“Worms don’t bleed on my carpet if their tails fall off.”
He did that amused coughing thing. “Slime and dirt are okay, but no blood. Got it.”
“We’re camping. And fishing. I’m flexible.”
“Well, you give a holler if you need some help.”
If his dimples weren’t so utterly irresistible, she would’ve considered wasting the time by being irritated.
And if Louisa hadn’t been tapping her foot a few feet down, fishing pole weaving in the air, Anna would’ve considered asking the difference between lake and creek fishing. With so many lakes back home, she’d never had reason to fish in a creek.
“If she doesn’t want help, I do,” Louisa said.
Anna’s jaw clenched. She retrieved a can of worms from the tackle box and made her way down the creek in search of the right place to bait her hook and cast.
The last time she’d been fishing, she was a teenager. But she still remembered how to hook the worms, and it took a practice cast or two, but soon she was comfortable with the rod and reel Lance and Kaci had loaned her.
They spent most of the morning wandering up and down the creek. The fish weren’t biting. Might’ve had something to do with Kaci and Lance and Jackson’s one-upping each other with more stories of their youth and all the laughter bouncing off the water. Louisa told a few stories of her own, but she couldn’t compete with the three musketeers.
From its perch in the ocean-blue sky, the sun shone down over the massive oak and pine trees and glinted off the creek waves. Louisa wandered closer to Anna until they had to watch for each other when casting and reeling in. Anna would’ve moved farther, but a rocky outcropping of clay and tree roots blocked her way.
Jackson was on Louisa’s other side, down far enough to cast without hitting anyone, close enough to rebait Louisa’s hook on demand.
Louisa’s attitude annoyed Anna, even though she shouldn’t have had an opinion one way or another about how Jackson humored his sister’s helplessness. Just because Louisa was still young enough to have the luxury of time to decide what she wanted to do with her life didn’t make herbad. If Anna could’ve gone back to twenty-one, she would’ve done a fewthings differently. Not married Neil. Experimented with classes in other degree programs to make sure chemistry was her true love.
Most days she was happy enough with her goals, but the schedule was a drag sometimes. Especially during some of the more boring lectures.
She cast with a frustrated grunt and turned her reel.
According to Louisa,allcollege lectures were boring. So maybe Anna’s problem wasn’t jealousy. Maybe it was simply that Louisa had a bad attitude that Jackson kept humoring.
If he wanted to treat his sister like a spoiled princess, that was his business. They weren’t in arealrelationship. She had no right to care.
Something tugged at her line.
She snapped to attention. She adjusted the reel. Tension bent the tip of her pole.
“Got something there?” Jackson asked.
“Think so.” She kept reeling. Whatever she’d hooked was putting up a massive fight. “Feels like a nice one.”
Louisa backed away and gave her room.
“You go, girl,” Kaci said. “Bring him in.”
The fish thrashed to the surface. Anna laughed. “Got you now.” It pulled and tugged, but she held steady, and soon she dangled the fish out of the water. Its sleek silver body curved in a C when it wasn’t making its last-ditch efforts to escape.
“Hang on, big guy.” She reached for it, but bumped hands with Jackson. Ornery man. “I’ve got it.”
“Gonna take forever to get that fish stink off your hands,” Jackson said. He batted her hands away with a calculated twinkle in his eyes. “Besides, he might bleed. I got this one for you. He’ll be good all fried up for dinner.”
She swung the pole so the fish was out of reach. “Catch and release. We’ve got food for dinner.”
He hooked the edge of her pole and swung it back. “No fun in that.”
The fish flopped and twisted on the end of the line, gillsflaring, eyes big and fishlike. Creek water flung off it.
“Catch and release,” she insisted. “Would you let go? I’ve got this.”
