… do as I say, not as I do.”
That made Emily laugh as she got in her car. Stella walked back to her house, taking off her heels and shaking her head to herself.
There was so little traffic at that time of morning that Emily arrived at Piney Woods Lake in record time. The parking lot was nearly empty. She parked and turned off the ignition, then sat in silence while the engine ticked as it cooled. She knew she was too early, but she’d wanted to leave before Grandpa Vance got home. She didn’t want to lie to his face. She didn’t know if he would understand why she was doing this.
Finally she got out of the car. The murky morning air was so heavy that it beaded on her skin as she walked to the boardwalk and sat on one of the benches overlooking the lake. There were very few people there. She propped her feet on the railing while watching the fog roll off the water. Some of the lake houses had their lights on, but not many.
She heard footsteps approach on the boardwalk behind her, then Win appeared by the bench. She stared up at him, not knowing what to say. She had no idea he would be here this early, too. He waited a moment, then he sat beside her and put his feet on the railing beside hers. He stared intently at the water as if he would miss something important if he looked away. He had a strong, angular profile. Austere, proud, full of secrets. She wanted in. She wanted to know those secrets. Was this how her mother felt? She wondered if there was a curse, one that impossibly attracted the women of her family to the men of his.
Yet here she was. Still doing this.
“Come to my family’s lake house and have breakfast with me,” he finally said.
“How long have you been waiting?”
“A while. I didn’t want to miss you.” He took a deep breath, then stood. “I’m glad you came.” He held out his hand to her.
It didn’t take long for her to accept it.
Chapter 13
They walked down the empty beach, then Win led Emily up the steps to the large deck of his family’s lake house. He gestured for her to sit in one of the Adirondack chairs. She did, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around them.
She relaxed this stance only when Penny, the housekeeper, came out and served them frittatas. Penny was sixty-three years old, widowed, and extremely set in her ways. But she had a soft spot for Win, and Win adored her. When he was a little boy, he used to think of Penny and the lake house as a single entity. He’d thought she sat alertly on a stool in the kitchen all day and night, waiting for his family to visit so she could cook for them. The first time he’d seen her outside the context of the lake house, on one of her days off, he’d been downtown with his mother. He’d seen Penny walk down the street and he’d thought she’d escaped, so he’d yelled at his mom to catch her and bring her back. He’d been absolutely hysterical. His limited understanding at the time had been that, because of who he was, he couldn’t leave Mullaby, but other people could. They could leave and never come back. And that had petrified him.
He and Emily ate breakfast in a silence that wasn’t entirely comfortable. He made her nervous, and she made him feel off balance. It felt like too much, like he was taking more than he should. But he couldn’t seem to help it. He’d spent his life accepting what his father told him he could never change, and forcing himself not to covet the freedom other people had. Things had to change. He couldn’t go on following rules that were made for a different time. It all made sense when he met Emily. She could make this right. She could take away this stigma. If Dulcie Shelby’s daughter, of all people, could accept him for who he was, then his family would have to take notice. Emily was the first step to a whole new way of life.
At this point, he couldn’t even consider the possibility that he was wrong about this. He had to be right. He had to be.
After breakfast, they sat side by side on the Adirondack chairs, quietly watching the sun burn the