The Woman by the Lake (Misted Pines #3) Read Online Kristen Ashley

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Suspense Tags Authors: Kristen Ashley Series: Misted Pines Series by Kristen Ashley
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I didn’t meditate in an effort to achieve a higher consciousness.

I didn’t do any research to see if Misted Pines offered a thoughtful and supportive counselor I could make a standing appointment with to go and hash out all that was clogging my brain and make a plan on how to open the drain and let it slip away.

No, I did none of that.

It seemed the only thing I learned about myself was that I became so unmotivated as to be nearly incapacitated by days of having nothing to do and no one I was responsible for.

Namely, around twenty-five munchkins, who filled my days with alternating bouts of extreme pride and sheer frustration who counted on me.

Sure, I texted my friends, sent emails and had a couple of phone conversations, but I was social media-ing it through all of that, even if I wasn’t doing it on social media.

That being faking it.

The cabin and the lake made it easy. A picturesque cottage in the pines on a lake with me smiling through a selfie, looking honey-tanned and healthy, because me and my wineglass would head to the pier at around two each day. Along with the fact there were a lot of pots of plants to water, and they were all outside (a tan was all about faking the healthy bit).

All my friends took one look at these photos and told me to invite them out ASAP.

I didn’t invite a single one of them.

I was wallowing and drinking too much. And it got worse, because every day, I’d wake up, determined that would be the day when I’d grab my imaginary staff and head down the path to battle my demons and figure it all out, and then I’d go to bed, beating myself up because that was not the day I’d done anything.

Now…this.

Mr. Cutoff Shorts who forgot how to get to his barber just as he’d forgotten he had a neighbor who didn’t listen to metal (I was a Swiftie, and damn proud of it, not that he knew that, still). And I might no longer have a job, but I liked my sleep, and I didn’t find Limp Bizkit good at lullabies.

The only fortunate thing was the scratching from that first night hadn’t come back. I’d checked out that window and the area around it. It had a tree close, and maybe I was wrong about it being pine needles, because they didn’t touch the window, but there was no other clue as to what it might have been.

In my ruminations, I hadn’t realized the noise was lessening, so when the music cut out entirely, I turned and looked at my cute, blue Echo Dot (something else the mailman brought to me).

It was 3:57 in the morning.

Immediately, I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo of the time.

I did this because I was good with a grudge, even better with revenge fantasies.

And worse than that for Mr. Cutoffs, I was third generation American, but Russian flowed unhindered through my veins. Mom taught me some, Dedulya taught me even more. And his papachka was hardcore, from the motherland, so the man who taught my dedulya was the real deal.

Thus, I lay in bed, bided my time, and at exactly a quarter to six, I threw the covers back and got up.

I washed my face, brushed my teeth, flossed, and then headed to the walk-in closet.

I pulled off my sleep shorts, pulled on a pair of faded jeans, left the skintight shelf-bra cami I’d slept in, but shrugged on a light cardigan.

I then shoved my feet in the pink velvet Birkenstock slides with the gold buckles I bought before I moved, because I thought Birkenstocks said, “Washington State,” but if I was going to do them, they were going to be velvet with a gold buckle.

So far, I hadn’t worn them.

Today was the damned day.

I then took my phone and marched out the back door to the trail that led to my neighbor’s house.

When I suddenly emerged into a clearing after what could only have been a five-minute walk (if that), I was stunned immobile for a number of reasons.

First, his house was extraordinary.

A mish-mosh of stories with a timbered roof and siding painted an attractive midnight blue with polished wood accents around the windows.

There was no rhyme or reason to it. I couldn’t place it in an architectural era either. I wasn’t even sure how it was standing, with this bit sticking out and that bit rising high and windows everywhere.

Yet, it wasn’t fanciful.

It seemed solid, sturdy, like it sprouted out of the earth because it was meant to be placed right there, and when humans eradicated our own species through our pride and avarice, taking many other species with us, this house would remain.

Forever and ever.

Topping that, it gave me another eerie feeling, the first I’d felt since I’d arrived at that lake, but this one was further complicated by being both peaceful and exciting.

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