Page 57 of The Woman By the Lake

Did Sarah somehow love both men?

Or did she yearn for a simple, uncomplicated man, and the life he led, in a one-room cabin twenty minutes from anywhere?

I would never know.

And something else I was learning about being an outdoorsy girl, when it was cold, you didn’t stop moving.

It was faster to walk through the Riggs space to get to my place.

But I figured they were home, and I didn’t want to disturb them, so I turned back and retraced my steps.

Halfway home, my phone vibrated in my back pocket.

I pulled it out of my jeans and saw a text from Riggs.

Brats. 5:00.

See you then, I returned, and I did it smiling, because I had plans that night, and that made me happy. Because those plans were with Riggs and Ledger, and that made me happier. And because a great idea struck me, and I was excited about it.

Then I shoved my phone back in my pocket, and with determined strides, trekked through the drizzle the rest of the way home.

TWELVE

Beer Theme

Riggs

Riggs was learning that vodka princesses could be shy, were sweet, and definitely funny.

And annoyingly late.

Sure, Nadia had texted to share how sorry she was that she couldn’t get there until 5:30.

But she wasn’t there at 5:30.

He heard her pull up in her car at 5:45.

And by that time, he and his boy were hungry.

So he wasn’t in a great mood when the doorbell rang, and he knew by the look on Ledger’s face, his son wasn’t either.

Riggs left the brats, which were done, and had been for ten minutes, in the skillet and headed to the door.

He opened it, and he wasn’t pissed anymore.

Not even a little.

Because Nadia stood there, her hair done up in a bunch of big curls that looked great, and for the first time that he’d seen, she had makeup on. It was subtle but seriously fucking gorgeous. He could also see the soft green turtleneck coming out of her traditional trench coat that gave her an elegant outdoors vibe he liked too much.

But there was more.

She was holding a cake plate by its stem in her fist, on which were thick layers of some dark chocolate cake that looked moist as fuck, this topped with swirls of creamy frosting.

In her other hand dangled a plastic grocery bag he could tell held a gallon tub of ice cream in it, and outside, a six-pack of bottles of beer.

“I’m sorry. So sorry. I got a wild hair,” she said swiftly. “This stout cake is insane. Perfect for après brats. I took a walk around the lake, and you texted me with the time, and I got the idea, but I didn’t have the ingredients, so I had to run to town. I also didn’t have a springform cake pan, or a cake plate, so it was more running around than I thought it would be. I forgot to factor in cooling time so I could frost it, and as such, it all went haywire.”

He felt Ledger behind him, so he took the cake plate from her and handed it off to his boy, who also was no longer pissed, considering he was staring at the cake with big eyes like he wanted to shove his entire face in it (you could say Angelica wasn’t a baker, or a cook).

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