Chapter 2
LEE
The humid air sticks to my skin and makes my shirt cling to my back.
Ninety-five degrees the third week of October is diabolical.
I put another log on the chopping block, raise the ax, and bring it down hard.
The crack echoes through the trees, sharp enough to startle a crow into calling from somewhere above me.
The smell of fresh oak cuts through the heavier damp scent of the lake. Sweat drips into my eyes, and I wipe it away with my sleeve. This is the kind of work I like. The steady rhythm of it, swing, crack, stack, works an ache into my shoulders, but it clears my mind.
Despite the weather, the summer season is over and there’s lots of work to be done.
The cabins usually remain empty through the winter, other than one or two rented by fisherman, but I’ve done things differently this year.
A local low income apartment complex was shut down, leaving families scrambling to find a place to go so I offered the cabins as a temporary solution.
It’ll get them through the winter and give them time to find another home.
I bought this property, complete with nine lakeside cabins, over seven years ago.
The property management firm I hired from town does a good job of handling the administrative side that I don’t want to deal with, like scheduling the reservations and collecting the money.
It leaves me free to do the maintenance and upkeep.
Solitude wasn’t my intention when I bought the place, but I’m thankful for it now.
My house is on the far side of the property, backed up to the lake, surrounded and hidden by thick forest on three sides.
The only access is the gravel road that ends at my driveway.
It’s well away from all the cabins except one.
Cabin nine is located on a bend in the same road, tucked back out of view, but not far enough away for my liking.
Which is why it’s the only cabin I don’t rent out.
It sits empty with the windows boarded up.
As I’m finishing with the wood, my phone rings.
“Wow, you answered instead of texting me back. I’m flattered,” my little sister Lacey teases.
“It’s not too late for me to hang up.”
“Then you know I’ll show up at your door.”
“Bully.”
“Hermit.”
I got custody of Lacey when she was almost sixteen, after our mother died. She’s the opposite of me. Perky, happy, talkative as all hell. She drives me crazy, but I wouldn’t know what to do without her.
“What are you doing, kid?”
“Getting ready for Arlow’s cookout. I just want to remind you to be nice to Nick. He’s excited to meet you.”
I doubt that. “I’m always nice.”
She scoffs. “I mean it. I really like him. Don’t scare him away with your overprotective big brother act. I’m also bringing my new roommate, Trinity. I think you’ll like her.”
My guard is instantly raised. Lacey isn’t as sneaky as she thinks she is with her matchmaking attempts, despite the fact I swore off dating and relationships years ago. “Mm-hm.”
Lacey giggles, unperturbed by my noncommittal reply. “Okay, I’ll see you tonight.”
Once we hang up, I pull up my notes on my phone.
Cabin two requested firewood, and cabin five has a clog in the kitchen sink.
That shouldn’t take long. After stacking the fresh cut wood in the shed, I load some seasoned split logs into the dump trailer, grab my toolbox, and start my ATV.
A brown furball comes flying toward me. “I knew that would bring you running,” I chuckle, reaching down to scratch the crazy dog behind her ears. “You want to ride or run?”
She leaps into the trailer beside the wood and sits down.
If we make it a quarter of the way there before she leaps out, I’ll eat every log in that trailer.
I named her Rogue for a reason. She’s wild and can’t sit still for long.
Most of the time, all anyone sees of her is a blur as she darts by.
One of the past guests abandoned her here back in April.
That prick is now on the do-not-rent list, but his loss was my gain.
Rogue may only listen when she feels like it, but she’s smart as hell and never meets a stranger.
She makes it down the gravel road to the gate before hopping out and running off.
I installed the metal gate beside the No Exit road sign right after I bought the place.
It’s marked with private property and no trespassing signs, so tourists won’t wander over to bother me.
I usually leave it open after tourist season since it’s kind of a pain in the ass to get out and move the arm every time.
On the other side of the gate, paved road takes over for the gravel, though it’s still narrow. I pass cabins seven and eight, then wave to Arthur, who sits out in front of the general store. He’ll be closing up for the season soon as well. A left turn takes me down to the other six cabins.
