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Chapter 1

When they turned onto Butternut Lake Drive that night, Poppy rolled down her window. She watched as the car’s headlights glided over birch, pine, and spruce trees, and, after a bend in the road, she saw a deer standing, motionless and alert, in a clearing. Soon after that, a little cloud of white moths fluttered across the windshield. She could smell, too, something she could never quite define—some mixture of the air, the trees, and the lake. Butternut Lake. This place is beautiful, even in the dark, she thought. She hadn’t been up here for almost thirteen years, but she still felt as though she knew it by heart.

“What did you say your sister’s name is?” Everett asked, fiddling with the radio.

“Win. Her name is Win,” she said. She twisted around in the front passenger seat and reached into the backseat where her cat, Sasquatch, was riding in his pet carrier. She unlatched the door of the carrier and slipped a hand inside. “Poor thing,” she said, softly, stroking his fur. “You’ve been cooped up for too long.”

“Win?” Everett repeated, glancing over at her. “That’s an unusual name.”

“Short for Winona,” Poppy explained, feeling the gentle vibration of Sasquatch’s purr for a moment before easing her hand out of the carrier and latching the door shut again.

“Isn’t there supposed to be a lake somewhere?” Everett asked, taking the car into a steep turn. “Or is ‘Butternut Lake Drive’ a misnomer?”

“No, there is a lake, through those trees,” Poppy said, pointing to their left. “But you can’t see it. There’s no moon tonight.”

“No kidding,” Everett said. “The only thing that’s missing is the fog.”

“The fog?”

Everett nodded, steering into another turn. “If there were fog, it’d be exactly like a scene out of a horror movie. You know the one. A college coed and her boyfriend are driving down a desolate country road at night, and the fog is closing in around them, and then, suddenly, somebody appears on the road, right in front of their car, and—”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Poppy said. “We are not in that movie. I’m not a college coed—and that phrase, by the way, is totally outdated—” And you’re not my boyfriend, she almost said. “Besides, this is not a desolate country road,” she continued. “Trust me. Butternut Lake is a very well populated summer community. There are tons of cabins in these woods.”

“I’ll take your word for it. Four and a half hours ago, I didn’t even know Butternut Lake existed.”

“Well, now you know,” Poppy said flippantly. And then she felt guilty. She hadn’t been very good company on this drive. Everett, after all, was doing her a favor. “I haven’t been much of a tour guide, have I?” she asked him now.

“It’s fine.” He shrugged.

“The town of Butternut, Minnesota, which we drove through ten minutes ago,” she began, in her best imitation of a tour guide’s voice, “has a population of twelve hundred. It has numerous local businesses, including Pearl’s, a world-class coffee shop, Johnson’s Hardware, where my grandfather indulged his inner carpenter, and the Butternut Variety Store, where my sister and I once accumulated the largest collection of glass animals east of the Mississippi. Butternut Lake, approximately twelve miles in length, is one of the deepest, cleanest lakes in Minnesota and is a popular vacation destination for people from the Twin Cities, who come here to fish, canoe, kayak, water ski, and, sometimes, just to wiggle their toes in the water. Any questions?” she asked brightly.

“Yeah,” Everett asked, gesturing at a seemingly deserted stretch of road. “Where are all those tourists now?”

“They’re here. Look, there’s a driveway,” Poppy said. “And there’s a cabin at the end of it, too. You can see its lights through the trees.”

“All right,” Everett said. “But if my car breaks down, I’m not knocking on that door. I’ve seen that movie, too. We spend the night there, and when we wake up in the morning, we discover that our kidneys have been harvested.”

“Ugh,” Poppy said, wincing. “I had no idea you were so dark, Everett.”

“No?” he said, with a trace of a smile. “It’s amazing how much you can learn about someone on a two-hundred-and-forty-mile drive.”

“That’s true,” Poppy mused. “So, what have you learned about me?” she asked. She wasn’t being flirtatious. She was just curious.

