Skipping Stones

Chapter 1

Linney McDonnell picked up a small stone, flat and smooth, in the chilly September dawn. She’d been at it for ten minutes or so, as the horizon turned a bright pink and now slowly morphed to orange. A loon called out across the misty lake and Linney turned the stone over in her hand, concentrating hard. Angling it just so, she sent it flying toward the lake and then tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she held her breath.

One … two … three … four … five. Would there be a sixth? Yes! She jumped with pleasure as whoops of appreciation from her childhood friends carried across the water.

“Good one, Linney! I don’t think I can do better than that.” Derek’s deep voice rumbled beside her and he high-fived her on the Silver Lake shore before they scrambled up onto the dock and under the blankets to join the warmth of the others.

Kirsten handed Linney an insulated mug while Anna pulled a striped Hudson Bay blanket more tightly around her shoulders. The fall mornings had turned chilly, but the four friends had been determined to get together for one last sunrise before Linney left them again.

“I wish this didn’t have to end,” she said with a sigh. “It’s been so good to be home.” It was the end of a month-long vacation, full of kayaking on the lake, spending time with Gran, and visiting with friends. She’d spent hours devouring book after book curled up on the porch of the house she grew up in. But real life awaited her on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

“One last hug,” said Anna, as she regretfully shrugged off the blanket and stood up, her posture perfect as always. “I do need to get home. It’s a school day.” Anna had married right out of high school after falling head over heels with a local contractor. She now owned the town’s dance studio and had two adorable daughters, just a few years older than the friends had been when Linney first moved to Silver Lake. She threw her arms around Linney. “We’ll miss you. But we’ll get our fix watching you on the news. The girls love it when they see their Auntie Linney on TV.” Linney sniffed softly. “No tears, okay? And no goodbyes. We’ll see you soon.”

Linney nodded, and after another hug, Anna jogged off the dock, her long ponytail swinging behind her, heading past the house and back to her family.

Kirsten looked at Linney sadly. “I should go too if I’m not going to be late.” Kirsten’s nursing shift at Silver Lake General Hospital’s emergency room started at seven o’clock. She’d come this morning in her usual boxy scrubs that hid her curvy figure. “But I’m glad we saw the sunrise with you. Safe travels, and don’t be a stranger, okay? If you wait too long to come home again, I might have to come see you in London.”

Linney wiped a tear away from behind her glasses with her forefinger as she pulled her petite, shapely friend to her. “You know I’d love that.”

Turning her attention to Derek, Kirsten grinned. “Glad you could come up for a couple of days. See you soon.” The dock bounced slightly as she jumped off and walked up to her car.

It seemed impossible to Linney that five years had passed since she had been recruited to the TeleCan News bureau in England right out of university. Back then, while Derek finished his law degree in Toronto, Anna was already an exhausted and busy Silver Lake mother of two preschoolers and Kirsten had landed a job at the local hospital. But Linney and Derek always had big plans, and staying in Silver Lake had never been part of them.

Full of excitement for her overseas job, Linney quickly found a tiny, bright flat at the top of four flights of stairs in the London neighbourhood of Notting Hill and started at the bottom of the ladder as a fact checker for more experienced reporters. She raised her hand for every extra assignment and soon gained a reputation for her quick and thorough work. Linney hadn’t slept much in those days, but it had paid off with a string of promotions. She still remembered how excited she’d been when she’d called Derek to proudly inform her best friend that he was talking to the latest TCN on-air reporter.

In the years that followed, she’d covered all manner of news stories, from business to politics, and from royalty to sports. Lately, though, she was feeling restless and was hoping for the challenge of an assignment further afield. Iran, Somalia, Ethiopia—she didn’t care where. She just wanted to be where the action was, and she wanted to be there soon. Whether she made it or not, the whole population of Silver Lake, all 2,566—2,567 when she was home—was already proud of “their” Linney McDonnell.

The last colours of the sunrise faded as Derek and Linney sat on the dock in comfortable silence and the rising sun started to burn off the fog that had been hovering over the lake. The friends had been watching new days start together on this dock since they were young. A cool breeze made Linney shiver. Derek put a brotherly arm around her, and she leaned into his familiar broad frame as the loon called again. They sipped the last of their coffee as the sun slowly started to warm them.

It was Derek who broke the silence. “I’m sorry Olivia couldn’t make it up to the lake this weekend,” he said. “This deal she’s working on has her chained to her desk. I’ve hardly seen her for weeks.” Derek’s long-time girlfriend was a successful mergers and acquisitions lawyer who was just as smart and driven as he was. They had sparred often during mock trials at law school. He’d won two more cases than she did—not that anyone was counting—but he had a softer heart.

