Then, a pull on my rod.
I sit up slightly, sucking in a sharp breath, and my trusty brain instantly reminds me of Evan’s advice.
Let them work on it for a second. You tug it up right away and they’ll get away.
So, I wait, heart racing each time there’s another slight tug on the pole. Glancing at Evan, I say, breathless, “I think I’ve got one.”
“All right,” he says, his eyes darting to the top of my fishing pole, then tracking the path down into the ice. “Start reeling it in.”
My hand flies to the little handle, and I start twisting the lever, leaning back like I’ve seen guys do in movies. Evan gets down on his knees next to the hole in the ice, peering down into the water like he can see something that I can’t.
Then, I see the faintest shadow under the ice. “Oh, my God, did youseethat?”
Evan turns to me in surprise, and the look on his face is so wide open, so easy and joyful, that it takes my breath away for a moment. The momentclicks,like someone else has taken a photo of it, and I know it’s burned into my memory.
He turns back to the water, reaching into the hole in the ice when the fish gets near the surface again, scooping it up and dumping it out onto the ice. I start, let out a little scream, and fall back, practically collapsing onto the bench to keep from touching the thing.
Evan chuckles again, glancing at me. “Big one. Good job.”
The praise lights through me like a fireball through the night, illuminating every dark corner of me. I struggle to keep from lighting up with the feeling of it, this gruff, large man giving me praise so easily.
My mind supplies me with plenty of other praise I’d like to hear from him, and I shut it down, hoping my face already looks red from the cold, that my flush isn’t painfully obvious.
“Thank you,” I mumble, and he turns to look at me, something mischievous glinting in his eyes.
“Now we need to teach you to gut the thing.”
CHAPTER 9
EVAN
I’m not going to make her gut the fish.
But it was fun to watch her squirm for a minute, putting on a brave face and acting like she’d be just fine trying to figure it out, despite the fact that she practically burst through the fishing shack in an effort to keep away from the fish she caught.
When we get back to the cabin, I head out to the shed to clean up the fish. I first learned when I was around ten. At the time, Gramps always brought me fishing with him and would ask if I wanted to help clean the fish up with him afterward. He explained it to me as a necessary step to make it good to eat.
For a long time, I said no, fishing with my Gramps and waiting for him to disappear to the shed before he came back with the parts of the fish that we could cook up and enjoy.
But then, one day, I felt the urge to go with him. And it wasn’t as gross as I’d thought.
Gramps thanked the fish for the food it would provide before killing it, and we cleaned it together. He even brought gloves for me when I said I didn’t like the texture of it against my skin.
“Makes sense,” he’d said, when I pulled on a pair and felt a lot more comfortable. “Easier to wash your hands after, too.”
I wonder about bringing Gramps up here for another fishing trip when it gets warm again as I work on cleaning the fish.
When I come back inside, Amy has showered again and put on the same pair of shorts and T-shirt I gave her for the night before. She smells like my soap. I don’t like how much I’ve enjoyed having her here. Especially considering the fact that she works for who I consider my enemy.
“I’m going to help,” she says when I step into the kitchen to make dinner, washing her hands and tying her hair back with a little hair binder from around her wrist.
Then, she does.
We work side by side, her chopping peppers and onions, me seasoning the fish and prepping my grill pan. When I pull out corn tortillas from the nearest Mexican grocery store, Amy practically makes heart eyes at me.
“This is going to besogood,” she says, then, glancing over at me, she adds, “Did your gramps teach you how to cook, too?”
The answer is yes, of course. Gramps taught me everything I know. And, for some reason, I tell her that. I tell her about summers up here at the cabin, the way it felt like Gramps knew everything. He knew which plants we could eat and how to forage for them. He and his father built the cabin, and anytime something went wrong, he could fix it himself, from stuff like the siding to the entire electrical system, which we revamped a few years ago with the solar panels and a windmill off a few yards from the place.
