Jimmy's Lawn Service by Tori Napoli

Author:Tori Napoli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Published: 2006-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Emerald Lake was one of the eleven thousand small natural lakes in Michigan, most of them carved by glaciers or formed from the footsteps of Babe the Blue Ox, depending on which source you believed. Jimmy chose the version in the Paul Bunyan stories.

You were never more than six miles from an inland lake in the mitten-shaped state, and there were ten lakes within a twenty minute drive of Berrienne. They ranged in size from large pond to several square miles, all but two having some kind of public access. Emerald Lake was not open to the public. It was strictly a private fishing and swimming lake, with no outboard motors permitted. All shorefront property was privately owned and jealously guarded. Many residents—Mary Atkinson among them—had spent considerable sums to have sand trucked in for beaches. The water was pristine and the lake was around forty feet deep in the middle with numerous secluded coves.

The Atkinson cottage was tucked away in one of them, the only house in the cove. The driveway leading up to it was several hundred feet long with two sharp bends. Mary had inherited the cottage and had bought the two lots adjacent to it. She now owned the whole cove and had posted a “No Trespassing or Fishing” sign on both sides of the inlet.

The morning was clear and warm, although thundershowers were forecast for the late afternoon. It took Jimmy less than fifteen minutes to get to Emerald Lake. He found the entrance to Mary Atkinson’s driveway with no difficulty and pulled up in front of her cottage a little before nine o’clock. As he got out of the truck, the door opened and Mary called out, “Hi, James. Come on in.” She was dressed in a halter and light green short shorts that showed off her longs legs to great advantage.

“I’m glad you could come,” she said, kissing him warmly on the cheek. “Would you like something to drink? I have Coke.”

“Thanks, Mary, but I don’t drink that stuff anymore. I’ve been reading and have learned that it’s not all that good for you.”

“That’s why I don’t drink it. How about lemonade?”

“Great,” he replied. He sat on a bar stool behind the raised countertop overlooking the kitchen sink. Mary fixed two glasses of lemonade and sat beside him.

“Did yesterday go all right?” Jimmy asked.

“Not really. It was a bitch of a day. Seemed to last forever. But it’s over. I got here about nine last night and went right to bed. I only got up an hour ago. Want to go for a swim?”

“Sure, but I didn’t bring a suit.”

“Like I said, you won’t need one. Come with me.”

She led him to the sliding door at the rear of the cottage. There was a short flight of wooden steps leading down to a small back yard that in turn sloped down to a small sandy beach with a dock. The yard was flanked with dense woods, and the beach faced a small secluded cove.

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