“Are you okay?” Rafe had already made a U-turn and was wheeling back to me.

I got off my bike, popped its kickstand, and stood back to assess the damage. Other than potentially loose fillings, I was fine. “All good,” I said. Because my bike also looked fine, although after a thump like that, a trip to the bike shop to get the wheels trued up was probably a good idea.

“Three times,” said a gravelly voice.

Rafe and I looked up to see a seventyish man stalking down his driveway toward us. “What’s that?” Rafe asked.

The man nodded. “Three times I’ve called the road commission in the last week about that pothole, and look what they’ve done. Not a thing. All the taxes I pay for lakefront property, and what do I get for it? Nothing.”

I wanted to tell him that he got an exceptional school system, a fine library, and an amazing bookmobile, but this wasn’t the time or place. “Thank you for trying,” I said politely.

He gave me a glance, then turned his attention to Rafe. “You look familiar. Can’t place you, though.”

Rafe introduced me, then himself.

“Niswander?” The man scratched his bristly chin, then absently rubbed the left side of his chest. “Could be your dad I’m thinking of.”

“Could be,” Rafe said cheerfully. “I’ll tell him I met you, Mr. . . . ?”

“Pinnock,” he said. “John Pinnock. My family’s been here since 1879.”

“Homesteaders?” I asked.

“My great-great-grandpap,” he said to Rafe, “came up here in a wagon with his wife and five kids. Homesteaded a farm on the lake for years, kept every acre in the family until the property taxes went so high.”

He gave me a short look, then turned his attention back to his fellow male. “Came a day when the family had to sell lakefront lots. And now look.” With a jutting chin, he gestured at the mailboxes dotting the roadside as far as the eye could see. “People. Everywhere.”

Rafe and I exchanged glances and started to edge away. “Well,” Rafe said, “people do tend to have children.”

“Summertime, it’s nonstop noise,” Mr. Pinnock growled. “Used to be I could count on nine months of peace, but now these people come up weekends and holidays all year long.” He gave an annoyed grunt. “And then I hear those Mattocks are moving north. Going to be here full time.”

I stopped. “Pug was a neighbor of yours?”

John Pinnock gestured with his chin to the adjacent cottage. “There’s someone there now, no idea who. So much for having winters to myself. Used to be I could walk the original Pinnock property October to April and not see a soul. With what the hospital and heart doctors keep saying and you people everywhere, there’s not much left to take away from me.”

He gave me one last searing glare, then stalked off down his driveway.