The Lake House Had One Bed Left for Our Parents' Wedding Week, So I Shared It With My Soon-to-Be Stepbrother novel · Chapter 10 of 24
Chapter 10: A Raccoon With a Key
Jack and I lay under the quilt.
Outside, my father rattled the cabin doorknob.
"Locked," he told the morning. "Somebody locked my cabin."
He sounded delighted.
I clamped my hand over my own mouth, and Jack's chest shook against my back with silent laughter.
The boards on the porch creaked.
Something clinked.
Through the dusty window I watched my father lift his fishing rod off its pegs beside the door, tuck a tackle box under his arm and whistle two bars of "Moon River."
"Probably a raccoon with a key," he said to the dog, who had followed him from the truck, and the two of them wandered off toward the dock.
We waited a full minute.
Then I fell on my back and laughed until my stomach hurt.
"Your father," said Jack, wiping his eyes, "thinks a raccoon locked the door from the inside."
"My father thinks a raccoon is capable of anything."
"What's your plan?"
"I'm going to put on my clothes and tell the truth," I said. "Slowly."
We dressed in the pink light.
He found his shirt behind a tackle crate.
I found my shorts on the rug, and when we were both upright I took a breath.
"I need to tell you something."
"I know."
"You don't know."
"Marlene told you I'm after the lake house," said Jack.
I stood there with one foot in my shoe.
"How did you."
"Because on Tuesday night she stood next to me at the sink and told me you were after your father's savings."
He said it plainly.
"She said you hadn't been home in two years, and you'd come back the week before the vows, and I shouldn't let you get a pen and my stepfather alone."
"My father's not your."
"Not yet. Saturday. She said it that way too."
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