Cottage Country by JL Edwards

Copyright © J.L. Edwards 2012
     
    All Rights Reserved
     
    All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher or author is illegal, and is punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
     
    Other books by J.L. Edwards
     
    Torren Between
    Torren Apart
    Lust in the Air
    Sex in Seattle
    Flex Appeal
     
    Follow J.L Edwards on Twitter @jledwards2
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    Acknowledgments
     
    For my RG
     
     
    Cottage Country
     
     
    By JL Edwards
     
     
    CHAPTER 1
     
    The sound of Maroon Five filled the BMW as Stacey Miller weaved her way down the country roads towards her parents cabin on Chester Lake in Montana. She had travelled down these roads for nearly all of her twenty-seven years of life. She spent countless hours swimming in the lake and watching her father putter around the small cottage making it the quaint second home that it is today. Every summer Stacey’s parents would pack up the car and the day that school was finished, they were off for nearly two months of rest and relaxation. Stacey’s father, a middle school teacher, would bring the supplies needed to complete a project each year in his small utility trailer. One year she helped him construct a sun deck, the next year they built a wood shed for all of the firewood that they cut each fall. She hated having to leave all of her friends each summer but looking back on it now, she had such fond memories of fishing on the lake with her father and helping her mother to make sandwiches for lunch. Now she wouldn’t trade those days at the cottage for anything in the world.
     
    After Stacey finished high school her days at the cottage became few and far between. She moved away to attend college and began her journey towards obtaining her law degree. Her summers were spent working two jobs as both a legal assistant at a small law firm and a server at a local pub. She didn’t have time to go and sit on the deck and sip lemonade while the loons swam by. Her life became hectic and her schedule didn’t spare her a minute.
     
    After graduation, Stacey did have intentions of visiting the cottage again, but she was able to land a position with a legal firm in Portland and it just seemed like too far of a drive just to spend the weekend back in Montana and then drive back to Portland. Besides, her weekends were spent pouring over law books while she tried to establish herself as a reputable lawyer within her new firm. She didn’t have time to relax and enjoy herself. She lived off of coffee and Danishes from the coffee shop down the street from her office and required very little sleep to function.
     
    Flashing back to two months ago when Stacey got the call that her father had suffered a heart attack, she dropped everything that she was doing and drove straight to his bedside back in Montana. She had the accelerator pinned to the floor the entire way, stopping briefly for gas and restroom breaks and then getting back on the road again to be by her father’s side. She covered over fourteen hundred kilometers in around twelve hours and once she got to the hospital, she sat in a chair holding her daddy’s hand until he woke a day later.
     
    She remembers the feeling of relief and exhilaration when she saw her father’s eyes flutter open. He had stayed with them and didn’t succumb to the attack that tried to take his life and Stacey vowed to help her mother nurse him back to health. The two women laid out a plan to change her father’s eating habits and exercise routine and they included more rest time for him in his