Chapter Fourteen
“Nicole, honestly.” Willa banged on the bathroom door. “What could you possibly still be doing in there?”
“All right, already.” The door flung open and Nicole stepped out on a billow of steam.
Willa looked her over, dressed in army-green cargo capris, cargo belt, and tight black tank with silver earrings and long necklace. Over her arm she had a black bomber jacket and her hair was tightly braided. Willa opened her mouth to make a crack about looking so militant but suspected this was Nicole’s attempt to pull herself together for dinner. “You look nice.”
“Thanks.” She managed a smile. “You, too.”
Willa looked down at her blue, V-neck sundress which was longer than it was supposed to be but fit well everywhere else, and she was happy not showing quite so much leg on their first date.
“Thank you,” she said, wondering when she started considering this a date. Probably around the time she showered for the second time that day and washed and dried her hair, leaving it down around her shoulders.
She picked up her sweater and bottle of wine from the table and followed Nicole out the door.
“Hi, Willa. Hey, Nicole.” Maggie waved to them excitedly from the boat dock as they made their way down the hill to the water.
“Hi, Maggie.” Willa smiled at Lee’s daughter. It was nearly impossible not to feel good around the young woman. She had such a lightness and positive, youthful energy about her. “Did you draw the short straw?”
“I begged Mom to let me come and pick you up,” Maggie admitted while she helped Willa step down from the dock into the rigid-hulled, inflatable motorboat. “She hardly ever lets me take the boat out.”
“And this is like, the highlight of your day?” Nicole snarked as she stepped into the boat.
Maggie shrugged casually. “As opposed to sitting around on my ass all day tweeting meaningless drivel and posting duck-face selfies on Instagram?”
Willa didn’t even try to hide her amused grin when Nicole reddened at being called out.
“Ready?” Maggie asked and moved to the back of the boat, starting the small outboard and moving slowly away from the dock for the trip across the lake.
Lee heard the motor as soon as it fired up on the boat dock and her heart rate increased the closer it came and the closer she came to seeing Willa again. She turned her attention back to cleaning the grill and took a gulp of wine so big she coughed, dribbling wine down her chin. “Jesus,” she muttered, chiding herself. “Get it together, Chandler.”
“What can I get you to drink?” Lee asked when they all appeared on the deck. Willa, dressed adorably in a blue sundress and strappy sandals, looked so well put together Lee was starting to wish she had done better than cutoffs, a white T-shirt, and bare feet. Nicole was wearing what Lee was beginning to wonder was a permanent sneer. At least she was sober. “Water, soda, beer or wine?”
“Wine is great.” Willa handed Lee her full bottle. “Whatever is open.”
“I’ll have an IPA if—” Nicole began, but Willa glared her into rethinking her choice. “Diet is good, thanks,” she finished.
“Good choice.” Lee handed Nicole her soda and flashed what she hoped was her most charming smile. “You look good sober.”
It must have worked based on the blush that crept up Nicole’s cheeks and shy smile hinting at her mouth. “Thanks, um, sorry again about last night, Lee.”
“You are forgiven, Nicole.” Lee’s smile widened. “I expect you made things right with your sister as well?”
“Half-sister, and yeah, I did.” Nicole nodded and looked at Willa. “We’re cool.”
Lee looked to Willa for confirmation with raised brows.
“We’re cool,” Willa agreed.
“Excellent. Now we can move on.” Lee checked her watch. “Dinner is not for half an hour, so why don’t you let Maggie take you on the super-secret tour of the camp?”
Maggie looked surprised. “But I thought I was going to be able to talk to Willa—”
“You can interrogate Willa about Lou Channing over dinner if she’s up for it.”
“Absolutely,” Willa agreed. “I love to hear from the readers. What works, what doesn’t, and what direction you’d like to see the story go.”
“Okay, great.” Maggie clapped her hands. “Come on, Nicole.”
Nicole was just starting to sit down. “I’d rather not.”
“I’m sure you’ll have fun.” Willa stared pointedly at her. “Stay out of trouble.”
Nicole sighed heavily and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure.”
Willa sat back on a deck chair and sipped her wine. Lee could feel her eyes on her as she placed marinated chicken on the grill along with skewered vegetables. “What are you thinking?” she finally asked after she closed the lid and picked up her own glass.
“You’re so good with her,” Willa commented.
“Maggie? I better be.”
“Well, yes, Maggie, but I mean Nicole. I can tell she respects you already and I feel like I just can’t get there with her.”
“You will,” Lee said encouragingly. “Has it always been like this or did something happen between you two?”
Will sighed heavily. “The short version? My career happened.”
“Ah.” Lee nodded. “And Nicole was let down by having to share you with the world when she used to have you all to herself.”
“You are good at this.” Willa smiled. “Have you always been a single parent?”
“What do you mean? You know how Maggie came to be.”
“I mean, um… Is there someone special in your life?”
