Meet Me at the Lake
: Chapter 3

I stare at Will across the front desk, fingers hovering over the keyboard, throat dry. His eyes are fixed on mine. He still hasn’t given me his name, and Jamie is looking between us, his head whipping around like a puppy choosing between chew toys.

Will and I were twenty-two the last time we saw each other, and he’s not at all like how I thought he’d turn out. I wonder if he’s thinking the same about me. Because he must know who I am. He must know this Brookbanks Resort is my Brookbanks Resort.

“I just need your name so I can look up the reservation,” Jamie says, nudging me out of the way while Will and I watch each other. His eyes tighten at the corners. He’s not sure I’ve recognized him.

But of course I have, even though this Will Baxter is very different from the Will Baxter I once knew. He’s still all long lines and keen edges, though the suit is throwing me. So is the hair, combed back from his forehead and cemented with product. He’s still trim, but there’s a sturdiness to him. It’s the suit and the hair and the body, plus the ten years since I last saw him.

As unexpected as they are, the bespoke clothing and the two-hundred-dollar haircut suit him. That grace he has.

“Will Baxter,” he says, eyes locked on me as he slides his credit card and ID onto the counter.

I spent just one day with Will, and it changed my life. I once thought he might be my soulmate. I once thought he and I would be here together under very different circumstances. I once thought a lot of things about Will.

And I have wasted far too much of my adult life wondering what happened to him.

I might have been able to stop my jaw from hitting the burgundy carpeting, but I can’t get a handle on my breathing. This goddamn dress of my mother’s is so tight, I can see my chest rising and falling. Will also notices. His eyes drop for a second, and when they come back to mine, he sucks in a jagged breath.

“Mr. Baxter, I see you’re booked in one of the cabins this year,” Jamie says.

I barely hear him.

Will must not, either, because he doesn’t answer. Instead, he dips his head.

“Fern.” Will’s voice is deep, and my name comes out thick, as if it got caught in tar.

I’m not sure what the right move is here. What the safest move is. Pretending I don’t remember him offers me the most protection, but I’m not a very good actor. I’ve never been sure whether it’s unreasonable that I can recall the twenty-four hours I spent with Will so clearly or whether it would be absurd if I didn’t.

I tear at the skin on my forearm, and Will tracks the scratching. I press my hands flat against the desk, annoyed he has this effect on me.

“You’re here.” He says it as if he didn’t just string together the two most ironic words in the English language.

I’m here? I’m here? I want to scream back at him. I want to ask him where the hell he’s been. It was his idea to meet at the resort. I showed up. He’s nine years late.

I open my lips, then close them. I open them again, but nothing comes out.

“Are you okay?” Jamie whispers next to my ear, and I shake my head.

Watermelon, I mouth, hoping he remembers.

“Mr. Baxter,” Jamie says, rubbing his hands together. “Ms. Brookbanks has to depart for the evening, I’m afraid. But I’d be pleased to get you settled.”

Not meeting Will’s eyes, I give his shoulder a nod and edge around the desk.

“I see you’re staying in Cabin 20,” Jamie says.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

I charge toward the main doors, keeping my head down. Just before I slip outside, I hear Will call my name, and then I break into a run.

—

Running from Will Baxter is exhausting. I know, because I’ve spent nine years barreling down this trail. It was supposed to lead far away from him, through some kind of magical mist and enchanted forest, to a land of forgetting. I’ve fled from the feeling of his finger linked with mine, from the hurt. It used to burn hot and sharp, like a lance through the sternum. Over time it faded to a dull ache. But tonight, there is no escape.

I dart down the flagstone steps in front of the lodge. As soon as I land on the path, my high heels sink into the gravel, and I stumble. I shift my weight onto the balls of my feet, but I can only shuffle a few inches at a time. I left my Birkenstocks in the office. Swearing, I pull off the shoes and grit my teeth against the bite of pebbles. I’ve been living in the city too long. Whitney and I used to scamper around the property in bare feet all summer.

I get three strides farther when I hear footsteps hurrying down the stairs behind me.

“Fern. Wait.”

But I don’t wait. I pick up my pace, trip, and go soaring forward. The humiliation hits before the stinging in my palms and knees.

“Are you okay?” Will asks above me.

I rue the day he was born. I rue the people who held each other close nine months before that. I do a lot of rue-ing as I lie there. I press my forehead against the ground and dig my fingers into the stones. Maybe I can burrow my way out of this.

“I’m going to help you up, all right?”

Before I can say no, that it is not all right, that nothing about this is all right, Will takes my arms and pulls me to my feet.

I stall, brushing away bits of dirt and rock, and Will curls down to inspect the damage. His head is a few inches from my own—so close, I can smell his cologne, smoke and leather and something sweet, like burnt caramel. I keep my attention squarely on my legs.

“That looks bad,” he says, then runs his finger beside a bloody patch that’s already starting to swell. I’m too stunned to do anything but watch.

“It’s fine,” I snap. When I chance a look at him, he’s peering back through the dark hedge of his lashes.

“It’s you,” he says. He doesn’t look surprised to see me.

I straighten, and Will does the same, unfolding himself to his full height.

I stare at his tie. He once said he’d never wear one. I wonder what other parts of the plan he didn’t follow through on.

“Are you okay?” he says. “Do you want to sit?” He motions to a log bench that looks over the lake, though it’s too dark to make out the far shore. The air smells of freshly cut grass, petunias, and pine—the manicured lawns and gardens around the lodge colliding with the nearby bush. My eyes drift to the docks, where a few local firefighters are setting up for tonight’s fireworks display, and I swallow.

