Summer at Willow Lake (13 page)

Fordham, the swim and dive safety instructor, was droning on and on about how to methodically scan the area in an invisible grid pattern so you didn’t miss anything. A good lifeguard could quickly spot trouble, distinguishing between normal horsing around and genuine distress.

“So where’s the trouble?” Fordham asked the group, gesturing at the busy swimming area.

In my damn pants, that’s where, Connor thought, hanging back and praying no one would notice. Once you were busted, the guys gave you no peace. Earlier in the week, J. J. Danforth had popped a woody in the shower, and ever since, the guys called him flagpole and saluted when he went past.

Go away, Connor thought, feeling the sweat break out on his forehead and in his armpits. That was another weird change in his body lately—sweating armpits. Sweating, hairy armpits.

He wasn’t even looking at Gina now, but the damage was done. He tried diverting himself, thinking about stuff that didn’t excite him.

Like his mother getting married to her boss at the club in Buffalo. Or that his new stepfather, Mel, wanted Connor gone for the summer. Or the fact that Connor had a baby brother in New Orleans he never got to see, and a completely pathetic father, who could build practically anything with his hands, when they weren’t shaking from needing a drink.

Even thinking about his screwed up family didn’t help. Nothing would help. Connor was dizzy now, so filled with an urge he’d never felt before that he almost couldn’t breathe. And—shit—Fordham was going down the line, quizzing everybody about the safety features of the tower. And suddenly, it was all about sex. The round holes of the life rings. Mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration. Pumping a victim’s chest. Geez, everything was pure sex. In a second, it would be Connor’s turn to be questioned, and then they’d notice him and he would be totally busted.

He couldn’t let that happen. Glancing around like a trapped animal, he tried to concentrate on the view of the lake and the camp, the bunkhouses connected by a network of paths, the main hall, where a white panel truck from Sky River Bakery was making its daily delivery. A little farther out was a cluster of cottages and bungalows in the trees, where the counselors and workers lived, including his loser father, who told Connor to pretend they weren’t related if he knew what was good for him.

And Connor hadn’t told. So far, only that stupid Lolly Bellamy knew, and she wasn’t talking. Maybe she wasn’t so stupid after all. Maybe he was the stupid one, with his stupid shorts sticking out a mile. He needed to escape, and fast.

His gaze fixed on the dive platform. They had been told repeatedly that the platform was never, ever to be used except under supervision or in cases of extreme emergency. Like when someone was in distress.

Well, hell. If this wasn’t an emergency, Connor didn’t know what was. He sure as hell was in distress.

Except…the platform was ten meters above the diving area. That was like skyscraper height. Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly the Empire State Building, but when you were looking down at the surface of the lake, it looked like forever.

Dang it. His turn was coming up and the situation in his pants was not improving. In fact, it was getting worse. He had seconds to make up his mind. Take action now, or spend the rest of the summer as the joke of Ticonderoga Cabin.

That did it. Without another thought, he broke for the diving platform. The breeze whipped over him as he sped past the others. He ran to the end of the platform with shouts and warning whistles ringing in his ears, but he ignored them and kept running, even when there was nothing but thin air beneath his paddling feet.

He didn’t dive, of course. Who the hell would dare to do this headfirst?

He forgot to be scared but remembered to tuck one leg up in a jackknife—a position he’d been told would protect the family jewels. Although at the moment, they didn’t feel that fragile.

The fall took forever. He was a skydiver without a chute, plummeting toward the earth. He hit the water so hard it slammed up his nose and snapped his neck back. It felt as if his head was about to explode. He kept going down, down, down, deeper than he thought the lake could ever be, so deep he didn’t think he’d ever reach the surface alive.

Then he felt the soft sand and algae of the bottom beneath his feet, and pushed off with all his might. He could see the murky darkness of the depths growing lighter and lighter, and he followed the glow of the sunlight upward. It seemed to take forever, but at last he broke the surface, instantly gulping in a giant breath of air with a loud and desperate gasp.

