Read Online Blue Heaven (Blue Lake) by Cynthia Harrison - Free Book Online

big enough for barn cats. She hadn’t seen any vehicle except Bob’s truck in the driveway. So either Lily had walked here or someone had dropped her off. Or, God forbid, she’d been hitch-hiking on the highway.
    After the proper amount of admiration for the kittens, Lily walked back out to the kitchen. Bob and Eva followed. Lily picked up her toilet paper, stabbing Bob with a powerful gaze.
    “The window. Right,” he said. “Be right there.”
    He rummaged in a bag laying on the table, dumping the contents, a dozen mousetraps, onto the table. He snagged one and started after Lily.
    “Bob,” Eva said, “Lily looks awfully young.”
    “She is, but that’s okay,” Bob said. “Since I’m staying in the cabin next to her, she should be safe. And since you’re giving us room and board, I can fit her into the budget you’ve given me.”
    “You’re moving in?” That meant he’d be onsite full time. Probably not a bad idea, but still, Eva was astounded. “You live with Daniel.”
    “Yeah, I did. I had to move out. He was giving me grief.”
    “Why?” Eva remembered back to her days as an eighteen year old. Grief covered a lot of territory. Like everything. Eva’s head pounded. She couldn’t turn these kids away. Not right now. Not unless she wanted Lily hitchhiking further downstate to her possible death by serial killer who preyed on young female hitch-hikers.
    “Didn’t you say the bathrooms in those cabins are still non-functional?” Eva asked.
    “They’re okay. I turned the water on and my toilet and sink work. We can just use your bathroom to shower and stuff.”
    Eva hoped he didn’t mean her cottage bathroom. Those places were tiny. She had to draw the line somewhere, inexperienced as she was at doing so. “Listen, Bob, you and Lily can use the bungalow bathroom, but not my cottage. I will be working round the clock and cannot be disturbed.”
    “That’s cool.”
    “How old is Lily?”
    “Eighteen,” Bob said. “I checked her I.D.”
    If Lily had been on the road, she was probably hungry. And if Bob was actually living here, he’d be hungry by dinnertime, too. Didn’t young men eat their equivalent in body weight on a daily basis? Her cupboard was bare. Eva felt baffled at suddenly finding herself surrounded by kids and cats, not to mention the promise of enormous grocery bills. At least for a little while. Until Eva could discover Lily’s story and figure out how to get her home where she belonged.
    “Lily would be a great maid, you know, once you get the cottages renting.” Bob, obviously sensing her reservations about the situation, had followed Eva out to the office.
    She had been planning to hire a woman to assist her. It was hard enough keeping her own house clean without doing it six more times every week. The laundry. The vacuuming. With the lake, the towels alone would be a nightmare. And Lily could help her with so many little things, like washing the china and other stuff for the cottages. Eva had what felt like an endless list of stuff that needed doing, stuff that took time away from her working on the marketing campaign, which had to be, for the next several days, her top priority.
    What she really needed now, this minute, was to talk to someone who could advise her on how to handle teenagers. She only knew one person in Blue Lake who fit that bill. And he probably wasn’t going to be happy that one of the teenagers she needed help with was his little brother.

Chapter Nine
    Eva drove through town, riding up and down streets, looking for Daniel’s house. She wasn’t sure how he was going to take the news that Bob was moving in with her. Or that she had hired a pair of guys to do a job that they, by the look of the staircase they’d started, didn’t seem equipped to handle.
    She parked in front of Daniel’s house. Okay, she could do this. She could ask for his advice without crossing any lines. They could be friends. They could work together. They didn’t have to