Chapter Thirteen
Avery
Avery paddled along Bramble Beach, thankful for a break from a frazzled week.
After witnessing Casper’s hollow, sad eyes Friday night, she’d taken him out on the water every day.
He ran in circles whenever she pulled out his doggy flotation vest and once in the canoe, stood in the bow the whole ride, ears cocked and tail wagging as he scanned the water.
Today, they’d paddled past Red House, which commanded a view of the entire lake.
On the other side of the point, sandy, unspoiled Bramble Beach was the definition of away from it all.
Every time she came here, Avery searched the shoreline for a moose.
They gravitated to quiet places with access to water.
The stillness was a welcome break. With only a week until opening day, Nate had the nervous energy of someone who’d had too many espressos—remarkable for a man who never touched caffeine.
Whatever random thought entered his mind came right out, and he hadn’t stopped thanking Avery and Miles for all the progress they’d made.
He always said their names together, “Avery and Miles” merged into a single breath. As if they were one word.
As if they had kissed.
And gah! Did Nate know they had kissed? Avery hadn’t told anyone. Miles might’ve told Nate, and if he had, she wanted to know what he’d said. She’d been sure Miles wanted that kiss, but his delayed response had left her wondering if he hadn’t felt a spark. Maybe he’d frozen in shock.
Avery sighed and watched as bubbles floated to the surface from somewhere deep in the lake. She’d always wondered what made random bubbles finally decide it was time to float free.
The night of the kiss, it was as if her body had floated up and said I’ll take it from here.
In retrospect, her kissing him made sense.
Miles had calmed her insecurities. When he’d said he’d searched for her in crowds, she’d melted.
Then he’d flattered her, comparing her sparkle to a luscious hotel bar that didn’t sound real.
The intimate admission that he’d be taking her there as much for himself as for her, so he could watch her sparkle, buzzed in all the right places. No wonder she’d kissed him.
The more she tried to convince herself they’d changed, the more she realized some things remained the same.
The easy way his lips fit hers. Those familiar fireflies tingling through her.
The closer they got to melding seamlessly into one another, the later thoughts of him touching her kept her up at night.
Avery made her bed every morning. Lately, she’d twisted the neat sheets into a wrangled mess by midnight.
There were countless similarities between that summer and this one: the attraction, the smells and tastes, those eyes, that hair.
But if Miles remained the same, his breakup might still fall like an axe splitting a log.
Instant division, no going back. And while a fling sounded intriguing, the aftermath meant waking with the dread that every day was another day without him. She didn’t want to grieve him again.
A loon skimmed across the surface ahead.
Loons were so mysterious. Despite their eerie call, they could be quiet and stealthy.
Their flat bodies and pointy heads sat low to the waterline, making them easy to miss.
This loon saw something beneath the water and dove under.
She watched and waited for it to resurface.
Miles would resurface at Montressa soon.
He’d gone back to the City the day after they’d kissed.
Monday evening, @lovetrainnyc had tagged Montressa in a photo of Miles riding the 6 Train, reading War and Peace.
A forest-green T-shirt tugged across his chest, emblazoned with Avery’s drawing of five silhouetted pines—the one she’d sketched at the staff meeting a few weeks earlier.
Below the pines, it read Wood is Good - Montressa Lodge and Camps in log-shaped letters.
The post’s caption summed up the way Avery was starting to feel: Still pining for the guy who takes his commutes with a little Tolstoy #throwback.
An hour later, Portland Graphics delivered a full run of the shirt. A Post-it note atop the box in Miles’s handwriting alluded to the firefly tattoo.
Took liberties with your artwork again. Hope you don’t mind. Sell these.
Avery had giggled at the note and shared the post to Montressa’s stories. It was hard not to crush on a guy who’d do anything for the people who mattered to him.
She’d texted him a selfie of her wearing the shirt, and he’d immediately replied.
Miles: Ah! I picked that color to see if your eyes could turn spruce green ;)
Avery: And…
Miles: success :-{)
Miles still used punctuation emojis, and he gave them mustaches. That was kind of swoony. So much so, she’d envisioned Miles with a mustache. By late afternoon, the shirts had sold out on the Montressa website, and they’d had a few reservation inquiries.
