Never Too Hot: A Novel Read online

  She should stop there, shut her mouth. But somehow, she couldn’t.

  “I knew Connor’s father, Andrew. We dated for a while. A very long time ago.”

  Seeing the interest on Ginger’s face, Isabel moved to quickly stamp it out. “We were just kids. Like Josh and the girl he went to the movies with. I haven’t thought about him in years. I probably wouldn’t even recognize him if he walked into the diner.”

  Too late she realized it sounded like she was trying way too hard to convince Ginger about just how no-big-deal it was. A clear case of “she who doth protest too much.”

  Fortunately, Ginger was too wrapped up in her own problems to pay much attention. “Guess I’d better get back out there before the customers start a mutiny.”

  Isabel said “Sure” in an easy voice. But when she went back into the kitchen and picked up her knife, her hands were shaking.

  This was usually the time of day she liked best, when the dinner crush had erupted in organized chaos; but it was hard to focus on her job, impossible to stop her brain from rewinding, from retracing the steps that had brought her here. To this diner on the lake.

  Ten years had passed since the day she’d bought the run-down building on Blue Mountain Lake’s small main street. At that time, the town had barely been more than a grocery store, a post office, a liquor store, and a gas station. Lately, though, she’d step outside to mail a letter and surprise would catch her at just how far the small town had come.

  A bustling café that often housed live music occupied an old white post-and-beam house on the corner. Anderson’s Market, a grocery store that had been around since her grandparents had built their cabin on the lake, had done major upgrades in the past couple of years, going so far as to stock organic fruits and vegetables all year long, rather than just July and August to appease the summer folks. And the Inn now had huge plantings of bright flowers all along the fence that bordered the street.

  Only the knitting store was showing signs of wear and tear. Isabel remembered learning to knit on the comfortable couches in the middle of the store one summer when Josh was still an infant—mostly for the help of extra hands to take her baby, less because she had any affinity whatsoever for yarn.

  After her divorce, the only thing that had made sense was to leave the city and settle in Blue Mountain Lake permanently. Her heart had always been there, waiting September through May for June fifteenth to roll around again. By the time she and Brian split, she’d been a full-time mom for five years, but everything changed once she took off her wedding ring. It wasn’t okay to let her ex support them anymore.

  Josh had made it through his childhood and early teens relatively unscathed, in large part, she believed, because Blue Mountain Lake was a world apart from the fast-moving city she’d grown up in. It helped a great deal that cell phones hadn’t made their way into town until recently. Because of the thick forests throughout the Adirondacks—and a blanket unwillingness to rent out land for cell towers on the part of the locals—cell reception had been little to none in most parts of town.

  Over the years, as cell phones had become increasingly popular, Isabel often had to swallow a laugh at summer visitors standing in the middle of a canoe on the lake waving their cell phones in the air trying desperately to stay connected to their fast-paced lives back home.

  Wasn’t that the whole point of coming to Blue Mountain Lake? To get away from everything they needed to get away from?

  It was what she’d done.

  Her first day back in town she’d seen the FOR SALE sign on the old diner and the lightbulb had gone on. Cooking had always been her passion, the best way to settle her nerves at the end of a long, irritating day.

  Fortunately, living full-time in the lakefront cabin had given her the freedom to use her savings to lease and fix up the old diner. And in the end, having to figure out how to cook, day in and day out, for paying customers, learning how to hire other cooks and waitstaff and be a good boss to them, was the perfect way to get over her divorce. To get past it.

  Long hours behind the stove or hunched over her computer in the office going over payroll helped her turn down the volume on the things she and Brian had said to each other at the end, the horrible accusations he’d made.

  “Did you ever really love me, Isabel?” he’d asked. “Was there ever enough room in your heart for both me and him?”

  Dampness crept between her breasts, across her forehead. The Big M was creeping up on her. More and more often she found herself tangled up in sweaty sheets in the middle of the night. She didn’t mind at all the thought of not having a period anymore. That had never been her best week of the month.

  What got to her was the sense that she wasn’t going to be a real woman anymore. That forty-eight would turn to fifty in the blink of an eye and she’d be nothing more than a dried-up old woman. That her best years would be far behind her.

  As she moved through the kitchen and into the blissfully cool walk-in refrigerator to check the stock, she knew it wasn’t fair to paint the past as bad. As a kid, she’d spent many happy rainy afternoons at the original diner’s counter, sipping milkshakes and malts, giggling with her friends over the cute boys. Thirty-five years later, the picture hadn’t changed much. Every summer, girls on the verge of becoming full-blown women came in through her doors in cutoff shorts and flip-flops and giggled with their friends over the boys they’d seen that day on the beach.

  Sometimes in her dreams she still felt like one of those girls. Unlike Ginger, fifteen hadn’t been bad for Isabel. Just the opposite, in fact.

  Fifteen was when she’d met … well, there was no point in going back there.

  Caitlyn, a lovely twenty-two-year-old who had a way with greens, poked her head in. “Oh, Isabel, you’re in here. Just making sure the door hadn’t been left open.”

