Pastor Sanders rose for the opening prayer. Her products had only been in his gift shop for two weeks, but her lotions and honey were selling well enough that he’d asked for more-only a small order because Labor Day was near, but an order nonetheless.
As bad luck would have it, his sermon that morning centered on forgiveness, a subject that reminded her of Mike.
Sitting here in this sacred place, she no longer felt so righteous.
When the service was over, Toby attached himself to Mike, and Mike worked the crowd, just as he’d done at the Episcopal church. He knew everyone, and everyone knew him. He introduced her to members she’d yet to meet, including one of the real estate agents who worked for him and several former clients.
It was finally time to leave, and they stepped out into the blazing late morning sun. “Is it okay if I take Toby to see my new dog?” Mike said, once again forgetting to ask her these kinds of things when Toby wasn’t listening.
Toby’s eyes immediately lit up. The abandoned puppy had been a frequent topic of conversation between them. Toby had tried to dissuade Mike from turning it over to a rescue group on the mainland. In the end, Toby had won. “You’ve got to come, too, Bree,” he declared before she said he could go. “Can she, Mike?”
She tugged on one of her hoop earrings, not looking at Mike. “I should… get back and relieve Lucy.”
Toby grew mulish. “Lucy already told you she’d stay all morning.”
Once again, she’d set herself up as the bad guy. She was sick of it. “You’re right. I’d love to see the dog.”
Toby grinned and raced down the sidewalk. “I’m riding with Mike.”
Mike gazed at her. He’d slipped on his sunglasses, so she couldn’t see his eyes. “You don’t have to go with us.”
“I know that.” She couldn’t bring herself to say that she almost wanted to go. “But Toby wants me to, so I will.”
Mike gave a brusque nod and went off to join Toby, leaving her to trail after them in her own car.
Mike’s luxurious log home sat far above the lake on the island’s less populated west side. Each level held a porch or balcony built of varnished logs. Mike led them around to the back, where a long wooden table big enough to hold a dozen people sat in the shade of the covered patio. As Bree took in the lake view, Mike went inside and, a few moments later, reappeared with the puppy, an adorable short-haired mutt sporting alarmingly oversize paws.
She couldn’t hold back a smile as she watched Toby and the dog get reacquainted. “I wonder how Dr. King would feel about having a dog named after him?” she said.
Mike pretended to take her comment seriously. Or at least she thought he was pretending. “Martin’s an exceptional dog. I think Dr. King would be okay with it.”
“You’re keeping the dog because of Toby, aren’t you?”
Mike merely shrugged.
She needed Mike a lot more than he needed her, and she pressed on. “He was upset about his friends not coming back. Thank you for volunteering to break the news. Martin has really helped cheer him up.”
He tossed his sports coat over the nearest chair. His tan dress shirt was virtually unwrinkled, with none of the sweat rings under his arms the day’s heat should have produced. “I might as well tell you that I put my foot in it again,” he said, not quite looking at her as he loosened his tie. “I wanted to give him something to look forward to, so…” His faintly guilty expression wasn’t encouraging. “I asked him if he’d take care of Martin whenever I leave the island.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
He pulled off the tie. “The logistics.”
She got it. Mike lived too far away for Toby to bike to his house, especially in the winter, and it would be impractical for Bree to drive him back and forth several times a day. “So the dog will have to stay with us at the cottage,” she concluded.
“Sorry,” he said. “I should have asked you first.”
She made herself nod even as she eyed Martin’s enormous paws with a sense of foreboding. “It’s okay,” she said.
Toby wrestled the puppy for a stick. He was outgrowing his only pair of decent pants, and it wouldn’t be long before he needed shoes. She pushed the thought away. “Tell me about your house.”
“It’s one of the most expensive on the island, one of the biggest-” He stopped, his customary enthusiasm deserting him. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to brag. When you sell real estate, you get used to lining up your talking points.”
She was surprised that he’d recognized how he was coming off, but he seemed more tired than embarrassed. She didn’t know what to make of that, so she asked to see the inside of the house.
Mike tossed Toby a dog leash. “How about taking Martin for a walk while I show Bree around?”
As Toby clipped the leash to the pup’s collar, Bree followed Mike through the glass doors. They stepped into an enormous great room with log walls, a high-beamed ceiling, and a massive stone fireplace. The magazine-worthy decor was both masculine and comfortable, with a color scheme of chocolate, cinnamon, and bittersweet. Old- fashioned snowshoes, topographic maps, and forged iron wall sconces hung on one wall; a big picture window with a view of the lake occupied another. A round coffee table rested in front of a deep leather couch draped with a black-and-gold-checked Pendleton blanket. The hearth held a twig firewood basket and a roughly carved wooden statue of a black bear.
“It’s beautiful,” she said.
“I always wanted a North Woods house. Cool and dark in the summer. Warm and comfortable in the winter.”
“Pure Michigan.” She smiled. “I’d say you accomplished your goal.”
“I hired a decorator. A great guy. He and his partner visit once a year and throw out the kind of stuff I tend to pick up on my own. I still can’t figure out what’s wrong with a couple of U2 posters and a stuffed carp.” His eyes were laughing at her, but as she smiled back, he looked away. “The truth is, I don’t have what you call first-class taste, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
True. Mike only had first-class kindness. “It’s a big house for a bachelor,” she said.
“I had a family in mind when I built it. I was engaged at the time.”
That surprised her, although it shouldn’t have. A man as attractive and successful as Mike wouldn’t have trouble finding women-at least women who hadn’t known him when he was younger. “Anyone I know?” she asked.
“No.” He nudged an ottoman out of the way so she wouldn’t have to step around it. “Her family summers in Petoskey. Breaking that engagement was the hardest thing I ever did.”
“
“You figure I was the one who got dumped, right?”
“No. Not at all.” That’s exactly what she’d thought. “I just didn’t know you’d ever been engaged.”
“We had different values. She didn’t like island life or most of my local friends. But she had good qualities, too.”
“Just not enough for you to marry her.”
He refused to put down his former fiancee. “She took it hard. I still feel bad about it.”
And he would. The adult Mike Moody didn’t like hurting people. Maybe he never had.
He reached up to open his collar button, a simple gesture, but so completely masculine that she felt a little queasy. The sensation threw her off so much that she asked a question she’d never otherwise have posed. “Have there been a lot of women?”
“A lot? No. As much as I enjoy sex, I never slept with a woman I didn’t care about. If that makes me an oddball, I can live with it.”
It didn’t make him an oddball; it made him a decent guy. But she still wished he hadn’t brought up sex. All right, so she was the one who’d brought it up, but he didn’t have to give her any details. She wanted to believe he…
