Lewis & Ondarko - Best Friends 03 - Now and Zen

• Also By The Authors
  
• Introduction
  
• Dedication
  
• Prologue
  
• Map
  
• Chapter One: June 20
  
• Chapter Two: April 15
  
• Chapter Three: April 16
  
• Chapter Four: April 18
  
• Chapter Five: April 19
  
• Chapter Six: June 20
  
• Chapter Seven: June 20
  
• Chapter Eight: June 20
  
• Chapter Nine: June 20
  
• Chapter Ten: June 20
  
• Chapter Eleven: June 20
  
• Chapter Twelve: June 21
  
• Chapter Thirteen: June 21
  
• Chapter Fourteen: June 21
  
• Chapter Fifteen: June 21
  
• Chapter Sixteen: June 22
  
• Chapter Seventeen: June 22
  
• Chapter Eighteen: June 22
  
• Chapter Nineteen: June 22
  
• Chapter Twenty: June 22
  
• Chapter Twenty-One: June 22
  
• Chapter Twenty-Two: June 23
  
• Chapter Twenty-Three: June 23
  
• Chapter Twenty-Four: June 23
  
• Epilogue: July 24
  
• Prologue for Upcoming Book: Murder on the Bridge
  
  • Chapter One: Murder on the Bridge
    
• Recipes for Retreats
  
• About Madeline Island and Summer Solstice
  
• About the Council of Thirteen Grandmothers
  
• Dear Friends of the Best Friend Series
  

Copyright © 2012 by Deb Lewis & Pat Ondarko

Little Big Bay LLC

76325 Church Corner Road

Washburn, Wisconsin 54891

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Now and Zen
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the authors’ rich imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblence to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-938564-59-8

Also by Deb Lewis and Pat Ondarko

NOVELS

Bad to the Last Drop

Too Much at Stake

As you may have noticed, our
Best Friends Series
has taken you through the seasons.
Bad to the Last Drop
was set deep in the snow banks of winter.
Too Much at Stake
arrived with the greening of spring.
Now and Zen,
the one you hold in your hands, brings you into the heat of summer on the big lake.

In this installment, we take you to Madeline Island, another of our favorite places. Madeline Island is located in Lake Superior about two miles offshore from Bayfield, Wisconsin. You can travel from Bayfield to Madeline Island seasonally by ferry or an ice road, if you can believe it. Now that’s a fun adventure if you’re ever in the area in winter! Madeline Island is the traditional spiritual center of the Lake Superior Ojibwe and was one of the earliest settlements in the area.

We just love to leave our families behind and go to “the island” to get away from it all as often as we can.

What will the turning of the leaves look like in northern Wisconsin? Watch for our next book,
Murder on the Bridge.
In it, you’ll get to know two delightful older women named Jessie and Millie, who go on a bridge tournament cruise to have some fun. As it turns out, bridge is not the only thing on the ship’s daily manifest. Don’t worry. We will be back in the future for another
Best Friends
Mystery.

We hope you enjoy the reading as much as we enjoyed the writing.

Deb and Pat

Wisconsin, 2012

and grandmothers everywhere who, no matter their religious belief, know intrinsically that light and dark are as real as the sun and the moon. And who also know that the light will always be stronger because of the power called love.

The day the woman disappeared, Captain Mike got up early and took his two black labs out for a run. Just like he always did.

He ate his oatmeal, grabbed his thermos of hot coffee, and kissed his wife absentmindedly.

Just like he always did.

Checking the sky for weather, he started to get into his old red Ford pickup.

Just like he always did.

On this day, he noticed a mature female eagle overhead and stopped for a moment to follow her flight as she soared, riding the winds off the big lake. Breathing in deeply the scent of water and sand, and still captivated by her, he watched in awe as she dipped to water’s edge, effortlessly picking up a large whitefish.

What might it be like,
he thought enviously,
to fly with those great powerful wings on the currents like she does?

Smiling, he started his old truck. Turning left, he headed to the lake and his Island Queen Ferry, parked at the Bayfield dock. He was eager to get the old girl out and fly, in his own way, on the waves of Lake Superior. Twenty-three years as ferry captain, and his heart still beat a bit faster at the thought.

Just like it always did.

But this day wasn’t any other day. It was an ordinary day turned extraordinary by one single event. This was the day in which what he “always did” changed forever.

Staring blankly at the open suitcase on the bed in front of her, Deb Linberg’s thoughts drifted from the task at hand. She knew that the plan she and her best friend Pat Kerry had set in motion two months ago for a women’s retreat on Madeline Island matched the dream they’d been hatching for years. Yet she was worried.

Do we spend our lives just frantically chasing dreams?
she wondered, feeling a certain peril in the approaching test of making this dream of an island retreat come true.
This dream feels like it’s still stuck in the dead of night.

“Wake up, Deb!” she said to herself out loud. She laughed at herself, shaking her head.

First things first, if I’m going to pick up Pat on time.

She started ticking off a checklist on her fingers.

Candles, bottle of wine, bath oil, tie dyed shirt, underwear, white blouse, sandals, journal.
She threw each item in turn into her overnight bag.

