Rescue at Cedar Lake

by Maggie K. Black

  Corey shrugged. “I’m just really sorry I didn’t get my life together fast enough to tell you about this a whole lot sooner.”

  “It’s okay. I forgive you.” She gave him a quick hug. “Better late than never.”

  * * *

  Theresa sat alone on a bench by the frozen water with the satchel of letters and cards. Behind her, chaos reigned. People in uniform seemed everywhere at once. Alex had been swept away from her and pulled into a conversation. Then she lost him completely to the crowd of uniforms. Through her work with Victim Services she’d been to enough crime scenes to know what happened next: the waiting, the questions, the interviews, the feeling like everyone had suddenly become a very important piece of a very important puzzle, but that it was also incredibly important not to say or do anything until those responsible for the scene decided what you needed to do. So until someone told her where to be, she was going to take a moment to sit quietly, thank God and breathe.

  The police had taken the videotape, but they’d seemed content to leave her with her cards. Carefully, she pulled the pile of envelopes out onto her lap and started to read. Her eyes misted with tears.

  Dear Theresa and Alex,

  If the past forty-eight years of marriage have taught us anything, it’s that the path is rarely straight and smooth. But it’s worth the struggle.

  All our love and prayers,

  John and Judith Patterson

  Two fifty-dollar bills were attached to the card.

  To Alex and Theresa,

  Heard the wedding was being postponed. Alex, your mom said it was best to take our gifts back and let you sort out what you were doing. Decided to keep the juicer. Here’s forty dollars to buy one of your own, or whatever else you guys are after. Not sure what’s going on with you, but hope you’re well. Remember, never go to bed angry and always say you’re sorry.

  Bob and Edith Wright

  She kept reading, note after note filled with prayers, best wishes and words of advice about marriage, love, life and trusting God. Something about them made her ache inside. She’d been so hurt when her family had lost the cottage at Cedar Lake, she’d felt like it was a community she’d been pushed out of. Now she saw just how eager they’d been to love her and Alex, and support them even if they didn’t know what was going on.

  Dear Theresa and Alex,

  This is one of the hardest notes I’ve ever had to write. As I write this, the sun is shining through the cottage window, sending sparkling light dancing over the lake, and the calendar tells me that today’s the day two of my favorite people were going to get married. My heart is sad. I can’t imagine what you two are going through today. Love is hard and painful sometimes.

  Alex: I was sixteen when I met your father, nineteen when I got pregnant with you, and twenty when I lost him. At the time I thought the pain would tear me apart from the inside out, and you, my tiny baby, were my lifeline. It took me years before I met Joe, and even more years before I was ready to admit I’d fallen in love again, and he became your stepfather and brought Zoe into our lives. I’m so thankful for you and so proud of the man you’ve grown up to be.

  Theresa: you are such a beautiful person inside and out, and I’m so glad God brought you into our lives and our family. When Alex told me he was going to ask you to marry him, I wasn’t in favor of it at first. You both seemed so young, so new to love and at such a crossroad in life. I didn’t think you were ready. I prayed every day that God would guide your hearts.

  I don’t know what to pray for today. But I love you both and I believe in you. I pray God will continue to guide you.

  If you need me, I am here for you. I will support you, both of you, whatever you choose.

  You are two strong, amazing, incredible people.

  I’m praying for you and I love you,

  Mom Dean

  Tears rolled down Theresa’s cheeks. The rustle of footsteps in the snow made her turn. She looked up. Alex was standing behind her. His eyes sparkled in the sun. His face was flushed with fatigue and exhaustion, but strength shone in his eyes.

  “The cottage community at Cedar Lake sent us notes and money after we called off the wedding.” She held some up. “I was just reading one from your mother. It’s beautiful.”

  She slid over. He sat beside her on the bench. He read the letter, then he opened the next one and they kept reading. They sat side by side, their shoulders touching, letters spread across their laps, looking at the remnants of the romance they’d once had.

  “I felt like I could never come back here,” she said softly. “Like everything had been ruined. I never imagined anyone here was rooting for us. I never dreamed I could come back. I thought I wasn’t wanted.”

  “You were always wanted.” Alex’s voice was gruff. “I’m just sorry I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  She looked over at him. Then looked down. Her engagement ring, the one he’d given to her so long ago, sat in his hand. He twisted it back and forth in his fingers. He raised the ring in his hands. The diamonds sparkled between his fingers. She felt her heart leap inside her with that same nervous excitement she’d had when he’d dropped to his knees and held it out to her.

  “Alex?” Her voice came out in a whisper as his name caught in her throat.

