Jane's Gift (Lone Pine Lake 1)

Well, she wasn’t really alone, and that was the reason she was back—most of her family was still living in Lone Pine. Her parents could help her, along with her brothers and sister. She needed her family’s help, though she was loath to admit it. It had been almost two years since the devastating fire that had taken her husband’s life, and her body was still recovering.

As were her heart and mind.

She shook her head, pushed the memories away, and looked around. Jane rarely came over to this side of the lake. A few restaurants and boat launches, along with cabins for rent, proved this part of Lone Pine was clearly for the summer folk. And Jane was once again a townie.

Nerves ate her insides and she tugged at her hair, bringing it across her right cheek as best she could. The scars weren’t as noticeable anymore, at least to her. Most of the burns she’d suffered on the right side of her face had been second degree; she’d looked as if she’d been horrifically sunburned for months on end.

But along the left side of her face, her temple, down across her cheek to her jaw, she had third-degree burns, which had necessitated skin grafting. And skin grafting meant scars. They’d warped and marbled her skin. She tried her best to hide them, styling her hair a certain way, holding her head at a tilt so maybe no one would notice.

She didn’t like to think of the scars that marked the rest of her. Her left side had taken the worst hit. Her arm, her torso, down her thigh, stopping at just above her knee, she was covered. Her back, too.

And then there was the all-consuming guilt that hung over her like a dark, foreboding cloud. She’d survived; Stephen hadn’t. She’d put her family through years of torture and misery…

“Are we almost there?” Logan’s voice rang so loud in the car that Jane winced when she saw Sophia give a startled jump in her sleep.

“Almost, Logan, yes,” Jane said, using her best quiet voice, even though she knew it wouldn’t matter. Logan had only one volume—loud.

He gave another shout and Lexi yelled at him to be quiet. “You’re hurting my ears!”

They were both hurting Jane’s ears, but she tried to ignore them. Chose to focus instead on the gorgeous fall Saturday, the vivid red, orange, and yellow shades of the turning leaves. A breeze rustled through the trees, even the surface of the lake rippled with the wind, and she was thankful she’d made everyone wear a sweater—much to the protest of Logan, who, it seemed, would spend every season clad in a short-sleeve T-shirt and shorts if he could.

Her younger brother, Mac, had organized the trip to the state wild land fire station as a way to combat the strong fear her children had for fire. Fire was what took their dad and damaged their mom, and it scared them tremendously. The captain of the station was a good friend of his, Mac had said. A little tour would help ease their fears, he was sure.

Jane wasn’t so convinced. Her children had every right to be afraid. She was afraid of fire, too: she didn’t burn candles anymore, though she used to. Her family liked to get together for giant bonfires in the fall, but she avoided them now. And the house they were living in, her brother Patrick’s home that he kept for his family’s holiday visits, had a grand, majestic river-rock fireplace that demanded to be lit during the cold winter months that were ahead.

She couldn’t even look at a lighter without flinching, let alone try to start a fire.

Up ahead, the station loomed, an older structure painted in faded shades of industrial pale green with forest green trim. It was a large building, standing right off the side of the road, directly across from the lake. She pulled into the gravel lot, parking her SUV in front of the building. A porch ran the entire length of the front of the station, and Jane immediately envied the view. Large lounge chairs carved out of smooth wood were scattered across the porch, and she imagined those who worked there sat out front on a daily basis watching the lake.

Lexi unbuckled her seat belt but didn’t move, while Logan tugged and jerked against the restraints of his booster seat. Jane climbed out of the SUV and went to the passenger door behind her. Going for Sophia’s car seat first, she unbuckled it carefully so as not to disturb her.

No point in being so careful, though, since Sophia’s big brother wouldn’t stop shouting or moving, and the flurry known as Logan woke his baby sister. Jane hurriedly undid Logan’s seat belt and he scrambled out into the parking lot, his little feet kicking up gravel as he sped toward the building.

“Logan, wait!” Jane yelled as she helped Sophia out of the car and then stood. Logan was already zooming up the steps and onto the porch, his little feet pounding a booming rhythm on the wood rafters.

Shaking her head, she slammed the door but realized Lexi still sat in the car. She rounded the end of the SUV and opened the back passenger door to find Lexi sitting in her seat, her arms still crossed in front of her, little hands clutched into tight fists. The typical pose her child had held since she’d first heard of this idea.

“Are you coming inside or are you sitting out here in the car?”

Lexi’s eyes widened. “You’d let me sit in the car? All by myself?”

Jane shrugged, adjusting her hold on Sophia. “If you really don’t want to go in, then okay, I guess.”

“But someone could…” Lexi swallowed hard. “…snatch me.”

“I’ll lock the doors.”

Lexi’s eyes went wider. “And you’d leave me alone?”

“You don’t want to hurt the fire captain’s feelings, do you?”

Lexi was quiet for a moment, absorbing her mother’s words.

“So what’s it going to be? We need to get going before Logan busts into that fire station by himself.” Wasn’t that the truth? She wouldn’t be surprised if he started pounding on the front door.

“Fine, I’ll go. But only because I don’t want to hurt the captain’s feelings.” Lexi trudged out of the car, dropped onto the ground with a little hop, and then ran up to the front porch like her brother had.

Jane’s lips curved into a faint smile as she hit the lock button on the keyless remote. Her feet crunching noisily on the gravel, she headed toward the porch, noticing how quiet it was. The wind whistled faintly through the trees and the sound of an occasional car driving a few miles away shushed in the distance, but there was no traffic on the main lake road.