“Sorry?” I say.
“The view,” he says, gesturing to the binoculars still gripped in my hands. “See anything good?”
Suddenly—and rightfully—feeling guilty, I set the binoculars on the wobbly table beside the rocking chair. “Just trees.”
The man nods. “The foliage is beautiful this time of year.”
I stand, make my way to the end of the porch, and look down at him. He’s come closer to the house and now gazes up at me with a glint in his eyes, as if he knows exactly what I’ve been doing.
“I don’t mean to sound rude,” I say, “but who are you and where did you come from?”
The man takes a half step back. “Are you sure you didn’t mean to sound rude?”
“Maybe I did,” I say. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m Boone. Boone Conrad.”
I barely stop myself from rolling my eyes. That cannot be his real name.
“And I came from over there.”
He jerks his head in the direction of the woods and the house slightly visible two hundred yards behind the thinning trees. The Mitchell place. An A-frame cabin built in the seventies, it sits tucked within a small bend of the lakeshore. In the summer, the only part of it visible from my family’s house is the long dock that juts into the lake.
“You’re a guest of the Mitchells?” I say.
“More like their temporary handyman,” Boone says. “Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell said I could stay for a couple of months if I did some work on the place while I’m here. Since we’re neighbors, I thought I’d stop by and introduce myself. I would have done it earlier, but I was too busy stuck inside refinishing their dining room floor.”
“Nice to meet you, Boone. Thanks for stopping by.”
He pauses a beat. “You’re not going to introduce yourself, Casey Fletcher?”
I’m not surprised he knows who I am. More people than not recognize me, even though sometimes they’re not sure how. “You just did it for me.”
“Sorry,” Boone says. “The Mitchells told me your family owned the house next door. I just didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Neither did I.”
“How long are you staying?”
“That’s up to my mother,” I say.
A sly grin plays across Boone’s lips. “Do you do everything your mother tells you to?”
“Everything except not doing this.” I lift my glass. “How long will you be staying?”
“Another few weeks, I suspect. I’ve been here since August.”
“I didn’t know the Mitchells needed so much work done on their house.”
“Honestly, they don’t,” Boone says. “They’re just doing me a favor after I found myself in a bit of a lurch.”
An intriguing response. It makes me wonder what his deal is. I don’t see a wedding ring—apparently a new obsession of mine—so he’s not married. Not now, at least. I peg him as recently divorced. The wife got the house. He needed a place to live. In step David and Hope Mitchell, a friendly but dull pair of retirees who made their money in pharmaceuticals.
“How do you like life on the lake?”
“It’s quiet,” Boone says after thinking it over for a few seconds. “Don’t get me wrong. I like the quiet. But nothing much seems to happen here.”
Spoken like a man whose spouse wasn’t found dead on the lakeshore fourteen months ago.
“It takes some getting used to,” I say.
“Are you also here by yourself?”
“I am.”
“Don’t you get lonely?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well, if you ever get bored or need some company, you know where to find me.”
I note his tone, pitched somewhere between friendly and flirtatious. Hearing it is surprising, but not unwelcome to someone like me who’s watched way too many Hallmark Channel Christmas movies. This is how they always begin. Jaded big-city professional woman meets rugged local man. Sparks fly. Hearts melt. Both live happily ever after.
The only differences here are that Boone isn’t a local, my heart’s too shattered to melt, and there’s no such thing as happily ever after. There’s only happy for a short period of time before everything falls apart.
Also, Boone is more attractive than the blandly handsome men of the Hallmark Channel. He’s unpolished in the best of ways. The stubble on his chin is a tad unruly and the muscles evident under his clothes are a bit too big. When he follows up his offer of company with a sleepy, sexy grin, I realize that Boone could be trouble.