“I’ve learned …” He looked over at her, speculatively. “I’ve learned that you think corn nuts are revolting.”

“That’s because they are revolting.”

“Corn nuts,” Everett said, concentrating on another turn, “are the ultimate road trip food.”

“Not even close,” Poppy said. “Because that would obviously be Red Vines.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Everett said. “I mean, they have, like, zero nutritional value, unless you count whatever’s in the red dye, and—”

“Oh, my God, look,” Poppy said, excitedly, of the driveway they were passing. Beside it a large sign with a wintery pinecone painted on it spelled out white pines.

“What’s that?” Everett asked.

“It’s a resort, and it means that we are now exactly three miles away from my grandparents’ cabin. I mean, my sister’s cabin,” she amended, feeling that familiar jab of resentment she felt whenever she was reminded of the fact that this beloved piece of family real estate had been passed down to Win, and only Win, three years ago. This resentment was part of the reason that Poppy had avoided coming to Butternut Lake since Win had moved here year-round a couple of years ago. But if there was any comfort to be found in Win being the one to own the cabin, it was in knowing that she would never sell it; it meant as much to her as it did to Poppy.

Poppy and Win had spent all of their childhood summers here until Poppy was sixteen and Win was fifteen (they were thirteen months apart), and Poppy, who was just shy of thirty, could still remember every detail of the cabin. It stood on a small bluff, just above Butternut Lake, and its dark brown clapboard exterior was brightened by cheerful window boxes that overflowed with geraniums. And the homey touches continued inside: colorful rag rugs, knotted pine furniture, red-checked slipcovers on sofas and chairs. The living room, everyone’s favorite room, was as comfortable as an old shoe, with its fieldstone fireplace, and its old record player and collection of albums (some of which dated back to the 1950s). In one corner, there was a slightly wobbly card table for playing gin rummy, and on the shelf next to the table, a collection of hand-painted duck decoys. Mounted on the wall above the mantelpiece was the prized three-foot walleyed pike that had not gotten away from their grandfather. The living room windows looked out on a flagstone patio, their grandmother’s begonia garden, and a slope of mossy lawn leading down to the lake. And the kitchen … Poppy remembered it as though it existed in a perpetual summer morning: the lemon yellow cupboards, the row of shiny copper pans hanging on the wall, and the turquoise gas stove, a monument to 1950s chic.

“Do you think you should give your sister a call now?” Everett asked, interrupting her reverie.

“Why?”

“To tell her that we’re almost there.”

“Oh,” Poppy said, momentarily at a loss. And then she tossed her long blond hair. “No. I’m not going to tell her,” she said. “I thought we’d surprise her.”

Everett stole a quick look at her. “But … she knows we’re coming, right?”

“Not exactly,” Poppy said, feeling a first twinge of nervousness.

Everett was quiet. Then he asked, “Does your sister like surprises?”

“Not really,” Poppy said, and there it was again, that nervousness. She tamped it down, firmly, and said, “But what are sisters for if they can’t just … drop in on each other?”

“‘Drop in’?” Everett said, after another pause. “It looks like you’ve got a lot of your stuff with you, though, Poppy. Isn’t it more like, ‘move in’?”

Poppy ignored this question. Harder to ignore were her suitcases, wedged in the trunk of Everett’s car, or her boxes, stacked on the backseat beside Sasquatch’s pet carrier. And it wasn’t just a lot of her stuff, as Everett had pointed out. It was all of her stuff. Though, truth be told, that wasn’t saying much. It had taken her less than an hour to pack everything up. Traveling light was a recurring theme with Poppy, and a necessary one, too, since her peripatetic lifestyle was the norm.

“Sisters don’t have to call ahead. They’re there for each other,” Poppy said now, though she was annoyed by the defensiveness she heard in her own voice.

“But do you think your sister—Win—will be home right now? It’s ten o’clock on a Saturday night.”

