The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club (10 page)

Located where the road ended on the southeasternmost bank of Lake Jewel, his family's summer house butted up against national forest land. It was as far from the fashionable north and east shores as you could get. Those choice lots close to the Coldwater Cove marina were occupied by oversized vacation homes that belonged to folks who'd come down from Tulsa or up from Dallas for long weekends.

The Tyler family lake house wasn't exactly a house either. It was more like a fishing shack that had grown into a cottage through multiple additions over the years. There was only one bedroom unless you counted the bunkhouse, which was what Jake's folks had always called the half-finished attic room that ran the length of the structure and was home to four sets of sagging bunk beds.

Running water and an indoor biffy had finally been added about ten years ago. But just in case they had plumbing problems, there was still a little privy with a half moon on the door out back. It was camouflaged by underbrush at the edge of the stand of pines that ringed the place. The dock and boathouse had been his dad's pride and joy and were in better repair than the cottage.

“If a man has a lake to play on by day and a roof to turn the rain by night, what more does he need?” Marvin Tyler always used to say.

Well, if a guy was trying to make headway with an award-winning designer, a lake house that didn't look like a run of years of hard luck might come in handy.

Jake pulled into the graveled drive and parked the truck close to the cottage. He'd forgotten that the place could do with a fresh coat of paint. Why hadn't he run over and checked things out before he brought Lacy here?

She hopped down from the truck before he could make it around to her side to open the door. Spreading her arms wide, she drew a deep breath and then sighed in contentment.

“Just smell that pine and freshwater breeze. If we could figure out a way to bottle that air, we'd make a million dollars,” she said as she walked down toward the dock.

The dock plunked under their feet, each plank a different woodsy, twangy pitch, as if the boards had been roughly tuned. It was the song of approaching summer. From their vantage point on the dock, the westernmost peaks of the Winding Stair range rose on the other side of the lake.

“Why didn't you tell me the view was so incredible from here?” she asked.

“It's like a lot of things. If you see it often enough, you start to take it for granted. But I'll try not to. In fact, it's getting better by the moment.”

The view of her neat little backside in those tight jeans made him very happy to be a man. Very happy indeed.

 

—Jake Tyler

 

 

 

J
ake carried the cooler inside the cottage and transferred its contents to the short turquoise fridge. He'd brought soft drinks, cold beer, a couple of steaks in case the fish weren't biting, chips, and salad fixings. The furniture in the main room of the house had been draped with sheets to protect it from dust over the winter.

“It's like the Ghosts of Summers Past in here,” he said as he pulled the cloth off a round oak table and mismatched chairs. A cloud of dust particles shimmered in the light that shafted through the big picture window.

“Wish your ‘ghosts' could talk,” Lacy said as she made a slow circuit of the space. “Bet they'd have plenty to tell.”

Jake used his work gloves to swipe a few cobwebs off the wagon-wheel light fixture hanging over the table. “My family's had a lot of fun here over the years.”

“Bet you have, too. What girl wouldn't love a moonlight cruise on the lake?”

“We can do that.”

She met his gaze. Unfortunately, her expression was a little like a deer in the headlights.

“I didn't mean me. Actually, I can't stay past five or six. Effie the Intolerable is even more difficult than usual when she thinks her supper has been delayed,” Lacy explained. “Besides, I promised Heather Walker I'd go with her to the seven o'clock show at the Regal tonight.”

Well, that shot him down pretty hard. He was being thrown over in favor of a cat she didn't even like and a girls' night out.

Jake had expected to have Lacy all to himself for the entire day and well into the evening. He'd refused to let himself imagine more than that. It had been a good long while since he'd been with a woman. He wasn't sure how Lacy would feel about the bare truth of his stump.

“So, where do you want me to start?” she asked.

How would it start? Jake let himself imagine Lacy, her skin all warm from too much sun tucked between a cool set of clean sheets.

“With the house-opening-up project?” she said emphatically because he'd zoned out for a tad.

He gave himself a mental shake to clear his head. That was better. No good would come from that sort of fantasy right now and a little work would take his mind off everything but the job at hand. He couldn't change the past and the future could be snatched away in a moment. Life was easier when he lived it one breath at a time.

“How about pulling off the dusty cloths and stowing them in the truck bed?” he suggested. The topper would keep them from flying out until he could take them to his mom's for washing. “I have some things to take care of. Back in a bit.”

