Chapter One

      “To Dad,” Vivian Jackson said, lifting her glass of cheap wine as she looked beyond the dock to the blue waters of the North Carolina lake. “Peaceful sailing.”

      “Catch the big one,” her sister Temple said, lifting her glass.

      “To Dad,” her youngest sister, Jillian, said. “Drop that eight-point buck with one shot right between the eyes.”

      Vivian winced at the image but knew her father, Jedediah Jackson, the son of a son of a sailor, retired navy himself and hunter/fisher extraordinaire, would approve.

      Although Vivian had never quite thought she’d measured up to her father’s expectations, she felt a painful sense of loss. “I almost can’t believe he’s really gone. I expect him to come down that hill from the lodge with a bait box and two fishing poles, telling me not to be afraid of worms and insects and not to throw the pole in the water when I get a little bite on the line.”

      “He didn’t always know what to do with girls. I think he was hoping for a son,” Temple said.

      “I’m as close as he got,” Jillian said.

      Vivian couldn’t help but chuckle at her sister’s statement. With a bombshell body, bad-girl-red lips, smoky eyes and wild ways with men, platinum blonde Jilly had caused more than her share of their dear dad’s indigestion.

      “Not close at all,” Temple muttered and moved her glass of wine from one hand to the other. She cleared her throat. “I hate to be a mood-killer, but I think we all know what we need to do with the lodge.”

      Vivian felt a twinge of pain at giving up the lodge, even though it was the practical thing to do. “I didn’t think it would bother me,” she said, feeling a flood of memories rush through her. Staying with her father in the summers had meant she could get dirty without her mother becoming upset. Vivian had experienced her first crush here at Honeymoon Mountain Lake. The memory was more