Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 (26 page)

“Take him skating on the lake.”

“Okay, that covers the first hour. Then what?”

“You don't have to
do
anything.” Gayle bent down and fixed Mandy's mitten, which had come untucked from her sleeve. “Just be with him, the way you were when he was little.”

Sophie swallowed hard. “I can't say for sure that I ever did that.”

“Of course you did. You probably don't remember.”

Sophie didn't argue, but neither did she agree. When Max was little, she'd been busy rushing off from one place to another.

“Take him to see Noah,” Gayle suggested.

Just hearing Noah's name caused Sophie to have an unbidden reaction. She was glad for the cold air, which concealed her blush. “People take their Weimaraners to see Noah,” she said. “Not their bored sons.”

“Noah would like it. He's crazy about kids.”

Sophie wondered if Gayle suspected…no, not possible. No one knew. No one would ever know. “He's probably too busy,” she hedged. Even though Noah himself had extended an invitation last night, she suspected he'd done so out of politeness.

“Not on a Saturday,” Gayle said. “He doesn't have clinic hours on Saturdays.”

Sophie offered a noncommittal shrug. “I might, then.”

“Mo-om,” yelled Henry, her eldest. “Come and see my tunnel before Bear wrecks it.”

Sophie stomped her feet on the ground to keep them from going numb. “I'd better go. I work up a sweat when I run, but I get too cold standing still.”

“Give Noah a shot—I think he and Max would hit it off,” Gayle said, never knowing—Sophie hoped—that her suggestion held an extra layer of meaning.

“So who is this guy again?” Max asked in a skeptical voice.

“Noah Shepherd. Dr. Noah Shepherd. You met him that one time at the Apple Tree Inn,” Sophie said matter-of-factly. She checked herself in the hall tree mirror by the door. After a shower, she felt wonderful, but her fine straight hair had a mind of its own. She pulled on a wool beanie, then changed her mind and tried the black beret. No, too affected. She picked up a quilted cloche. That was a little better, casual and functional, very un-Bergdorf's.

She was taking great pains to make sure this appeared to be the most informal of visits. She wore makeup every day, didn't she? And the fact that the jeans and sweater were brand-new didn't mean anything. Half her wardrobe was new, acquired to help her adapt to the climate in Avalon. The fact that she looked good in the formfitting parka—all right. She had her vanity. Every woman did.

“And you, like, have a crush on him?” Max asked.

She whirled around to stare at him. Dear Lord. She wondered if this was just a stab in the dark on Max's part or if there was some kind of visible glow of attraction so obvious that even a young boy could see it. She felt compelled to play dumb. “Now you're being silly,” she said. “Not to mention inappropriate. Why on earth would you say something like that?”

“Lipstick,” he said.

“I always wear lipstick.”

“I still don't want to go see your neighbor. You sure you don't—”

“I do not,” she said. “Heavens, are all boys your age so suspicious?”

Max shrugged.

“For the record, Noah was very helpful when I first got here in the middle of the last big snowfall. And he has a very interesting animal hospital and I simply think you'd enjoy seeing that.”

“Gosh, just like a field trip,” he said with phony enthusiasm. “I love field trips. It'll be exactly like school, but on a Saturday.”

Sophie glared at him. “When did you turn into such a cynic?”

“When did you turn into robo-mom?”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Robo-mom, with the hot chocolate, the car pool and sloppy joes and movie night.”

“I'm not a robot,” she told him, “because I have feelings.”

“And I'm not a cynic,” he shot back, “because I have feelings, too.”

They glared at each other for a long moment.

“If you hate it at Noah's, we'll come right back,” she said, opening the negotiation.

“Too awkward,” he countered. “Once I'm there, I'm trapped like a rat.”

“He's got a puppy,” she said.

That startled him. “What do you mean?”

“Noah. A puppy. As in, a tiny baby dog that wants to play and lick your face, and make you laugh for absolutely no reason.”

“The guy has a puppy?” Max grabbed his boots, stuffing his feet into them as fast as he could. “Jeez, why didn't you say so?”

“I didn't want to have to play the puppy card.” Sophie smiled as she followed him out into the bright winter morning. It was almost like cheating.

As Max loped up the driveway and crossed the road, she found herself wondering where the years had gone. Her son, whom she thought of as a little boy, was growing at a crazy rate. He was big and strong and athletic, and from behind, he looked almost manly.

He slowed down to wait for her at Noah's driveway. Someone had dug out around a painted wooden sign that read “Shepherd Animal Hospital.”

Sophie wondered if she should have called first. Her gloved hand touched the phone in her pocket. No, if she called, that would seem too deliberate. Too calculated. And even though he'd extended an invitation the previous night, Noah might feel as though he had to treat them like company.

It was better to just casually drop by, she decided. Neighborly. She was learning to be neighborly.

She only hoped she could stand being in the same room with Noah and refrain from jumping his bones.

As she and Max approached the house, Sophie studied the way it crowned the brow of the hill, its largest windows oriented directly at the view of the lake. At one time, she guessed long ago, this had been the only house in the vicinity. Other than going to college and then vet school at Cornell, this was the only place Noah had ever lived. She wondered if he would always live here. If he would die here. She wondered if that gave him a feeling of satisfaction, of belonging and continuity…or if it felt impossibly stultifying and made him want to gnaw off a limb to escape.

“Hello,” she called out when they reached the front porch. “Anybody home?”

This was no big deal, she reminded herself as she knocked at the door. He was a neighbor. She knocked again, and was immediately inundated with misgivings. She should have called first. It was bad form to just show up and—

“Just a second,” she heard him call.