While Lacy was busy inside, Jake worked outside. He burrowed under the cottage in the crawlspace and checked all the pipes. Before the first frost last year, he had filled the system with an environmentally friendly antifreeze. But there was always a chance that something had gone wrong. After shining his flashlight under the kitchen sink and bathroom area, he breathed a sigh of relief. As far as he could tell, no pipes had frozen and burst during the winter.

He turned on the water at the main and crawled out from under the house. When he clomped up on the deck and came in through the front door, he nearly tripped over an ottoman that had been moved into his way. It took him a few moments of arm-flailing to regain his balance.

“Oh! Be careful, Jake. I'm sorry I left the ottoman there,” she said as she hurried over to his side of the room. Lacy had been busy. She'd swept the broad-plank pine floors in the open space that served as living room, dining room, and kitchen. Now she was intent on dragging the furniture around. Clearly, she was trying to change the way the cottage layout worked.

“I hope your mom won't mind if I play with the furniture arrangement a bit,” Lacy said, her color high. “I didn't mean for it to get so involved. I only moved one thing, but then that called for another. And another. And another, but don't worry. The ottoman isn't going to stay where it is now. I just need to see about—”

Lacy drew up short and eyed him from head to toe as if seeing him for the first time.

“Out,” she said, picking up the recently used broom.

“What?”

“Look at yourself. You're filthy, Jake. Oh my gosh, you're covered with cobwebs and dirt.” She made a face. “Even in your hair.”

“That tends to happen when you're under a house.” He ran a hand over his head.

“No! Don't do that in here. Out,” she repeated, brandishing the broom. “Before I see something with more than four legs crawling on you.”

She followed him onto the front deck and started sweeping him down, dusting off his shoulders, down his back and across his butt. “Well, that's a little better. Don't know what we can do about your hair though.”

“There's a well with a hand pump in the side yard. Pulls water straight from the lake,” he said. “Guess I can douse myself there.”

“Okay, but if you got the water back on in the house, a full shower might be even better. Turn around.” He obeyed and she gave his front the same rough sweep-down.

The old Jake might have suggested she join him in the shower, but he was trying to convince her he wasn't that guy anymore. He was interested in Lacy for a lot more than sex. When he thought about having a woman in his life now, it was about having something deeper. He wanted a connection, a safe harbor, and a relationship that lasted longer than a three-minute egg.

He really was done being a player. If someone had told him a few years ago that he'd be thinking like this, he'd have been sure they were crazy. But now, he wanted someone he could get to know and cherish—mind, body, and heart.

And someone who would know and cherish him, warts and all.

Though he wouldn't mind it if that someone was less heavy-handed with a broom than Lacy Evans.

“That's about as much good as I can do here,” Lacy said. “Now, where's that well?”

Lacy pumped while Jake bent under the spigot. As the frigid water streamed over his head and neck, he realized he hadn't given enough thought to whether or not opening up the lake house was suitable activity for a date. He should have taken her to the Regal so she wouldn't have to go with Heather to watch whatever old movie was playing. He could have asked her to go dancing with him the next time the big band played at the Opera House. He wouldn't do much swing dancing, but if the music was slow enough, he expected he could manage a Texas two-step.

Instead he'd set himself up for a beating with a broom and a thorough baptism with some of the coldest water south of the Arctic.

“Enough!” he finally said, pulling away from the pump and shaking his wet head, flinging droplets about like a retriever coming up from the water.

“Not nearly enough,” Lacy corrected. “You really do need a shower, Jake. There might be some creepy crawlies under your shirt. Are there any clothes in that old chest in the bedroom?”

He'd feel it if he'd attracted any wildlife, but whether the possibility bothered him or not, it clearly bothered Lacy. “Some of my dad's things are still there. Mom's never had the heart to clear them out.”

Marvin Tyler always wanted the lake house well provisioned with the “necessaries,” so he didn't have to waste weekend time packing a suitcase or stocking a pantry. Jake could hear his dad's voice in his head saying, “A six-pack of cold beer and a bucket of worms is all a man should have to bring with him to the lake.”

“I'll find something clean to wear.” Jake stomped toward the house and the coldest shower in recorded human history. No point in lighting the pilot on the water heater now. The old unit would take hours to warm up.

And after his shower, so would he.

* * *

Lacy watched Jake trudge toward the main-level bedroom. From the set of his shoulders, she could tell he was ticked off, but she didn't know how she could have done anything differently. If she'd gotten as filthy as he, she'd want a shower for sure. Just thinking about crawling around under the cottage gave her the willies. She shivered as she imagined the tickle of little buggie feet all over.

