Wendy Etherington - The Right Bed?

The salesclerk was standing outside, a disapproving scowl on his face. “He’ll be right out. I’m just going to wait up front. You have some very nice leather chairs.” She forced a smile, but the man’s expression didn’t waver.

Ten minutes later, Jake joined her at the front of the store. He took her hand and walked out with her and when they reached the street, Caley turned on him. “You have to stop making me do those things,” she said.

“You used to be such a daredevil,” he said. “What’s happened?”

“I’ve grown up,” Caley said.

“I dare you to kiss me, right here,” Jake said. “In front of everyone.” He looked around at the nearly empty street and then shrugged. “All right, in front of that woman with the poodle.”

“Where are we going? You said you wanted to take me somewhere.”

“I don’t know if I should,” Jake teased. “You’ve lost your nerve. I’m not sure this Caley would be up for what I have in mind.”

She grinned, then threw her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. Her tongue slipped between his lips and Caley used every ounce of her feminine wiles to arouse him again. “I’m just a little out of practice,” she said. “The only daring thing I do is dodging cabs when crossing Fifth Avenue.”

Jake grabbed another kiss, then pulled her along to his SUV. Caley really didn’t care where they were going, as long as it was somewhere quiet and private where they might continue what they’d started in the fitting room.

“WHERE ARE WE GOING?”

Jake glanced over at Caley and smiled.

After their rocky start that morning, Jake wondered whether he and Caley were doomed to spend their time revisiting the past.

They’d been such good friends growing up, doing everything together, climbing trees and exploring the lakeshore, fishing and swimming. But once they’d started to see each other as more than just good buddies, their relationship had grown strained. Though they’d still spent the majority of their time together, they had often been locked in a battle of wills, each of them trying to one-up the other.

Caley had used the stubborn determination he’d fostered and made a success of herself in a highly competitive field. He, in turn, had internalized her absolute confidence in him and used it to build his own business from scratch.

He’d never really thanked her for being such a good friend. But he didn’t want to do that now. Instead, he wanted her to look at him as something more than a friend. He wanted to get back to that place, to that day right before they’d started looking at each other with teenage lust in their eyes. If he took them back, then maybe they’d be able to turn things in a different direction.

“I’d just like to know what this thing you’re going to show me is.”

“A surprise,” Jake said. “Are you always this impatient? Or do you just hate surprises?”

“Both,” Caley said.

“You’re going to have to relax. You’re not in the big city anymore. Take a breath, chill for a while. Enjoy the beautiful day.”

Caley’s phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket, but before she could answer it, Jake grabbed it from her hands. “You can talk to them later,” he said, taking a quick glance at the caller ID.

“I have responsibilities,” Caley said. She took her cell phone back. “Don’t you have a cell phone? Don’t people from your office need to talk to you?”

“They don’t have my number. I don’t want anyone calling me so I don’t give it out. When I leave the office, I’m done. Whatever they need can wait or they can figure it out for themselves. I’m not that important that I have all the answers. Are you?”

Caley frowned as if perplexed by his question. “Well, yes. That’s how you get to be the boss. By having all the answers.”

“Maybe you should trust the people you work with a little more. If you don’t, you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

Jake knew from experience that it was best to take a more relaxed approach to work. When he first opened his own architectural firm in Chicago, he’d spent months of sleepless nights worrying about all the horrible things that might befall him professionally. And then, once he was sure they weren’t going to come and repossess the office furniture, he stopped worrying. He didn’t want to be a millionaire or appear on the cover of some glossy architecture magazine. He wasn’t going to be the next I. M. Pei. He’d do his job well, he’d make a decent living and his clients would be happy with his work. That was enough.

“I work better when I’m crazy,” Caley said. She flipped open the phone. “Give me your number. I might have an emergency sometime.”

“I’ll only give you my number if you promise that you’ll use it,” he said.

“For what? A booty call?”

“Maybe. Or a little bit of drunk dialing. Or when you get stuck in a snowbank on the side of the road.” He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out his own phone, then handed it to her. “Put your number on my memory dial. I might have an emergency of my own some night.”

Jake carefully watched the side of the East Shore Road, looking for the weathered wooden sign that hung from an old maple tree. Havenwoods. When he saw it, he turned sharply into the woods, steering the truck down a snow-covered drive.

Caley looked around. “What is this? It said private property on that sign. We shouldn’t drive down here.”

“Relax,” Jake said. “The owner hardly ever uses it in the winter. No one has been here for a while.” Caley was silent and Jake looked over at her. “It’ll be all right, I promise.”

They wound through the woods and finally came to a clearing in the trees. An old log house stood on the rise above the lake. A ramshackle porch, supported by a stone foundation, surrounded the house and three fieldstone chimneys broke up the roofline. Every time Jake saw it, he couldn’t help but be amazed that it was finally his.

“Oh my God,” Caley murmured, peering through the windshield. “It’s the Fortress.” She glanced over at Jake, a wide smile on her face. “I haven’t been here in … years. It still looks exactly the same.” She frowned. “But smaller.”

“It’s called Havenwoods,” Jake said, “and I found out it was one of the first summerhouses built on this lake, back when the industrialists called their summer homes camps and North Lake was just a pretty fishing hole in the middle of a forest. It was built in 1885 by a railroad tycoon from Chicago who owned the entire lake and the surrounding property. It was designed by William West Durant,” Jake continued. “Durant was the first to design in the Great Camp style in the Adirondacks.”

“Someone is home,” she said. “The porch lights are on in the middle of the day.”

He shook his head. “The lighting is triggered by a sensor on the driveway. When you come from the lake side, the lights don’t go on.” He turned off the car. “You want to go inside?”

As kids, they used to come across the lake by boat and tie up at the rotting dock. They’d explored every inch of the property and had spent many rainy days inside the house, gaining entrance through a first-floor window with a broken sash lock.

“We can’t go inside. That’s trespassing. And breaking and entering.”

“We used to do it all the time. No one will care,” Jake said. “And I know where the key is so we won’t have to break in.” He jumped out of the truck and circled around, then helped her out. “If Officer Winslow catches us, you can just smile at him and he won’t arrest us.”

Caley’s gaze was fixed on the facade as she walked closer. “You brought me here on my fifteenth birthday. And you gave me that arrowhead necklace. I wore that thing all year. My girlfriends in school thought it was the ugliest thing, but I thought … well, I thought it was special.”