The oars dragged across the surface, lighting up the water around them as the boat turned in a slow circle beneath the stars.
Who are you?The ache expanded, filling her chest.Tell me who you are.
Moments passed that felt like hours, and then Daniel began rowing again, looking away from her as he turned the boat around, back toward the north shore.
He did not speak again as he rowed them to the boathouse, and when they reached the dock, he climbed out first, offering Annie his hand.
This time, she took it, aware of every place that his skin touched hers. He lifted her up onto the dock where they stood mere inches apart. Annie took a breath, inhaling his scent of woodsmoke and pine, and his gaze dropped for a split second, half a heartbeat, landing on her lips before he looked down at the dock.
“Thank you,” Annie said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
He nodded, and lowered himself back down into the boat to retrieve the headlamp she had left on the bench.
“Here.” He passed it up.
She lifted it from his hand, hesitating.
“I really do mean thank you,” she said after a beat. “I know you’re protective of your space up here. I was a little surprised that you actually called.”
Silence fell after her words, lasting moments too long.
“I had to,” he said at last.
Annie stood on the dock, searching his face as she waited for him to explain what he meant, but he didn’t speak again.
“I should go,” she said at last. “You’ll call me if you hear anything else?”
He nodded.
She took a step back. “Good night.”
She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder as she walked to the edge of the dock and jumped down onto solid ground.
Despite every single ounce of her better judgment, she wanted him to call out her name, to invent some reason for her to stay a little while longer, but she knew he would not, and in silence she walked to the Jeep, opened the door, and climbed inside.
Annie turned the key, and the engine rumbled to life. She sat still for a moment, the motor idling in the soles of her feet, then she backed away from the boathouse.
The beam of the headlights swept the clearing once, lighting up Daniel where he stood on the dock. His face was still unreadable as he watched her turn around and pull away into the night.
Annie stared at him in the rearview mirror, heart pounding, until she passed through the gate and the first curve of the road stole him from sight. Only then did she exhale, letting out all the air in her lungs.
What on earth had just happened?
It was impossible. Completely unprofessional. And yet, undeniable.
He had stirred something in her, that strange and quiet man of the woods. He had stirred something as alive and electric as those lightning-blue streaks she’d stirred up with her fingers.
Annie drove along the dark road in silence until, through the trees, she caught the lit window of her small room over the garage, winking bright with the lamplight she’d forgotten to extinguish on her way out.
She could not undo what had just happened, but she could leave it there. Chalk it up as a strange and beautiful dream, a onetime thing, and cut it loose. Forget all about it.
But as she rolled slowly down the last gravel hill, somehow still feeling the touch of Daniel’s hand against her own, she could not manage to think about anything else.
Chapter 11ANNIE
Annie slept late, overtired from her night on the lake with Daniel, and was surprised to find the station empty when she stepped in a few minutes before eleven.
She put on a pot of coffee and settled into her seat with a mug just as Jake’s silhouette darkened the doorway.