Suzanne Sugarbaker from those old
Designing Women
reruns was so right. The man is supposed to kill the bugs!

Jake returned with a handful of folded clothes and, without a word, disappeared into the small bathroom that jutted out into the room between the kitchen area and the opening that led to the bedroom. He shut the door behind him harder than he needed to, just shy of a slam. In a few minutes, there was a clanging of pipes from beneath the lake house and the water came on with a shushing sound.

A string of muttered curses emerged from the bathroom.

“Are you OK?” Lacy asked at the door.

Jake answered in a high falsetto. “I may never sing bass again.”

“I didn't know you could sing.”

“Well, you'll never know now.” He switched back to his normal voice. “Man, this is cold!”

She couldn't do anything to fix that, and she was having trouble trying not to imagine Jake all wet and soapy.

Her failed New England relationship had become her talisman, warning her against getting involved with a man again. Relationships were tricky. Design was simple, so she turned her attention back to creating a better traffic flow in the cottage. After a few minutes of trial and error, she had the round oak table and four chairs placed nearer the kitchen counter that ran along one wall so that when it wasn't used for eating, a cook could use it as an extra counter. It wasn't tall enough to be prep space, but it would hold finished dishes.

Lacy dragged the butt-bent couch away from the wall and repositioned it to take advantage of the view out the big picture window overlooking the lake. She repurposed an old trunk that was propped in a corner. It made a perfect “beachy” coffee table.

She was about to go on to place the most surprising thing she'd discovered among the “pre-attic” pieces—a Danish modern occasional chair—but something about the trunk caught her eye.

Someone had burned a chain of crude leaves along one of the old oak planks that made up the top. In one corner, the initials J. T. proclaimed that this was the dubious artwork of a young Jake Tyler. She ran her fingers along the ridges of the burned-in pattern, remembering the boy he'd been.

Not afraid of anything and proud as a tom turkey, he'd always been quick to accept a challenge. Like the kid in
A Christmas Story
who was “triple dog-dared,” Jake would have been the one with his tongue stuck to a frozen pole.

She smiled to herself. Jake had also been the kind of kid who would stand up for others. They hadn't run with the same crowd in high school. Lacy wasn't part of the jock and cheerleader set. Pep band was her speed, but Jake never made her feel invisible the way some of her classmates did. One year their class had a foreign exchange student from Ecuador, and Lacy had befriended him. Since he'd understood only one word in three, he didn't know what a social zero she was and was easy to get along with. But some of the boys harassed him every chance they got. Jake cornered the bullies behind the football bleachers after school one day and gave them all black eyes.

His later history with the ladies aside, Jacob Tyler had been a pretty good kid.

When he strode out of the bathroom, she decided he cleaned up pretty well now that he was a man, too. His long, muscular frame did wonderful things for the faded pair of jeans and plaid work shirt that had been his dad's. His thighs filled out the jeans so well, she barely noticed his limp. His wet hair was slicked back, dark and sleek as a seal. Lacy realized her mouth was hanging open and quickly clapped her jaw shut.

“Want some help moving furniture?” he asked.

“Sure your mom won't mind?”

“If she does, I'll move it all back,” he admitted. “Never get between a woman and how she thinks her furniture should be arranged, that's my motto.”

Lacy grinned. “You will live long and see good days.”

They worked together, shoving and lifting the rest of the furniture into place. Lacy fluffed and placed throw pillows while Jake shook out the rag rugs at both the front and side doors.

When he came back in, she was draping a red throw over the back of what she explained was a Danish modern side chair. “This is a really good piece. Maybe a Peter Hvidt.”

“A what?”

“Peter Hvidt. He was a mid-twentieth-century designer. His work was famous for lines that were clean and elegant, like this chair. Even though it appears light and airy, the layers of laminate under the veneer mean it's still strong. ‘Hell-for-stout, ' my granddad would have said.”

“Is this another thing like those soup bowls? Worth more than I think it is?”

She shrugged. “Could be. Of course, it's probably a knockoff. I can't find a maker's mark, but the piece still has good bones. It ought to be restored.”

“You mean like sanding and restaining the wood?”

“No!” He'd just uttered sacrilege but he'd done it in ignorance, so she'd forgive him. Lacy ran a hand over the wooden arm of the chair. “This looks like the original finish. The teak can be cleaned, but gently. I don't think it's ever been oiled. We could do that if you want, but anything else would take away from its value.”