The Girls of Tonsil Lake Read online

  Suzanne runs the Lady of the Lake Spa, which is greatly successful. I don’t go in for such things, but I certainly did enjoy the day she gave me as a gift. I felt wonderful afterward and my husband said, “You look younger somehow,” which led to all kinds of private celebration.

  She’s married to Trent. They are apart a great deal of the time, but they like it that way. She’s so lovely it near hurts to look at her, but you can see the pain in her eyes that never quite goes away. She’s loved much and lost much, and it shows.

  Vin and Lucas live on the island and on the lake, going from one place to the other at the drop of a hat. Although she wouldn’t like admitting it, she’s happier in love with Lucas than she was with Mr. Stillson. She still has a veneer of sophistication that serves her well in the business world, but she’s quite at home in her bare feet or in oilskins on Lucas’s brother’s boat.

  All of everyone’s family is here this weekend in June for the reunion. The lake rings with the shouts of young parents corralling their children and the laughter of those children. Even Vin’s stepdaughters are here, traveling alone and taking advantage of Suzanne’s spa.

  It’s amazing, it is, how the families meld. Everyone watches everyone else’s children. There’s even a nursery of sorts under the trees with shaded playpens for babies belonging to Josh and Laurie, Lo and Sarah, and Brian and Kelly.

  “God,” says Suzanne, looking wide-eyed at the three of them and beyond at Carrie’s and Miranda’s children, “it’s like when ours were little.”

  “Nah.” Andie stood beside her. “We get to send all these home.”

  Jean and Andie have houses on either side of Vin’s, far enough apart for privacy but close enough to meet for coffee whenever the mood strikes them, and it seems to strike them often. They all have little guesthouses, too, so there’s usually room for everyone. This weekend is an exception to that, of course, so Suzanne has closed down her spa to outside clientele to accommodate the overflow.

  An early riser by nature, I woke this morning in time to see the sun peeping up over the woods. I stepped out on the porch of Vin’s house in my bathrobe, something that’s entirely acceptable here, and looked down toward the lake.

  A huge boulder sat in the grass above the beach that had been created by bringing in sand. The men had rented a large yellow machine and hauled in the rock from a rear corner of what even I refer to as the Henderson farm although the Hendersons are gone from here.

  This morning, the Girls—as everyone from their husbands to the minister to the bartender at the pub calls them—all sat on the rock, though Jean looked near to falling off. As I watched, they leaned in toward each other as though sharing a confidence, then their laughter rose and spiraled so that the morning had an extra glow about it.

  Then Jean fell off the rock.

  Or else Andie pushed her.

  A word about the author…

  Liz Flaherty has spent the past few years reinventing herself. The career postal worker who wrote on weekends and sewed whenever someone lost a button now writes whenever she feels like it and sews the rest of the time. She’s not necessarily more productive these days, but she certainly does have a lot of fun.

  She lives with her husband, Duane, in the farmhouse they bought in 1977 and intended to stay in until the kids grew up, at which time they planned to move to a small house that cleaned itself and cooked their meals while he played golf and she…didn’t. This has not happened. Even though they occasionally discuss downsizing, neither of them is willing to go through a 36-year accumulation of stuff.

  THE GIRLS OF TONSIL LAKE is her eighth book.

  ~*~

  Other Liz Flaherty titles

  available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.:

  BECAUSE OF JOE

  HOME TO SINGING TREES

  Thank you for purchasing

  this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  For other wonderful stories of romance,

  please visit our on-line bookstore at

  www.thewildrosepress.com.

  For questions or more information

  contact us at

  [email protected].

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  www.thewildrosepress.com

  To visit with authors of

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  join our yahoo loop at

  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thewildrosepress/

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Home to Singing Trees by Liz Flaherty

  http://amzn.com/B0046ZS2AU

  Wallpaper with Roses by Jenny Andersen

  http://amzn.com/B00G8I3D0W