Page 7 of Fire Harbor

To say she was firmly planted in the town she loved was to understand Lake Marigold. She preferred staying home on a Saturday night to bar-hopping. You could usually find her curled up with her nose in a book in the study, surrounded by her two dogs. It wasn’t her nature to flitter about wasting time or money socializing in a crowded, stuffy bar. She’d tried that a time or two in college and decided it wasn’t for her. No, for her, nailing the job as the town’s librarian was a dream come true. And she intended to make the most of the opportunity.

It was the reason she loved her life.

She felt incredibly lucky to live in the same house where Marigolds had endured lean times yet persevered through a depression and two world wars, where they’d scrimped and saved their way to make sure they held onto the land despite the hardships.

If she didn’t include the miserly great-grandfather, there was something comforting in knowing she tilled the same earth every spring and fall as her descendants had worked. While they had grown a garden out of necessity to put food on the table, Lake didn’t have five or six mouths to feed. But she still kept that tradition going, giving away half of what she grew to the neighbors. Whether it was taking baskets of tomatoes, cucumbers, or peppers to the library and putting up a sign that read, “Take what you need,” or setting out bowls of blueberries and strawberries on the porch at the height of summer to share with the neighborhood, Lake simply loved gardening and liked growing things.

Her front lawn was proof of that.

Inside the old iron fence that made up her front yard, she had less grass to mow each year because she kept adding more flower seeds into the already crowded pops of color. She adored seeing them blossom. She wasn’t one to wait for a man to send her bouquets on special occasions. Instead, even before Lake had inherited the house, she decided in her first year of high school to turn the front lawn into an English-style garden.

Her father had encouraged it.

March through October, she breathed life into sturdy perennials like English lavender or pink and blue dianthus and urged wide patches of blue and purple phlox into bloom. On the outer edges, she grew swaths of scarlet amaryllis set in a sea of paperwhites bounded by wild indigo growing alongside rows of herbs. In the middle of summer, her lawn invariably turned into a red, white, and blue tribute to the Fourth of July.

Daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths filled the flower beds on both sides of the house. Lake believed the secret to keeping a prolific flower garden growing year-round was to baby bulbs and seeds over fall and winter. Thus, she worked in the yard twelve months out of the year, guaranteeing a steady yield of orange zinnias and yellow chrysanthemums would take her straight into Halloween.

She didn’t care if kids thought she was odd or quirky or referred to her as the “Marigold Spinster” or an old maid behind her back. At thirty-two, she had heard all the insults they could muster. Growing up without a mom, classmates often bullied her, calling her names and making fun of her name. And yet, here she was, thriving, self-sufficient, and living every day working around the thing she treasured most—books.

Lost in her thoughts, Lake had almost reached Bishops Bay when she remembered she’d used the last spoonful of coffee for breakfast. Not one to scrimp when it came to her one true addiction—coffee—she circled the intersection and aimed her bike back toward Murphy’s Market to pick up her favorite dark roast.

Chapter Two

Linus found a parking space and pulled up in front of the store. The dog next to him fidgeted, hanging his tongue out the window, and started to bark when he spotted Lake getting off her bicycle near the double doors.

“Down, boy,” Linus stated in a whisper. “Even if she is wearing my favorite yellow dress with those purple daisies, there’s no need to make a scene. Calm down, Farley. Don’t embarrass me.”

Without meaning to, he continued to stare at the lanky librarian—at least five-seven—until she caught his gaze, smiled, and waved back. He was amazed when she started walking toward his pickup truck.

Linus climbed out only to have Farley whimper loud enough that Lake tried to comfort the canine by sticking her hand through the open window to let the dog sniff her fingers. “Hey, Linus, how’s Farley doing?”

Standing next to her, Linus realized her eyes were more of a teal color rather than the shade of blue he remembered. He could get lost in those eyes.

“Hello, Linus, are you okay?” she asked again.

That brought him out of his muddled stupor. “Sure. I wish I could say fine. But we’re having a few issues. He’s not happy about being left alone so much. And he’s not that thrilled with getting dropped off at daycare when I’m working. How’s Scout doing?”

“She’s not quite as dramatic as this guy. But she has Jack to keep her company.”

“Jack’s your terrier mix, right?”

Lake nodded. “Jack was completely out of his puppy stage when Cord found him abandoned in a ditch outside San Sebastian. Cord estimated his age at about nine months. But even though he’d been abandoned, Jack had a sweet disposition. I urged Cord to let me name him after Jack London.”

“Ah, I get it. Scout is named for the little girl in Harper Lee’s book To Kill A Mockingbird,” Linus supplied. “I should’ve known. So, Keegan didn’t name the labradoodle puppies at all? You did.”

Lake nodded. “Using literary names or characters. Farley for Walter Farley, the man who wrote The Black Stallion and the other thirty-four books in the series. I can’t take credit for naming all the pups in the litter, just the two that became available when Keegan got in touch. I jumped at the chance to get Scout. And then you were so sweet to adopt Farley.”

“Can I just say that I don’t know how you manage with two dogs? I can barely keep Farley happy.” Linus glanced back over at the dog, trying to chew the edge of the window in the truck. “Stop that. See? He finds something to gnaw on even if I’m standing next to him. Funny how I never see you at doggie daycare.”

“That’s because my dogs have a doggie door where they can come and go while I’m at work. When I brought Scout home, Jack helped her learn the ropes. While I’m at work, she just follows Jack through the flap to get outside, where the two play in the backyard until they get tired and come back in on their own to eat or drink. They keep each other company.”

“That sounds so simple.”

Lake smiled in empathy. Feeling sorry for him, she heard herself say, “Why don’t you bring Farley by Sunday, and we’ll see if Jack can settle him down, too?”

“No dog at the daycare has been able to make that happen,” Linus cracked. “But I’m willing to try anything. Thanks. What are you here to pick up?”

“Coffee. You?”

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