As a teenager, Derek had developed a reputation around town for his volunteer work at the local food bank and by rescuing more than one stray animal. He’d been known to shovel sidewalks for some of the town’s elderly population in the winter, and in the fall, colourful blankets of coloured leaves would mysteriously be raked from front lawns into piles by the roadway for pickup when Derek was around. As a lawyer, he had more tools to help people and these days, Derek could be found with his shirtsleeves rolled up as he fought the system for immigrants, refugees, and the poor at a bustling Legal Aid office in downtown Toronto. The cases Olivia and Derek worked on couldn’t be more different, and neither could they. But opposites attract, and they had been together since they’d met in the law school library.

“She loves her job.” Linney shrugged, always amused that Derek was smitten with a driven Bay Street lawyer.

“So do you.” Derek turned to look at Linney and teased, “You can’t fool me. As much as you’re sad to leave, you’re looking forward to being back in London with Mac as well.” He stood up and jumped down to the shore, looking for another stone.

Linney rolled her eyes, but she knew he was right. She did love her job. And she couldn’t deny that the heady, tempestuous romance she had with storied reporter Finlay MacGregor was an amazing bonus. The roller coaster ride was exhilarating.

A bone of contention between them was Mac’s inability to understand why Linney kept returning to her hometown, despite having been so eager to leave. Compared to the hustle and bustle of London and the adrenaline-filled news business, he often teased her that the Silver Lake community she described sounded sleepy and insular.

He had a point, she had to admit. Not a lot had changed since Linney had left for London. Silver Lake was a small town, and while it did have the benefits of being the county seat, that only went so far. The county offices were on the edge of town, in a nondescript brick building designed for efficiency, not looks, and Silver Lake was home to the county hospital, library, and schools. The not-so-cleverly-named Main Street curved around the crystal-clear lake and hummed with activity during the busy summer cottage season. It was home to a number of businesses in old Ontario heritage buildings, including Page Turners, the popular bookstore that Kirsten’s family owned, and which drew people from many towns over.

Across the road beside the lake was grassy Centennial Park and the beach, where all Silver Lake holiday gatherings were held. On Victoria Day, the cottage season kicked off properly, and high school students served strawberry shortcake every year to raise money for activities. On Canada Day, a band played to summer crowds in the 1800s pavilion before the fireworks began. All through the summer, the ice cream stand where Anna had worked as a teenager was still the place where folks, old and young alike, held hands, flirted, and watched the sun set.

The annual Fall Festival in October was Silver Lake’s last big celebration. It brought summer people back for one last week after Thanksgiving, to hike in the autumn leaves and visit festival booths that featured handicrafts, preserves and other local food, pumpkins, and hayrides.

But behind the spit and polish that brought the town of Silver Lake to life for summer people lay a far less prosperous one. When cottages were closed after the Fall Festival, many businesses also closed their doors for the season. On the other side of the summer facade, there were Silver Lake families who struggled, living paycheque to paycheque as the town limped through winter. At Christmas, when the park was just for locals, the huge spruce tree beside the pavilion, laden with snow, was lit with a few strings of lights. In January, volunteers groomed a section of the frozen lake for skating.

Away from the lakeshore and beyond the town limits, some families relied on a combination of social assistance and the food bank, reluctantly accepting the kindness of strangers to make it through the winter. What Silver Lake lacked in monetary wealth however, it made up for in caring and the town always looked after its own. Linney’s grandmother taught her to pretend not to notice if a classmate’s sister went to school in her hand-me-downs. Several women banded together in a group called KnitWorks, to ensure that nobody was ever without mittens and scarves.

The downside to all this caring—everyone poking around in everyone else’s business—had driven Derek and Linney crazy as teenagers. He said you couldn’t sneeze without the whole town knowing about it. They couldn’t wait to escape for relative anonymity in big cities where not everyone knew everything about them. Others chafed less at the intrusion and these days, both Anna and Kirsten were avid KnitWorkers.

“Can I trust you with a secret?” There was a note of conspiracy in Derek’s voice. They’d always been each other’s confidants and there was no one Linney trusted more. Back on the dock, Derek picked up a blanket, folding it carefully, busying his hands and buying time.

“Go on.”

“I bought a ring. I’m going to propose to Olivia.” The gold flecks in his brown eyes glittered with excitement.

