Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel (6 page)

“Careful on the steps,” Allie called, rushing to keep up with her. Pregnant or not, Jax was remarkably agile.

Jax opened the door to the cabin and Allie followed her inside. Wyatt, still looking interested, trailed behind them. But no sooner had she gotten over the threshold than Jax stopped.

“It looks exactly the same,” she said, her eyes traveling around the room. Allie smiled. She’d felt the same way when they’d arrived last night. Entering the cabin, for her, had been like entering a time capsule. She imagined that Jax was feeling the same way now.

“I feel like I’m sixteen again,” Jax said softly. “Remember that summer? I think we spent most of it French braiding each other’s hair.”

Allie smiled, remembering.

“But I don’t remember
that,
” Jax said with a frown, pointing at the buck’s head. Allie had tried to take it down that morning, but it had proved too difficult. Instead she’d covered it with a blanket.

“Oh that,” Allie said, leading Jax into the kitchen. “That’s that old buck’s head my grandfather put up. Wyatt doesn’t like it, but I couldn’t get it down.”

“I don’t like them much myself,” Jax admitted, setting the strawberries down on the kitchen counter. “But Wyatt had better get used to them. People in these parts take their hunting very seriously.”

Allie opened the refrigerator door and started putting the strawberries in. But then she paused. “Jax, Wyatt and I can’t eat all these strawberries.”

“Oh, you don’t have to eat all of them now. You can use whatever you don’t eat to make strawberry jam.”

“I don’t know how to make jam,” Allie admitted, arranging strawberries.

“Well, that’s going to have to change if you’re planning on living up here,” Jax said, an amused expression on her face. “Canning is practically a sport in Butternut. Second only to hunting, really.”

Allie smiled. “Well, maybe you can teach me how to can sometime. But until then, are you sure you don’t want to take some of these back with you?”

Jax shook her head.

“Well, thank you then. They’re beautiful. Can I least offer you an iced tea before you leave?”

“I’d love an iced tea,” Jax said, sitting down at the kitchen table.

Allie poured them both a glass of iced tea and poured Wyatt, who’d followed them into the kitchen, a glass of milk. He took it into the living room with him and started playing with a train set he and Allie had set up that afternoon.

“How are your parents and your brother?” Jax asked, as Allie joined her at the table.

“They’re fine. My parents live in a retirement community in Florida. They wanted Wyatt and me to move down there too. But I couldn’t see us joining them for the early bird special every night. And my brother, Cal, lives in Seattle with his wife. They’re both total workaholics, but otherwise, they’re fine. What about your parents?” she asked, then immediately regretted asking it. She didn’t know a lot about Jax’s family. But she knew enough to know it had not been a happy one.

But Jax only shrugged. “My parents are both gone now. A diet rich in bourbon whiskey, apparently, doesn’t lend itself to old age,” she said, with a sigh.

Allie flushed. She was sorry she’d brought them up.

But Jax reached over and patted her arm. “Hey, it’s okay,” she said. “Because twelve years ago I met Jeremy. And things started to turn around for me.”

“Caroline said the two of you own the hardware store. And that you make having three children look easy.”

Jax smiled. “I don’t know about
easy,
” she said. But then her expression clouded over. “Caroline told me about your husband. I’m so sorry.”

Allie’s throat tightened. “He was a specialist in the Minnesota National Guard and his unit was deployed to Afghanistan,” she said, forcing herself to speak evenly, and to maintain eye contact with Jax. “They were resupplying mobile combat units in the field when the Humvee Gregg was riding in drove over an IED.” She paused. “He didn’t survive.”

“Oh, Allie. You must miss him so much,” Jax said, gently.

“I
do
miss him. He was my best friend.” And had been, really, since the moment she’d met him. It was on her first day of college, in her Introduction to Psychology class. Gregg had walked over to her row and asked, with a shy smile, brushing his sandy brown hair out of his eyes, “Is this seat taken?”

“No,” she’d said, a little flustered, and he’d sat down next to her. The next time they’d been apart—
really
apart—was ten years later, when he’d left for Afghanistan.

