The Lake Effect by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2021-11-03T11:49:04+00:00

*****

Alex spent a couple of hours at the warehouse that afternoon. She actually found herself enjoying reading a prolonged exchange of letters between Geoffrey and a landscape architect who had been hired to revamp the gardens on the Wintergreen family estate. At first glance it was an acrimonious debate, but Alex sensed that underneath the razor sharpness of Geoffrey’s comments, the old guy had been enjoying himself. It was almost as if he’d found a game that was more fun than chess by mail. And it lasted longer, too; the correspondence over the garden had gone on for nearly a year. Geoffrey had won in the end, of course. Apparently he always came out ahead.

She worked longer than she’d planned, partly to see whether the garden debate had ended with a bang or trickled off into nothing. When she came out of the warehouse, the sun was setting. On a whim, she turned away from the lake, looking for a better view of the western sky. The city clung to a series of steep hills, and she finally found her way to the top of one just in time to admire the last fading streaks of violet and pink and silver.

It was questionable whether the effort had been worth it, however, because she ended up so thoroughly lost that if it hadn’t been for the glimpse of the lake in the distance, she wouldn’t have had any idea of where she was. By the time she found her way back to the lakeshore, she’d missed the Guest House altogether and was on the scenic highway that led out to Inglenook. She almost turned back before she realized she might as well put her confusion to good use and drop in on Kane.

The Ferrari was parked in the drive, the For Sale sign clearly visible to any passing car. Every window in the house was open to the cool evening air. Alex didn’t see the mountain bike propped up next to the back door until she was almost beside it, and in the same moment she heard a feminine voice — low and soft — from the kitchen.

But it was too late to back out; the sound of her footsteps on the elevated deck must have been audible to the people inside. So she tapped on the door. “Kane?”

He held it open silently and she stepped into the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Alex said. “I know I should have called. But the truth is I just got lost again and I was so frazzled — and so happy once I realized where I was — that I thought you might give me a cup of coffee.”

Her voice trailed off as she got a good look at the woman standing beside the small breakfast table, wrist-deep in soft black soil as she efficiently settled a house plant into a new pot. Her face was soft and pink and mapped with lines, and her hair was silvery gray.

“That’s enough for today,” the woman said, as she dusted off her hands.

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