Sweet Temptation novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: The Lake House

The lake house sat at the end of a gravel road with nothing around it but pines and one gray dock.

We drove up on Tuesday morning, the four of us in one car that smelled of crackers and wet wool.

Vito had come in the second car with the housekeeper and a cooler.

Tommaso saw the water and forgot to be nine.

"Can I touch it?"

"Check with your father," I said.

"Can I?"

"Take your shoes off first," said Cesare.

The boy was gone before he finished.

Sofia took my hand and led me onto the dock to look at a fish she said was her friend.

I watched Cesare stand on the porch with a coffee and watch them.

He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves pushed up, and for once nobody was looking at his hands.

He looked, I thought, like a man who had been carrying something for three years and had set it on a table.

In the afternoon Tommaso caught a perch, and Vito helped him throw it back, grumbling.

At five Vito stood on the porch steps, jingling the car keys.

"I'm taking the kids to town for pizza," he said. "Back by nine."

"We just ate," said Tommaso.

"Pizza," said Vito, in a voice that closed the subject, "is a different category."

The housekeeper came along with a knowing look.

I stood on the porch with Cesare and watched the taillights go down the gravel road, until the pines swallowed them.

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