A family of ducks swam past the canoe, the tiny ducklings following their mama.
Avery stopped paddling and floated, listening to the ducklings, the songbirds, and the lapping of the water against the boat.
She could sit all day in this tranquility.
She reminded herself that rather than spend her morning analyzing all things Miles, she should savor the break from the front desk and Nate’s exuberance.
Up ahead, a man walked along the shoreline of the corporate retreat. He was fit, but shorter and bulkier than Miles. Avery shielded the brim of her Vanderbilt baseball cap with her hand to get a better look, but she was too far away to see clearly.
As she paddled toward him, his head lifted.
“Avery?” he called.
She recognized that voice.
“Paulson?”
Avery hoped the corporate retreat wasn’t the reason he’d been in the area so often these last few weeks.
“Well, look at you on a puppy cruise,” Paulson said, as she paddled to shore. “Love the doggy life jacket.”
As he helped her out of the canoe, Avery noticed dark circles under Paulson’s eyes. His rumpled hair didn’t know what to do without its daily dose of hair gel. A blond lock fell across his forehead.
Casper plodded up the beach and sniffed the rocks between the beach and the lawn.
“Hey.” She gave Paulson a hug. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure I want to be here.
” Paulson kicked a rock with one of his dirty Air Jordans.
“Dad sent me to assess this property for our newest resort. He thinks Linden Lake needs a hotel with year-round recreation. Snowshoeing and cross-country skiing in winter, jet skis and parasailing in the summer. He wants to put in a glass-front hotel.”
Oh no. Her heart stopped and then pounded faster. Miles was right. Paulson was up to something. A mega resort would crowd the lake and ruin Camp Luciole. Montressa might not survive despite its national television debut in two weeks.
On Monday morning, she had watched all three hours of Bright and Early, paying extra attention when Miles explained why something called “spaving,” or spending to save, wasn’t saving.
Adding things to your cart to get perks like bonus gifts or free shipping was spending.
She hadn’t paid attention to his advice because she enjoyed spaving and damn, television suited him.
His navy suit and the studio lights had turned his eyes the color of maple syrup.
The post-segment banter had centered on the show’s upcoming trip to Maine.
After the show, Victoria Evans called the lodge.
The last Friday in June, she and her crew would film four live segments for her series, “Where America Vacations.” She expected a vegan menu and a comped room stocked with three kinds of bottled water: Evian for washing her hair, Fiji for drinking, and Voss for brushing her teeth.
Several locations needed to be “on-set ready.” Everything was an order.
She assumed Avery knew what she was demanding and didn’t elaborate.
She hadn’t said thank you. Victoria hadn’t changed.
That night, Avery posted a sweet photo of the birch bed in the Boathouse to the lodge’s social accounts.
Symona Beauvais had immediately shared it on her stories, saying she needed a getaway.
Then Hazel Matheson shared Symona’s story with the caption not if I get there first, which was also the title of one of her biggest hits.
Avery had entered the lodge the next morning to find every phone ringing, and thus began a trial by fire for the new front-desk staff.
By noon, the Boathouse had been booked for the entire summer and the staff had taken a few reservation requests for the following year.
A behemoth resort and its jet skis could undo all of that momentum.
Paulson led her to the flat lawn.
“As usual, Dad changed my entire plan,” he said. “When I pitched the idea of a small resort focused on fishing, I wanted something closer to a river. More in the pines.”
Like Montressa, Avery thought, which wasn’t for sale.
They stood there scanning the property. Smaller classroom-type buildings surrounded a main building, possibly a dining hall.
Sweet log cabins dotted the shoreline, with enough space between each one for privacy.
The place was perfect for Miles’s camp. So perfect, she’d volunteer to decorate those cute cabins.
Carter Hotels would win a bidding war and knock all of it down. They’d change Linden Lake forever, destroying animal habitats and tarnishing what brought people to natural areas year after year: tranquility.
Casper picked up a stick and ran in circles with it.
“Dad asked me to assess the property so we can outbid the other group that wants it,” Paulson said.
Avery hesitated. It felt like a breach of Miles’s trust to leak details about Camp Luciole, but this was urgent. And Paulson seemed to be searching for a reason to pass on the property.