  “I never told you,” he said, “but you need to know now that I didn’t have the money to buy this ring back then. It was way out of my budget. But it was the most beautiful one I’d ever seen, and you were so amazing and so out of my league that I didn’t stop myself. So I got a credit card, one of those ones with ridiculously high interest rates, and I maxed it out. So that I could give this to you. Because you deserved the best. You deserved everything. When your dad saw it, he guessed what I’d done. He challenged me on it and told me I shouldn’t start a marriage in financial trouble, with a debt like that hanging over me. So he offered to give me cash to cover it. I said I’d pay him back.”

  He closed his fingers over the ring. It disappeared from the light. “So I’m going to do the right thing now, sell the ring and pay back my debt to your father. I never should’ve been irresponsible like that. Your parents were in financial trouble, I owed your dad money, this ring had been my gift to you, but I childishly threw it into a corner of the boathouse.” He shook his head. He let out a long breath. “I might have loved you with everything I had in me, but I wasn’t ready to be the kind of man you needed me to be.”

  “I wasn’t ready, either,” she said. “Neither of us were. And I’m sorry I pushed you to be someone different than the man you were so obviously meant to be.”

  When she was younger she’d thought she’d needed a man to be strong for her, because she doubted her ability to be strong for herself. Now she knew she could be strong. She wanted someone to be strong with. And here he was, everything she had wanted, and more than she’d ever hoped to find when she’d first fallen for him on these shores all those many years ago.

  She slid the letters and cards back into the envelopes. “I don’t know what my dad will say, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to hear from you.”

  “I’m sorry I hurt you,” Alex said.

  She smiled. He smiled back.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you, too,” she said.

  His arms slid around her shoulders. She curled into his chest. He hugged her deeply. And for a moment it felt like every broken piece that had been rattling around inside her heart finally settled and clicked back into place.

  “Ms. Theresa Vaughan?” A voice called her name. She turned. An officer was standing behind her.

  “One moment.” She waved at the officer over her shoulder. Then she handed the satchel of letters to Alex. “Can you talk to your parents about this? Tell them we found it. There’s a couple thousand dollars in there. It feels wrong to keep it.”

  “I will take care of it.” He to
ok the satchel from her hands. They stood. She knew how this went and what happened next. They both had things to do. In mere moments they’d lose each other in the chaos again.

  She took one last look at him, memorizing the rugged lines of his face.

  “Thank you,” she said. “Hopefully, I’ll see you again before we head home to Toronto. But if not, give me a call. It would be great to grab coffee and catch up.”

  She turned to go.

  “Theresa, wait.” His hand grabbed hers. She turned back. “I know I wasn’t everything you needed and everything you deserved. But I never stopped loving you.”

  “I never stopped loving you, either.” Tears filled her eyes. “You were all I ever wanted, and I’m so happy to see the person you’ve become.”

  Alex pulled her into his arms. She felt his mouth on hers. He kissed her deeply. Her body melted into his and in that moment she knew without a doubt that she was finally back where she belonged. The kiss ended, but still he didn’t let her go.

  “Can we start over again?” he asked. His hands rested on the small of her back. His intense gaze focused on her face. “I know now that I never should’ve given up on us.”

  “Yes.” She smiled and felt tears of happiness slip down her cheeks. “I’ll never give up on us again.”

  He kissed her tears away. “Neither will I.”

  EPILOGUE

  Bright spring sun shone through the front window of the windshield of Theresa’s car as she navigated it up the narrow highway to Cedar Lake. The last streams of melting snow ran down the rocks in rivulets and sparkled in the morning sunlight. Rivers pulsed and surged.

  Winter had ended. Spring was here.

  A small, handwritten note sat on her dashboard, with cryptic symbols and hints telling her where to go. It had been sitting in her mailbox at work when she’d left the night before, and the familiar scrawl had sent chills spilling down her spine. She and Alex had had several long conversations over coffees and dinners, and on the phone deep into the night, in the weeks since the terrifying time they’d spent in the storm at Cedar Lake.

  Tanner had pled guilty and cut a deal to testify against Emmett, who’d been threatening and blackmailing him for months. Emmett and Kyle had turned on each other, in a hurry to testify against each other. Brick and Howler’s bodies had been retrieved, and she’d attended both their funerals. Corey wasn’t going to be prosecuted for his role in hiding the videotape of the arson, which Theresa’s parents were now using to file a fresh case against the insurance company.

  As for her old engagement ring, true to his word, Alex had sold it and taken the money to her father. She didn’t know how that conversation had gone. But she trusted him completely. Once she’d fallen in love with the kernel of what she’d thought he could be. Now the full grown man he’d become took her breath away.