Jax reached over now and took Allie’s hand and held it in her own small, almost childlike hand.

“Allie? I’m glad you moved up here,” she said. “I really am.”

“Well, that makes one of us,” Allie said, only half joking.

“You’re not sorry, are you?”

“I don’t know if I am or not,” Allie confessed. “But it’s occurred to me it might have been a selfish decision on my part. I mean, I moved here because
I
wanted to get away. But what about Wyatt? He didn’t get to vote or even weigh in with an opinion.”

Jax considered this, then said, “You don’t strike me as a selfish person, Allie. Besides, making decisions is part of a parent’s job. And usually, what’s best for us is what’s best for them, too.” She paused, looking thoughtful. “But, at the risk of prying into your personal life, why
did
you decide to move up here?”

“Too many memories at home,” Allie said, deciding to keep her answer simple. After all, that was
part
of the reason she’d decided to leave. “Gregg and I never had time to come up here when we were together,” she explained. “We were so busy, and it always seemed so far away. Besides, Gregg hated fishing. He said it was less exciting than watching grass grow. And you know what, Jax?”

“What?”

“Now I’m glad we never came up here together. There are no memories of him here. Except, of course, the ones that I brought with me,” she added, with a little sigh.

“Won’t you be homesick, though?” Jax asked, concerned.

“I don’t know. Maybe. But I got so tired of everyone feeling sorry for me. It’s exhausting to be the object of so much pity. And so much well-meaning advice.”

Jax considered that. “Well, you won’t have that problem here,” she said finally, with a sad little smile. “People up here have plenty of troubles of their own. I mean, you remember Walter Starr, don’t you? He owns the bait and tackle shop. He’s got advanced prostate cancer. And Don and Liz Weber, remember them? They used to own the gas station? Last spring they lost everything—
everything
—in a house fire. And Caroline, from Pearl’s? Her daughter left for college this summer. That child is everything to her, and Caroline misses her so much that sometimes, I swear, I’m afraid her heart will break in two. I could go on”—Jax shrugged—“but I won’t.”

Allie felt her eyes glazing over with tears. She knew Jax hadn’t meant to make her feel like a jerk, but she felt like one anyway. “I know how selfish I must sound,” she confessed now. “But one of the worst parts of losing someone you love is that it makes you so self-absorbed. Sometimes I forget that Wyatt and I aren’t the only people in the world who have a reason to grieve.”

“You have
every
reason to grieve,” Jax said, staunchly. “I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t. But the people of this town aren’t strangers to hardship, either. So you don’t need to feel like your misfortune will make you some kind of curiosity to them. It won’t.” She added, with a rueful smile, “Although I should probably warn you, like most people who live in small towns, they’re not immune to a little gossiping, either.”

“And speaking of gossip,” Jax continued, refilling her glass from the pitcher of iced tea on the table, “have you met your new neighbor?”

Allie nodded. “Walker Ford, right? I met him this morning at Pearl’s. We didn’t get off to a very good start with each other,” she admitted.

“No?” Jax asked. “Well, he can be a little aloof.”

“Aloof? I was going to say arrogant.”

“Arrogant? Well,
maybe
a little,” Jax conceded. “But he’s done a lot for Butternut. I mean, when he took over that boatyard a few years ago, it was barely limping along. Now, after the lumber mill, it’s the biggest employer in town. Besides,” she continued, a mischievous gleam in her eye, “that’s not the only public service he’s provided around here.”

Allie raised her eyebrows, curious in spite of herself.

“Well, as I said,” Jax continued, “people up here do
occasionally
gossip. And he’s given us all plenty to gossip about.”

“Really?” Allie was intrigued.

“Well, you’ve seen him, haven’t you?” Jax asked. “The man looks like a movie star, for God’s sake.”

Allie reviewed their meeting. Walker
was
tall and athletically built, with close-cropped, dark hair, a summer-tanned complexion, and dark blue eyes. He wasn’t bad-looking, she supposed. But she couldn’t say he was good-looking, either. She simply didn’t see men in that way anymore.

