Free Return to Willow Lake by Susan Wiggs Page A

She indicated that
she did not, and rolled her luggage toward Max’s slightly beat-up Subaru.
    Max stood in his shirtsleeves, one hand in his jeans pocket,
his hip cocked at a jaunty angle. He attended college in Hamilton, where he
liked to say he majored in beer and girls. With his surfer-blond good looks, he
took after his dad, Greg Bellamy, though his air of easy charm was something
that belonged to Max alone. Sonnet liked him well enough, but she would never
understand him. He came from a great family—he was a Bellamy , for heaven’s sake—yet he seemed to be in no hurry to find
his life.
    “Hey, you,” she said, giving him a hug. He’d topped six feet a
few years ago, and he moved with easy grace as he loaded her bags in the back.
“Thanks for picking me up.”
    “Sure. Your mom’s going to go nuts when she sees you.”
    “She’s already nuts. Seriously, Max. Pregnant? ” It felt weird just saying it aloud. Her mother—her
over-forty mother—was pregnant. When Nina had first told her, Sonnet had been
speechless with disbelief. Then she’d accused Nina of telling a bad joke. “I’m
still in shock. How about you?”
    Max rolled out of the parking lot and headed toward the Inn at
Willow Lake, which Nina and Greg owned and operated. “It’s cool with me. I mean,
yeah, it’s weird because we’re so much older than little Junior or Juniorette is
going to be, but…” He shrugged. “Red Bull?” He offered her a sip of his
drink.
    “Uh, no, thanks.” She tried not to ingest things that had
ingredients she couldn’t pronounce. She looked out at the scenery—the covered
bridge over the Schulyer River, the hills draped in sunlit green. As they neared
the inn, she glimpsed the lake in the distance, shining like a jewel. “Hey, I
saw a camera crew get off the train. Know anything about that?”
    “Some kind of top-secret production is going to be starting.
That’s the word, anyway,” Max said, flashing his thousand-watt grin. “Maybe
they’ll make me a star.”
    “You wish.”
    He turned into the gravel-paved lane leading to the Inn at
Willow Lake. As always, it was lush and gorgeous, perfectly planted and
maintained, a testament to Greg Bellamy’s skill as a landscape architect.
“There’s some producer named C. Bomb staying at the inn,” Max said. “He’s like
the head of the outfit or something.”
    “C. Bomb?”
    “That’s what he calls himself. Clyde Bombardier or something
like that. Spends all day glued to his laptop, gabbing on his Bluetooth.”
    “So, not your typical guest.” The inn was known as a place for
romantic getaways. “And he’s not telling people what he’s up to?”
    Max shrugged. “His business. I guess we’ll find out soon
enough.”
    “And my mom? My pregnant mom?” Sonnet was still trying to get
her mind around the concept. When she’d told Orlando, he’d merely wondered why
Sonnet had to go haring off to Avalon simply because her mom was expecting.
Orlando didn’t get it. It wasn’t every day a grown woman discovered her mother
was going to have a baby.
    “ Her business,” Max said reasonably
enough. “I’m sure the two of you will be up half the night discussing it.”
    * * *
    Nina was sound asleep. Sonnet tiptoed into the house,
which had once been a caretaker’s cottage on the estate that had become the Inn
at Willow Lake. She found her mother on a daybed in the living room, covered in
an afghan, softly snoring. Quietly setting down her things, she paused to study
Nina. Did she look different, or was that just Sonnet’s imagination? She just
looked like…Mom, with her pretty Italian features and thick black hair, which
she’d grown long enough for a ponytail, her dark eyelashes shadowing cheeks that
looked slightly gaunt. You’re pregnant, Sonnet thought. You’re supposed to be
glowing.
    “Mom,” she said softly.
    Nina’s eyes fluttered open. Her mouth unfurled into a smile.
“Hi, baby.” Her favorite pet name for Sonnet now took on