Love Next Door (Lakeside #1) by Helena Hunting

So now, the idea that he’d try to parcel off the land or knock down Bee’s cherished cottage is frustrating. Of course it would drive the value up. But it would also have an impact on everyone else’s property value on this side of the lake. Most people would think that was a good thing. But the locals don’t want to pay hefty property taxes because some out-of-towner like Donovan gets ideas in his head.

And maybe he’s already realized that, and that’s why he wasn’t in a rush to come out here. The will hasn’t even been put into probate, and in the last email, he said he didn’t expect he’d be able to come out this way until summer.

Wanting to see if I’m right about who’s scoping out Bee’s cottage, I root around in my purse for my key chain, which includes a key to my parents’ house and one of Bee’s spares. Sadness wells and chokes me up for a moment. I’m aware there’s a distinct possibility that this grandson of hers won’t want her place, and he’ll sell it.

I hop out of the trailer, close the door behind me, and then cut through the narrow path that connects our properties. It’s filled in over the years from disuse, trees bowing toward each other and small shrubs growing heartily under their protective canopy.

I get hit in the face with a few branches and sputter when I walk through a cobweb and nearly eat the freaking spider. I stumble over a root as I wipe my hand over my face and nearly face-plant into the dirt.

When I open my eyes, I’m face to face with Bee’s cottage. I take a moment to breathe through the sudden tightness in my chest. I’m not a sentimental person. Not really. I don’t get attached to places or things. I try not to fall in love with buildings or spaces, because life is fluid and you can’t have roots and wings at the same time.

But as I stare at the old, beautiful, run-down cottage, a million wonderful memories come flooding back. When I moved away for college, Bee made me handwrite letters to her. Once I tried to send a typed one, and she mailed it back. When she passed, she took a piece of my heart with her, and I’m feeling that hole now more than ever. Other than once a year for the holidays, I didn’t see her much after I moved away for college, and I realize now how selfish that was. I didn’t want to feel tied to this place, so I avoided it and everyone in it. I created distance when what I should have been doing was spending as much time as I could with her.

The front porch is in quite a state of disrepair, and once again I’m reminded that my heels are ridiculously impractical around here. I’ll be trading them for flip-flops, flats, and running shoes.

The age of the cottage is starting to show. The exterior is in need of fresh stain; some of the boards on the front porch are soft and beginning to rot through. If I had to guess, I’d say there are probably a few chipmunks living under there. A pair of rocking chairs sit in the corner, a table between them, the layer of dust and dirt making it clear they’ve gone unused since Bee passed. We used to sit out here and play cribbage in the evenings, drinking unsweetened iced tea in the summer or hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream in the fall.

I knock on the front door and wait for someone to answer. After a good thirty seconds I knock again, then move to the window and peer through a gap in the curtains. Everything looks the same inside—a mass of organized clutter.

Maybe it’s not her grandson like I thought. Or maybe he sent a developer to look at the property. I figure it’s probably a good idea to let myself in and check things out, knowing that Bee wouldn’t want a stranger rummaging around her place. I slide the key into the lock. It’s always been a tricky door, so I lift, jiggle, and twist to the right until I hear the faint sound of the lock clicking. The door creaks on its hinges as I push it open and step inside the dimly lit space.

Twenty-year-old wallpaper covers the majority of the open space, and it always takes me a moment to gather my bearings, since it’s a heavy visual assault, at first anyway. The colors are muted with age and sun. Blue teapots are now nearly gray and pink peonies the palest of peach. The living room is a mishmash of eclectic furniture, purchased from the town flea market; nothing matches, not even the chairs around the dining room table. A layer of dust covers nearly every surface, making it an untouched shrine to Bee.

The wall to the right is covered with old framed photos, some black and white, some color. There’s a distinct line through the center of half of them, where the sunlight from the window cuts across it at midday, bleaching the pictures on the top half of the wall.

I move across the room to stand in front of the framed photo collage until I’m casting a shadow over the pictures. Mostly they’re of Bee’s family. My gaze catches on a picture of Bee with Donovan. He was always wearing a ball cap, half his face hidden in shadow, making it impossible to get a clear picture.

I took it on the sly with the camera on my phone while I was working in the food truck, the summer before I left for college. They were picking up deck boards at the hardware store. Bee was trying to climb into the bed of the truck while wearing a dress, and Donovan was trying to stop her. It encapsulated everything about her as a person and the love between them.

Despite being close to Bee, I always kept my distance when her favorite grandson was with her for the summers. I had Bee ten months out of the year, and I knew how much she looked forward to seeing him, so I gave them privacy. So, other than seeing brief glimpses here and there, we never crossed paths.