What about toothpaste? I can’t take the only tube in the house. Pat will have toothpaste I can use.

“A good book? Nope. No time for reading on this trip. Now, where is my cell, anyway?

“Cliffy, can you come here for a minute?”

“What, Mom?”

“It’s time to play the phone game, hon. You know the drill. I’m going to dial my cell phone. You listen for the ring, and go find it for me.”

“Okay, Mom,” Cliffy replied, a wide smile on his face. He was so eager to please, this youngest of her six.

“Oh, and Mom, just thought you’d like to know,” he said, popping his head back in the door, “you were talking out loud to yourself again.”

“Rats, pretty soon I’ll be like Gram,” she said out loud and then covered her mouth quickly to stop herself.

She dialed and heard a ringing in a distant room.

“Here it is, Mom,” Cliffy said breathlessly as he tossed the cell on the bed.

“Thanks, love. What would I do without you?” Deb smiled at him, mussing his hair.

Nice having a kid who still lets me do that,
she thought. Cliffy beamed, his big brown eyes shining.

“Is that all? I’m playing my new video game, and Mom? Don’t mess my hair like that in front of Gene, okay?”

She nodded and sighed.
They grow up so fast.

Deb zipped her bag and dragged it down the stairs, eager to get on the road.

“I have to go, boys,” she called cheerfully. “The ferry waits for no one. Pat and I have to get out to Madeline Island early to set up for the party… I mean… retreat.”

Deb’s husband Marc was intently reading his newspaper at the breakfast table while their son Eugene was busy reading the comics. No one seemed interested in her departure.

“See you in a few days,” Marc replied, without looking up.

“Party? Can we come?” Eugene asked, belatedly registering her misspoken words.

“Sorry, my boy. Not this time. I promise we’ll make a trip together yet this summer. This is girl time,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. After kissing them all and stroking Strider, her golden retriever, Deb heaved her bag up to her shoulder and swung the door open with her foot.

Clicking the control on her keys, the trunk of her new red convertible opened like magic. It had been a gift from Marc over a year earlier after she and Pat had solved the mystery behind an unexpected death at Lake

Superior Big Top Chautauqua. Marc had gifted the car after Deb and Pat had solved the mystery before the police managed to. Marc secretly hoped her new toy would keep Deb busy and away from any more dangerous adventures.

Deb smiled at the memory of the gift. Then she giggled out loud. Almost sixty and married over twenty-five years, she still got the tingles whenever Marc came home early from sailing or work. Even so, they found little time to be alone since adopting their two youngest.

Starting the car, she tooted goodbye to her boys and her cares.

Flipping through the TV channels while waiting for Deb, Pat looked for the weather report to see the forecast for the retreat. She stopped on channel ten, where a news report caught her ear.

“The most amazing thing,” the reporter said, “is happening on the South Shore. You see behind me as I speak, live coverage of heavy traffic moving east towards Bayfield from Duluth, and…” Just then the phone rang.

“Dang,” Pat said, turning off the T.V.
Oh, it’s Martin,
Pat thought, standing by the window and watching for Deb.
I’d better take this call.

“Mom, I’m so glad I caught you.”

“What? The girls aren’t coming?” Pat interrupted.

“No, no, Mom, they’re coming. I just have to tell you something. It’s important, listen… “

Just then, Pat heard a loud rendition of
Riding The Wind,
a Big Top Chautauqua tune, coming from Deb’s car horn in the driveway. “Sorry, Martin, it’ll have to wait. I’ll call you later. Love you.” Hanging up the cell, Pat ran quickly out the door.

Deb giggled at the sound of the horn.

Tall, strong, small-waisted but Rubenesque, Deb didn’t need to be seated in a sporty red Miata for men to flirt with her. Short-cropped strawberry blond hair, a button nose, freckles, and curious blue eyes that get lost in the wrinkles at their corners when she laughs all cast her as the likeable woman next door who draws you in, invites your confidences, and tricks you into revealing your innermost self. And behind that welcoming face, a lawyer’s mind that suits her profession well.

Pat came quickly out the back door with a skip in her step, carrying her small overnight bag.

If you didn’t look closely at Pat, you might only see an older lady’s chunky body and cheaply cut clothes. But look into Pat’s dark brown eyes, and you see the gypsy who leads two lives. The first, as an in-charge Lutheran pastor, who started out being a collar wearer, mainly to remind herself who she was supposed to be. The other, as a yearner, a cynic with a deep need to know the truth at all cost, a trait that sometimes gets her into hot water in her first life.

The gypsy-eyed Pat had recently decided quite firmly that if she had a choice between happy or sad, she would pick happy. And so she did.

“Packing light as usual, I see!” Deb said gaily. “Roof up or down today?”

“Is there any question? How will we ever hear that fancy new horn if we don’t?” Pat replied, squinting up into the bright morning sun. She put on her sunglasses. “We’re going to the island. Down, of course!”

Tossing her satchel into the popped trunk, Pat slid easily into the front seat. Meanwhile, Deb was busy pushing buttons on the dash.