I shake my head, my mind spinning. There are a thousand things I’ve wanted to say to Will, and I can’t seem to pick a single one of them.

Will rubs his neck. “You do remember me, right?” His words come out like they’re tiptoeing across a tightrope. Five cautious steps.

Remember him? The question is so ridiculous, it’s almost funny. It was my mom who saved my life, but it was Will who helped me figure out how to make it my own.

Will picks my shoes up off the ground and takes a step closer to pass them to me, his expression guarded, and the movement jolts me. There are guests everywhere, lying on blankets on the lawn, stretched out on loungers by the beach, waiting for the fireworks to begin, but I don’t care.

“Oh, I remember you,” I say. The lamplight caresses the high planes of his cheeks, and an image of him from that night, candlelight flickering across his face, flashes in my mind. “And what I’d like to know is what you’re doing here.”

He blinks at my tone, holding the shoes out between us.

“At my resort,” I add, snatching the heels. “Did you get the date wrong?”

“No. I—”

“Don’t try to tell me this is some kind of coincidence,” I say.

“You don’t know?” He sounds confused. “I’m here to help,” he says, lowering his voice.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your mother didn’t tell you? She hired me as a business consultant.”

My neck pulls back like a slingshot. “My mother? How do you know my mother?” I hiss, and then I close my eyes. For a moment, I forgot that she’s gone.

“I met her here last summer,” Will says. “I thought she might have told you. I thought that might be why you’re here. She asked for my help with strategic planning and ideas for—”

I wave my shoes to stop him. I’m overwhelmed. I can’t focus on the unlikelihood of my mom hiring a consultant, or the even weirder twist of that person being Will. Will, who is here. Will, who came here last summer. Will, who knew my mom. Will, who thought I knew he was coming. Will, who despite all this, still never contacted me. This is all too much.

I take a deep breath so I can address the most important fact. “Will,” I say, and his name feels strange on my tongue. “My mother’s dead.”

“What? No. I just spoke to her . . . it wasn’t that long ago,” he mutters, more to himself than to me.

“It was a car accident. Back in May.” I list the facts like pulling off a Band-Aid, cleanly and with as little attention to their meaning as possible. I explain how the restaurant’s ice machine broke during the middle of dinner service, how the bartenders were making do with a dispenser on one of the guest room floors. When someone complained about the constant noise, my mom decided to drive into town herself to bring back a trunk full of ice. It was dark, and I doubt she saw the deer until it crashed through her windshield.

It makes me irrationally angry, how she insisted on doing tasks she could have easily assigned to someone else. In the end, her dedication killed her.

Will runs a palm down his face. He’s gone a shade paler. “Are you okay? Of course you’re not okay,” he says, answering his own question. “You really didn’t know I was coming. You’re here because you’ve lost your mom.”

I hold out my hands, palms up—it’s a gesture of bewilderment, not showmanship. “I own this place now. She left it to me.”

Will stares down at me, and I look away. The weeks of waking in the middle of the night and tossing and turning for hours are catching up with me, the exhaustion that’s deep in my bones seeping to the surface.

“Fern,” he says quietly, gently. He twists the ring on his pinkie. I forgot about the ring-twisting. “I’m so sorry.”

The apology slams into my chest like the blunt end of an ax. It’s not what I want him to be sorry for. My bottom lip trembles.

He reaches for my arm, and I jerk it back. “Don’t.”

“Fernie?” Jamie calls from the top of the staircase. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” I say, moving aside to make room for a group heading toward the lodge.

Jamie wishes the guests a good evening and remarks on the excellence of the crab cakes before descending the steps two at a time to join us. He isn’t as tall as Will, but Jamie has always been extremely comfortable in his body. He wields it like he’s a giant.

“You left your key behind, Mr. Baxter,” he says, eyes narrowed, passing it to Will. “And your suitcase, but I’ll have it delivered to your cabin.”

Will puffs up taller as he takes the keycard. “I appreciate that.”

“So you two know each other?” Jamie asks, looking between us.

“No,” I say at the same time Will answers, “Yes.”

Jamie’s eyes drop to my legs. “There’s a first aid kit back in the office. Let me clean that up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “Really, Jamie, I’m fine.”

I see the precise moment when the name registers with Will. He blinks twice, and shock washes over his face like a tide coming in.

Jamie crouches in front of me, examining the injury. My eyes dart to Will’s. A reflex. But he’s watching Jamie, his hands clenched at his sides.

“You sure you’re good, Fernie?” Jamie asks, then peers up at me. “I don’t like the look of this.”

I’m standing between Jamie Pringle and Will Baxter, with bare feet and banged-up knees, less than two months after my mother’s death. “Uh-huh,” I tell him.

“Not buying it. You’re coming with me,” Jamie says, standing again. “You can’t get anything by me, Fernie,” he says into my ear, but I’m sure Will can hear.

I shouldn’t feel guilty, but I do. I hate that I do.

Will clears his throat. “I’ll leave you two to it, then,” he says. “I’m sorry, Fern.” He gives me a long look. I think he might say something more, but then he turns down the path.

The first firework explodes overhead with a bang and a fizzle, lighting the treetops. But I don’t look up. I stare at Will, walking away from me like he did ten years ago.

You and me in one year, Fern Brookbanks. Don’t let me down.

That was the last thing he said.