She took her cell phone back. “Don’t you have a cell phone? Don’t people from your office need to talk to you?”
“They don’t have my number. I don’t want anyone calling me so I don’t give it out. When I leave the office, I’m done. Whatever they need can wait or they can figure it out for themselves. I’m not that important that I have all the answers. Are you?”
Caley frowned as if perplexed by his question. “Well, yes. That’s how you get to be the boss. By having all the answers.”
“Maybe you should trust the people you work with a little more. If you don’t, you’ll drive yourself crazy.”
Jake knew from experience that it was best to take a more relaxed approach to work. When he first opened his own architectural firm in Chicago, he’d spent months of sleepless nights worrying about all the horrible things that might befall him professionally. And then, once he was sure they weren’t going to come and repossess the office furniture, he stopped worrying. He didn’t want to be a millionaire or appear on the cover of some glossy architecture magazine. He wasn’t going to be the next I. M. Pei. He’d do his job well, he’d make a decent living and his clients would be happy with his work. That was enough.
“I work better when I’m crazy,” Caley said. She flipped open the phone. “Give me your number. I might have an emergency sometime.”
“I’ll only give you my number if you promise that you’ll use it,” he said.
“For what? A booty call?”
“Maybe. Or a little bit of drunk dialing. Or when you get stuck in a snowbank on the side of the road.” He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out his own phone, then handed it to her. “Put your number on my memory dial. I might have an emergency of my own some night.”
Jake carefully watched the side of the East Shore Road, looking for the weathered wooden sign that hung from an old maple tree. Havenwoods. When he saw it, he turned sharply into the woods, steering the truck down a snow-covered drive.
Caley looked around. “What is this? It said private property on that sign. We shouldn’t drive down here.”
“Relax,” Jake said. “The owner hardly ever uses it in the winter. No one has been here for a while.” Caley was silent and Jake looked over at her. “It’ll be all right, I promise.”
They wound through the woods and finally came to a clearing in the trees. An old log house stood on the rise above the lake. A ramshackle porch, supported by a stone foundation, surrounded the house and three fieldstone chimneys broke up the roofline. Every time Jake saw it, he couldn’t help but be amazed that it was finally his.
“Oh my God,” Caley murmured, peering through the windshield. “It’s the Fortress.” She glanced over at Jake, a wide smile on her face. “I haven’t been here in … years. It still looks exactly the same.” She frowned. “But smaller.”
“It’s called Havenwoods,” Jake said, “and I found out it was one of the first summerhouses built on this lake, back when the industrialists called their summer homes camps and North Lake was just a pretty fishing hole in the middle of a forest. It was built in 1885 by a railroad tycoon from Chicago who owned the entire lake and the surrounding property. It was designed by William West Durant,” Jake continued. “Durant was the first to design in the Great Camp style in the Adirondacks.”
“Someone is home,” she said. “The porch lights are on in the middle of the day.”
He shook his head. “The lighting is triggered by a sensor on the driveway. When you come from the lake side, the lights don’t go on.” He turned off the car. “You want to go inside?”
As kids, they used to come across the lake by boat and tie up at the rotting dock. They’d explored every inch of the property and had spent many rainy days inside the house, gaining entrance through a first-floor window with a broken sash lock.
“We can’t go inside. That’s trespassing. And breaking and entering.”
“We used to do it all the time. No one will care,” Jake said. “And I know where the key is so we won’t have to break in.” He jumped out of the truck and circled around, then helped her out. “If Officer Winslow catches us, you can just smile at him and he won’t arrest us.”
Caley’s gaze was fixed on the facade as she walked closer. “You brought me here on my fifteenth birthday. And you gave me that arrowhead necklace. I wore that thing all year. My girlfriends in school thought it was the ugliest thing, but I thought … well, I thought it was special.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I do. It’s in my closet back in New York. The leather string broke, but I kept it. Along with everything else you gave me.” Caley smiled. “I’ll have to get that box and go through it.”
“What else is in it?”
“Silly stuff. Mementos of our grand love affair. There’s a piece of bubblegum you gave me. I was sure it meant that you wanted me. I used to take it out and touch it because I knew it had been in your pocket.”
“That’s a little scary,” Jake teased.
“I know. I was a teenage girl hauling around a huge torch. Everything meant something.”
They climbed the snow-covered steps and Caley walked to the window, peering inside, her hands around her eyes. “It looks the same. I’d imagine this was a beautiful place to visit in its day.”
Jake walked along the outside wall until he reached the second set of windows, then bent down and pulled a stone from a spot beneath the sill. Beneath it, he found the keys.
“How did you know about that?”
“I was here alone one summer and the caretaker showed up. I saw him get the keys. After that, I could get in whenever I wanted.” He grinned and grabbed Caley’s hand and pulled her along to the corner of the house. “See this. These logs were hand-notched so they fit really tight. Durant always used materials from the surrounding forest.”
Jake unlocked the three locks on the front door, then opened it. He stepped aside, waiting for Caley to enter. “It’ll be all right. I promise.”
They stood in the entry hall, an old deer-antler chandelier hanging above their head. The furniture was tattered and dusty, but he’d managed to clean up most of the mess left by the leaky roof and broken windows.
“Wow,” Caley said. “This place needs a lot of work. It seemed like a palace when we were kids, but now I see it for what it is.”
“Look beyond the surface,” Jake said. “Can you see what it could be again?”
“I can,” she said. She walked over to a low bench made of branches and twigs. “But it would take someone with a lot of time and a lot of money.”
“I used to walk through this house and memorize all the details. This is why I decided to become an architect. I wanted to design houses like this. Summerhouses. Places where people relax and have fun.”
Jake felt her take his hand and weave her fingers through his. It was a simple gesture, but he instantly knew she understood. He wasn’t sure anyone else would.
