Return to Willow Lake (2 page)

Chapter One

Moments before the wedding was to begin, Sonnet Romano
shuddered with a wave of nervousness. “Mom,” she said, hurrying over to the
window, which framed a view of Willow Lake, “what if I screw up?”

Her mother turned from the window. The late afternoon light
shrouded Nina Bellamy’s slender form, and for a moment she appeared ethereal and
as young as Sonnet herself. Nina looked fantastic in her autumn-gold silk
sheath, her dark hair swept back into a low chignon. Only someone who knew her
the way Sonnet did might notice the subtle lines of fatigue around her eyes and
mouth, the vague puffiness of her skin. Just prior to the wedding, she’d
attended the funeral, up in Albany, of her favorite aunt, who had died the week
before of cancer, and the grief of goodbye lingered in her face.

“You’re not going to screw up,” Nina said. “You’re going to be
fabulous. You look amazing in that dress, you’ve memorized everything you’re
going to do and say, and it’s going to be a wonderful evening.”

“Yes, but—”

“Remember what I used to say when you were little—your smile is
my sunshine.”

“I remember.” And the memory did its magic, bringing a smile to
her face. Her mom had raised Sonnet alone, but only now that she was grown did
she appreciate how hard that had been for Nina. “You gave me lots of memories,
Mom.”

“Come here, you.” Nina opened her arms and Sonnet gratefully
slipped into her mother’s embrace.

“This feels nice. I wish I had a chance to come back here more
often.” Sonnet turned her face to the warm breeze blowing in through the window.
The sheer beauty of the lake, nestled between the gentle swells of the
Catskills, made her heart ache. Though she’d grown up in Avalon, the place felt
foreign to Sonnet now, a world she used to inhabit and couldn’t wait to
leave.

Despite her vivid memories of her childhood here, playing in
the woods with her friends or sledding down the hills in winter, she’d never
truly appreciated the scenery until she’d left it behind, eager to find her life
far away. Now that she lived in Manhattan, crammed into a closet-sized walk-up
studio on a noisy East Side street, she finally understood the appeal of her old
hometown.

“I wish you could, too,” Nina said. “It’s time-consuming, isn’t
it, saving the world?”

Sonnet chuckled. “Is that what I’m doing? Saving the
world?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. Sweetie, I’m so proud to tell
people you work with UNESCO, that your department saves children’s lives all
over the world.”

“Ah, thanks, Mom. You make me think I do more than write emails
and fill out forms.” Sonnet often found herself wishing she could actually work
with a child every once in a while. Buried in administrative chores, it was easy
to forget.

On the smoothly-mown lawn below, guests were beginning to take
their seats for the ceremony. Many of the groom’s friends were in military dress
uniform, adding a note of gravitas to the atmosphere.

“Wow,” said Sonnet, “it’s really happening, Mom. Finally.”

“Yes,” Nina agreed. “Finally.”

A chorus of squeals came from the adjacent room, where the rest
of the bridal party was getting ready.

“Daisy’s going to be the prettiest bride ever,” Sonnet said,
feeling a thrum of emotion in her chest. The bride was Sonnet’s best friend as
well as her stepsister, and she was about to marry the love of her life. To
Sonnet it felt like a dream come true…but also, deep in a hidden corner of her
heart, a loss of sorts. Now someone else would be the keeper of Daisy’s most
private secrets, her soft place to fall, the person on the other end of the
phone in the middle of the night.

“Until it’s your turn,” Nina said. “Then
you’ll
be the prettiest bride ever.”

Sonnet gave her mom’s hand a squeeze. “Don’t hold your breath.
I’m busy saving the world, remember?”

“Just don’t get so busy you forget to fall in love,” Nina
said.

Sonnet laughed. “I think you need to embroider that on a
pillow. How about—
Hello
.” Her mind drained of
everything but the sight of the tallest groomsman in the wedding party,
escorting the grandmother of the bride to her seat in the front row.

In a dove-gray swallowtail tux, he moved with long-limbed
grace, although his height was not the most striking thing about him. It was his
hair, as long and pale as a banner of surrender, giving him the otherworldly
look of a mythical creature. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.

“Holy cow,” she said. “Is that…?”

“Yep,” said her mother. “Zach Alger.”

“Whoa.”

“He’s finally grown into his looks, hasn’t he?” Nina commented.
“I’d forgotten how long it’s been since you last saw him. The two of you used to
be so close.”

Zach Alger. Surely not, thought Sonnet, practically leaning out
the open window. This couldn’t be the Zach Alger she’d grown up with, the
whiter-shade-of-pale boy who lived down the street, with his big goofy ears and
braces on his teeth. Her best friend in high school, the freakishly skinny kid
who worked at the Sky River Bakery. This couldn’t be the college geek working
his way through school, obsessed with cameras and all things video.