“Oh, she’ll be home. If I know her, she’s probably … alphabetizing her spice rack,” Poppy said, “or color coding her sock drawer.” As soon as she said this, though, she felt disloyal. “Actually, she’s a sweetheart,” she said, turning to Everett. “And I don’t blame her, at all, for being a little … neurotic or controlling, or whatever she is. I told you about what happened to her, didn’t I?” And Poppy pictured Win as she’d been the last time she’d seen her, her dark blond hair pulled back in a ponytail and her girl next door approachableness only slightly tempered by the wistful expression on her face.

“Yeah, you told me what happened to her,” Everett said. It was quiet in the car again as he negotiated another sharp turn, and as Poppy watched the car’s lights skim over an entrance to an old logging road. She smiled. She and Win had driven down that road as teenagers, looking for bears at dusk.

“All right,” she said, after a few more minutes, “we’re getting close. After this next curve, it’s the first driveway on the left.” And, suddenly hungry, she added, “Here’s hoping Win’s got some leftovers from dinner.”

“Yeah, and here’s hoping she’s in a good mood,” Everett added wryly.

 

Chapter 2

Win, it turned out, was in a good mood, or at least in what passed for a good mood in her life these days. After dinner—a sesame shrimp and noodles dish whose recipe she’d found in a cooking magazine’s “gourmet dinners for one” column—she’d emptied out her kitchen’s utensil drawers and begun rearranging their contents. Not that they needed rearranging; they’d been rearranged less than two weeks before. But Win found this particular organizing project so satisfying that tonight, after she’d washed the dishes and wiped down the countertops and swept the kitchen floor, she’d thought, Oh, what the hell, and dumped all four utensil drawers out onto the kitchen table and gotten started on them. Now, an hour later, with just one utensil—a cherry pitter—left, she was still so absorbed in this project that she didn’t even hear a car pull up outside.

Where to put the cherry pitter, she wondered, picking it up and studying it critically. For the most part, she had a simple classification system. The more a utensil was used, the higher a drawer it went in to. So a whisk, or a vegetable peeler, or a garlic press, for instance, went into the top drawer, while a fish scaler, or a canning funnel, or an olive stuffer went into the bottom drawer. Utensils that fell somewhere in between went into one of the two middle drawers. But the cherry pitter was a special case. Before tonight, it had been in the third drawer, with, among other things, a citrus zester, a nutmeg grinder, and a gravy separator, but now, with cherry season upon them, Win wondered if it should be promoted, at least temporarily, to the second drawer, where it would take its place alongside utensils like a cheese grater, a marinade brush, and a ladle.

Yes, it should go in the second drawer, Win decided, but she hesitated for a moment and, in that moment, she heard car doors slamming outside. Startled, she glanced at the kitchen clock. It was a little after ten. The only person she knew who’d stop by at this hour was her friend Mary Jane, and even Mary Jane wouldn’t do this without calling her first. She knew how much Win hated surprises.

She put the cherry pitter down and left the kitchen, feeling the little tremor of unease she imagined was familiar to any woman who lived alone in a rural area. But by the time she got to the front door, she could hear laughter and voices, and one of those voices was as intimately familiar to her as any voice on earth.

“Poppy?” she said, swinging the door open before her sister could knock on it.

“Win!” her sister said, pulling her into a hug. “I told you she’d be home,” she said, looking over her shoulder at the man who was with her. Win hugged Poppy back, a little distractedly.

“I can’t believe you’re here. Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Yes, everything’s okay,” Poppy said, letting go of her. “Well, I mean, it’s not perfect. More about that later,” she said, with a roll of her eyes. “But anyway, I thought it was high time I visited you here. You’ve only asked me to come about a million times.”

“I know I have,” Win said. But a little advance notice would have been nice, she thought.

“Um, are you going to invite us in, or are we going to stand out here all night?” Poppy asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“Oh, of course, come in,” Win said, gesturing them inside, but she was still flustered. “When did you decide to drive up?” she asked, closing the door and following them into the living room.

“Oh, it was spur of the moment,” Poppy said.