“Oh. I’ve dated fairly regularly and I got around in university just fine, but then there was my diagnosis and work and my mom. And when Maggie came into in my life I wasn’t just going to dump my kid off with my parents so I could date, and I certainly wasn’t going to bring women home. Not if I wasn’t serious about them, anyway. So, no, there’s no one. I mean, there have been ones . Just not the one, I guess.”
“I understand,” Willa said. “Was that hard? Doing it all on your own?”
“Yes, the hardest. And lonely,” Lee admitted. “I always imagined I would be partnered when I had children, married even, but that’s not how it worked out.”
“I always assumed I’d have children well before now.”
“You still have time,” Lee offered.
“Maybe.” Willa blew out a breath. “It’s clear my mother was fertile into her forties, so I suppose there’s hope for me, but I’ve never really seen myself as a single mom.”
“What about your publicist? You were together for a while. I saw a picture of you two in a magazine a while back. Reggie Knight, right?”
“Lee Chandler, have you been keeping tabs on me?”
“What? No. Yes. I mean, it’s hard not to hear things sometimes.” Lee hid behind her wineglass and took a long drink. “You’ve seen how Maggie fangirls over you and that’s pretty much been the case since your first book came out. That was even before I told her we used to be friends.”
“Used to be?”
Lee winced. “You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I suppose I do.” Willa went quiet for a moment. “Well, Reggie and I were together from the time of my first book, and for, gosh, nearly five years after.”
“And?” Lee was trying really hard not to sound too interested.
Willa smiled wistfully. “When it was good it was really good.”
“And when it was bad?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know that either of us would have ever called it bad , but it got to the point where we weren’t a good fit anymore. We ran our course and in the end we wanted different things.”
“Oh? Like what?”
“For one, she expected me to capitalize on my success in ways I wasn’t prepared to—”
Lee choked on her wine and launched into a coughing fit, pounding on her chest to clear her airway.
“Are you all right?” Willa asked.
“She?”
“Yes, Reggie. That’s who we’re talking about, right?”
“Reggie Knight is a woman?”
Willa’s smile began slowly. “A flashy, androgynous woman who favors menswear-inspired style. Regina Knight, although Knight is not her real last name.”
“Oh.” Lee blinked stupidly at her.
Her smile grew. “And if you had read the article instead of just looking at the pictures you would have known I came out publicly years ago.”
“Right, of course.”
“Did you think I was straight?”
“Well, ah… You don’t have to be straight to date men.”
“I think dinner is burning.” Willa gestured to the smoke billowing out from under the grill lid.
“Oh, damn.” Lee raised the lid and turned the heat down. “It’s okay. We’re okay,” she mumbled. Her head was spinning with the possibilities of Will being here with her and available. It was so surreal.
“You of all people shouldn’t be so surprised,” Willa said.
“I’m not. Of course, I’m not.” Lee grimaced at her own ineptness. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. We haven’t seen each other in a very long time.”
Noise on the path heralded the return of Nicole and Maggie.
“Time to eat,” Lee announced, relieved.
“So, these ghost stories you write, do you totally invent them or are they based on real hauntings?” Maggie asked around a mouthful of chicken.
Willa wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Some I just completely make up, but often they’re fictional stories based on existing history. I read a lot and do research. I go out with actual ghost hunters, and when I travel for book signings and readings, I take ghost tours or try to have my agent book the most haunted hotels to get a feel for the atmosphere.”
“That’s so cool,” Maggie said, eyes alight with interest. “Like where?”
“Just about all major cities have some sort of haunted lore, and some smaller, rural areas have an even more entrenched haunted history,” Willa said. “But the older the city, the better. Boston, Baltimore, and Savannah, Georgia, are some really good ones.”
“What about here?” Maggie asked enthusiastically.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Forestlands Lake,” Maggie blurted. “Kids have died here and—”
“Margaret Chandler,” Lee barked, silencing her.
Willa cleared her throat. “Lee, it’s all right.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I wasn’t thinking.” Maggie reddened and looked down at her plate.
“No kidding.” Lee glared at her. “You may be excused.”
Maggie looked up, stricken. “Mom.”
Even Nicole looked uncomfortable at the turn of events, looking between Lee, Willa, and Maggie, who scooted her chair back from the table and fled in tears with a near unintelligible apology.
“Nicole?” Willa met her eyes and jerked her head for her to follow.
“I’ll go, too.” Nicole stood. “Dinner was great, Lee, thanks.”
“Lee, it’s fine, really,” Willa insisted as soon as they were gone.
“It most certainly is not fine. And she knows better.”
“Lee, come on. I write popular ghost stories and my sister died tragically. It’s part of my story and it comes up, although not so much anymore. I’ve dealt with it.”
“Well, maybe I haven’t.”
“What? What does that mean?”
“Lee?” a voice called from the path entrance. “Hey, Lee, you around?”
Lee sighed and pushed herself back from the table. “That’s Les, my maintenance supervisor. Excuse me for a few minutes.”