As soon as he was gone, something made a noise under the deck. There was an obvious rustling and thumping, and Valerie backed away from the railing, fearing it was an oversize rat or a small bear.
“That was close,” a voice said, and she let out a breath of relief as a human emerged and rose to his feet before her—a young man with curly brown hair, looking disheveled as he brushed dead leaves off his jacket and his shabby blue trousers. “Thanks for covering for me. I owe you one.”
“I wasn’t covering for you,” she replied. “I didn’t even know you were there.”
“You didn’t see me crawl under?”
“No,” she said. “When was that?”
“I don’t know. Right about the same time Joe got out of his car. It’s pretty tight under there. I was on my belly the whole time with my cheek in the dirt, right under you, listening to every word of your conversation.”
Valerie bristled and struggled to remember what she had said when Joe asked all those questions, because clearly this was the infamous Jeremy.
“It’s not polite to eavesdrop,” she said.
“I didn’t have a choice.” He spoke defensively, bordering on heatedly. “Even if I stuffed cotton in my ears, I could still hear you. You were standing right on top of me.”
“And whose fault was that?” she asked and suddenly realized how ridiculous it was to argue with him. “Never mind. You must be Jeremy. I’m Valerie.” She stuck out her hand, and he stared at it, as if he had no notion of polite etiquette, but then he shook it.
“I know who you are,” he said. “Angie told me all about you. You’re the new girl from out east.”
Valerie’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “You’re friends with Angie?”
Valerie had worked two shifts with Angie, but she hadn’t mentioned Jeremy, even though Valerie had confessed quite a bit about her own life and had mentioned seeing Jeremy on the tour.
“Angie and I go way back,” he explained. “I’ve known her since fifth grade.”
“I see.” Valerie was still struggling to get a handle on this. “But you’re not friends with her husband?”
Jeremy wagged a finger at her. “Now who’s being nosy?”
Valerie felt a rush of unease at the smart-alecky look in his eye.
“I’m only joking.” He scratched the back of his head. “Joe takes after his father. He doesn’t think too much of me, but that’s okay. I don’t think too much of them either.”
“Why is that?”
“Because Joe’s a knucklehead. So is his dad.”
Valerie was curious to know more, but she was also hesitant about encouraging any sort of intimacies with Jeremy. Blaine had warned her about him, and she needed to be careful and get through the next seven months without any snags.
A car pulled into the lot.
“There she is,” Jeremy said. He leaped off the deck and jogged across the lawn to meet Angie.
Valerie watched from a distance as they spoke. After a moment, Angie glanced back at Valerie, who felt suddenly like a voyeur, spying on them. She turned and looked across the water.
A moment later, Angie approached, and Jeremy disappeared into the forest.
“You finally met Jeremy,” she said as she walked up the steps with her heavy tote bag slung over her shoulder.
“I didn’t know you two were friends.”
Angie rolled her eyes a little and headed toward the main door of the lodge. “I try to be his friend, but he doesn’t make it easy.”
Valerie followed Angie inside and across the lobby to the dining room. “What do you mean?”
Angie set her bag inside a cupboard behind the reception desk and removed her coat. “He doesn’t know how to steer clear of trouble. I wish he would just grow up and get a job and stop acting like a thirteen-year-old.”
