“Good.” She started the motor with a jerk of the starter rope.
Aaron turned to face the front of the boat as she guided it out into the open water. Sliding his sunglasses onto his nose, he tugged his cap lower on his forehead to keep it from being blown off by the wind whipping past his cheeks. The front of the boat rose slightly out of the water, slapping against the surface as it sliced across the lake. The cushion beneath him softened his jarring against the aluminum seat.
Shelby guided the boat into one of the feeder creeks edging the large lake, the roar of the motor subsiding to a rumble as she circumvented underwater obstacles with the ease of familiarity. She stopped in a cove where the water glittered almost emerald in the morning sun. “You should catch some white bass in here, maybe a largemouth. We can go in a little closer to shore if you want to try for crappie or bream. I’ve caught plenty of pan-sized bluegills closer to that bank, but most guys seem to prefer catching bass.”
Aaron chuckled. “I’ve got nothing against bream. Deep-fried and served with hush puppies and coleslaw, they’re darned tasty.”
She laughed and slipped on a pair of dark-rimmed sunglasses. “Yes, they are. Want to try for a bass first?”
“Sure.” He opened his tackle box and drew out a three-inch crank bait. “This look about right?”
Examining his choice, she nodded. “Worth a try. Let’s see your stuff, city boy.”
They spent the next two hours casting, reeling, retrieving snagged lures, occasionally landing a fish. They kept only a few, releasing the others back into the lake. Aaron admired Shelby’s fishing skills, though he supposed they were only natural considering her background. Fortunately, he was practiced enough not to embarrass himself in front of her.
Shelby had brought two large travel mugs of coffee and Aaron sipped his as he watched her expertly land a lure in just the right spot to tempt a hungry fish. It was no surprise to him when she had an immediate strike. She reeled in a two-pound white bass, admired it for a moment, then thanked it for letting her catch it and released it back into the water.
Aaron grinned. In long-standing fisherman tradition, they hadn’t talked a lot, preferring to savor the sounds of chattering birds and splashing fish, of water slapping against the banks and boat motors passing on the open lake. The silences hadn’t been awkward, but pleasantly companionable. Occasionally, they pointed out things that caught their attention—a water snake gliding near the shore, a doe and her fawn cautiously taking a drink at the far end of the narrow cove, two big turtles sunning on a partially submerged log.
Lounging comfortably on his seat, he studied her through his tinted lenses. She looked relaxed, utterly at ease, completely genuine. If last night’s kiss crossed her mind, she didn’t let it show. She’d probably written it off as an impulsive action on his part for the benefit of Terrence Landon. Maybe she thought he was simply cooperating with the favor she had asked of him, that the kiss wasn’t even worth mentioning today. She couldn’t know how many times he had mentally replayed it after she’d left, brief though the embrace had been.
Once again he found himself remembering the last woman he’d been involved with. Elaina. Stunning, and fully aware of it. Clever, witty, seductive. Highly competent in her sales job, highly skilled in bed. She’d kept him so hot and bothered that it had taken him several months to realize there was almost nothing genuine about her. Everything she said and did had an agenda, every move she made was calculated and choreographed. Breaking up with her had probably been the impetus that had led him to reexamine his life yet again and determine that he hadn’t been any happier in commercial real estate sales than he’d been in his tumultuous affair with Elaina.
Studying Shelby as she snapped a photo of a heron with her cell phone, he couldn’t help but smile. There was no way Elaina would sit in a flat-bottomed fishing boat in denim shorts that revealed scratched knees, her hair escaping in damp tendrils from a battered ball cap, the smell of fish on her unpolished fingertips. Was Shelby really so unaware of her own appeal? She’d remarked so casually that her cousins and sister were the “pretty ones” in the family, as if she considered herself less attractive. He’d sensed that she hadn’t been fishing for compliments, simply stating facts as she believed them.
In his opinion, she couldn’t be more wrong. Maggie was certainly pretty, and he assumed Hannah was, too, though he hadn’t seen her. Lori, though young, was definitely eye-catching, with her offbeat style and willowy figure. Yet Shelby was the one who brought a grin to his face, who could talk him into going along with her impulsive schemes and somehow make him think it was entirely rational, who had kept him awake for a good part of the night with the memory of a kiss she had yet to even acknowledge this morning. And he’d known her less than twenty-four hours. Which could be a sign that he needed to start being a lot more careful around her.
Slipping her phone back into her pocket, she gave him a quizzical look. “What?”
“Nothing. Just admiring the view.”
Her smile pushed shallow dimples into her cheeks beneath the rims of her big sunglasses. “You don’t have to flirt with me now. No one’s watching.”
“Maybe I just need the practice.”
She huffed out a skeptical laugh. “You? Yeah, right.”
“Besides,” he added, ignoring her implication that flirting came a bit too easily to him, “someone is watching us. Don’t look around, but I think Terrence Landon is sitting in a boat just across the lake—I said don’t turn around,” he added quickly when she instinctive
ly started to swivel on her seat.
She resisted but it was with an obvious effort. “Is he looking at us?” she asked in a loud whisper, though the other boater was too far away to hear a normal tone of voice.
“Occasionally. He’s fishing, but you’re right. He’s not particularly good at it.”
“Is he alone?”
“Yes.”
“How long has he been there?”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“And you’re just now telling me?”
He chuckled quietly. “I was curious to see how long he would sit there. He doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave.”
“What should we do?”