Linney squealed and leaped up to hug him, making the dock sway beneath them. “I’m so happy for you. I know how much you love her.”

“I sure hope she says yes.”

Linney put her hands on her hips in a show of false exasperation. “Of course, she will. You’re a great catch, and she’s lucky to have you.” She hugged him again and whispered in his ear, “You’ll be a great husband.”

“I hope so.”

“I know so.”

Derek pulled away and grabbed another blanket to fold. He threw a longing glance at the kayaks that sat on the shore. “And now, my friend, I really need to go. As much as I’d like to be out on the lake, I couldn’t cancel my afternoon meetings. I need to get back to the city and my clients.”

“Thank you so much for staying for the sunrise today. It wouldn’t have been the same without you.”

“Here.” He pressed the stone he’d found on the shore into her hand. “Another one for your collection. Be safe, okay? Don’t do anything dangerous, and come back home soon.”

“Call me when she says yes. Love you!” He nodded, and then took long strides through the garden and up to the small single-story clapboard house painted a buttery yellow next door.

She waved as he turned back before pulling the door closed. Then Linney opened her hand to see the stone he’d given her. She kept a jar of them in London. Special stones with meaning—either gifts or souvenirs of places she’d been. Derek had been giving her perfect stones as gifts forever, it seemed. Tucking it into her pocket, Linney folded the rest of the blankets and, with one last longing look out to the lake, carried them up to the porch.

* * *

“Oh, Linney, this is too much!”Linnea McDonnell, after whom Linney was named, looked at the pitcher of black-eyed Susans and Michaelmas daisies that her granddaughter had cut from the garden and set on the old pine farmhouse table. Like the house and the china, the table had once belonged to her late husband’s family. Four generations of McDonnells—five now, if you counted her great-grandchildren—had sat around the table and it bore the scars of many happy meals.

“I just wanted our last breakfast to be special.”

Gran was the only parent Linney could really remember. She had landed abruptly at the century-old house at Silver Lake after her parents had been killed in a car crash. Her brother Jake was much older than her—she’d been her parents’ surprise baby, born seventeen years after him—and had begun working at an architecture firm. Six-year-old Linney was a sad, skinny, and scared little girl with buck teeth, limp dirty-blonde braids and coke-bottle glasses. Time had healed Linney’s pain, years of braces had fixed her smile, and she’d eventually learned what to do with her hair, which had darkened to a rich, warm brown, but the glasses had always been a constant, thinner now, thanks to new technologies, but still thick enough to correct her extreme nearsightedness.

It was a far more put-together Linney who pulled out a chair for her grandmother this morning, at least on the outside. On air, and in the newsroom, Linney exuded confidence and looked the part of the successful journalist. On the inside though, some of that insecure little girl remained, seeking affirmation that she was doing the “right” thing and looked the “right” way. It left her second-guessing herself, and she put a lot of faith in Mac’s advice.

Her cooking was something she didn’t question. She’d learned from the best. Linney filled Gran’s plate and poured orange juice. Gran was eighty-four now, and time was beginning to catch up with her. Linney had listened to the same stories many times and walked more slowly than usual with Gran on this trip home. She knew she’d have to talk to Jake about it soon so that they could support their grandmother in these later years.

The sun streamed in the window as the two women enjoyed thick slices of French toast drizzled with maple syrup and preserves. Linney poured cups of coffee, adding milk and sugar for Gran and leaving her own black. They chatted while they did the dishes, putting them away in the old milk-painted cupboards that hadn’t changed since Linney was young. So little had changed in the dove grey board-and-batten house with its wraparound porch and darker grey metal roof that during Linney’s vacation, she had made a list of some updates that she wanted to make Gran more comfortable. The carpet in the bedrooms could use replacing, the living room needed new paint, and she’d noticed the porch was starting to peel. It would need to be dealt with before next summer.

“They’d have been proud of you, you know.” Linney almost dropped a plate as she looked at Gran in surprise. “And Jake too, of course, but you’re the one that followed in their footsteps. They’d have been so proud,” she repeated, smoothing her blue dress.

Before the accident, Linney’s mother had been a radio producer and her father a print reporter in Toronto. Jake had settled in the city too, but architecture was his passion. Linnea had encouraged her granddaughter’s love of storytelling and supported her dreams. Linney was one of the few people allowed through the blue door and up the tight winding stairs to Gran’s office above the sunroom—her personal creative space, built lovingly for her by her late husband. Linney knew the townspeople had whispered that the McDonnell family was putting on airs when they’d put on the addition back in the 1950s, but it made the house unique and she loved it. Gran had let her write her first stories there, curled up on a soft and well-loved leather chair.