Zach Alger, she thought. Well, well. Since high school, he and
Sonnet had gone in different directions, and she hadn’t seen him in ages. Now
she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

After helping Daisy’s grandmother to her seat, he pulled a
flask from his tux pocket and took a swig. All right, thought Sonnet.
That
was the Zach she knew—a guy with more talent than
ambition, a guy with a troubled background he couldn’t seem to shake, a guy who
was part of her past, but had no possible place in her future.

Movement in the next room reminded her she had an important job
to do today. She peered through the doorway at Daisy, who was surrounded by the
hairstylist, makeup artist, wedding planner, her mom Sophie, the photographer
and several people Sonnet didn’t recognize. “What do you say?” she asked her
mother. “Shall we go help Daisy get married?’

Nina grinned. “She wouldn’t dare make a move without you.”

“Or you. Honestly, when you married Daisy’s dad, she hit the
stepmom jackpot.”

Nina’s grin turned to a soft smile, and her dark eyes took on
an expression that pulled Sonnet into days gone by, when it had just been the
two of them, making their way in the world. Nina had turned a teenage pregnancy
into a small but lovely life for herself and Sonnet. Yes, she was married
now—unexpectedly, in the middle of her life—but their two-against-the-world time
together belonged solely to Nina and Sonnet.

“You’re going all mushy on me, aren’t you?” Sonnet said.

“Yeah, baby. I am. Just wait until you’re the bride. I’ll need
CPR.” The shadows in the room were just starting to deepen; evening was coming
on.

“No, you won’t, Mom,” Sonnet assured her. “You’ll rise to the
occasion. You always do.”

Nina took her hand again, and together they stepped through the
door.

Chapter Two

The wedding wound down like a noisy parade fading into
the distance. In its wake was the curious mellow quiet of a just-passed storm.
Sonnet stood on the broad lawn by the pavilion at Camp Kioga, surveying the
petal-strewn aftermath and holding onto a well-earned sense of
accomplishment.

As maid of honor, she’d been intimately involved with every
aspect of the event, from coordinating Daisy’s bachelorette party to picking the
colors of the table linens. But today hadn’t been about table decorations or
small appliances. It had been about friends and family and a celebration so
joyous she could still feel its echo deep inside her.

Rather than feeling exhausted after the long, emotional day,
she was chased by a feeling of restlessness. It was strange, coming back to the
place she’d once called home, seeing people who looked her over and remarked, “I
remember when you were
this tall
” or “Why hasn’t
some guy snatched you up by now?” as if being twenty-eight and unmarried was
taboo in a town like this.

She smiled a little, pretending she didn’t feel the tiniest dig
of impatience with her personal life. No. She wasn’t impatient. It was hard,
caught up in the wedding whirlwind, to ignore the fact that nearly everyone in
sight was coupled up.

Taking a deep breath, she went back to savoring the success of
the day. The bride and groom had just departed. Her maid of honor duties were
done. In the glow of twinkling fairy lights, the band was breaking down its set.
The catering crew got going on the cleanup. The last of the wedding guests were
slowly melting into the darkness of the perfect fall evening, the air redolent
of crisp leaves and ripe apples. There had been a bonfire at the lakeshore, but
it had burned to glowing embers by now. Some of the visitors headed for the
parking lot, while the out-of-towners wended their way to the storybook pretty
lakefront bungalows of the Camp Kioga, which through the years had been
transformed from a family camp to a kids’ camp to its present iteration, a
gathering place for celebrating life’s events. A good number of the guests were,
like Sonnet, pleasantly tipsy.

A bright moon peeked over the dark hills surrounding Willow
Lake, throwing silvery shadows across the still water and trampled grass.
Childish laughter streamed from somewhere close by, and three little kids chased
each other between the banquet tables. In the low light, Sonnet couldn’t tell
whose kids they were, but their joyous abandon lifted her heart. She adored
children; she always had. In a place deep down in the center of her, she felt a
soft tug of yearning, but it was a yearning that would likely go unfulfilled for
a very long time. Maybe forever. She had big plans for her future, but at the
moment, those plans did not include settling down and having kids of her
own.

In the first place, there was no one to settle down with.
Unlike Daisy, who had found the love of her life and was going forward with
clear-eyed certainty, Sonnet had no vision of who might be that person for her,
that one adored man who would become her whole world. In all honesty, she wasn’t
a hundred percent sure such a person existed. There was nothing missing from her
life, nothing at all. It wasn’t as if she needed to add someone like the final
piece of a puzzle.

Greg Bellamy, Sonnet’s stepfather, came walking across the
now-trampled lawn, heading for the gazebo to shell out extra tips for the band.
As father of the bride, he was all smiles. Sonnet went over to him, teasingly
holding out her hand, palm up. “Hey, where’s the tip for the maid of honor?”

