"You're stunning," he said, delighted when her smile widened i

n response.

"Do you want to come in?"

"Actually, we're on a schedule."

"Yeah?" Her brows rose, but she didn't ask. Instead, she slipped on a pair of sandals and stepped into the hall, pulling the door shut behind them. Soon, they were back in his car and on their way to one of the docks beneath the MoPac bridge. He parked, then headed to the small wooden shack where one of his clients, Jose, stood waiting.

"Hey, buddy," Jose called. "You're all set."

"We're going out in a canoe?" she asked.

"Unless you're afraid of the water?"

She shook her head. "No, it sounds great."

"You picked a good night for it," Jose said, as he showed them to the canoe, which had a small ice chest already packed per Matthew's instructions, as well as a couple of blankets in case the early September night grew chilly.

"I'll lock her back up for you," Matthew said, and Jose nodded. Usually, he required the canoes to be returned by nine-fifteen. But Matthew had enlisted his friend in a different plan.

"Do you want me to row?" Hannah asked once they were in the canoe and on the river.

"I don't want you to do anything except sit back and enjoy."

She grinned. "I can do that."

When he was younger, he'd been in a rowing club, and he enjoyed falling back into the steady rhythm of moving the boat through the water. He knew the river intimately, and they moved leisurely toward the east and the Congress Avenue bridge.

"Do you know I've never done this before?" she asked.

"Why not?"

She shook her head. "No idea. I love it, though." She looked around, glancing first toward the grassy shores on the south and then to the trails, marsh, and docks that dotted the more developed north side.

The river--known as Lady Bird Lake now, but Town Lake when he'd been a kid--marked Austin's north-south line. Technically, it was part of the Colorado River, but so were many of the Highland Lakes up river, as they'd been created years ago by either the Corp of Engineers or the Lower Colorado River Authority.

However they'd been formed, the lakes--technically reservoirs--added to the beauty of the Austin area and the Texas Hill Country.

"Do we have a goal?" she asked.

"I'm taking you to the place where Selma and I used to go when we were kids. And hopefully, I got the timing right..."

"Yeah? I'm intrigued."

"You'll probably figure it out," he said as he steered the canoe close to the Congress Avenue Bridge. "And it looks like we're right on time for sunset."

They weren't the only ones under the bridge. A larger boat that offered dinner on deck was moving slowly along the water, and a large flat boat full to the brim with passengers was also moving at a snail's pace.

They'd come, like Matthew and Hannah, to see the bats.

"You've seen them before?" he asked. Austin hosted the largest urban colony of Mexican Free-tail bats in the country, and the critters had become world famous. He doubted she could have lived in Austin and never watched them.

As expected, she nodded. "Several times. But never from the water."

"They live under the bridge," he said. "It's incredible to stand on the bridge and watch them rise up from under you. But from down here..."

He trailed off as the familiar sound began. A small squeaking. A hint of a flutter. And then, through some miracle of nature, they all seemed to wake at the same moment, and thousands of bats who'd been tucked in under the bridge, hidden in crevices or simply camouflaged, left their perches, fell into the open air, and then rose into the purple and orange twilight sky.

Tags: J. Kenner Man of the Month Romance
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