Our Little Secret(61)

“I’m trying to get over what you did,” she said.

“Can you?” I asked. HP had skimmed stones, bare-chested, beautiful, exactly where she stood.

“I’d like to think we can be bigger people. Both of us,” she said. She whipped her pebble into the lake. By her ankle was a thick, heavy rock, sharp and fated and waiting.

With her back to me, she didn’t even realize I’d picked it up.





acknowledgments


Thanks to Nita Pronovost and Sarah St. Pierre for eventually managing to get me to the right picnic, and for all the fun along the way. Thanks to Liz Whitehead, whose concept of what the front cover should look like was quite brilliant. And to my agent, Carolyn Forde, who’s tireless and amazing and with whom I’ll one day tour Europe. I also need to thank Almeda Glenn Miller and Adrian Barnes for their inspiring classes at Selkirk College: they lit a fire under me, and here we are. Kristen Webb helped me with early ideas for nasty things characters could do; Kate Walker was my chapter-by-chapter reader, cheering me on; and Linda L. Richards gave me a great first edit. Tracey Mozel is my constant tech support, and I owe her much more than the Leo’s Greek Pizza and red wine with which I repay her. Thanks, also, to Jo Lyle in Sydney, who reminded me of how Australians form sentences when I got rusty after a nine-year gap. To Robbie and her clan in Canada and my family in England—Jonathan and Sue Watt, Jo and Sal—thanks for all the love and reinforcement, and may you never read any of the rude scenes. And finally, most of all, thanks to Clint, Cash and Ruby. It’s really all for you. Everything is. Thanks for not waking up when I tiptoed past your doors at 5 a.m. to write in a quiet house.