But Jax brushed off her ambivalence. “Well, whatever you think of him, he’s found many admirers up here,” she continued. “I mean, his looks aside, he’s under forty, successful, and single.” She ticked off these attributes on the fingers of one hand. “In other words, he’s in a small minority of the population in a town the size of Butternut. But he was also married—briefly—which only added to the intrigue. Everyone loves to speculate about what went wrong in that marriage.”

“Who was he married to?” Allie asked.

“She wasn’t from up here,” Jax said, with a shrug. “And she wasn’t very well liked, either. I mean, she was beautiful. But she was cold, too. They got married in the fall, and that winter, less than six months later, she left. That was it. Nobody really knows what happened. Nobody except Walker, that is. And he’s not talking.”

I could hazard a guess as to what went wrong,
Allie thought, remembering how off-putting she’d found Walker that morning. But she didn’t say anything about that to Jax.

And Jax, sipping her iced tea, moved on to a different topic. “Allie,” she asked, “are you still interested in art?”

“Art?” Allie echoed, uncertainly.

Jax nodded. “I remember you used to bring those enormous art books up here with you. And study them, too. Just for fun. You told me once you wanted to major in art history in college and get a job in the art world afterward.”

“Oh,
that,
” Allie said, slightly embarrassed. “Yes, I used to fantasize about moving to New York after college and working in a gallery in SoHo. But that didn’t exactly pan out the way I’d planned.”

“Why not?” Jax asked.

“Well, because reality intruded, I guess,” Allie said. “I did minor in art history in college, and I might have majored in it, too, except by then I knew that Gregg and his brother, Travis, were going to take over their family’s landscaping service, and I thought a degree in business might be more useful.” She’d been right. Together, the three of them had built what had been a small lawn-mowing business into a full-service landscaping company.

“Did you like having a landscaping business?”

Allie hesitated. “I
liked
it,” she said. “I don’t know if it was my
dream.
But it was exciting building something from the ground up.” Besides, she’d still snuck away to museums and galleries in Minneapolis whenever she could find the time.

“Do you still own part of the business?” Jax asked.

“No,” Allie said, “I sold out our half to Gregg’s brother. And I sold our house, too. So hopefully, I’ve bought myself some time to figure out what I want to do next. I mean, the money won’t last forever. I’ll have to earn a living again at some point.”

“Well, then you’ll be just like the rest of us,” Jax said, breezily.

“I guess I will,” Allie agreed. It was funny how Jax could be so direct without ever being unkind, she thought. Probably because she didn’t have an unkind bone in her body.

Jax stood up from the table. “I should get going,” she said, a little reluctantly. “I need to be starting dinner.”

“Of course,” Allie said, feeling like she’d already taken up too much of Jax’s time. “Wyatt and I will walk you out to your truck.” Wyatt had just wandered back into the kitchen and had opened the refrigerator. Now he was staring longingly at the strawberries inside. They’d have some for dessert, Allie decided. Over the vanilla ice cream she’d bought at the grocery store that day.

As they started to leave the cabin, though, Jax turned back. She was looking at the buck’s head with the blanket draped over it.

“I know someone who can help you with that,” she said. “And do any other work you need done around here, too.” She doubled back to the kitchen, where Allie had left a notepad and pencil on the counter, and scribbled down a name and phone number. She tore the sheet off and handed it to Allie.

“His name’s Johnny Miller,” she said. “He’s a carpenter and a handyman. He’s pretty old, but his work is first-rate, and I think you’ll find his prices are reasonable.”

“Thank you,” Allie said, studying the paper. “We can use all the help we can get.”

She and Wyatt walked Jax out to her pickup and stood in the driveway until she’d driven out of sight. Then they went back inside. Wyatt seemed a little forlorn, and Allie didn’t blame him. The cabin had seemed somehow brighter, and lighter, with Jax inside of it.

“Come on, kid, you can help me with dinner,” Allie said, feigning cheerfulness. But even to herself, her voice sounded a little hollow.