Greg chuckled, looking handsome but tired and slightly
disheveled in his tux, the black silk bow tie undone and hanging on either side
of his unbuttoned collar. “Here’s a tip for you. Take a couple of aspirin before
you go to bed tonight. It’ll counteract those Jell-O shots you did at the
reception.”

“You saw that?” She grinned. “Whoops.”

“It’s okay. You’ve earned it, kiddo. Great job today. You
looked like a million, and that toast you made at the reception—hilarious.
Everybody loved it. You’re a born public speaker.”

“Yeah? Aw, thanks. You’re not so bad yourself, for an evil
stepfather.” Sonnet loved her mom’s husband. Through the years, he’d been a
great mentor and friend to her. But he wasn’t her dad. Sonnet’s father, General
Laurence Jeffries, played that role, although he had been virtually absent from
her childhood, making a career for himself far from the bucolic charm of Avalon.
When Sonnet went off to college at American University and then graduate school
at Georgetown, however, she and Laurence had reconnected; she had dived into his
world of public service and strategy and diplomacy, eagerly soaking up his
knowledge and expertise.

She was the first to admit that hero worship made for a much
more complicated relationship with Laurence than she had with Greg.

Nina came over to join them, her heeled pumps dangling from one
hand. “What’s this I hear about Jell-O shots? You were doing them without
me?”

“Trust me,” said Greg, “the champagne cocktails were a lot more
fun.”

“I trust you. And you were an amazing father of the bride,” she
said to Greg, smiling up at him.

“I cried like a baby girl.” He offered a sheepish grin.

“We all did,” Sonnet assured him. “Weddings seem to have that
effect on people. Daisy’s even more so, because of all the trouble she’s
had.”

“Speaking of trouble, I need to go make sure we’ve settled up
with everybody else,” Greg said.

“I’ll come with,” Nina said. “You might need propping up when
you see some of the final bills.”

Greg slipped his arm around Nina. “In that case, how about we
have one last glass of champagne together? For courage.”

“Good plan.” Nina helped herself to a couple of flutes from one
of the tables. “Join us down by the lake?”

Sonnet found a half-empty bottle and poured herself a glass. “I
think I’ll stick around here and…” She paused. After all was said and done, the
maid of honor had no further duties. “…drink alone.”

“Ah, baby.” Her mom offered a soft smile. “Your time will come,
just like I was saying before the wedding. No one can say where or when, but
it’ll happen.”

“Gah, Mom.” Sonnet grimaced. “I’m not mooning about my love
life. That’s the last thing on my mind.”

“If you say so.” Nina lifted her glass in salute.

“I say so. Go away.” Sonnet made a shooing motion with her free
hand. “Go drink with your husband. I’ll see you in the morning, okay? I’m
planning to be on the noon train to the city.” She watched her mom and stepdad
wander down the gentle slope toward the lake, their silhouettes dark against the
moonlight.

They paused at the water’s edge and stood facing the moonlit
surface, Greg holding Nina protectively from behind, his hands folded over her
midsection. Sonnet sighed, feeling a wave of gladness for her mom. Yet at the
same time, the sight of them embracing made her heart ache. Sonnet tried to
imagine herself in that role—the bride. Would her own father walk her down the
aisle, the tears flowing freely down his face? Doubtful. General Laurence
Jeffries, now a candidate for the United States Senate, was more figurehead than
father.

And when she pictured herself walking down the aisle, she
couldn’t form a mental image of the guy waiting at the end of it. She wasn’t
going to hold her breath waiting for him.

“I hate weddings.” Zach Alger sidled over and slammed back a
bottle of Utica Club. “I especially hate weddings that require me to behave
myself.”

Sonnet had spent most of the day sneaking glances at Zach,
trying to accustom herself to this new version of her oldest friend. They hadn’t
had a chance to talk at the wedding; the evening had sped by with her still
doing her duty as maid of honor. Now, mellow from drinking and dancing, she
regarded him through squinted eyes. It was hard to get her head around the idea
that he had been a part of her life since preschool. That, perhaps, was the only
reason she didn’t swoon sideways when he walked past, the way most women did.
Still, it was hard to get used to his unique, striking looks—so blond he was
sometimes mistaken for an albino, and now built like a Greek athlete, yet oddly
oblivious to his effect on the opposite sex.

She gave him a superior sniff, falling into her old role as
sidekick. “You mean there’s a kind of wedding that
doesn’t
require you to behave yourself?” She plucked an untouched
flute of champagne from one of the tables that hadn’t yet been cleared.

“I’m a wedding videographer. I’ve filmed more weddings than
I’ve been to baseball games. I haven’t seen a Saturday night in five years. And
what do I do when one finally rolls around? I go to a freaking wedding.”

“
Daisy’s
wedding.”

