Page 269 of It Happened on the Lake

Now, it seemed, Levi was content with Beth. She had sold her family home to a young couple who were expecting their first child. “A new generation here on the lake,” Beth had told her after lunch one afternoon in June. She’d also announced that she was listing the Musgrave cabin. “It’s not your house, of course, and it doesn’t come with its own private island,” she’d pouted as Harper had told her she was definitely staying in Almsville. “But it’s something and waterfront. But, Harper, seriously, if you ever change your mind about selling, let me know! Kisses!”

Harper wasn’t going anywhere in the foreseeable future.

Dawn had made noise about moving back here permanently after graduation, and Rand lived just across the water.

Harper’s own relationship with Levi was complicated.

As she watched him now, standing over a grill, looking like a suburban dad for the first time in his life, she wished they could be as they once had been, when they’d been childhood friends.

Unfortunately often the tension between them was palpable.

Even though they were trying.

Or at least she was.

They had a child.

And it was difficult.

Maybe someday they’d find the connection they’d lost over the years. Harper hoped so, but it would take time and a lot of forgiveness on Levi’s part.

What were the chances? Too many years, too many doubts, too many lies had grown between them.

“You should live so long,” she said, thinking that it was something Gram might say. God, she missed that woman. She probably always would.

She glanced down at the boathouse or what was left of it. Months before, Chase’s body had been retrieved and the boathouse sealed off. There had been a small funeral and a splashy news story and reporters calling and asking questions as she’d healed from her wounds. Thankfully all the dart pricks had healed, and even the gunshot to her shoulder hadn’t hit bone. She’d ended up with a scar and a brutal memory.

Of Marcia Reed.

Her stepmother.

Her father’s wife.

Harper hadn’t found it in her heart to forgive him.

She couldn’t. Not yet.

He should have seen Marcia for what she was.

And Harper couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been naïve as Marcia had claimed or had turned a blind eye to how mendacious she was, how cunning, and how evil. Harper couldn’t really believe that Bruce would have gone along with his first wife’s and son’s murders, nor would he have condoned or been a part of the intended killing of his daughter and granddaughter.

But what did she know?

Just that she would never trust him again.

Nor forgive him.

“Too bad,” she said now.

Bruce Reed was a widower. Again. And back on the market.

After suffering for several weeks after her fall, Marcia had finally died and now Dawn, who still kept in touch with him, reported that he was dating again.

Oh. Joy.

He’d sure put all the recent horror of their lives behind him. Had he ever realized that his death was a part of Marcia’s plan? That’s why she kept saying, “It isn’t his time.”

Because he could die only after he’d inherited the Dixon fortune.