  Isabel knew she must look like a crazy lady standing in the refrigerator staring at nothing. Grabbing a couple of eggplants and a fistful of carrots from a metal shelf, she took them over to the sink and washed them. She was drying her hands on a brightly printed dish towel when Ginger came back into the kitchen carrying a special.

  “Is there something wrong with the food?” Isabel asked.

  “No. It was Connor’s. But he’s gone.”

  Just then, Isabel heard a loud crack from behind her. She turned around just in time to see the upper hinge on the back kitchen door finally pull free from the wall, leaving a rusty hole on the white door.

  As they stood there watching the door swing back and forth haphazardly on its remaining hinge, Isabel couldn’t help but feel that it was a bad omen.

  The horror movie had sucked. Big-time. But Josh Wilcox didn’t care. He couldn’t have concentrated on it anyway. Not with Hannah sitting right next to him. She’d grabbed his arm during one scene where the doll’s head spun off and blood spurted everywhere. It had been awesome.

  Everyone else had to get home after the movie, but Josh knew his mother would be at the diner until eleven at least. He had plenty of time before he needed to get home.

  “It’s pretty dark out,” Hannah said when their friends dropped them off on Main Street.

  He wasn’t sure if she was hinting, but he dared a, “Want me to walk you home?” anyway.

  She smiled at him and they headed down to the beach. Hannah’s house wasn’t far from Main, unlike his, which was halfway around the lake. He could bike the route into town in his sleep.

  There were several campfires going and Hannah said, “Can you believe that I’ve never had a s’more?”

  He turned around and tried not to stare at her like a total dork. “Seriously?”

  “Weird, huh?” she said, looking a little embarrassed. “Maybe you could show me how to make one sometime?”

  His heartbeat kicked up as he nodded in a way that he already knew was a little too enthusiastic. But he couldn’t help himself. Not when this was his chance to shine. Because everyone knew that he was a master s’more maker.

&nb
sp; “Sure.” They were nearly at her house now. “How about tonight?” Then it occurred to him. “You probably don’t have the stuff for it, though.”

  But she nodded, and said, “Actually, I do.” He sat on her dock as she ran up to her house and came back with graham crackers and marshmallows and chocolate and matches.

  “Follow me.” Walking over toward some trees, he pointed to the ground. “First, you’ve got to find the perfect stick. Not too fat, not too thin, not too short, not too long. And it needs to have a narrow tip so that you can slide the marshmallow on to it.”

  She picked up a stick. “What about this one?”

  He looked at it and grinned. “Talk about beginner’s luck. It’s perfect.”

  She blushed at his compliment. “Thanks. Now what?”

  “Now we start a fire.”

  He’d been building campfires his whole life and liked the pyramid technique best. Minutes later, the fire was blazing. He quickly grabbed a stick of his own.

  “Pretty much the most important part of a s’more is how you cook the marshmallow. It should be crispy and golden brown on the outside, but completely gooey and melted on the inside. That way the chocolate melts on contact. The worst thing is to accidentally light your marshmallow on fire because it only chars the outside, but the rest is still raw.” He made a face. “Little kids tend to do it like that a lot.”

  “Wow,” she said, “this sounds sort of complicated. Maybe you should just make me one.”

  “Nah,” he said with a shrug, “it’s pretty easy. Once you get a feel for the fire, you’ll be a total pro.”

  Popping a marshmallow on the end of each of their sticks, he squatted down on the outside of the large bonfire. “It’s best to slow roast it by the coals. Takes a little longer, but it’s worth it.”

  As Hannah knelt down beside him, he felt his stomach unclench. They roasted in silence until their marshmallows had hit that perfect brown, bubbly look on the outside.

  “I think we’re good to go,” he said. They walked back over to the tray of graham crackers and chocolate. Breaking a cracker in half, he put a block of chocolate on it and said, “Here’s how you put it all together. Hold out your stick.”

  Using the graham cracker halves, he slowly pulled her marshmallow off her stick, being careful not to drop the chocolate. “Go ahead, try it.”

  He watched carefully as she took a bite. Her eyes closed and she had a look of complete ecstasy on her face. He’d never felt this way about a girl before. Never wanted to see the pleasure on her face as she did something totally boring like eat a s’more. But he could have sat there and watched Hannah forever.

  “How is it?” he asked, his words coming out a little scratchy.

  She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Totally amazing.”

  And then, just as he was trying to figure out if he should try to kiss her, she said, “I can’t believe you’ve always grown up here. You’re so lucky. And it’s great that your mom owns the diner. You must know everyone.”

  “Ugh. That’s what I like about the city. Total anonymity. Not like here, when every time I go to the post office Mrs. Hendricks asks me if I’ve grown some more.”

  Hannah giggled. “Have you?”

  “A couple of inches maybe.” She laughed again. “But seriously, it’s so boring here.”

  She stopped laughing and he quickly said, “I mean, not with you or anything. It’s just I’ve done the lake thing for so long. And my mom is constantly on me.”

  “Me and my parents ate at the diner when we were looking at buying a camp here and your mom came out and talked to us for a while about what it’s like to live here. She was really cool. Really nice to us.”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, she’s all right, I guess.”

  “Does she have a boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Really? But she’s really pretty. Does she date at least?”

