Read Online Up at Butternut Lake: A Novel by Mary McNear - Free Book Online Page A

stopped kissing her long enough to murmur, “Before we go upstairs, there’s something we need to discuss.”
    “What is it?” Jax asked, her body tensing involuntarily.
    “It’s Joy,” he said, drawing her closer and saying the words into the hollow of her neck. “She’s reading under her covers with a flashlight again. And I’m wondering how I’m going to have my way with my very beautiful, very sexy wife, if our daughter won’t go to sleep when she’s supposed to.”
    Jax relaxed. “Honestly, Jeremy, do you ever think about anything else?” she said.
    “Not if I can possibly help it,” he answered her, pulling her closer. “It doesn’t help, of course, that you look so goddamned beautiful when you’re pregnant.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Jeremy, I look like the side of a barn. And I’m barely into my third trimester.”
    “More time for me to appreciate you this way, then,” he said, his eyes lingering with appreciation on the new fullness of her breasts. He cupped one of them now, and Jax felt the warmth of his fingers through the thin cotton fabric of her maternity blouse and shivered with anticipation. But there was something she needed to do now. And she needed to do it alone.
    “Jeremy,” she said, “if you don’t let me finish cleaning up down here, we’re going to end up having sex on the kitchen floor.”
    “And that would be a bad thing?” Jeremy asked, kissing her again.
    “Yes,” Jax said. But she couldn’t quite hide her smile. “Now go upstairs and tell Joy to stop reading under the covers and go to sleep. I’ll be up as soon as I’ve wiped down the counters.”
    “Okay, but hurry,” Jeremy pleaded, giving her one final kiss before he headed up the stairs.
    Jax waited a minute, then opened one of the kitchen cupboards and reached into the back of it. She took out a recipe box and set it on the counter. Then she flipped the box open and removed an envelope from the back of it.
    The envelope had already been opened. She slid the letter out and unfolded it carefully, squinting at the nearly illegible handwriting. Penmanship had never been Bobby’s strong suit, and a stint in state prison, apparently, had done nothing to improve it. She was still able to read it, though. She’d already read it, in fact, a dozen times. And it always made her feel exactly the same way. Sick to her stomach, with a racing heartbeat, and sweaty palms. Tonight, unfortunately, was no exception.
    After studying it for a few minutes, she refolded it, put it back into the envelope, and tucked it back into the recipe box—the one place where she knew Jeremy would never look. Then she put the box back into the cupboard. It looked perfectly innocent there, but the letter inside of it, she knew, was a time bomb. And it was ticking so loudly she could hear it in every room of the house.

CHAPTER 8
    H ey, Walker, are you still here?” Cliff Donahue, the boatyard’s general manager asked, poking his head into the break room on his way out of work on Friday evening.
    “I’m still here,” Walker said, pouring himself a cup of coffee from a decrepit coffeepot.
    “I thought you were going to Minneapolis this weekend.”
    “I was,” Walker said. “But I changed my mind.”
    Cliff raised his eyebrows. “Any problems here I need to know about?”
    “Not a one,” Walker said, taking a sip of coffee. He winced. It had the taste, and texture, of sludge.
    “Actually, there is one problem,” he amended. “This coffeepot. Seriously, how long’s it been here? Since the Great Depression?
    “Maybe.” Cliff shrugged. “The old-timers don’t seem to mind it. Of course, unlike you, they might not have been spoiled by Caroline’s coffee.”
    “That’s true,” Walker conceded. Caroline brewed the best cup of coffee he’d ever tasted. And that included some very high-priced cups at some very upscale coffeehouses in Minneapolis.
    “Well, I’ll be heading out then. You can reach me on my cell, though, if