“Please come, Mom.” Ellen folded her hands in a prayerful gesture. “You always have to work. I want you to go to the lake with us.”
Anne Marie wanted to enjoy the sunshine, too, but she hesitated. She hadn’t talked to Mel since Monday night, and while they’d parted on good terms they’d each felt unsettled by their disagreement. If he were to learn she’d gone to the lake with Tim, he’d be justifiably upset.
Tim opened his eyes wide and folded his hands like Ellen’s. With both of them gazing at her in supplication, she couldn’t refuse. Her one hope was that Mel wouldn’t find out about this. “Oh, all right,” she said, giving in.
Ellen hooted and jumped up and down, clapping.
“I’ll have to stop at the house and change clothes,” Anne Marie told them. “I can’t very well go out on the water wearing this.” She motioned at her white pants and pink jacket.
“We have time,” Tim said with a boyish grin.
Once she’d driven home, changed her clothes and packed a few things for Ellen, it was close to four-thirty. “I need to be back before seven,” she said as she slid into the front seat next to Tim. That wasn’t strictly true, but she had an evening of paperwork planned. And imposing a time limit gave her at least the illusion of control.
“You will be,” he promised as he started the engine.
The drive to the lake took another thirty minutes. He turned off the main road to a secluded one, then eventually drove down a dirt track that led to the water’s edge. A rustic log cabin was nestled among tall fir trees. She saw two wooden rockers on the front porch; they looked comfortably worn, as though many conversations had taken place there over the years, many sunsets watched. The pristine lake was glass-smooth with the sun reflecting on the surface of the water, which was a deep greenish blue. Another cabin could be seen on the other side.
“Oh, Tim, this is lovely,” Anne Marie said. “It’s so peaceful.”
“Mom and Dad have wanted a summer place like this for years and they finally found exactly what they were looking for.”
“Can we go out in the boat now?” Ellen asked. After strapping on her vest, she raced down to the dock.
“Wait for us,” Anne Marie called.
A boat ride had sounded like a simple thing when Tim first mentioned it. Anne Marie couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in one—or one that small, anyway. Tied to the dock, the rowboat bobbed gently on the lake. Anne Marie wasn’t sure how she was supposed to climb in and out.
“I’ll help you,” Tim said, as though reading her mind. “You have nothing to fear—I was a Cub Scout.”
“Not a Boy Scout?”
“No, I didn’t pass the test.”
“Oh, great.”
He chuckled. “I’m a natural on the water. I’ve been doing this for years.”
“So you say.”
“It’s all right, Mom,” Ellen said, clasping Anne Marie’s hand. “I can swim—I’ll save you.”
Tim got in first, then helped Ellen lower herself into the boat. Anne Marie went last. She sat on the edge of the dock and gingerly eased herself in, sighing with relief once she was safely seated.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Yeah!” Ellen shouted. “Let’s go!”
It soon became apparent that Tim was as comfortable on the water as he’d claimed. He rowed with regular, even strokes, and the boat seemed to glide effortlessly across the lake.
“See that cabin over there?” he asked, pointing to the one Anne Marie had noticed earlier.
“I see it,” Ellen told him, shading her eyes from the sun.
“There’s a story about the people who used to live in these two cabins, ours and that one.”
“Oh?” He had a twinkle in his eyes, and Anne Marie was convinced he was about to make up some wild tale.
“Years ago, these cabins were owned by rival families. The Krugers and the Livermores.”
“Krugers and Livermores?” Anne Marie repeated. “Like the Montagues and Capulets? Or the Hatfields and McCoys?”
“Something like that.”
“What’s rival mean?” Ellen asked
“They competed with each other,” Tim explained.
“Were they friends?”
“Rivals can be friends, but in this case they weren’t.”
“You mean like Mel and you?” She looked from Tim to Anne Marie.
“Sort of,” Anne Marie said, saddened that her daughter was aware of the antagonism between Mel and her father.
“If one family bought a boat, then the other family did, as well,” Tim went on as if he hadn’t heard Ellen’s last statement. “The two husbands were employed by rival companies, so when one family purchased a cabin on this side of the lake, the second family bought land and built a larger cabin on the other side.”
“Is ours bigger?” Ellen asked.
“We have the smaller house,” Tim said.
“Oh.” Ellen seemed disappointed.
“As it happened, both families had teenage children. The Krugers had a daughter named Dani and the Livermores had a son, Scott, who was the same age as Dani.”
“I feel a romance brewing,” Anne Marie said.
“You’re right.” Tim directed the comment to her. “Dani and Scott were both out on the water one afternoon when Dani’s canoe tipped over.”
“This story isn’t going to have an unhappy ending, is it?” Anne Marie asked.
“No way,” Tim said, pulling rhythmically on the oars. “This is a romance, remember?”
“Mo-om, let Dad tell the story.”
“Okay, okay, continue.” Anne Marie gestured toward Tim.
“Seeing that Dani was in distress, Scott paddled over and rescued her.”
“And the Kruger family was so grateful the rivalry ended,” Anne Marie concluded.
“Nope. The Kruger family blamed Scott for causing Dani to fall out of the canoe.”
“Didn’t Dani defend him?” Anne Marie asked.
“She tried, but her family refused to listen. The Krugers disliked the Livermores so much that if there was any kind of mishap, the Livermores were automatically to blame.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she muttered.
“I agree.”
Ellen patted Anne Marie’s knee. “Shh, I want to find out what happened.”
“Would you like the short version or the long one?”
“Short version,” Anne Marie insisted. “Definitely the short version.”
“Okay,” Tim said. “They lived happily ever after.”
“Who did?” Ellen demanded. “I want the long version ‘cause I don’t know who married who.”
Anne Marie groaned and glanced up at the sky. “Tim, honestly. All right, give us the long version.”
“That night,” he began, “Dani snuck out of the house and got in the canoe and paddled over to Scott’s place. She woke him