“But, Pops, I talked to you a couple days ago,” Win pointed out.

“It was spur of the moment since then,” Poppy said. She stretched her arms over her head and arched her back. “It is so good to be out of that car.” She sighed. “We only stopped once. I think we set a record or something. Everett is an excellent driver,” she added, glancing at her companion.

“Are you going to introduce us?” Win asked.

“Oh, my God,” Poppy said, slapping her forehead. “I am so rude. Everett, this is my sister, Win Robbins, and Win, this is Everett, Everett …” Her voice trailed off.

“Everett West,” he finished for her, stepping forward and holding his hand out to Win.

“Hi Everett,” she said, shaking his hand and giving Poppy a look that she hoped said, Who is this guy? But no explanation was forthcoming.

Instead Poppy was taking in the living room as though she was seeing it for the first time.

“Look at this place,” she said softly. “It’s exactly the same as I remember it.” She walked over to a bookshelf and took down a duck decoy, turning it over in her hands. “I’m so glad you didn’t change anything.”

“Well, you know me, I’m not great with change,” Win said, shooting a glance at Everett. “Um, Poppy, can I see you in the kitchen?” she asked, pointedly.

“Okay. We’ll be right back, Everett,” Poppy said, following Win through the kitchen’s swinging door.

But as soon as it shut behind them Win turned to her. “Pops, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said, mystified.

“I mean, who’s the guy?”

“That’s Everett. Everett West.”

Win rolled her eyes. “No, I mean, are you dating him?”

“What? No,” Poppy said. “He’s a friend. Well, an acquaintance, anyway. We both get our coffee at the same place every morning. You know, that little hole in the wall near my apartment? I took you there when you came to visit at Christmas.”

“So, you hang out together there?” Win said, still trying to clarify their relationship.

“Not hang out, exactly, but we’ve stood in line together a couple of times.”

Win’s eyes widened. “And that’s the extent of your relationship?”

“More or less.”

“And other than his first name, and where he gets his coffee, do you know anything else about him?”

“Well, those things and … oh, and he’s a techie,” Poppy said, proud to have remembered this much about him.

But Win shook her head in disbelief. “Poppy, am I the only one seeing a problem here? You drive up with someone you barely know, and then you invite him into my cabin. I mean, for all you know, he’s a serial killer,” she hissed.

“Oh, for God’s sakes,” Poppy said, “Everett is not a serial killer. He’s a web designer. And trust me, I have excellent radar when it comes to men. He is not dangerous. I would think even you could see that, Win.”

And Win, irritated by the implication of Poppy’s “even you,” had to admit, to herself anyway, that Everett didn’t seem very dangerous. He reminded her, in fact, of a type that was popular now on television and in movies; the smart but accessible guy who worked in the lab on a police procedural, or the soft-spoken but humorous sidekick to the male lead in a romantic comedy. Geeky-cute, she decided. And there was something about his eyes, too, that was appealing, the way they drooped down, just a tiny bit, at the corners, making him look just a little bit sleepy.

“Is he tired?” Win asked suddenly, glancing in the direction of the living room. “Everett, I mean. Is he tired from the drive? Or do his eyes always look like that?”

“Like what?” Poppy asked, perplexed at the direction the conversation had taken.

“You know, his eyes look kind of sleepy.”

Poppy shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never noticed his eyes before. But I’m assuming this means it’s okay for him to be here now.”

“It’s okay,” Win said.

“And it’s okay for me to stay here?” Poppy asked.

“Yes. You’re always welcome here, you know that,” Win said, but this was followed by an awkward pause. Win knew without having to be told that Poppy believed the cabin should belong to both of them. “But what’s, uh, what’s Everett going to do tonight?” she asked, returning to the matter at hand.

“Oh,” Poppy said, her blue eyes widening with surprise. “I don’t know. I hadn’t really thought about it. Drive back to the city, I guess.”

“At this time of night? He won’t get back until … two o’clock in the morning.”

