LITMIR.BIZ

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At this pace we’ll be finishing the lake run in twenty minutes, not our normal ninety.”

      Addie checked her watch as they passed the ancient sequoia. Seven minutes too fast; she slowed her pace.

      Behind them, Kat asked, “This about Skip Dalton?”

      “What about him?” Lee asked.

      Addie said, “Kat thinks because he’s moved in across the road from me I’m running to escape.”

      “Are you?” they asked in unison.

      “No. Where he lives is not my concern. What he does is not my concern. Who he does it with is not my concern.”

      “Really?” Kat’s chuckle drifted between Addie and Lee.

      “You seem to be mighty vocal about the whole thing for him not to be your concern, honey.”

      “Did you see him today?” Lee asked as they emerged from the woods and started down the path along the lakeshore. “Is that why you’re upset?”

      “I’m not upset.”

      At least not anymore.

      Not since they’d begun their run. In the library she believed Skip had deliberately tracked her down, but then Michaela told Addie on the way to Charmaine’s house that Becky had wanted to say hi and get a library card.

      Addie couldn’t fault the girl. She was polite and kind, and Michaela liked her. A lot. Which scared Addie. Her daughter hooking up with Becky meant Skip and Addie were doomed to each other’s company.

      Beneath her feet the ground was spongy, the track easy; in her lungs the air was fragrant with pine and moss and lake water. She had trekked this trail with Skip when she was fifteen. He had kissed her here when she was sixteen, and around the next bend seven months later he had made love to her for the first time under a soft August moon, in the back of his pickup.

      “I wish it was a bed,” he’d whispered. And she’d whispered in return, “I’m glad it’s just you and me and the moon.”

      Silly romantic fool, that’s what she’d been.

      “Addie?” Lee’s voice plunged her back to the present. “’Fess up. What gives? You’ve been a bear with a sore paw for more than a week.”

      “Fine.” Before they made the bend and The Spot, she slammed to a halt. “Here’s the deal. I’m scared.”

      Lee yanked the bandana from her thick, curly red ponytail, and wiped her neck. “Of Skip?”

      “Yes, of Skip.”

      Kat, always the hugger, put her arms around Addie. “Honey, why on earth would you be scared of him?”

      Lee rolled her eyes. “Not of him, of herself.”

      “Is that it?” her middle sister asked.

      Addie nodded. “He’s right across the road. I’ll not only see him at school, but I’ll see him when I’m home. I’ll see his car in his driveway…or him doing something in his yard—building mailboxes and birdhouses—”

      “Birdhouses?” her sisters parroted.

      “Becky told Michaela they were getting a birdhouse today.”

      “Why is that scary?” Kat wanted to know.

      “I don’t know.” Hands on her hips, Addie hung her head and blew out a breath. “Because it’s homey. It means they’re staying.”

      “But you already knew that, Addie.” As eldest, Lee had learned early to be the logical one. “You knew when he took on Coach’s job.”

      Both sisters studied her.

      “You still have feelings for him,” Lee observed.

      “Not at all.”

      “Oh, Addie.” Kat, the peacekeeper, the nurturer.

      Backing away, Addie held up her palms. “Don’t start with the ‘Oh, Addie.’ I’m over him, all right? I haven’t thought of Skip Dalton in years.” She turned to run the trail again.

      “Sheesh, you’re just like Mom,” Kat called after her.

      “Mom’s got nothing to do with this,” Addie retorted.

      “Yes, she does.” Lee was on her heels. “You won’t own up.”

      Own up. The way Charmaine wouldn’t own up about Kat’s father. “This is hardly the same,” Addie said. “I know who Skip Dalton is.”

      “But,” Lee said, “you’ve never accepted your feelings where he’s concerned. You’ve shoved them into the back closet. Just like Mom.”

      Just like Mom. No way. Addie ran toward the trail’s bend, the bend where he’d told her he loved her, that he would never leave her, that one day they’d be two old people rocking on the porch, watching sunsets. And when she reached the curve, when she might have stumbled, she ran harder, faster, escaping what she believed buried for thirteen years….

      That Lee was right.

      Standing on her back stoop, Addie called for Michaela. No response. She hurried to the honey house in case her daughter had gone there. The child liked sitting on the wooden floor in a sunny spot playing with her dolls, and Addie suspected it had to do with the waxy-honey scent and quiet warmth. “Michaela!”

      The door was closed.

      Worry spiking, she rushed inside the building. Empty.

      Where was she?

      Running to the front yard, she called again. Then stopped when the sound of hammering echoed through the late-morning air.

      Hadn’t he finished building over there yet?

      And suddenly she knew where her daughter had gone. The birdhouse.

      The one Becky described to Michaela last night on the phone—already they’d exchanged numbers. The one the girl had convinced Skip to buy following the library trip two days ago and their discussion about tree swallows nesting in Addie’s backyard.

      Quickly, she walked down the path shaded by evergreens and birch, and across the road. At the end of his driveway, a spanking white mailbox stood on a clean-cut wooden post. The mailbox he’d purchased while she jogged with Lee and Kat.

      Across each metal side the name DALTON had been stenciled in black block lettering, and for a second, she couldn’t breathe.

      A strong name for a headstrong man.

      He’d always done what he wanted, what he deemed necessary for his profession. Once, she had loved his name. Written it a hundred times in her school notebooks and carved it into a tree along with her own in the woods behind her mother’s house.

      A.W. + S.D. enclosed in a heart.

      Stupid. A stupid girl with silly dreams and impractical hopes.

      Today, she was a woman of independence, living under the rule of pragmatism and common sense—she hoped—and Skip Dalton had neither.

      She walked down his graveled drive, her mind on retrieving her daughter, whose giggles erupted from behind the white-and-green house.

      Michaela and Becky were attempting cartwheels on a grassy patch several yards from the wide-lipped back porch, while Skip read the instructions to what appeared to be the celebrated birdhouse. Pieces of cardboard lay scattered on a stone walkway in front of the porch stairs.

      Addie stared. The scene appeared almost ruthless. Skip the family man—a father with two girls—working in the yard, fixing things. All they needed was a dog lying in the sun, thumping its tail.

      And a woman—

      Addie refused to let the thought gel. Refused to think of the woman connected to Skip through his

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