Chapter 9
Nine
The watercolors were sitting on Aunt Lila’s porch railing when Livvie left for the lake house that morning.
A small tin set—not cheap, not extravagant. The kind of paints someone who knew nothing about art but everything about quality would choose. No note. No explanation. Just twelve small circles of color arranged in a neat silver case, waiting in the early light like a quiet dare.
She stood there for a long moment, holding the tin in both hands, and felt something she didn’t have a name for crack open behind her ribs.
She tucked them into her bag without mentioning it to anyone. But at breakfast, something wasn’t right.
Nate greeted her with a too-bright, too-wide, good-morning-isn’t-it-a-beautiful-day smile that made every instinct she had start screaming.
Nate Rivers did not smile like that. Nate Rivers barely smiled at all.
And yet here he was, offering to make her coffee, asking if she’d slept well, acting like a man who had absolutely nothing to hide.
Livvie didn’t trust it for a second.
And maybe that was simply her guilt talking. After all, she’d barely slept (so, no to his question), because Emma’s sketches had played on a loop every time she’d closed her eyes. The Storybook Corner. The sketches. The joy in every line.
So no, she wasn’t going to admit to her thievery. Or her lack of sleep.
“You seem…cheerful,” she said, accepting the coffee mug.
“I’m in a good mood.”
“Any particular reason?”
“The writing’s going well.”
“Is it?”
“Mm-hmm.” He took a sip of his own coffee, still smiling. “I’ve been in the office since six. Really flowing today.”
“That’s great.” She wrapped her hands around the warm ceramic. “That’s really great, Nate.”
He nodded and disappeared back down the hall. The office door closed with a soft click.
Livvie stood in the kitchen, listening. No typing. No sound at all except the tick of the clock above the stove and Huck’s tail thumping against the floor.
Huh.
The man was up to something.
She gave it an hour.
She washed the breakfast dishes. She scrolled through her phone, answered three emails from Priya (still fishing for gossip), and ignored two from Richard (demanding updates she didn’t have).
The office stayed silent.
At ten thirty, she made her move.
“Huck. Finn.” She opened the back door, keeping her voice bright and casual. “Want to go outside?”
The dogs bolted past her, scrambling down the porch steps toward the lake. She watched them go, counting to ten, then walked quickly down the hall.
The office door was closed. She put her hand on the knob.
This is a violation of trust, the responsible part of her brain said. You shouldn’t be doing this.
She opened the door anyway.
“Hey. The dogs got out…”
The room was empty. Nate wasn’t at his desk. How had he escaped without her knowing? The laptop sat open on the desk, screen glowing.
She crossed to it in three quick steps and looked.
Empty. The document was empty. Not a single word.
Her stomach dropped. So now he was lying to her.
“What did you say?”
She spun around. Nate stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable.
“Um, the dogs got out.”
He gestured vaguely. “So get them in.”
She stepped away from the desk.
He didn’t move. His eyes flicked to the laptop, then back to her face.
“Where were you?”
He raised an eyebrow.
She shook her head. “Never mind. I’ll get them,” she said, and fled.
Huck and Finn were easy to corral—a few treats and they came bounding back, tongues lolling, oblivious to the tension in the house. Livvie got them settled on their beds in the living room and grabbed her jacket from the hook by the door.
“I’m going to grab lunch,” she called toward the office. “Do you want anything?”
Silence.
“I’ll bring you something anyway.”
She was out the door before he could respond.
The Maple Lake library sat five blocks from the town square, a brick building with creaking wood floors and the smell of old paper. Livvie pushed through the front door and stood for a moment, letting the quiet settle around her.
A lobby with a counter to the left. A fireplace straight ahead, cold now but surrounded by armchairs and rugs that looked well-worn from use. Stairs to the second floor on the right. And everywhere, books—on shelves, on tables, stacked on the floor in corners.
“Can I help you?”
The woman behind the counter had silver hair and kind eyes, a cardigan with actual cat hair on it, and reading glasses perched on her nose. Her name tag said Hazel.
“I’m just looking around,” Livvie said. “I heard you have a children’s section?”
Something flickered across Hazel’s face. “We do. It’s…in progress. Would you like to see it?”
She led Livvie through a doorway at the back of the main room, into a space that was clearly meant to be something special.
The bones were there—a large room with good light, a bay window overlooking a garden.
But the walls were bare. Bookshelves stood half empty.