  He thought about it, tried to see his mom in any other light than as his mother. “Nope. She doesn’t date.”

  Maybe that was the problem. His mom had no life of her own. No wonder she had to get all up in his business and was always asking him to go out in the rowboat or for a hike.

  The fire was starting to go out when Hannah’s mom called to her from their porch. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “Thanks for the s’mores lesson.”

  As he walked down the beach back to where he’d left his bike that afternoon, he walked past a couple of shady looking guys. “Got fireworks?”

  He almost kept walking and ignored them, but then he stopped. Hannah would be seriously impressed if he invited her over on the Fourth and he had his own personal stash of fireworks. Pulling out his wallet, he handed over a wad of the money his father had given him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AFTER GRABBING his bag from the Inn and leaving a short note for Stu, Connor headed back to Poplar Cove. A part of him felt bad about letting Ginger think he was going to have to ship all the way off to Piseco when Stu’s couch was his for the taking. But he quickly quashed that.

  Poplar Cove was his. He belonged here, not crammed onto a couch at the Inn.

  He stood on the porch looking out at the dark water for several minutes. After twelve years in Lake Tahoe he hadn’t expected Poplar Cove to feel so much like home. Maybe it was that he could feel his grandparents’ presence all around him.

  The chair covers his grandmother had made, the way she’d freak if he or Sam got mud on them. The bookshelves he’d built with his grandfather when he was ten, the same year his grandfather had finally let him use the electric table saw. Somehow he’d managed to keep all of his fingers.

  His gaze moved to Ginger’s painting, half-finished on the easel on the far end of the porch. He’d never been a museum kind of guy, never had the urge to capture a scene for posterity, not when he’d rather be out in trees and dirt and water. And yet, something in the painting resonated within him.

  Heading up to the second floor, he automatically turned into the first door on the left, the room that had always been his.

  Her scent hit him first, the faint hint of vanilla mixed with something earthy, sexy. Color barreled into him next. Bright clothes were hanging from the pegs on the wall and vivid canvases were crowding each other for space on all four walls. The top of the antique pine dresser was covered with bottles and jewelry and postcards propped up against the mirror.

  His old bedroom had been transformed into a vibrant rainbow and the energy was palpable. The bed, now covered with a bright printed quilt rather than the serviceable blue denim he’d had forever, was unmade. Just looking at the rumpled sheets stirred him as if she were there in the room with him, naked and beckoning.

  His grandparents’ old bedroom was the farthest away, at the end of the hall. But he didn’t feel right taking their room. Instead he moved to the guest room, which shared a wall with Ginger’s.

  He needed to get outside, grab a kayak, get out on the lake and paddle hard against the driving wind. Running his body into the ground would be his only chance for sleep … and the only way to up the odds that he’d sleep hard enough to hold back his nightmares while he and Ginger shared the same roof.

  At ten, Ginger untied her apron and hung it up in her locker. She’d already spent far longer cleaning up than she usually did. Most weeknights, after the dinner shift, she was home by now. Tonight, she’d tried to work off her careening thoughts with a mop and sponge.

  Isabel emerged from the office where she’d been working on the computer and looked at the gleaming floors and stainless steel counters.

  “Wow. These could be photographed for a magazine.” She shot Ginger a look. “Having second thoughts about letting Connor stay at your house for a couple of nights?”

  Ginger sighed. The log cabin really did feel like home. Which was exactly her problem. Somewhere along the way she’d forgotten that Poplar Cove was only a temporary respite from her normal life. As much as she wanted to pretend that the log cabin was hers—and
that she could live there in blissful peace forever without having to face life’s usual stresses—it wasn’t.

  “When my lease is up, he’ll probably want the cabin back.”

  “Is that what’s really bothering you? That you’re going to have to look for a new place to live in a few months? I’m sure you could find another lakefront cabin to rent by then.”

  “You’re right,” Ginger admitted. “It’s just that …” She tried to figure out how to put her feelings into words. “This might sound weird, but for the first time in my life I felt like I could be myself.”

  Her parents weren’t here telling her how to behave. Her ex-husband wasn’t here criticizing her. She’d found a place where people were getting to know her for her and not because of who her father was or how much money she had.

  “And in so many ways Connor reminds me of my ex-husband.”

  There was that same initial attraction. That same alpha-male-coming-to-take-what’s-mine act.

  “Having Connor in the cabin, I’ll have to watch how I look. What I wear. What I say.”

  It had already started. Look at her, doing anything she could think of to avoid going home.

  “Why do you think you need to do any of that?” Isabel argued. “Why can’t you just go on exactly as you have been and if he doesn’t like it, who cares? You’ve really come into your own here. I find it hard to believe that one guy could make you forget that.”

  “You know what?” Ginger said slowly, as Isabel’s words seeped in. “I think you’re right. It’ll be fine.”

  If there was one thing she’d learned during the past eight months, it was that she needed to live a life that made her happy. Wear whatever she wanted. Do whatever she wanted. Say whatever she wanted.

  So Connor was going to be moving in and out of her space over the next few weeks, so he was going to be sleeping in one of the empty bedrooms for a couple of nights. So what?