“Gran, you’re making me cry!” It was an emotional morning, and tears welled up again in Linney’s eyes. She took off her glasses to wipe them away.

It was all the excuse Linnea needed, and she hugged her granddaughter tightly. Finally, Linney disentangled herself from her grandmother’s arms. She squinted. It didn’t help. The world didn’t come clear again until her glasses were perched back on her nose where they belonged.

Slowly, she hung up the tea towel she’d been using to dry the dishes. “I guess it’s time then,” she said with a pang of regret. “I love you, Gran.”

“Have a safe journey back, my dear.”

Gran followed Linney out onto the porch and they shared one more hug before Linney climbed into her rental car and slowly drove away.

* * *

Several hours later,when Linney had dropped off the car, given her bag to the handling agents with crossed fingers, and passed through security, she sipped a cup of steaming coffee, nibbled on a cheese scone at an airport coffee shop and began the mental transition from small-town lake girl to sophisticated big-city journalist. She texted Mac.

Boarding in half an hour. Can’t wait to see you. Dinner at my place tomorrow? I’ll cook.

Sounds great. Grabbing a pint with the guys. Can’t wait to see you too. Safe flight.

Her next text was to MJ, her best friend in London, and fellow Canadian. MJ—short for Marie-Josée—also worked at TCN and provided radio and television reports for both the English and French sides of the network. When they weren’t working, she and Linney could often be found thrifting around the city—looking for great TV-appropriate outfits and cost-effective second-hand furniture finds for their walk-up flats. The spunky francophone from the Ottawa Valley tolerated Linney’s abysmal attempts to use her high school French and was helping her up her style game.

Wheels up soon. See you in the office in two days.

Bon. We need to set a shopping date. My clothes are all terrible.

Linney laughed out loud. MJ was built for clothes. She looked good in everything and always looked chic, even in jeans and tennis shoes. Linney, on the other hand, perpetually felt a bit of a mess. She pushed away a stray bit of hair—no matter what she did with it, it was forever falling into her face—and fretted about her weight. She’d been trying to lose the same few pounds ever since she arrived in London. Mac said it gave him something to grab onto, which made her blush, but she did need to do something about it. She shoved aside the last of her scone. That’d be a good start. She turned her attention back to MJ.

Not true! But any excuse to shop, right? A bient?t!

* * *

The flight was soonin the air, and Linney reclined her seat. As usual, she told the flight attendant not to wake her for dinner, and she tucked her glasses away in her purse, replacing them with a silk sleep mask. But slumber didn’t come easily as she thought about home.

Earnest, curly-haired Derek Blake was the first person she’d met when she arrived at Silver Lake. The serious little boy, with pants just a bit too short, had knocked on Gran’s door with a plate covered in plastic wrap. Nibbling his mother’s cookies together, their legs dangling from the same wooden kitchen chairs she’d sat on this morning, Linney learned that her next-door neighbour knew many of the children who would be in her class. They waited for the yellow bus together at the end of his driveway a week later as she picked at her cuticles nervously—a habit she’d picked up in the weeks since her parents died—and when they arrived at the small elementary school, he helped her find her teacher. A year older, Derek quickly became Linney’s best friend and, encouraged by his mother, he looked out for her.

Derek introduced her to Anna and Kirsten at recess, and as she settled in, Linney smiled more and looked less forlorn. Her cuticles recovered, and in time, Silver Lake became her home, and she blossomed. She giggled with her friends, spent hours at Page Turners and scribbled stories in notebooks Gran bought. But for real-life adventures, it was Derek who Linney sought out. He’d rescued her too many times to count, from the first winter when she fell through the ice on the creek that fed the lake to the night of her junior prom when her date ditched her. In the winters, they skated and tobogganed, gleefully throwing snowballs at each other as they hiked up the trails to frozen waterfalls when they weren’t studying. And as they approached the end of their high school years, when she wasn’t poring over the latest teen magazines and practising makeup with the girls, Linney spent hours with Derek, exploring the marshes and little rocky islands in their kayaks, or on the end of her dock with their feet dangling in the water, while they sipped lemonade.

Early mornings and still evenings were for skipping stones along the shore and sharing their hopes and dreams for the future, far beyond the frustrating constraints of Silver Lake. Unlike most of their classmates, who stayed in town after high school, or attended the local college in Bridgegrove just up the road, they had big plans and chose highly respected universities in Toronto, several hours away from Silver Lake.

