Free Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel by Mary McNear Page B

assured him. “We don’t have to work out all the details today, but if you want visitation rights, you can have them.”
    “Visitation rights?” Walker repeated. The phrase left a bad taste in his mouth.
    Caitlin shrugged. “I think that’s the correct legal term.”
    “Well, that’s not what I want.”
    She sighed and he noticed, for the first time, how tired she looked. “Well, what do you want?” she asked, with a trace of exasperation.
    What he said next couldn’t have shocked Caitlin as much as it shocked him.
    “I want us to be a real family.”
    “A real family?” she echoed, skeptically.
    “Yes,” he said, with conviction. “A real family. Marriage, a house, a baby. Everything.”
    Now it was Caitlin’s turn to be speechless. “Walker, are you proposing to me?” she asked, finally, after a long silence.
    “I guess I am,” he said.
    She shook her head in wonderment. “Where is this coming from? We’ve never discussed marriage before.”
    “Well, maybe it’s time we did.”
    “I, I don’t know what to say,” Caitlin admitted. “Of all the outcomes I considered for today, this wasn’t one of them.”
    “I’m a little surprised myself,” Walker said. And then, because he felt something more was called for, he said, “Come here.”
    She stood up and came over to him. He took her hand and pulled her, a little awkwardly, onto his lap.
    “I’m sorry that wasn’t a very romantic proposal,” he said, putting his arms around her waist.
    “That’s okay,” she said, almost shyly.
    “So are you going to accept it?” he asked.
    She smiled, a little shakily. “Why not?” she said.
    “Exactly,” Walker said. “I mean, how difficult can this whole marriage thing be?”
    Plenty difficult, it turned out. But they hadn’t known that then. They hadn’t known anything then, as far as Walker could tell. Now, three years later, sitting in his office at the boatyard, he could only feel regret. Regret and guilt.
    But something else tugged at his consciousness now: Allie, the woman he’d met at the coffee shop last weekend, and her little boy, Wyatt. Strangely enough, he’d been thinking about them lately, too. He had no idea why. Probably because Caroline had told him about Allie’s late husband. It had made sense to him, somehow. Somewhere beneath her prickly defensiveness, he’d guessed there was a deep sadness. And a soft vulnerability.
    He should have gone to Minneapolis today, he thought. Because here he was worrying about two people he didn’t even know. Didn’t even want to know, really. He forced them out of his mind and drained the last of the coffee from his cup. It was like drinking mud. If he did nothing else tomorrow, he decided, he’d buy a new coffeepot at the hardware store. Then he’d have something, however small, to show for staying here this weekend.

CHAPTER 9
    A llie and Wyatt were already sitting on the front steps of the cabin when they heard the crunch of Jax’s tires coming up the gravel driveway.
    “Wyatt, there’s something you need to know before you go blueberry picking this morning,” Allie said, putting his Minnesota Twins baseball cap on him and adjusting the visor to a jaunty angle.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Eating blueberries from the pail is a time-honored tradition,” she said, playfully. “So is eating them directly off the blueberry bush. So don’t worry about filling up your pail. I don’t care how many blueberries you bring home. I just want you to have fun. Okay?” She waited for a response. There was none. “Okay?” she said again, lifting up his visor and looking into his chocolate brown eyes.
    Wyatt didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to say anything. His trembling lower lip said it for him. He didn’t want to go blueberry picking without Allie. Oh God, please don’t cry, she thought desperately. Because if you cry, my resolve will crumble. And I’ll come with you. Or I’ll let you stay home. And you’re already with me