“Maybe he can get a motel room,” Poppy suggested.

“Are you going to pay for it?”

“No. He’s a big boy. He can pay for it himself.”

“Poppy, that’s not the point,” Win said, shaking her head.

“What is the point?”

“The point is that he drove four and a half hours to get you here,” Win said, with forced patience. “You can’t just say ‘good night’ and push him out the door.”

Now it was Poppy’s turn to look incredulous. “Win, two minutes ago you were afraid he was a serial killer, and now you’re worried I’ll hurt his feelings? And, just for the record, he didn’t do me that much of a favor. When I bumped into him this morning at that coffeehouse, and I asked him if he could drive me up here today, he said yes right away. He said he loved coming to this part of the state. You know, the north woods and all.”

“Oh, that must be it, Poppy. He’s here for the flora and fauna,” Win said, amused in spite of herself. “He couldn’t possibly be interested in a gorgeous girl like you.” But Poppy—whose official position on her beauty was to refuse to acknowledge it—shrugged this off.

“Besides,” she said to Win, “his cousin has a cabin an hour north of here, on Birch Lake. Starting next week, Everett’s going to be able to use it. He wants to get into the habit of doing this drive.”

“All right. Whatever,” Win said, shifting gears. “Why don’t you two bring your stuff in from the car? You can have our old room,” she said, of the guest room she and Poppy had shared during summer vacations as children, “and Everett can have the couch, if he doesn’t mind.”

“He doesn’t mind,” Poppy said, confidently.

“Good,” Win said, warming now to the idea of having guests. “We can all have a late breakfast together tomorrow morning—I’ll make French toast—and after that, you’ll have time for a swim before you head back to the city. Unless you want to leave really early Monday morning to get back in time for work.”

“Yeah, about that …” Poppy said. “Um, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the whole work thing.”

Win frowned. She didn’t like the way that sounded. “What happened to your job, Pops?”

“What happened to it is that I don’t have it anymore.”

“You were … fired?”

“No,” Poppy said, offended. “I quit.”

“Pops,” Win groaned. “Why?”

“Because it was so unbelievably boring. I mean, have you ever been a receptionist before?” She pantomimed wearing a headset. “Hello, Johnson, Lewis, Lester and Grouper, how may I help you? I did that two hundred and fifty times a day. Can you imagine? Plus, one of the partners, Grouper”—she paused here to shudder—“was really starting to creep me out.”

Win took a deep breath. Do not freak out, she counseled herself. Stay calm. You can’t kill Poppy. Not with someone else in the next room. She exhaled, slowly. “Just out of curiosity,” she asked, “did you find another job before you quit this one?”

To Poppy’s credit, she answered this question with admirable directness. “No, I didn’t. And there’s something else, too.”

“What’s that?” Win asked, a little weakly.

“I’m subletting my apartment.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t afford it, Win. No job, no paycheck. No paycheck, no money for rent. No money for rent, no apartment.”

Win rubbed her temples. “No, I see the connection,” she said. “But you’re not … you’re not moving in with that guy you told me about, are you?”

“Patrick?” Poppy said. “God no. No, he kept telling me he wanted to take our relationship to ‘the next level’ and I kept thinking, ‘Look, I don’t know what’s on that level, but I am not going to go there with you.’ So, yeah, he’s kind of out of the picture now.”

“Okay, but …” And Win paused here, not really wanting to know the answer to this next question. “Where are you going to live now?”

“Here?” Poppy asked, hopefully.

“Poppy,” Win said, shaking her head. “Do you remember the last time we—”

“Look, I know what you’re going to say. And I get it. I do. Before you say it, though, I want to ask you one question. One simple question.”

There was more massaging of temples from Win. But Poppy, undiscouraged, pressed on. “What day is today?”

“That’s your question?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Saturday.”

“No, what day of the month is it.”

Win sighed. “It’s the twenty-first.”

“It’s June twenty-first,” Poppy said, significantly. “Think about it, Win.”

