When he’d glanced back up, she was gone. Fred was still there, but she was gone.
Mac had shouted out to the dog, cringing as his voice echoed over the eerily silent lake. Fred had smiled back at him, toward the wooded inlet that hid him, and thumped his tail twice as though to say, “Hey!” But then his attention was diverted away, out over the water.
That’s when he decided he was losing his mind. Disappearing women on docks and his dog ignoring him. “Fuck this,” Mac had said to himself, casting another look over the surreal scene before he moved back inside. He’d reached for the whiskey.
The vision hadn’t come to him again, even if he did find himself sitting on his porch in the wee hours of the morning waiting for her to come back, his lady of the lake. He’d seen her for a minute in his mind’s eye, and he was desperate for his brain to recreate her. Because in that minute, he’d never been more connected to the earth, more grounded. Just from looking at her, that vision, that drunken hologram, he’d experienced a sense of calm that was missing from his life.
In a few days, though, his buddies were joining him. He eyed his shack, pretty sure it would hold the three of them. It had been awesome once, he could tell. The structure was wood except for a stone fireplace on the wall separating his bedroom from the main room. The bathroom had been stripped of its original grandeur and was left in the seventies with a broken Jacuzzi tub and a squeezed-in plastic shower corral. Avocado green, but wasn’t that the grooviest color ever?
And the floors beneath the linoleum were rotting. Mac’s biggest worry was making a drunken journey to the toilet in the middle of the night and falling through. He’d marked the worst of the tiles with duct tape, but he hadn’t done any recon beneath the house to assess the damage’s extent. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.
The main room wasn’t much better. The refrigerator bounced up and down on the rotting floor when it kicked on. For the first few days, Mac would stare at it, expecting the floors beneath to give up and collapse, but so far, so good. Adding the beer cases to it probably wasn’t the best idea, but until it broke…
Mac had brought in a small, nondescript kitchen table and the four requisite chairs. So far, he hadn’t had over more than one person at a time—the women rarely made it as far as the porch because his bed was a cot. Also, his floors were scary as shit, and he didn’t need some chick falling through and suing him. But the real reason he didn’t have women over was because he didn’t want them to feel invited. Comfortable. Welcome.
He had a hammock on the front porch. He’d hung it sturdily, but he wasn’t certain about the structure’s overall integrity. So, if he plummeted to—and through—the porch someday, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise. The five steps from the ground to the porch were the safest place to be aside from the porch’s railing. He made sure of that; he sat on those steps. He’d fucked women on those railings. Nothing worse than being close to an orgasm and having the railing go out from under you.
So yeah, when his buddies arrived, they would get to relive some of their military days together and have a sleepover, crowded in his bedroom. Or they could pitch a tent next to the cabin, their choice. They’d be safer outside—he might join them.
Mac ran a hand over his face. Dusk was settling. Which meant his mind was about to unsettle. Time to head into town; find something to drink and someone willing to occupy his restless mind and body.
Chapter three
Cassidy
BEFORE AND SINCE
Cassidydrovetowardherhouse, her eyes glued to the split in the shared driveway that disappeared toward Mac’s cabin. Ever since meeting her new neighbor, she had managed to avoid him. Luckily, he seemed to be a vampire, leaving his lair only at night. The one daytime sighting must have been an anomaly; Cassidy guessed he had run out of beer. Or condoms.
His altercation with Marge had been over his inappropriate behavior with a woman in the Trading Post bathroom. The woman had been a screamer, and it had amused and encouraged her partner. The coupling had become rowdy. The sex, Marge hadn’t particularly minded, though it was the middle of the day, and children could have come in. The bigger issue was the broken sink. He’d paid for it, no questions asked, but it had been his overall demeanor that had rankled her. She’d poked—he’d snapped back—into it they’d gone. She’d stopped short of banning him from the store.
“It had been his damned dismissive attitude, Cassidy,” Marge had told her. “I wanted to slap the devilishness off his face.”
Cassidy understood how he could have gotten under Marge’s skin; he did the same to her.
Marge had chosen not to tell Silas the full truth for fear it would cause more trouble. She’d given him some ridiculous story about how the sink was broken, bleached the place down, and went on with life. But whenever the man entered the store, she watched him like a hawk until he left, making sure he didn’t repeat his offense.
After hearing the story, Cassidy wondered if he’d entertained shoving her into the bathroom as he’d stood there staring her down. Had he imagined bending her over the sink, or sitting her on it, wondering if she would be a screamer? Had he imagined pushing her legs apart as he fit his muscular thighs between hers?
Worse, why wasshe?
Shaking her head, she sped up to avoid detection as she whipped around the corner continuing down the lane to her ranch-style home. Fred came trotting across the porch, his tail wagging, as he watched her pull up. His expression had a shade of guilt, as though he’d been caught asleep on the job. Usually, he was sitting at attention by the time she rolled up.
Elijah had wanted two trained dogs for the property, mostly so Fred wouldn’t get lonely, and Fred was supposed to have been paired with a female dog named Ginger. Elijah had gotten a kick out of the thought of two guard dogs named Fred and Ginger. But, like many of Elijah’s plans, that hadn’t happened. So, Fred was without his Ginger, and she was without her… everything.
“Just us, kid,” Cassidy said as though he knew where her thoughts had taken her. Most of the time, she swore he did. “I bought your special treats.” She held up the box of organic dog treats.
Fred’s tail wagged again in appreciation but not overwhelming joy. He didn’t even bother to give an extra paw lift as he watched her approach, as though these were no longer treats worth getting excited for.
Cassidy paused, asking suspiciously, “What’s the matter with you? You love these.”
Fred yawned, a happy grin on his face as he regarded her, just not enthusiastic over his treats.
Sighing, she stepped onto the planks of the semi-wrap porch. “I swear you’re turning into a cat.” He followed her inside as she continued to itemize his changes. “You sneak out at all hours, and you’re becoming lazier and far more finicky.” Giving him a side-eye, she lightly scolded, “Daddy would be so disappointed.”
Fred didn’t look concerned, waiting patiently beside her as she unlocked the sliding glass door into the living room. The house’s design optimized the lake’s view and therefore was predominantly glass on two sides. Cassidy entered, the lake located to her left. To her right was a long glass hallway that led around the corner to the master bedroom, and farther down the hall, the guest bedroom entrance, the guest bath, a utility room, and Elijah’s office. There was a doggie door for Fred back there, too.
In front of her, a white stone fireplace dominated the wall and separated the living room from the back bedrooms. A light gray L-shaped sectional was in front of the fireplace; a large matching gray ottoman accompanied the set. There had been more furnishings—a matching chair, for instance—and a sofa table, but a few items had been destroyed in her grief-fueled rages. She’d never bothered to replace them.