“Me, neither, but like I said—I’m pretty sure there’s a caretaker. Someone in town told me once he comes every Thursday for a poke around. We’ll be gone long before then.”
Was that reluctance in his voice? She knew she didn’t want to think about the real world. She’d have to, though. She needed a part-time job to pay for her expenses when she went to school this fall, and so far she hadn’t secured one.
Liam tested the stairs. “They’ve always held me before. Come on, but watch the railing—it’s loose.”
They made their way up the steps, and Tory was enchanted by how the view shifted as they climbed. When they reached the narrow deck at the top of the stairs, they could see out over the whole lake.
“How could anyone leave this place behind?” she asked.
“I know, right?” Liam opened the door to the little cottage. “Check it out.”
Inside, the place was as tidy and droll as a ship’s cabin. There were built-in window seats, a dresser and a desk. A table sat under one window, and a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf lined one wall.
“There’s an outhouse not too far away on the ground. It’s boarded up now,” Liam answered her unspoken question. “Everyone ate in the main lodge. I think people were allowed to cook for themselves there, too. Or use one of the firepits outside.”
“It’s perfect.”
“I think the bed would have gone here.” He pointed to a space where nothing else sat near the wall.
“That makes sense.” She had a flash of her and Liam in a bed. Sharing a small cabin—
Her skin tingled at the thought of his touch—of being intimate with him.
Was he thinking about that, too?
“Maybe the Hunts will come back some day,” she said to cover her confusion. “Open the place again.”
“I hope so. Silver Falls could use some sprucing up all around.”
“You got that right.”
When they were done exploring the tree house, they walked under the others, Liam pointing out the damage to them and explaining why he wouldn’t attempt to climb into them.
He was right; the place needed a ton of work. They weren’t able to enter the lodge, but they peered in the front windows, comparing notes about what they knew about the building and the family who used to own it.
By that time they were hot, and when Liam suggested a swim, Tory was all for it. She wondered if he’d suggest skinny dipping, but over the course of the afternoon, he’d kept his distance. He swam in bathing trunks. She kept her bra and panties on.
Lying on the beach afterward, they both snoozed a little. Dinner was hamburgers. By the time they climbed into their sleeping bags again that night, spread out on the beach under a sky strewn with stars, Tory found her troubles with her family had slipped away again. In a few days she’d deal with Enid and make her first attempt to really reconnect with Olivia.
She’d apologize for what she’d done.
But for now she was going to enjoy herself.
Chapter Four
“There’s something else you have to see,” Liam told Tory the following morning, needing to get moving before lust consumed him completely. He’d been half-hard since Tory had stripped down to her bra and panties the previous day to go for a swim. He’d woken up to find her nestled nearly in his arms, although they each had a separate sleeping pad and bag. They’d kissed a few more times before hitting the hay last night, but he hadn’t tried to take anything further, despite his discomfort. He was afraid if he did, he’d lose what they had right now.
Liam wasn’t sure he could precisely define what that was. It was comfortable to have Tory around. More than that, of course. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this alive. It wasn’t an off-balance, breathless sensation, though, like he’d had in the past when he was falling for a pretty girl. This was different.
Deeper, somehow, even though mostly all they’d done was talk.
He’d begun to feel like he knew Tory. He’d already learned she was a night owl, liked her coffee black, ate a huge breakfast in the morning and nibbled through the rest of the day. She was groggy and grumbly first thing when she woke up but lively and chatty the rest of the time. She appreciated their surroundings and cleaned their campsite assiduously after every meal.
She was the practical, thoughtful kind of woman he’d always hoped to meet. It was ironic she’d lived next door half his life.
“What?” she asked now, catching him watching her.
“Nothing.” He led her around the lodge to the back and took her up a set of steps to a wide balcony that overlooked the forest side of the property.
“Who would sit back here when they could sit out front and look at the lake?” Tory asked.
“I think the main idea is that it’s like a walkway around the house at this level. See there?” He pointed to where there was a funny kind of break in the railing around the deck, like a gate of some kind. It had confused him when he’d first come exploring. There were several of them, and in each case if you opened the gate, you’d simply fall off the balcony and hit the ground some ten feet down.
It had taken several trips out here before he noticed each of the gates on the lodge balcony was set opposite to a gate in the railings around one of the treehouses.
He pointed that out to Tory. “I think there must have been catwalks joining each of them to the lodge. See?”
“That must have been so cool,” Tory exclaimed. “Where did they go?”
“I bet they detach and got put away every winter. They’d deteriorate fast in the snow.”
“I wonder where they are now?”
“I don’t know, but check this out.”
The front of the lodge faced the beach and lake. In back the balcony wrapped around
