Thank you to my editors, Ruth and Stacia, for taking such care with my work. Thanks Eva and Paula for beta reading. And thank you, Sandy, for looking after me and the biz in countless ways, and making the space for me to write.
To Lee, as always, amo te.
Radclyffe
For Lee, for all seasons
Chapter One
With a teeth-jarring thud, the left front wheel of Lily Davenport’s BMW coupe dropped into a pothole the size of the Grand Canyon. Emitting an ominous groan that sounded unsettlingly human, the little two-seater convertible bounced out the other side of the chasm and promptly stalled.
“Damn it,” Lily muttered, shifting into park to restart the engine. She pushed the ignition button and, in the heart-stopping second of silence, feared her vehicle might refuse to go, in protest over its recent maltreatment. Not that she could blame it. If she was a car, she’d refuse to go any farther on this hellacious path—it could hardly be called a road, considering it was barely wider than the BMW—too. When the engine turned over, she whispered a thank-you and eased forward a few feet, trying to avoid the tree branches that jutted out over the rutted trail, and waited to see if anything vital fell off the undercarriage or exploded beneath the hood.
Despite her open windows, the bit of breeze managing to make its way through the dense underbrush and towering pines offered no match for the early June sunshine, and the inside of the car already resembled an oven. Lily powered down the roof—that was still working—and stared at the hood, waiting for steam or smoke or something equally menacing to seep out.
Why hadn’t she listened when Sarah had suggested she might want to lease a Jeep or some other four-wheel-drive vehicle for the summer? Better question—why hadn’t Sarah told her that the way up to the lodge, described as a three-season access road—maybe in retrospect she should have asked Sarah what that meant—was really little more than a goat path? Or maybe that should be deer path or…some other creature’s path. Road was being overly generous.
When the engine continued ticking and nothing appeared to be burning or leaking or otherwise malfunctioning, Lily pushed her sunglasses up into her hair and squinted at the nav screen. She loved the little car for its easy maneuverability in the city and speed on the rare occasions she had a chance to get out of the city, but the dash was a bit cramped, and reading the map function on the small screen was a challenge at the best of times. At the moment, the monitor showed only a generic regional geographic overview. Thank you, Google, but not helpful when surrounded by forest. Apparently uninhabited forest.
She must be on the wrong nonroad.
Mentally reviewing her drive, Lily determined that, at least five miles and what felt like five hours before, she’d been on the right route. She must have turned off the twisting road circling the shore of Lake George too soon. Turning around was presently out of the question. Literally. She wasn’t about to risk a ten-point turn and end up putting the rear of her Z4 into a ditch and walking back to civilization.