There was some barking from Rudy and high-pitched yaps from Opal.

“Dogs,” said Max, his facing lighting up. “Those must be his dogs.”

“Did you think I was making it up? Like I told you, he's a vet. Of course he has dogs.”

Noah was half-naked when he answered the door. He wore running shorts and shoes, a white towel around his neck. He was glistening with sweat and grinning at her. “Hey,” he said, holding the door wide open to let her in.

“I should have called first,” she said. “This is a bad time.”

“This is a great time,” he said, wiping his hand on the towel and holding it out. “You must be Max. I'm Noah.”

Max shook hands with Noah, but all his attention was on the dogs behind the baby gate in the hallway. “Do you mind if I pet your dogs? I really like dogs, but we can't have one where we live.”

Sophie hadn't realized that, but it made sense. The grounds and buildings of the Inn at Willow Lake were pristine, probably not the easiest place to keep a dog. Interesting, she thought. A chink in Greg's superdad armor.

“Sure you can pet them,” said Noah. “They live for affection.” He disengaged the baby gate. “This is Rudy, and the little one's Opal.”

Max melted to the floor, trying to hug both dogs at once. They swirled around him, vying for his attention until he laughed aloud. It was, Sophie realized, the first spontaneous laughter she'd had from Max all weekend. Dogs could bring smiles from a stone—or from a boy who was determined to give his mother a hard time.

“I was downstairs, working out,” Noah said. “I just need to turn the music off,” he added. “Want to come check it out? You can bring Opal.”

It was obvious Max was not going to let go of the little caramel-colored fluff ball. He and Sophie followed Noah down a flight of stairs to the basement.

“My gym,” Noah said, picking up the remote control and turning down the volume. Sophie wasn't sorry to hear the end of that. It was music she'd never heard before and didn't care for, more noise than notes.

“T-Pain,” Max said. “I like those guys.”

“Word,” said Noah.

The basement was outfitted like a professional gym—a treadmill, stair step machine, weights and pulleys, some sort of wall apparatus straight out of the Inquisition. The place was equipped with speakers, a fridge and a sink. There was a shelf crammed with water bottles, mugs and glasses, and a number of trophies shoved haphazardly away.

Max noticed them right away. “What are the trophies for?”

Noah was busy shutting down the equipment. “Some races,” he said. “Mostly triathlons.”

Heavens, thought Sophie. No wonder he was such a hunk.

“My mom swims. She was in a big swimming race last year, weren't you, Mom?” commented Max. He turned to Noah. “She swam the Zuider Zee. That's in Holland. Fifty kilometers, right, Mom?”

Sophie was surprised. “I didn't think you'd remember that, Max.”

“
Hello?
When your mom swims across a sea, even a really little one, you kind of remember it.” He turned back to Noah. “She finished in the top ten percent and probably would have done even better if it hadn't been for those East German women with hair on their chests.”

Noah grinned. “I hate when that happens.”

Max stood on tiptoe to check out one of the trophies. “This one's for an Ironman triathlon. What's that mean?”

“A two-mile swim, hundred-mile bike ride and a full twenty-six-mile marathon.”

“You got first,” Max said. “That's awesome.”

“I'm training for a winter event now,” Noah said. “It takes place during Winter Carnival. Speedskating, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.” He finished shutting down the equipment, pulled on a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants, then led the way upstairs. Sophie was bemused by the way Noah and Max hit it off, buddies already. There was a peculiar eagerness in Noah as he showed Max around his place. Nothing like a little hero worship to perk a guy up.

Max was already intrigued by the overtly guylike features of the place—the foosball table in the middle of the living room. A full-size jukebox rescued from a local bar that went out of business. The giant TV and all its video games and accessories. A young boy's paradise.

“Is that the Wii?” Max asked.

“The latest model.”

“What games do you have?”

“Super Smash Bros., Rayman. I also have a PlayStation with Guitar Hero III….” Noah rattled them off, more foreign to Sophie's ears than an African dialect. “Tell you what. You can put something on while I run upstairs for a quick shower.”

“That's okay. I'd rather play with the dogs.”

“Fine by me.” Noah turned to Sophie. “Be right back.”

As Max sank to the floor to play tug-of-war with Opal, Sophie refrained from saying
I told you so.
Max wouldn't have cared, anyway. He was lost in laughter at the frisky pup.

She thought about the Ironman trophies. She thought about Noah's bare, glistening chest and powerful shoulders. She was attracted to the man, but her instinct was to conceal that from Max. It was nothing, she told herself. A temporary madness.

Could there be anything more awkward than dating in the presence of your children? How had Greg handled that? And had the kids been okay with him dating? Would they be okay with her doing so, even this soon after her arrival in Avalon?

Max let the puppy tackle him and lick his face. And Sophie couldn't help smiling at them both.

“She's an orphan,” she told Max. “The puppy, I mean.”

“Really?”

“Well, sort of. According to Noah, she comes from a very big litter. The mother couldn't take care of her, so Noah had to bottle-feed her.”

“The mother rejected her?” Max held Opal up, brought his face to hers. “Poor thing.”

“She needs a home,” Noah said, coming down the stairs, his damp hair curling over his brow. He looked as sexy as ever in jeans and a haphazardly tucked-in plaid shirt, his feet bare.

Don't look at him,
she warned herself. When she looked at him, she went brain-dead.

“Maybe you'd like to keep her,” he said to Max, sitting down to put on clean socks and boots.