Even now, years later, hardly a week went by without several texts and the occasional video chat. They shared everything that was going on in their lives—celebrated the victories, shared the losses, and supported each other when things didn’t go as planned. Linney was the first to know that Derek was losing his heart to Olivia, and he had been her sounding board as she struggled with the intensity of her feelings for Mac. Linney knew that Derek would always be there for her, just as she would for him.

Shifting uncomfortably in her narrow airplane seat, Linney yawned, and as sleep continued to elude her, her thoughts turned to London. Mac was a legend in the news business, reporting over the years from war zones and bearing witness to important international events. So of course Linney had known exactly who Mac was when she saw him in the newsroom on her first day at TCN. But that hadn’t prepared her for the moment their eyes met.

Linney had read her fair share of romance novels and cynically perused descriptions of the heroine’s breath being taken away. But that was exactly what had happened when their eyes locked across the newsroom. Time stood still and every hair on the back of her arms stood up as her heart began to race. The flutter in her stomach was something she hadn’t experienced before.

Mac winked. Flushing scarlet with embarrassment at having been caught staring at the handsome star reporter, Linney tore her eyes away from his and scurried away. She was new—a nobody—and she had work to do and a reputation to build. Being caught making eyes at the senior correspondent wouldn’t help that one little bit.

Still, she knew Mac had noticed her and something had happened between them. Over the next months, it happened again and again, with the same dizzying effect. Linney stole glances at him, and he met her eyes, but just as often, it was her meeting his gaze.

It was MJ who first told her Mac was making a point of checking out her work, and one evening at the pub after work with colleagues, he asked her opinion about the latest government change. Linney, newly promoted, stammered out an answer, blushing to the tips of her ears. Mac nodded, and she inferred that she’d passed some kind of test. The next day, he approached her desk, and they chatted for a few minutes. Mac was known for spotting raw talent, and he took Linney under his wing, mentoring and guiding her.

Linney soaked it all in, celebrating little successes but equally beating herself up when Mac’s critique was less positive. Applying the lessons, she landed an on-air reporting position after just a year at TCN. As she progressed, and became more confident in her abilities and decisions, they often had professional disagreements, and their colleagues learned to ignore the raised voices from the editing suites and the heated arguments during story meetings as their opinions clashed. Because the end result was worth it. Linney’s news stories made great television and viewers responded to her.

But the more they worked together, the harder it became for Linney to keep her feelings under wraps. She often turned to Derek to work them out.

OMG, what am I going to do? Yesterday, in the editing suite, Mac reached over my shoulder to show me something in the film we shot and I could feel his breath on my neck. My knees almost buckled. Whyyyyyyyyyyy does he make me feel this way?

Get it together, Linney. He’s almost 20 years older than you—and your mentor.

I know, but …

NO!!!!

Do NOT go there! Repeat. Do NOT go there!

But they did.

* * *

“We won!”Linney bounced out of her seat and grabbed Mac’s hand, dragging him to the stage at the annual TV awards gala to collect a pair of statuettes for a story they’d collaborated on. She adjusted her glasses nervously as she thanked everyone at TeleCan News. She gestured to her co-winner. “And especially to Mac for all he’s taught me since I joined TCN two years ago.” Mac offered up his own thanks and followed Linney back to their table, his eyes trained on her shapely backside.

As their colleagues drifted out at the end of the evening, Mac suggested they have a nightcap. Linney was still riding high on the excitement of her first big win and agreed. Eyes dancing in the lights of the streetlamps, she suddenly stopped on the sidewalk. Mac almost bumped into her.

“Something wrong?”

Fuelled by the confidence brought on by a third glass of champagne, Linney reached up and kissed him. She pulled back quickly, realizing she’d probably just made the biggest mistake of her professional life. She started to offer an apology, but Mac’s hand was suddenly on the small of her back and he pulled her in roughly. Fireworks went off in Linney’s head as he kissed her back with the same passion as she felt. They never made it to the bar.

From then on, sometimes against their better judgement, they were inseparable, and whether in the newsroom or the bedroom, their relationship was a roller coaster of intense highs and lows. It was unpredictable and explosive, leaving Linney careening between exhilaration and hurt.

Mac never apologized when his words sliced into her self-confidence, but in the light of each new day, the passionate making-up more than compensated for anything he’d said. Linney found she was unable to describe it, despite her profession. Their relationship left her breathless and burning for more. Every single time.

Mac. Derek. London, Silver Lake. Linney finally slept, but her restless dreams were filled with a jumble of them all.