“It’s … the first day of summer?”

“Yes,” Poppy said triumphantly. “Yes, yes, yes. It’s the first day of summer, and here I am. Here we are. At the cabin. At your cabin,” she added, quickly, “but still, the cabin where we spent every summer of our childhoods. Don’t you get it, Win?”

“Not really.”

“This is it, Win. This is our chance to have another summer together, on this lake, at this cabin, for the first time in thirteen years. I mean, I’m between jobs, and you’re on vacation, and—”

“I wouldn’t call it a vacation—” Win interposed. She was a social studies teacher at the middle school in Butternut and she used summer break to plan for the year ahead.

“All right, fine, you’re on a working vacation. The point is, you’re still going to have some free time, and now, you’re going to have it with me,” Poppy said, giving Win her most charming smile. “It’ll be fun. We’ll go canoeing, and we’ll go on picnics, and we’ll go raspberry picking. And skinny-dipping. There’s no age limit for that, is there? And that goes for making s’mores, too. Oh, and playing Monopoly. We can do that, and maybe, maybe, if you’re really nice, I’ll even let you have the thimble this time,” she said, of the Monopoly game piece they had battled over as children. “And Win, seriously, when was the last time we watched 13 Going on 30?” she asked of their favorite chick flick.

Win chewed on her lower lip. “I don’t know,” she said. Because while she and Poppy had had fun together over the years, they’d had other things, too: hurtful words, screaming matches, slamming doors. And the six months they’d shared an apartment during Win’s last year of college came to mind now. Poppy had left a trail of wet towels, unwashed dishes, and unpaid bills in her wake—unpaid bills that, in the end, Win had paid for her. And she was always avoiding some lovelorn suitor, and worse, always carrying that godforsaken cat around with her.

“Look, I really need this,” Poppy said, with an urgency that surprised Win. “I need a change. I need to figure things out. And, for some reason, I feel like … like this is the place I’m supposed to be right now,” she said, looking around the kitchen. “Right here, with you, on Butternut Lake.” She smiled at Win, a little tremulously.

“Oh, Pops, then of course you can stay,” Win said, with a rush of emotion.

“Yay!” Poppy said, grabbing her and twirling her round. “You won’t regret it. I promise.”

But as they were spinning around, something caught Poppy’s eye, and she stopped, mid-spin, and pointed at the cherry pitter, still sitting on the kitchen table. “Winona Robbins,” she said, with mock seriousness, “were you rearranging your kitchen drawers tonight?”

“No,” Win lied.

“No? Then where are the cherries?”

Win didn’t answer.

Poppy walked nonchalantly over to the kitchen table and picked up the cherry pitter. “So you don’t mind if I just put this … in here?” she asked, opening the top drawer.

“Go right ahead,” Win said, and she couldn’t help but smile. No one had ever been able to tease her the way Poppy did.

“Or what about … this drawer?” Poppy asked, opening up the bottom drawer. “Can I put it in here?” She dangled it over the drawer.

Win started laughing. She couldn’t help it. This was the best thing about Poppy. This was what made everything else about her worth putting up with. She could always be counted on to make Win laugh. Laugh at life, yes, but even more importantly, laugh at herself. And suddenly, it seemed ridiculous to her that this was how she’d spent her night, at home, alone, rearranging her already perfectly arranged kitchen drawers.

“I missed you, Pops,” she said, through her laughter.

“I missed you, too,” Poppy said, giving Win a hug.

Win hugged her back, hard. “And you’re right. We will have fun this summer. Stay, Pops. Stay as long as you want.” This would be good for Poppy, Win thought, but it would be good for her, too. Because for every night Win made a gourmet dinner for one, there was a night she ate a bowl of cereal leaning against the kitchen counter. And for every night she curled up on the couch after dinner to read an edifying novel, there was a night she ended up on her bed, tearfully perusing old photo albums until she fell asleep, in a soggy heap, on top of the covers.