In one corner, a wooden structure had been started and abandoned—framing for something that might have been a reading nook now draped in plastic.
“This was going to be the Storybook Corner,” Hazel said quietly. “Emma Rivers designed it. She had this whole vision—murals on the walls, a tree-trunk reading nook, bookshelves carved to look like castles.”
Window seats here—kids can see the lake while they read.
Livvie’s heart clenched. “What happened?”
“She started fundraising. Got the town excited. We’d raised almost half of what we needed.” Hazel touched the plastic-covered frame gently. “And then she got sick again. The last time.”
The air in the room turned heavy, dusty with grief.
“She used to do story hour here,” Hazel continued.
“Every Saturday morning. She’d dress up, do all the voices, make the children feel like they were actually inside the books.
They called her the Story Lady.” A soft smile.
“After she passed, we tried to keep it going. But it wasn’t the same.
I just read from the picture books. I don’t have her magic. ”
Livvie looked at the half-built frame, the empty walls, the window that looked out at nothing.
“Do you still have her original plans?” she asked. “The sketches, the design?”
Hazel shook her head. “She kept everything at home. We asked Nate, after…but he wasn’t ready to go through her things. I don’t think he ever has.”
“I think I can help with that,” she said.
Hazel’s eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Livvie pulled out her phone, pretending to check the time. “But I might know where to find those plans. Let me see what I can do.”
She left Hazel standing in the unfinished room and didn’t look back.
Jake the Uber driver was sitting on Nate’s porch when she pulled up.
He waved cheerfully, like this was completely normal, like she hadn’t bribed him for soup a few days ago. Apparently, now they were friends. A paper bag from Maple Sweets sat beside him, and he was eating what looked like a bear claw.
“Hey,” he said, standing up and brushing crumbs off his jeans. “Brought some pastries. Figured you guys could use reinforcements.”
“That’s…very thoughtful.”
“Edie said you’ve been in every morning.” He grinned. “Word gets around.”
Of course it did. This was Maple Lake. Population: everyone knows your business.
“So,” Jake said, falling into step beside her as she climbed the porch stairs. “How’s it going in there? Has he made any progress?”
Livvie thought about the empty screen. The fake smile. The silence from behind the office door.
“He’s already almost halfway through book five,” she deadpanned.
Jake’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”
“No. I’m lying. I have no idea what’s happening and I’m running out of ideas.”
He laughed—a genuine, warm sound that made her feel slightly less like a fraud. “Fair enough. Well, for what it’s worth, the whole town’s rooting for him. Somebody asked me yesterday if I thought he’d finish before the Flannel Festival.”
“The Flannel Festival.”
“Big autumn thing. Eleven days from now.” Jake gestured toward the town square. “A whole weekend of fall stuff—bonfires, hayrides, pie contests. The whole town goes crazy for it. They’re putting up the decorations this weekend.”
“I know about the Flannel Festival. But everyone wants Nate to finish by then?”
“They want him to come to it, at least. He hasn’t shown his face at a town event since—” Jake stopped, cleared his throat. “Anyway. The festival’s a big deal. Closing night, they do this lantern thing on the lake. It’s pretty great. But I guess you know that too.”
He handed her the pastry bag. “Tell him we’re all pulling for him, yeah?”
She watched him amble back down the driveway, hands in his pockets, whistling something off-key. The whole town. Rooting for Nate. A man who’d barely left his house in three years, and Maple Lake was tracking his progress like a sports team.
No pressure.
Inside, the house was quiet. Nate’s office door was closed, but light peeked out under the crack.
She set the pastries on the kitchen counter and walked to the door. Knocked.
“I brought lunch. And Jake brought pastries. Apparently the whole town is invested in your word count.”
A long pause. Then, “Come in.”
He was at his desk this time, actually sitting in the chair, actually facing the screen. The document was still empty, but at least he was trying.
“I thought we could try something different,” she said, settling into the armchair across from him. “Why don’t you talk me through all the ideas you have for the rest of the book?”
He stared at her.
“Just…brainstorm out loud. What are you thinking? Where do you want the story to go?”
Nothing. His jaw tightened, and she watched him retreat behind his eyes—that familiar shutdown, the walls going up.
“Okay.” She shifted tactics. “How about this—just tell me the last thing that happened. In the story. Where did you leave off yesterday?”
Silence.
“Nate.”
Still nothing. He was staring at his hands now, fingers laced together, knuckles white.