With that breath of air, his brain kicked in. He was in deep shit now. He had just majorly violated a camp safety rule. They would put him in solitary for hours. Or worse, they’d kick him out. It wasn’t like he was a paying customer, anyway. They’d send him to stay at his dad’s pathetic caretaker’s cottage, and the rest of the summer nights would be filled with the queasy crack and hiss of a beer can opening, his dad sliding nightly into drunkenness and talking, endlessly talking about nothing, nothing at all.

Connor swam as if there was a giant alligator after him, and grabbed the first swimmer he could find, winding his arm around the designated victim in the rescue hold they’d been taught.

“Just relax,” he shouted. “I’ve got you. I’ll take you to shore.”

The surprised swimmer fought like a mad cat, writhing and scratching. Crap, thought Connor. Of all the kids in the lake today, he had managed to grab loudmouthed Lolly Bellamy.

“Let go of me, you freak. Who do you think you are?”

“I’m your new best friend,” he told her, mimicking something she’d once said to him.

“Let me go,” she spluttered, blowing droplets of water from the braces on her teeth. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Rescuing you.” He was struggling toward shore, awkwardly dragging his victim along. Her rubber swim cap and goggles made her look like a Teletubbie.

“I don’t need rescuing.” She fought with a sturdy determination and a strength that took him by surprise.

“Too bad,” he said, trying to subdue her. “I’m doing it anyway.”

“You’re crazy. Let go of me, you stupid freak.”

“When we get to shore.”

She was pretty much the most annoying girl at camp. The most annoying girl he had ever met. She was a complete know-it-all and a diehard when it came to stuff she was good at, like Scrabble and cribbage and playing piano and reciting every rule of the flag. When she couldn’t do something, she pretended it was beneath her.

Except swimming. He saw her practicing every day, doing laps from the shore to the floating dock, back and forth, back and forth. Clearly, the practice had made her stronger. She fought him all the way to shore, spluttering and telling him he was crazy, a freak and an idiot.

She did do him one favor, though. By the time he slogged ashore to make his excuses for going off the platform—
I really thought she was drowning, honest—
Lolly Bellamy had proven she was good for one other thing. His woody was completely gone.

CAMP KIOGA CHRONICLES, 1941

Camp Kioga was founded on the principles of good sportsmanship, equality, the value of hard work and the importance of character.

Eight

“H
oly shit.” Connor Davis’s voice was incredulous, echoing across the flagpole yard.
“Lolly?”

All right, thought Olivia as she dusted off her hands after her climb down the ladder, so maybe it was a little bit fun, watching the expression on his face, a mildly amusing look of wonder and confusion.

The flags, now properly hung, snapped in the brisk morning breeze, and somewhere hidden in the woods, a bobwhite called. Time felt frozen, suspended somewhere between the past nine years. What a temptation it was to summarily dismiss him, announcing that she would be giving the project to his competitor. But she hadn’t located a competitor, and she wasn’t likely to find one.

Besides, Olivia had to be honest with herself. This was Connor Davis. Why would any normal, red-blooded American girl want to work with anyone
but
him?

So here he was, in the flesh. In old black leather and faded denim, to be more accurate. He was still freakishly good-looking, not in the polished, privileged way of, say, a Rand Whitney. There was nothing pretty about Connor Davis. His features were too rough-hewn, his black hair was a little too long, his piercing blue eyes too intense. He had always been the bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks and he’d always looked the part. She found the sight of him disconcerting and, appallingly, she felt a warm little thrum of physical awareness. She didn’t want to be attracted to him. He was a member of the same club as Rand Whitney, Richard and Pierce, she reminded herself. The four of them belonged to a fraternity whose membership was expanding. Men who had dumped her. Connor was simply the first—and admittedly, the most inventive.

“Can you give me a hand with this ladder?” In truth, she didn’t need help, but she was desperate to find some kind of equilibrium. Seeing him again was like having a flashback to a nightmare. When she looked at him, she still felt that same crazy crush of attraction, the feeling that had driven her to make a complete and total fool of herself, once upon a summer.

He didn’t give her a hand. He simply grabbed the ladder and carried it to the main utility shed. Olivia had to hurry to match his long strides.

