Lost Lake (Lost Lake, #1)(24)

Wes stared at the man’s puffy hand for a moment before he said, “We’ll shake on it when Eby sells.”

He smiled. “Fair enough.”

As his uncle walked away, Wes called, “Maybe we can all get together some time, you and me and Deloris and the girls. It would be nice to catch up.”

“Right, right,” Lazlo said without looking back. “We’ll see what happens.”

Wes watched as his uncle walked outside, batting at the air around his head as if an invisible plague of insects had just descended upon him. Once in his Mercedes parked at the curb, he took a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and patted his unnaturally smooth face and neck with it.

Across the street, the Subaru was now gone.

“You’re making a deal with the devil.” An old man with a grizzly beard stuck his head out of the kitchen. It was Grady, the cook. He was sure to have been listening all this time. Everyone in the small restaurant, which was still decorated in early eighties pizza-chic from its previous incarnation as a pizzeria arcade, had been listening, leaning forward in their seats, speaking in hushed tones, their ears turning like owls’ heads. This was bound to reach Eby soon.

“I know,” Wes said, gathering his and Lazlo’s plates and napkins from the window counter before one of the waitresses could do it. “But there’s no reason for me to hang on to that land if Eby sells. My property is in the middle of her lake property. The only way it’s worth anything is in connection to hers.”

“I still can’t believe she’s selling,” Grady said, shaking his head. “That place is an institution.”

“Eby has helped a lot of people in this town over the years. If she wants to leave, if that’s what she really wants to do, we should support her. Lost Lake isn’t making money anymore.”

“We should have supported her a long time ago, if it’s come to this.” Grady squinted his tiny brown marble eyes. “Can you imagine what Lost Lake will look like when it’s developed? When your uncle built the water park and outlet mall, it completely changed the landscape north of the interstate. You’ll keep him from doing too much damage this time, won’t you?”

“Change is good, Grady.” Wes handed him the plates.

The front door opened, and a young woman with a blond ponytail entered. “Well, it’s official,” Brittany announced dramatically. “I just heard it from her niece. Eby is selling Lost Lake.”

“We know,” Grady said. “We just heard, too. Wes is selling his property to the same developer.”

“I’m depressed,” Britt said, taking a seat at a nearby table. “I’ll never have another boy take me out there. I’m never going to get married at this rate. Wes, let’s make a pact. If we’re not married by the time we’re thirty, let’s marry each other.”

Wes laughed. Britt always flirted with him between boyfriends. For some reason, she seemed to consider him an odd sort of backup plan. Probably because he was nearby, one of only a few people their age who didn’t go to work at the water park or outlet mall or who hadn’t left town altogether. “I’m going to reach thirty long before you do.”

“I’ll be ready.”

“Stop waiting, Britt. Go out there and get what you want.”

“That’s what I’m doing! I just asked you to marry me.”

“I’m not what you really want,” Wes said, patting her shoulder as he walked by her to the door that led to his garage below the restaurant. “I’ll be out at Lost Lake if anyone needs me.”

As he left, he heard Britt say, “I need cheese. Eby’s having a farewell party on Saturday at the lake. I think I’ll go, and kiss my youth good-bye.”

“You say she’s having a farewell party?” Grady asked. “Now that’s a good idea. I’ll whip up some chicken wings to bring.”

*

Wes turned off the highway onto the gravel road leading to Lost Lake a little too quickly, and gravel spit out from behind his wheels. He felt he couldn’t get there fast enough. He needed to explain what was going on before anyone else had a chance to tell Eby. He owed her that.

He wanted her to know that all this, everything that was happening, started and ended with her. Lazlo was family, sure. And that blood connection meant something to Wes. More than it should, considering his uncle had never really been around when Wes was growing up. But Eby and, by extension, the lake were everything good about his childhood. Wes and his brother, Billy, used to come here every day, walking from their cabin in the woods. When Wes’s mother left, his father had seethed with resentment, hating his circumstances and everyone who had done him wrong, until that was all he thought about. Inside he was no longer human, just churning flames. He turned to alcohol and then, almost inevitably, violence. Eby was the one who mended Wes’s and Billy’s clothes and gave them breakfast before school and threw them birthday parties, inviting their classmates to the lake. Lisette served pistachio and rose water ice cream and cakes made of dark chocolate.

After the fire, after he lost his brother and father, Wes moved away from the family property, and then there had been Daphne, his foster mother, who had been everything good about his teenage years.

If not for those two old women, Wes was sure he would be either dead, drunk, or incarcerated by now.