girls wanted to be.

  She looked back at Nick, and the edges of his smile warmed her. He raised his spoon in mock salute and her face got hot.

  She dug into the ice cream Charlie set in front of her and savored the sweetness as the coldness trickled down the back of her throat.

  “Tiger tail ice cream, huh?” Nick’s blue eyes had a teasing glint that catapulted her back to adolescence. “You always say you don’t remember much about Firefly Lake, but I guess there’s at least one thing you didn’t forget.”

  Shadowy memories of the girl and boy she and Nick had once been tugged at the edge of Mia’s consciousness. She dipped her head, thankful for the darkness to hide her face. She remembered all right. Remembered more than the ice cream, and enough to wonder if she’d played it safe too long. And what her life might be like if she loosened a few of those controls.

  Chapter Three

  Nick stole a glance at Mia in the passenger seat of his Lexus. Even before she’d dug into the ice cream with a passion that surprised him, he’d kidded himself. He wanted her. Once she’d have been the kind of woman he could get serious about. Except, after his ex-wife he didn’t do serious.

  “You didn’t have to drive me back to town. Sean would have taken me home.” Etched by moonlight, her profile was sculpted like a marble angel he’d seen at a church in Rome.

  “Sure he would, but he picked you up because he was already in town. He doesn’t want to leave Charlie unless he has to, even for half an hour.” He put the car in gear and they bumped along Sean’s rutted driveway. “Mom’s place is on my way.”

  “Thank you.” Her voice was cool. Like he’d imagined the heart-stopping look they’d shared on the deck. “Your mom said I could borrow her car while mine’s in the shop, but she had plans tonight.”

  Nick braked at the junction with the main road. “What kind of plans?” It wasn’t her garden club night, and her book club and sketch group didn’t meet in the summer. When he’d seen her earlier, she hadn’t mentioned anything about going out.

  “Maybe you should ask her.” Mia looked away, but not before Nick glimpsed a wariness in her expression that put his internal radar on alert.

  “Is there something you haven’t told me?” He signaled left and pulled onto the two-lane highway. A single yellow line divided it in the middle, and tall pines marched along both sides like sentinels.

  “Gabrielle met a friend for dinner.” Mia’s tone chilled several degrees further. “I didn’t think she had to ask your permission to go out.”

  “Of course she doesn’t.” Nick exhaled. He’d overreacted. His mom had lots of friends. It was good she was getting out of the house and having fun. He wanted her to get back the life the cancer had almost taken away. “I worry about her, but maybe I’m being a controlling jerk.”

  “You said it, not me.” Mia’s tone turned warm and amused. “I agree with you as a friend, of course.”

  But thinking of her as a friend was going nowhere fast. He slowed the car and searched for a gap between the dark trees. Maybe he was going about this situation all wrong. He needed to think about Mia like she was one of his sisters, or the women he worked with. Except, every time he looked at her, his feelings were far from brotherly. Or collegial.

  She inclined her head toward him. “Where are we going?”

  “Where does it look like?” Even though he’d promised himself he’d take her straight back to town, he turned left again into another rutted driveway where white lights twined around the fence posts illuminated a small wooden sign.

  “Nick.” Her breath hitched. “I spent too many summers here. Unhappy summers. Charlie loved this cottage. I didn’t.”

  “It isn’t the Gibbs cottage anymore. It’s Camp Rainbow. You did all the work to organize a summer camp so kids who need some good times have a place to make happy memories. Apart from the ribbon cutting, though, you’ve never been out here. Don’t you think your mom would be proud of what you accomplished?”

  She bit her bottom lip. “You and Charlie helped me.”

  “A camp for underprivileged kids was Charlie’s idea, but you’re the one who made it happen. Charlie was busy with her wedding and her new job at the Associated Press in Boston. Then she got pregnant, and you’d think nobody ever had a baby before the way Sean carries on.”

  “He loves her. Charlie is Sean’s whole world. The baby is too. At any age, a pregnancy is a blessing, but at hers it’s extra special. Sean worries because things can go wrong.”