“Any wedding. I hate them all.”

She scowled at him. “How can you be hating on Daisy Bellamy’s
wedding?”

Just hearing herself say the words aloud filled her with a
sense of wonder—not because Daisy had married the man of her dreams. That in
itself was wonderful. But the real miracle was that Daisy had gotten married at
all. Her parents’ divorce had been so hard on her. Back when Daisy’s dad and
Sonnet’s mom were first getting together, both girls had agreed that marriage
was too perilous and restrictive, and they’d made a pact to avoid it at all
costs.

Now Daisy was soaring off to wedded bliss, and Sonnet was stuck
keeping her end of the pact. She cringed at the picture of her own romantic
future. Thanks to her impossibly busy career as a director at UNESCO, she had
almost no time to date, let alone get swept away and fall in love. She dreamed
of it, though. Who didn’t? Who didn’t want the kind of love Daisy had found? Or
her mother and Greg Bellamy? Or the head couple of the Bellamy clan, Jane and
Charles, who had been married for more than fifty years.

Of course Sonnet wanted that—the love, the security, the
lifelong project of building a family with her soul mate. It sounded so magical.
And so unreachable. When it came to a serious relationship, she had never quite
figured out how to get from Point A to Point B.

Lately, though, there was a glimmer on the horizon from a most
unexpected source. Her father—yes, her super-accomplished, goal-oriented
father—had introduced her to a guy. His name was Orlando Rivera, and he was
heading up the general’s run for office. Like the general, he’d attended West
Point. He was in his thirties, ridiculously handsome, from the eldest son of a
monied Cuban-American family. He had the dark appeal of a Latin lover and was
fluent in English and Spanish. And, maybe most importantly of all, he was in the
tight inner circle of satellites that revolved around her father.

“I’m allowed to hate anything I want,” Zach said, grabbing the
champagne from her hand and guzzling it down.

Defiantly, she picked up a half-empty bottle that was bobbing
in an ice bucket and took back the glass. “It was Daisy’s big day, and if you
were any kind of gentleman, you’d be happy for her. And for me,” she groused at
him. “I got to stand up at the altar for my best friend—”

“Hey,” he groused back. “I thought
I
was your best friend.”

“You never come to see me.” She feigned a dramatic sigh. “You
don’t call, you don’t text… Besides, I can have more than one.”

“Best is a superlative term. There can only be one.”

She refilled the glass and took a gulp, enjoying the lovely
head rush of the bubbly. “You and your rules. Both you and Daisy are my besties
and there’s nothing you can do about it, so there.”

“Oh yeah? I can think of something.” He grabbed her hand and
pulled her down toward the dark, flat expanse of Willow Lake.

“What the heck are you doing?” she said, twisting her hand out
of his.

“The party’s over, but I’m not tired. Are you tired?”

“No, but—”

“Hey, check it out.” He led the way down the slope to the
water’s edge.

“Check what out? I’m going to ruin my shoes.”

He stopped and turned. “Then take them off.”

“But I—”

“Lean on me,” he said, going down on one knee in front of her.
He slipped off one sandal and then the other. She felt an unexpected frisson of
sensation when he touched her. “That’s better, anyway.”

She sniffed again, unwilling to admit that the coarse sand on
the lakeshore felt delicious under her bare feet. “Fine, what are we checking
out?”

“I saw something.…” He gestured at the water lapping gently up
the sandy slope.

She saw it, too, a glimmer in the moonlight. Then she frowned
and lifted the hem of her dress to wade out and grab it. “A champagne bottle,”
she said. “Somebody littered.” Holding it up to the light, she squinted.
“There’s a message inside, Zach.”

“Yeah? Open it up and check it out,” he said.

“No way,” she said. “It might be someone’s private
business.”

“What? How can you find a message in a bottle and not look at
it?”

“It’s bad karma to pry into it. I won’t be party to snooping
around someone else’s emotional baggage.” Defiantly, she flung the bottle as far
as she could. It landed unseen, with a decisive
plop
. “What kind of idiot leaves a message in a bottle in a landlocked
lake, anyway?” she asked.

“You should have looked,” he said churlishly. “It might have
been important. Maybe it was a cry for help and you just ignored it.”

“Maybe it was some teenager’s angsty poetry and I did her a
favor by getting rid of it.”

“Right.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the dock
jutting out into the lake.

She pulled back. “Wait a minute.
Now
what are we doing?”

“I told Wendela I’d take the boat over to the boathouse.”

Wendela was the wedding planner, and Zach did most of the
videography work for her. In addition, she often enlisted him to do other odd
jobs at events. In a small town, it was a way for him to cobble together a
living, Sonnet supposed. He was talented at what he did; during the reception,
Wendela had told her he’d won some prestigious awards for his work. But like all
artists, he struggled. Awards didn’t translate into a viable income.