Winter at the White Oaks Lodge by Abbie Williams

Author:Abbie Williams [Williams, Abbie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: pregnancy, love, teen, Minnesota, reincarnation, romance, Shore leave cafe
Publisher: Central Avenue Publishing
Published: 2014-01-15T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

We spent the morning crowded around the fishing hole, Bull taking the chair at a right angle to mine. I didn’t mind Bull’s company one bit, even though his presence kept Mathias and me from being alone together. But Bull was entertaining, and told me straight away about his cousin out in Montana, who had a lead on the whole Malcolm Carter mystery.

“Harry Carter’s wife, out near Bozeman, found a few letters five years back or so. She’d be happy to mail them to me, she said.”

“From Malcolm?” I asked eagerly.

Bull nodded, cracking a can. He offered one to Mathias, who shook his head, silently holding up his coffee. Bull went on, answering my question, “Yes ma’am.”

“Sounds like a road trip,” Mathias said then. “Next summer maybe?”

I wasn’t sure if he was asking me to join him or just mentioning this in the abstract, but I heard myself say, “For sure.”

It was nearing late afternoon when I told Mathias that I should probably head home; I was utterly reluctant to go, as I didn’t know when I might see him again before next weekend. I didn’t work until Friday, and there was no logical excuse to hang out before then. Was there? Today was special; surely we couldn’t recreate it every day this week. I felt all sickly and senselessly deprived at the thought of almost five whole days before we would see each other again. Walking back across the ice in the dimming, silvering day, I held his elbow, and tried to keep our pace slow to prolong this excuse to touch him.

He said as we walked, “I can’t believe we’ve only known each other for three days. I know it’s crazy, but I feel like I’ve known you for a long time. People think I’m crazy anyway, so I guess it makes sense in that regard.”

My heart swelled and glowed at these words. I said, “It’s not crazy. I feel the same way.”

“You do?” he asked.

“I do,” I told him, and then he tightened his elbow around my hand, as though giving me a little hug. I observed, “We didn’t catch any fish today.”

And when he grinned down at me, I felt it to the deepest part of me. He said, “Who cares?”

***

Tish called that night to tell me that Jake had come over to their house to talk to her; as they were next-door neighbors, this happened relatively frequently.

“He said that you and Mathias Carter were pretty much making out on the ice this morning!” my little sister exclaimed.

I sat up straight in bed. I cried, “He said that?” and then throttled my voice down a notch, my eyes darting to Millie, who thankfully continued sleeping.

“Hey, don’t freak out on me! So, were you?”

“We weren’t,” I told my sister, calming a little. I didn’t bother mentioning that I would have been more than happy to have done such a thing. I said, “We were wrestling a little, maybe…”

“You were?” Tish sounded like she was smiling.

I smiled too.

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