  “Charlie will be fine. Didn’t she tell us tonight the doctor said her pregnancy was textbook normal? You should give yourself credit. You did the work to make the cottage property into Camp Rainbow. Charlie and I only pushed papers around.”

  “Important papers.” But there was a smile and sense of purpose in Mia’s voice.

  At the end of the driveway, Nick pulled into a parking space beside the white, two-story clapboard cottage and cut the engine. Faint piano music and a chorus of crickets and frogs broke the quiet of the night.

  This spur-of-the-moment detour was for her. Not because he wanted an excuse to spend more time with her. “Ten minutes. You can do ten minutes. Go inside, say hi, and I’ll have you back at Mom’s place in half an hour.”

  Her smile hit him full force. “Did anybody ever tell you you’re pushy?” She unclipped her seat belt and slid the car door open while he was still blindsided by that smile, the way it changed her face and wiped away the sadness he’d grown used to seeing there. How it wiped away the mask she usually wore to keep the world at a distance.

  “All the time.” He got out of the car to join her and tried to smile back, even though the ground had dropped from under his feet. “It’s one of the reasons I’m a good attorney.”

  His work meant everything to him. It defined who and what he was. No longer the out-of-control kid, Brian McGuire’s son following in his old man’s footsteps. He might be a lawyer like his dad, but he’d forged his own path, an honest one.

  Mia stumbled on the rough ground, and he reached out to steady her. She let go of him like she’d been burned and turned toward the original summer cottage, which had been converted into the camp’s offices and recreational hall. “It sounds like a singsong in there.” Her voice was brittle and the mask was back on her face.

  Guilt sliced through him, hot and sharp. “You don’t have to do this. Not if it reminds you of your mom and when you were a kid.”

  This wasn’t work. This was Mia. And as a guy who had a black belt in avoidance, he got where she might be coming from. “Say the word and I’ll take you back to town.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I?” She moved around the building, and her white dress with red flowers gleamed in the darkness. “Besides, like you said, it’s not the Gibbs place anymore. It’s Camp Rainbow. Mom and Dad are gone. Charlie and I are adults with families of our own.”

  He stopped at the foot of the steps. An out-of-tune rendition of “On Top of Old Smokey” came from inside. A lot of things had changed since he was a kid, but camp songs weren’t one of them.

  “That music sucks.”

  The voice came from Nick’s right. A girl of around eleven sat on the porch swing. Her feet hit the porch floor with a rhythmic thump.

  “You think so?”

  “It’s so sucky it couldn’t be suckier.” The girl hunched into a purple hoodie. H
er light hair was half hidden by a ball cap worn backward.

  Nick glanced at a red-haired woman who poked her head through the half-open window behind the kid. One of the camp leaders he’d interviewed smiled at him before she disappeared back into the cottage.

  “What would you like to sing?” Mia leaned against the porch rail and looked at the girl like she cared about the answer.

  “Whatever.” The kid gave an elaborate shrug and made a face. The kind of “fuck you” face Nick remembered on young offenders back when he was in law school and did legal aid work one summer. The face he’d worn pretty much permanently between the ages of twelve and seventeen.

  “I’m Mia and this is Nick.” Mia gave the girl a warm smile. “We helped set up this camp. When I was your age, I used to spend summers here with my mom and dad and my sister. Back then it wasn’t a camp. This recreation hall was our cottage.”

  “Lucky you.” The girl’s sarcasm was worthy of a Hollywood diva. She tugged on her hat, and a clump of blond hair tumbled over one eye. Painted purple, her nails matched her hoodie, and her nose sported a small silver stud.

  “Not so lucky me. I hated it here.” Mia tapped one high-heeled sandal on the porch floor. Her legs were long and toned. Legs Nick had found himself thinking about in lots of inappropriate ways. Like wrapped around his waist in the middle of his king-size bed.

  “You did?” The kid looked up and shoved her hair away. Her green eyes, like a cat’s, glinted in the moonlight.

  “My sister loved it here, but I didn’t. I couldn’t wait to get back to the city.” She smiled at the girl again, who gave her a tentative smile back. “I was stuck here for almost three months, every year from when I was a baby until my late teens. You’re here for three weeks, right?”