Kindle Edition
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Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Untreed Reads
ISBN-10: B00DNKTEWE
Type: Fiction
Pages: 16
Copyright: June 26, 2013
Price: $0.99 (eBook)
Evan Lavigne, an artist and widower with ttwo young children, has to deak with a msyerious young woman who shows up from mowhere and takes over his household.
Evan Lavigne has his hands full being a single parent to his young son and daughter, plus dealing with life after his wife, Tessa, drowns in the lake near their cottage.
As if out of nowhere, a mysterious young woman, who calls herself Deirdre, appears and takes over the household and the children. Did she just materialize from the lake? She could well have, judging by her knowledge of marine life.
Just when they all settle into a tranquil domesticity and Evan asks Dierdre to marry him, Evan’s agent raises doubts in his mind. As the wedding day approaches, the mystery surrounding Dierdre deepens. Is Dierdre truly the new love of his life, or something far more malevolent?
A short story.
Excerpt
It was on just such a day that Tessa had taken a boat from Nick Howell’s rental place to go fishing just a few hundred yards downwind of our cottage. She was an avid fishing aficionado, and invariably returned with lake trout and sometimes whitefish. But that day a gale had whipped up as it often did unpredictably on Lake Superior. She’d gone missing for two hours until old Nick called the police. I had been too much in a daze. They found her five hours later, the boat capsized and her face down.
What perverse goblins of the mind forced those thoughts on me as the children ran out laughing and chattering? I willed away the images, but the horror of those dark days lingered and I was reminded that if it weren’t for Robert and Louise Dempsey, Tessa’s parents, and my parents, who took the children for a few days, while I pulled myself together, I’d be a basket case. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life hiding away and crying while the kids needed to be fed, clothed, and looked after.
The sight of the easel – and bills to pay – calmed me down, and I began a landscape of gulls swooping down on a calm blue stretch of water with long brush strokes.
I was lost in the weaving of my dreams on canvas when, through the swirl of my thoughts, I heard screams. It was Megan.
“Dad. Come quick!”
I wiped my hands quickly and dashed out to where the children had been playing.
Conner lay down face down in the sand.
“What happened.” The words came out in a gasp. I threw myself besides my son.
“He went too far in the water but the lady brought him back,” Megan said, gesturing wildly.
It was then that I heard a low female voice behind me. “It’s okay. He’s just exhausted from trying to find his bearings in the water.”
I turned around. A young woman with dark hair piled high and a sarong wrapped around her bathing suit stood there. I couldn’t see her face too clearly but, despite her height, about five foot seven inches or so, she appeared pale and delicate. She stood with her back to the sunlight.
“Lucky I happened to be in the water at the same time,” she said. For just a moment I heard a hard edge to her voice that was a sharp contrast to her appearance. In the next second, I realized I must have imagined it. There was nothing about this woman to suggest she was anything but caring and concerned for Conner.
Conner stirred and turned his face sideways.
“Are you okay, Sport?” I asked.
“Yeah. I guess.” He tried to sit up. I helped him and held him close.
“I thought I told you to stay on the beach,” I said, although relief swept over me.
“I was hot,” he said. “So I went in the water. The lady helped me.” He squinted at her against the sunlight.
But she had disappeared. In the blink of an eye she seemed to have reached the far end of the beach, where the sand met the water. She merged with the gently lapping water and that was the last I saw.
“Who was that lady?” I asked Megan.
“Dunno. But she got here just in time to pull Conner out of the water,” she explained, nodding somberly.
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