  Her eyes rose to the clock on the dashboard. The cryptic letter had told her to be at the coordinates in ten minutes’ time. She was almost there. Her heart lifted in thankful prayer to God, as her car turned and twisted down the familiar road. Past the Patterson family’s cottage. Past her old cottage. Past Joshua’s cottage, where her hope chest had been. Past the Dean family’s cottage. Past all the cottages that dotted Cedar Lake and onto the rugged, unpaved track. A question burned in her heart. Where was Alex directing her?

  The road ended. She pulled to a stop, slid the note into her pocket and stepped out of the car.

  A rough path lay ahead of her in the woods, but it was decked with flowers tied onto the trees.

  A curious smile curled at the corners of her lips. She tossed her scarf around her neck, slid her hands deep into the pockets of her spring jacket and followed them. The path wove through the woods. Then the trees parted. The beautiful sparkling blue of Cedar Lake spread out beneath her.

  In front of it stood Alex.

  His mouth turned up in a crooked grin that sent shivers down her spine. Sunlight shone down on the strong lines of his form. A smile illuminated his face as her eyes met his.

  “What is this?” she asked. “Where are we?”

  “Our own piece of Cedar Lake.” His arms spread wide, taking in the untamed woods pressing in on either side and the glittering lake beyond. “It was owned by the Pattersons. But I spoke to them this week. They’re willing to let us buy it to build our own cottage. Your parents gave me their blessing to use the money from the ring as the deposit. The rest I made up from my savings, plus the money in the envelopes. I’ve spoken to every family who gave us money for the wedding, and they’re all on board with us adding a twelfth cottage to the lake. If we want.” His voice dropped. “If this is what you want.”

  If this was what she wanted? If she wanted her own piece of Cedar Lake? If she wanted to share it with Alex? Was this some kind of dream? “It would be ours?”

  “Ours.” He stepped toward her and took her hands. “Yours and mine. Our own cottage on the lake, built together, with our own hands and our own design, to spend our summers in as a family whenever it’s done, whenever we’re ready to take that step.”

  Alex knelt on the rock. His fingers opened. There sat a ring, a simple band of gold flecked with three small diamonds.

  “It will take months to develop this property into something livable and build a cottage here,” he said. “This is a long-term project. And it will take us time, too, to build the kind of strong foundation to our relationship that I know we both want it to have. But I love you, Theresa. I always have and I always will. You are worth waiting for. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes!” Happiness leaped in her heart and danced in her eyes. “Yes, I will marry you. Yes, I will build my future with you.”

  “You said yes?” Joy filled his eyes.

  “I said yes!”

  Then, before he could ask again, she grabbed his hands and pulled him up. He slid the ring onto her finger. Her lips met his. Then his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her up off her feet and into his embrace.

  They kissed again, with the promise of forever, on the edge of Cedar Lake.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from PERILOUS HOMECOMING by Sarah Varland.

  If you enjoyed RESCUE AT CEDAR LAKE, look for these other books by Maggie K. Black:

  KIDNAPPED AT CHRISTMAS

  TACTICAL RESCUE

  HEADLINE: MURDER

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  Dear Reader,

  Ever since I was a teenager, my favorite author has been Madeleine L’Engle. When I was just starting out as a writer, I drove to Illinois to visit her archives at Wheaton College. There I sat in a beautiful book-lined room and read through the earliest drafts of my favorite novels, with their typewriter smudges and editorial lines. She was the first author I ever read whose characters crossed between books, with their lives unfolding in other people’s stories.

  When I wrote Alex and Theresa into Kidnapped at Christmas, I just knew I had to continue their story and help them find their happily-ever-after.

  I should add a quick thank-you to the Taylor family for letting me rent their cottage in the summer, which formed the inspiration for this story. The Cedar Lake in this book is entirely fictional, though, and not inspired by any one of over a dozen Cedar Lakes that do exist in Ontario. Thank you also to all of you who’ve posted reviews of my past books and written to me with your thoughts and comments. As always, you can find me online at www.maggiekblack.com or on Twitter at @maggiekblack.

  Thank you for sharing the journey,

  Maggie Black

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  Perilous Homecoming

  by Sarah Varland

  ONE

  Kelsey Jackson felt the way she always did at the first rumbles of thunder on a too-hot day during tornado season. The electricity in the air was almost palpable, but not in a good way. Everything about being here tonight in this stifling room gave her one of the deepest senses of foreboding she’d ever felt. But tonight was too important for her career to let all that stop her, and Kelsey was Southern, born and bred—she could put on a fake smile, laugh lightly and be pleasant, even to her worst enemy, when the occasion called for it.

  That was exactly what she was going to do tonight. No, these people weren’t exactly her enemies, but they certainly weren’t friends, not after they had all turned their backs on her when she left the police force and the town under a cloud of undeserved suspicion.