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Hey Jonas,
No, I probably won’t need your protection, but I also enjoyed meeting you last Christmas. Erik said you’re bringing your girlfriend. Was he telling the truth there, too?
Thanks for the sympathy on being laid off. I’m sure something else will turn up. It’s the limbo that’s hard. Luckily I’ve had every crap job a teenager can land, so I won’t starve.
As for your new company, congratulations! But if that’s your deepest secret, you need more excitement.
Allie
Hi Allie,
I’m bringing an old friend. Sandra.
As for needing more excitement, hmm. Maybe being back at Lake George will inspire me to wilder things?
On that note, why are you stuck vacationing with Erik? I would think there’d be an army of Manhattan men clawing for your attention. Or do you just turn them all down? You should come to Boston. It’s a great city.
Jonas
Hey Jonas,
Ha! The only men clawing for my attention want me to pay my bills. As for Boston, you’re seriously tempting me.
Allie
I bet you say that to all the guys.
Jonas
Only the ones who do.
Allie
* * *
ALLIE CLIMBED OUT of Erik’s Mercedes after a long, bumpy ride down a tree-lined gravel driveway branching off a road halfway up the west side of Lake George. She inhaled the light, cool air with relief, having spent too many miles listening to Erik’s horrible music.
The Meyers’ property and Morningside—really, they named their house?—were even more stately and elegant in person than they’d looked in the pictures Erik showed her. Determined not to betray her intimidation or awe, Allie dragged her suitcase out of the backseat, waving off the very solicitous Erik who’d come around to help. He was being the perfect gentleman—almost too perfect. Less like a concerned friend and more like a guy lulling his intended victim into complacency. On the way over, he’d taken her to a lovely bistro off Interstate 87, and had seemed a little too eager to refill her wineglass, a little too eager to compliment her, touch her arm, bump hands and shoulders when they were walking. Maybe she was paranoid, but her guard was up—to put it mildly—and she was very glad Jonas and Sandra would be arriving the next day.
Jonas, anyway. Sandra, not so much.
Stop! Honestly, one meeting last Christmas and a few emails and she was as giddy as a preteen with a crush, obsessing over every word he’d said. Allie was the only person he’d told about wanting to start his own company? Uh-huh. Did she remember whose brother he was? Boston was probably littered with women who were “the only person he’d told.”
Shutting down those thoughts, she turned to face Morningside, which was lit with a soft glow from outdoor lights and the moon. The place was imposing. Eight bedrooms, Erik had said, in two gleaming white stories. A wide screened-in porch—or should she say a ver-an-da—wrapped around the north side, punctuated by a white balustrade and a lattice fence that effectively hid unsightly underparts. The south end of the house, also two stories, sat slightly lower, like a stunted afterthought. Black shutters—Dark green? Navy? Hard to tell at night—downstairs, and on the second floor, dormers relieved the whiteness. Farther north on the property and closer to the lake was the silhouette of a smaller house, begging to be explored. By the water stood a third structure, a boathouse, she’d guess. Surrounding the family compound, a fern-strewn pine and hardwood forest covered hills that came right to the water’s edge on either side of the curving sand beach. The grass around the house looked freshly mowed. She wouldn’t be surprised if the sand by the lake had been raked, too. The place had been thoroughly readied for the Lord of the Manor’s visit.
Sarcasm aside, Morningside was tranquil and totally private. Allie was glad that she wouldn’t have to cope with a cluster of mansions, women twirling parasols, wearing bonnets and the latest frocks, their gold-plated opera glasses trained on Allie, anticipating her every faux pas.
Okay, wrong century, but real fears.
From an early age she’d been conscious of class status in a way no one else in her blue-collar family seemed to be. Not that she’d grown up in the jungle, though at times Brooklyn felt that wild. But she’d been the only one of her siblings so determined to put that life behind her. Which she had. Just not this far.
“You like it?” Erik’s blue eyes were bright with pleasure, or maybe just reflecting the moonlight.
“How could I not?” She gestured to the house and grounds, acting as if this was just the latest in the long line of similar vacation mansions she’d stayed in. “It’s beautiful. So quiet.”