“You can lean the ladder against the building,” she told him. “It’s all got to be cleaned out, anyway.”

Connor nodded. “I need to peel off some of this stuff,” he said, unzipping his jacket as he strode back to the Harley, the chains on his boots ringing with every step. “It’s hot.”

She stood and watched as he unbuckled and unzipped the military-style jacket and chaps, draping them over the handlebars of his bike. Underneath, the white T-shirt molded to his body, outlining the cut of his pecs. His arms, thick with muscles, already looked tan from working outside, even though summer had barely begun. She glanced away, determined not to appear too interested.

She felt perversely satisfied that he had not recognized her. On the one hand, it was nice to know she had transformed herself from the gawky, overweight girl she had once been.

On the other hand, it was infuriating to see how intrigued he was by her new look. Because no matter what she looked like on the outside these days, that incredibly insecure girl was not so very far away. She was a part of Olivia, living just beneath the surface of polish and confidence.

Only she was older now, and she didn’t let her feelings show. She sidestepped to put some more distance between them. “You know, no one’s called me Lolly in years,” she said, her voice sounding lightly amused. Casual, as though he was an old acquaintance rather than the person who had ripped out her heart and left it bleeding on the floor. “When I went away to college, I switched exclusively to my given name.”

“I never knew your name was Olivia.”

There’s a lot you never bothered to learn about me,
she thought. “It’s the name I was born with. Olivia Jane Bellamy. Sophisticated, huh? Not really a kid name. One of my cousins christened me Lolly. She was just learning to talk and couldn’t say Olivia, so Lolly’s the name that stuck.”

“You never told me that story. When I was young, I thought all rich kids had names like Binky and Buffy and Lolly, and asking why made me look ignorant, so I never asked.”

“How did you wind up in Avalon?” she asked him.

“A guy’s got to live somewhere.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

“I know. After that summer—”

She knew which summer he meant, but she didn’t make him say it—
The summer I destroyed you.

“After that last summer, my dad got pretty…sick. It…just made sense to stick around.”

“I’m sorry about what you had to deal with,” she told him. It must be horrible to lose a parent, she thought. Maybe she should tell him so, but the words stuck in her throat.

“We all deal with things.”

“All righty, then,” she said with forced brightness. “How about we take a look around and I’ll tell you about my project.” She was aware that he probably knew Camp Kioga as well as she did. “When was the last time you came up here?”

“I never come here. Why would I?”

She figured it was a rhetorical question that didn’t need an answer. Hurrying, she led the way to the deck of the dining hall, which projected out over the lake. The weathered wooden stairs creaked, and the railing felt as wobbly as a loose tooth. Connor took a small notebook from his back pocket and scribbled something. When they reached the deck, she shaded her eyes, looking for Freddy and Barkis, but saw no sign of them. When she turned to Connor, she was startled by the slightly insolent way he was studying her.

“You’re staring,” she said, feeling his eyes trace her body and trying to deny the sensation.

“Yeah,” he said, resting his hip against the deck railing. “I am.”

At least he was willing to admit it. “Don’t,” she said.

“Why not?”

She folded her arms. “It makes me uncomfortable.”

“If being stared at by a guy makes you uncomfortable, you must spend a lot of time squirming.”

This, she supposed, should be taken as a compliment, yet she didn’t feel flattered in the least. She knew he was wondering how the fat chick nobody liked had turned out to be her.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“I came to fix up the place. My grandparents want to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary here.” She pointed at the lake. “They were married on the island, under a gazebo that isn’t there anymore. I have until August to get this place ready for a hundred guests.”

“I don’t blame them for wanting to celebrate. I don’t know anyone who’s been married that long.”

His statement made Olivia feel wistful. It was a rare thing, to love someone that long. It warranted a celebration. From where she was in her life right now, a fifty-year marriage seemed impossible. How did it happen that two people fell in love and stayed that way, growing old together, not just keeping their bond intact, but strengthening and deepening it through all the trials and triumphs life had to offer? She found herself wondering if she would ever celebrate such a milestone, if she’d ever meet a man she wanted to grow old with.