A truck sits in the driveway of cabin five, but there’s no answer at the door and nobody around.
I’m not surprised. You don’t come to the lake and sit indoors all day.
A pair of children’s swim trunks are draped over the porch railing to dry, and there’s a collection of empty beer cans beside a lawn chair.
Rogue bowls them over, trying to skid to a stop as she joins me.
“You aren’t coming in, crazy ass.” She’s coated in mud.
Unbothered, she trots away, and I let myself in.
The sink is an easy fix. They said it was blocked, and I expected to find grease or food, not two brightly colored foam darts stuck in the P trap.
That’s a new one. I leave the darts beside a note on the counter letting them know the sink is functional and lock the door behind me.
There’s no one at cabin two either when I pull up and stack their wood on the porch. That’s another reason I love this job. People are few and far between. Lacey isn’t wrong when she calls me a hermit. I have her, plus a few friends that I care about, and that’s enough for me.
I stop by one of the other cabins when I notice the wooden deck along the side needs some work and add it to my to-do list that’ll take me most of the winter to complete.
It’s good to have something to focus on when the days get short and dark.
Rogue catches up with me again as I get back home, and I consider getting her cleaned up to take her with me to Arlow’s cookout.
She loves to herd his goats around. But I’m not sure how she’d act around Silver’s cat, and I have every intention of ending up at her place tonight after that last text she sent me.
Thoughts of the last time I stayed with her make me grin as I shower and get ready to go.
We fucked each other half to death. She’s amazing in bed.
I didn’t have the choice to leave afterward since we got a ride to her house and left our trucks at Arlow’s place.
While she was showering the next morning, I was planning to remind her that I wasn’t looking for anything serious.
We have friends in common, and I didn’t want to give her the wrong idea or make things awkward.
There was no need to worry. She emerged from the bathroom, told me to call a taxi, then locked me out and left me on her front porch until I could find a ride. Arlow still gives me shit about it.
Silver acted like nothing ever happened and I was happy to go along with that for the last year. But I couldn’t resist kissing her when she was teasing me, and now I need her underneath me again.
Arlow’s property is the last on a dead end street at the edge of town.
It’s a good amount of wooded land that includes an old cemetery, along with his farmhouse.
Calli bought the adjoining property with the little cabin before eventually moving in with him.
It looks like I’m the last to show up, judging by the vehicles parked in his driveway.
Music and voices grow louder as I walk around to the back of the house where everyone is gathered.
“Lee,” Arlow calls out, gesturing for me to join him and his dad, Charlie, at the grill.
I was shocked the first time I met his parents.
Since Arlow is the tallest guy I’ve ever met, I expected his dad would be tall too, but both his parents are average height.
I’m a little over six foot three and he has me beat by at least four inches.
Add that to the fact he has vitiligo that gives him patches of pale skin and white hair in his beard and eyebrows, and he isn’t a man you’d ever mistake for someone else.
“Happy Birthday, asshole.” I hold a bottle of his favorite whiskey out to him.
He accepts it as Charlie chuckles. “Thanks.” He reaches into the nearby cooler and hands me a beer while Charlie and I say hello.
I don’t know his parents well, but I know they’re good to him.
I’ve only met his sister once, but she waves to me from the other side of the yard where she’s playing with two toddlers.
Looking around, I realize there are only two people here that I don’t know, which I assume are Lacey’s new boyfriend and her roommate.
They’re hanging out with Calli and Silver near the picnic table.
Silver looks up and gives me a salacious smile.
She can tease me all she wants, but she’ll be paying for it later.
“Have you met Lacey’s boyfriend?” I ask Arlow, switching my attention to size up the man who has his arm around my little sister.
He’s not much bigger than her, with a manbun and glasses that scream hipster.
With Lacey, you never know. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she walked in here with a biker covered in tattoos or a nerdy guy in a cape. She doesn’t seem to have a type.
“I did,” Arlow replies. “Seems like a nice kid.”
“She called and asked me not to scare him.”
Arlow and Charlie both laugh. “Can’t blame her,” Arlow says. “The poor girl has a brother the size of a rhino.”