Still Lake. Anne Stuart
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be gone. With or without the answers he needed. “Thanks for the muffins.” It was a curt dismissal, one she couldn’t fail to notice.
Her smile was brittle. “Anytime,” she said, turning her back on him and heading off his porch, out of his life. Her flowered skirts flounced in the breeze.
He sat back down in his chair, watching her go, and his eyes narrowed. He didn’t trust her, but then, he wasn’t in the habit of trusting anyone. No one could be that squeaky clean. She said they’d been working on the place for months. What kind of secrets had she uncovered? What had she obliterated? He’d waited too damned long to face his past. He wasn’t going to wait any longer, and no pink-and-pretty hausfrau was going to get in his way. No matter how tempting she was.
“Bastard,” Sophie muttered beneath her breath, making her way through the overgrown path to the inn. There was nothing worse than a good-looking bastard in the bargain. Sophie had to admit Marge was right about that. He was tall, with the rangy kind of body she’d always found particularly appealing in men. His features were interesting rather than pretty—a bony nose, high cheekbones and a strong chin gave him the look of an ancient Roman bust. He was about as animated. His eyes were dark behind the wire-rimmed glasses, and his mouth would have been sexy if it had been employed in something other than a frown. His hair was too long—a tangle of gray-streaked dark curls, and he had the personality of a python.
There was a watchful stillness about him that made her nervous, and she’d never been the paranoid type. But she couldn’t rid herself of the notion that John Smith was looking for trouble.
It was just as well he was unfriendly, because when it came to good-looking men Marty didn’t particularly care about age differences. She’d probably take one look at Mr. Smith’s elegant, classical face and fall madly in love. Sophie could only hope he was equally unwelcoming to Marty.
In the best of all possible worlds he’d provide enough distraction for Marty to cheer up. She was still mourning the loss of her latest boyfriend, an unpleasantly tattooed young man known as “Snake,” and so far her seclusion at the north end of the lake had kept her away from any possible substitutes. Sophie wasn’t naive enough to think country boys were any safer than city boys, but if Marty developed a harmless crush on their unwelcoming new neighbor it might manage to keep her energized and out of trouble.
Assuming Mr. Smith would be just as unwelcoming to a nubile young woman as he was to her.
Sophie had no delusions about her own charms. She was nothing above ordinary—average height, average weight verging dangerously toward plumpness, average features, ordinary hair. She’d never been one to inflame men’s passions, and given Mr. Smith’s reaction, that wasn’t about to change. Which was fine with her—right now she was far too busy with the inn and her motley family to be distracted by an unfriendly stranger with the face of a renaissance angel. She’d done her duty, baked him muffins, and with any luck she wouldn’t have to see him again. The solitude of the Whitten place and the stories about the murders would drive him away, fast.
There was no sign of Marty when she got back to the inn, though she could hear the muffled thump of music Marty seemed to prefer. At least she was keeping the volume down so the tender musings of Limp Bizkit and company didn’t spew out over the tranquillity of the lake.
Grace was sitting in her room, rocking back and forth in the old wicker chair, that too-familiar vacant expression on her face, and a new wave of guilt assailed Sophie. Her mother’s deterioration had been rapid once they’d come to Vermont—she’d even stopped reading her beloved true-crime books. They lay piled in the corner, heaped on tables, and not even the newest, most gruesome entries into the field could entice Grace’s once-avid mind. She simply sat and rocked, a sweet smile on her face, looking decades older than her actual years.
“You didn’t eat much,” Sophie said, taking a seat beside her.
Grace turned to look at her. “I wasn’t hungry, love. You shouldn’t worry so much about me—I’m fine.”
“Did you take your medicine? I bought you some ginkgo biloba that’s supposed to help with memory.”
“What’s wrong with my memory?” Grace asked.
Sophie bit her lip in frustration. “You’ve just been more forgetful recently.”
“Maybe some things are better off forgotten,” Grace murmured. “Now, don’t you worry about me, Sophie. I hear there’s a gorgeous young man down at the Whitten place. You should be thinking about him.”
Her mother never failed to surprise her. “How did you hear about him?”
“Oh, there’s not much I don’t know about this place, even if it seems like I’m not paying attention,” Grace said. “So why don’t you put on something sexy and go welcome him to the neighborhood?”
“I already did. I just came back. I have to tell you he wasn’t particularly pleased to see me.”
Grace’s eyes were surprisingly critical. “You consider that something sexy?”
Sophie glanced down at her flowered skirt. “I didn’t say I was going to wear something sexy—that was your idea. It’s not my particular style, anyway. I like flowery, flowing stuff.”
Grace shook her head despairingly. “You’ll never get a husband that way.”
“Who says I want a husband?” Sophie replied. “You didn’t enjoy yours much while you had him.”
“You and I are very different, Sophie. You need a good-looking man to distract you from being so damned responsible all the time. You need to fall so much in love that you stop behaving yourself and go a little wild. You need children so you stop fussing over me and Marty. We’ll be just fine.”
“I’m not in any hurry,” Sophie said, trying not to sound defensive.
“Dearie,” Grace murmured in her soft, sweet voice. “You need to get laid.”
Sophie tried to stifle her shocked laugh. Not that Grace had ever been shy about passion. She’d always been a free spirit, and during her years of travel she’d always been with one man or another. But with Gracey a ghost of her former vibrant self, the earthy suggestion sounded ludicrous.
“As you said, you and I are very different, Mama. I tend to keep my…libido under control.”
“Straight-jacketed is more like it,” Grace said with a sniff. “Are you so sure you know what you’re doing?” She sounded surprisingly sharp.
“What do you mean? Doing without sex?”
“This course you’ve set your life on. You’re not even thirty years old and you’ve moved to the back end of beyond to work like a dog on this old place. There are no eligible men around, no movies, no bookstores, nothing to do but work on this old house and take care of your family. Don’t you deserve a better life than that?”
“There aren’t any eligible men in New York—they’re all either gay or married,” Sophie said. “And I think this is a very nice life, indeed. I want to take care of you, Mama.”
Grace shook her head. “I’m sixty years old, Sophie. I don’t need taking care of. I think you should sell this place,” she said. “Go find your own life.”
“I wouldn’t find a buyer—not at this point. Once I prove it’s a going concern then maybe people would want to buy it, but right now I’m afraid we’re stuck.”
Grace’s expression changed, slowly, as if a veil was being pulled over her mind. “Of course, love,” she murmured in that vague tone. “Whatever you think is best.”
Whatever you think is best. The words echoed in Sophie’s ears as she wandered out onto the wide front porch. The moon had risen over the lake, and the night was clear and cool. The overstuffed, refurbished glider sat in one corner, beckoning her, and she wanted to go and curl up on it, tuck her