“We should let Mom and Dad know I’m here,” Poppy said, giving Win one final squeeze before she let go of her. “They’ll be happy we’re together.”

“Oh, I got a postcard from Dad,” Win said. She plucked it out of a basket on the kitchen counter and handed it to Poppy. Their father, who was divorced from their mother, was a part-time carpenter, a part-time musician, and a full-time drinker who spent most of his time ricocheting around the country, going wherever his work or his drinking took him.

“He sent me the same one,” Poppy said, studying the postcard. She flipped it over and read it. “Same wording, too.” She glanced over at Win. “Where, exactly, is Shelby, Montana?”

Win shrugged. “Do you really think he’s found a regular gig playing in a bar there?” she asked Poppy, a little skeptically.

“I think …” said Poppy, putting the postcard down. “I think that he’s probably got a regular gig sleeping with the woman who owns the bar. And I think she’ll probably keep him around until she gets tired of him. Or until he drinks her out of Jack Daniel’s.”

“One or the other,” Win agreed, wishing Poppy wasn’t right, but knowing that, in all but the details, she probably was.

“I got a phone call from Mom, though,” Poppy said, with artificial brightness. Their mother, like their father, could never be accused of being an overinvolved parent. But unlike their father, she was not a drinker. She was instead, as she’d explained to her daughters many times before, on a lifelong journey of self-realization, a journey that had not often included, when Poppy and Win were growing up, such mundane things as attending their orchestra performances, or school plays, or parent teacher conferences. Now she and her most recent boyfriend were living in a trailer outside Sedona, Arizona, and she was trying to get her new crystal business off the ground. “Apparently, selling dream catcher jars is much more competitive than she realized,” Poppy explained. “I guess Sedona’s a crowded market.”

The two of them shared a look that spoke volumes about their respective relationships with their mother, and then Win remembered something. “Poppy, what about your friend?” she whispered. “We’ve just left him sitting out there this whole time.”

“Oh, Everett hasn’t just been sitting out there,” Poppy said. “He’s been getting his ax out of his trunk so he can …” She used her hand to make a hacking motion at her neck.

“Very funny,” Win said, and pushing through the kitchen’s swinging door she found Everett sitting, ax-less, on the living room couch.

“Hey,” he said, standing up. “I hope you don’t mind …”

“That you sat on my couch? No. I hope you don’t mind that you’ll be sleeping on it tonight,” Win said. There was a third bedroom at the cabin, one that their grandfather had turned into a study many years before, but Win knew, from experience, that the fold-out couch in it was almost comically painful to sleep on. Everett would do much better to bed down in the living room for the night. “Really, you’re welcome to stay,” she said, gesturing at the overstuffed couch. “Unless you decide to drive back, and I think it’s a little late for that, don’t you?”

“Probably,” Everett agreed. “Especially since I don’t know these roads that well.” He pushed his light brown hair out of his light brown eyes. He looked both shy and sleepy at the same time.

And Win, who soon discovered that Poppy and Everett hadn’t had dinner yet, started to make it for them while they unloaded the car. When the grilled cheese sandwiches were browning in the pan and the tomato soup was bubbling in the pot, she stuck her head out the kitchen door to check on their progress. Everett was carrying one of Poppy’s suitcases into the cabin, and looking at it, Win cringed reflexively. It was overpacked, bulging at the sides, and something—a bathrobe, she thought—was trailing out of it. Soon, she knew, that bathrobe would be flung, carelessly, over a piece of her furniture, most likely the living room couch. But just then, Win saw what Poppy was carrying into the cabin, and her jaw dropped.

“Poppy, you didn’t bring him. You know I’m allergic to him,” she said, pointing at Sasquatch’s pet carrier.

“Of course I bought him,” Poppy said, mystified. “What else was I supposed to do with him?”

“Leave him with a friend?”

“Win, I can’t leave him with someone else. You know that,” Poppy said, looking wounded.

But Win was already heading back into the kitchen, and already convinced her eyes felt itchy.

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