The House Across the Lake(22)

Caught in that quiet, I stare at the lake.

I take a sip of beer.

I try not to think about my dead husband, although that’s difficult after what happened earlier.

It’s been hours since everyone left, the party breaking up immediately after Katherine passed out in the grass. The Royces were the first to go, Tom mumbling apologies as he led a woozy Katherine down the dock. Even though she regained consciousness after only a few seconds, I was still concerned. I suggested letting her rest and giving her some coffee, but Tom insisted on taking Katherine home immediately.

“This time you’ve really embarrassed yourself,” he hissed at her before starting the powerboat and zipping away.

Hearing that side comment made me feel sorry for Katherine, who’d clearly been more drunk than I thought. I then felt guilty for feeling sorry, because it meant I was pitying her, which is a by-product of judging someone. And I had no right to judge Katherine Royce for drinking a little too much.

On the bright side, Tom left in such a rush that he forgot his other five-thousand-dollar bottle of wine. I found it on the porch steps and put it in the liquor cabinet. Finders keepers, I guess.

Eli lingered a little longer, dousing the fire and plucking shards of broken wineglass out of the grass.

“Just leave it,” I told him. “I’ll get the rest tomorrow when the sun’s out.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Eli asked as I walked him around the house to his truck.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’m doing a lot better than Katherine right now.”

“I meant about the other stuff.” He paused, looking at the gravel driveway under his feet. “I’m sorry for talking about the lake like that. I was just trying to entertain them. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I gave Eli a hug. “You did, but it was only temporary.”

I believed it then. Not so much now, as thoughts of Len glide through my head as smoothly as the loons out on the lake. When my mother banished me here, I didn’t protest. She was right. I do need to lie low for a few weeks. Besides, I thought I’d be able to handle it. I’d spent more than a year living in the apartment I’d shared with Len. I didn’t think the lake house could be any worse.

But it is.

Because this is the place where Len died.

It’s where I became a widow, and everything about it—the house, the lake, the damn moose head in the den—reminds me of that fact. And it will continue to do so for as long as I’m alive.

Or sober.

I take another sip of beer and scan the shoreline on the other side of the lake. From the Fitzgerald place to the Royces’ to Eli’s house, all is dark. A thick mist rises from the lake itself, rolling languidly toward land in billowy waves. Each one skims onto shore and surrounds the support beams below the porch in a swirl of fog like seafoam crashing against the pylons of a pier.

I’m watching the mist, hypnotized, when a sound breaks the night’s silence.

A door creaking open, followed by footsteps on wood.

They’re coming from my right, which means the Mitchell place.

After a few more seconds, Boone Conrad appears—a slim silhouette making its way toward the end of the Mitchells’ dock.

The binoculars still sit on the table next to my chair. I lift them to my eyes and get a closer view of Boone. He’s reached the edge of the dock and stands there in nothing but a towel, confirming my first impression of him.

Boone Conrad is fit as hell.

Even though Eli suggested I keep clear of Boone, which I completely understand, he said nothing about not being allowed to look at him. Which I do, feeling only a twinge of guilt as I keep watching him through the binoculars.

That twinge becomes a pang—and something more—when Boone loosens the towel and lets it fall to the dock, revealing that he’s not wearing anything underneath.

I lower the binoculars.

I raise them again.

I consider the morality of watching someone without his knowledge or consent. Especially someone naked.

This is wrong, I think as I continue to stare. So very wrong.

Boone remains on the dock, basking in the moonlight, which makes his pale body look like it’s glowing. He then glances over his shoulder, almost as if he’s checking to see if I’m watching. I still am, but he can’t know that. He’s too far away and all the lights are off here, leaving me hidden in darkness. Yet a smirk crosses Boone’s lips anyway, one that’s arousing and shame inducing in equal measure.

Then, satisfied that whoever might be watching got a good show, he dives into the water. Although freezing, the lake probably feels like bathwater compared with the cold night air. Even if it doesn’t, Boone pays it no mind. His head pops out of the water about ten feet from the dock. He shakes it, flinging water from his shaggy hair, and begins to swim. Not with purpose, like I imagine Katherine was doing when she ran out of steam in the middle of the lake. Boone swims the way I used to do when I was a kid. Playful. Moving willy-nilly through the water. He ducks under again and emerges floating on his back, eyes on the starlit sky.

He looks, if not happy, then at least at peace.

Lucky him, I think as I lift the beer bottle to my lips and take a big swallow.

In the water, something catches Boone’s attention. His head snaps to the opposite shore, where a light has flicked on in the Royce house.