“She’s going to come over for dinner on Tuesday night.”
He didn’t mind visitors, and he’d told Candace to treat this as her own house when she moved in. Still, the individual in cottage number ten was one dinner guest he’d rather not have.
“You don’t mind, do you?” his sister asked, as if picking up on his thoughts.
Aaron shook his head. “You’re free to invite anyone you want over, Candace. I told you that before.”
Juliette pulled up the weather app on her phone while she finished her hot tea, even though she doubted it would change her mind. Except for Wednesday, she’d gone for a walk every day since she’d arrived. And rain, not the temperature, was the only reason she’d skipped it then. While she didn’t mind the rain on a hot summer afternoon, the temperature on Wednesday had been hovering around forty degrees—a tad too chilly to get soaked while taking an afternoon stroll.
Since the Wrights owned a significant chunk of land and much of it remained untouched, she’d explored a different area each day. Sometimes her walks brought her past the other cottages. Other times her walks brought her through the woods. She’d never done any hiking, and she’d always considered herself a city lover. Yet she thoroughly enjoyed her solitary outings where, except for her brief meetings with Candace and her daughter, the only other life she saw was the occasional chipmunk or squirrel. In fact, with each passing day, she wondered if perhaps she should purchase a vacation home in a place like Avon for those times in the future when she wanted a break from the city.
“Forty-three degrees.” While three degrees warmer than yesterday, she wouldn’t be breaking out her shorts anytime soon. However, she would be making use of her new gloves and hat. And when she got back home, she’d probably once again indulge in a large mug of hot chocolate. She hadn’t added cocoa mix to the list of items she gave Mrs. Lambert, but she was glad the woman had thought to buy some for her. It wasn’t the only extra item she’d come across when she put away the food Holly’s mom picked up last weekend. There’d also been a package of chocolate chip cookies, a jar of peanut butter, and one of marshmallow fluff. So far, the cocoa powder was the only thing she’d indulged in. But every time she opened the cabinet and spotted the two jars, her craving for a peanut butter and fluff sandwich—or a fluffernutter, as they called it in New England—grew.
She managed to get her boots and jacket on before the ringing cell phone in her pocket forced her to put her walk on hold. While she’d received countless calls since she arrived, she’d only answered a handful of them. The last one had been on Thursday when Holly called to let her know she was headed to Maine and to pass along her mom’s message that if Juliette needed anything to just call or text her. Considering the amount of food in her fridge, she shouldn’t need anything for at least another week.
The name Curt appeared on the device now. She hadn’t spoken to her cousin since her sister’s wedding. Actually, he was the only one of her first cousins she hadn’t talked to since the media started running the stories about her and Daniel’s relationship. She’d known it was only a matter of time before he reached out as well.
Dropping her gloves on the table, she answered the phone.
“Sorry I didn’t call sooner. We just got home yesterday,” Curt said after greeting her.
That explained why she hadn’t heard from Curt until now. With everything else, she’d forgotten Curt, Taylor, his fiancée, and Taylor’s niece had flown down to Florida the day after Courtney’s wedding.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
Annoyed. Angry. “Okay.” She kept the other adjectives to herself because complaining didn’t change anything.
“Leah told me you’re hanging out in my neck of the woods.”
She considered her cousin Leah one of her closest friends. When she’d decided to retreat up here for an extended vacation, she’d been one of the first people Juliette let know. She wasn’t surprised Leah had passed the information on to her older brother.
If she had to guess, she’d say Pelham was about two hours away from Avon. In her opinion, that wasn’t precisely Curt’s neck of the woods, but she wasn’t going to correct him. “I got here last weekend.”
“Leah said you’re staying in Avon. I was up that way in October. How do you like it?”
“A bit more rural than I expected, but I like it. It’s quiet.”
Before Curt left Nichols Investment and moved to New Hampshire to focus on his writing career, he’d lived in Boston, so he knew well how much life in a small town differed from living in the city.
“The media doesn’t know you’re there?”
“I don’t think so. And if it does, no one has bothered me.”
“Glad to hear it. If you want some company, I can drive up either this week or next.”
As much as she loved the solitude, she wouldn’t mind a short visit from Curt or any of her cousins, assuming they didn’t spend the night. Her parents were a different matter. “Sounds good. Whenever you have the time. I’ll text you the address of where I’m staying. I’m warning you, though, the town isn’t big on street signs.” If and when she ventured out, she’d probably need her GPS to find her way back to the cottage. “So, how was your trip?”
By the time Curt finished telling her about his vacation and all the fun the three of them had at the theme parks in Florida, she wanted to go herself. The enormous crowds she’d encounter kept her from making any plans to visit in the near future.
“Taylor and Reese are expecting me, so I need to go, but I’ll see you later in the week. If you need me to bring you anything, let me know.”
“Will do. And say hi to Taylor and Reese for me.” Ending the call, Juliette stuck the cell phone back in her jacket pocket and pulled on her gloves.
Cold air and silence greeted her when she stepped outside. For a moment, she stood on the little front porch and let both wash over her while enjoying the lake view. While it hadn’t been his intention, her conversation with Curt had conjured up thoughts of the stories circulating about her and the fact she’d dated a married man. And yes, they were still going around. She’d made the mistake of checking the Star Insider’s website last night. Some of the pictures posted were ones she’d never seen. But one stood out from the rest. It’d been of a man and a woman in bed. Since some of the pictures of her and Daniel had been taken together inside his home, she assumed the couple was in his bedroom, but because she’d never stepped foot in his room, she wasn’t positive. While all you could see was the woman’s naked back, she had blonde hair about the same length as Juliette’s, so the site was claiming she was the woman in the photo. However, it wasn’t possible, because they'd been at her place the one time they’d been intimate.
As she stood outside, though, thoughts of the media and the photo disappeared. It wasn’t the first time since she’d been at the cottage that she’d stood in the same spot and whatever concerns she had drifted away, proving she’d made the right decision in coming here.
Her first instinct was to walk along the perimeter of the lake, but at the last minute, she pulled out the map of the campground Mrs. Wright left her when she checked in. She’d already put a little checkmark next to the various paths she’d explored, but there were several left. One in particular caught her eye now. To reach it, she needed to follow the edge of the lake until she reached the area near cottage number twenty. At least by the looks of it, the path into the woods started somewhere behind the building and ended closer to the campground’s office. And unlike the streets in town, all the trails she’d followed so far had been well marked, suggesting the Wrights didn’t want guests getting lost on their property.