by Leddy Harper
“McKenna.” A last name would’ve been helpful, but I wasn’t about to complain.
“Are you here with anyone, or are you staying by yourself?”
Her light eyes narrowed the slightest bit. It must’ve been an involuntary move, because it only lasted a split second. As fast as it came on, the fleeting concern dissolved, and an almost unnoticeable excitement colored her fair cheeks. “By myself.”
Suddenly, I understood her reaction. The last thing I wanted was to make her think I was a stalker, although I felt safe in the assumption that she didn’t. But that didn’t stop me from explaining myself anyway. “Oh, I was just curious why you were down here alone. I thought maybe you were trying to get away from family or something.”
“My cabin faces the wrong way, and the restaurant was packed. The only available space they had left was to stand at the bar, which also faces the wrong way. I started walking, heading toward the lake, and I ended up here. I didn’t expect anyone to show up, so I thought it’d be fine.”
She must not have noticed the large deck around the back of the bar, where everyone would eventually gather once the celebration began. But I wasn’t about to tell her that and risk her leaving. So instead, I pointed to the cooler I’d set down next to her and asked, “Mind shoving that this way?”
She slid it toward me and then relaxed a little more against the railing. Her right leg—the one not dangling off the dock—was bent at the knee with her bare foot pulled close to the apex of her thighs. She had on a pair of cuffed khaki shorts that could very likely give a few things away with the way she sat, so I tried not to look. But the way she mindlessly picked at the skin on her heel made it damn near impossible to focus on anything else.
Wondering if this was such a good idea after all, I grabbed a beer, and just as I reached in to get a second one for McKenna, I thought twice about it. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen. Why?”
Technically she was underage, so by law, it was illegal to give her any alcohol. Although—my mind had this fantastic way of justifying things to make me feel better about certain decisions—she is at least eighteen years old. That logic made tons of sense, considering I regularly had beer in my fridge when I was her age. Not to mention, there were only six in the cooler; even if we split them, it wouldn’t be enough to get her drunk.
Shrugging to myself, I decided not to worry about the details. I had a cold can in my hand for myself and nudged the cooler toward her. At least this way, I wouldn’t feel like I’d offered it to her—or pressured her into drinking. If she took one, then she took one. And after glancing between me and the open cooler a few times, that was precisely what she did.
“How old are you?” she asked as she popped the top, the sound echoing around us.
“Twenty-one.”
McKenna didn’t drop her stare, she just flicked her gaze between my eyes, reading me the way a blind man’s fingertips deciphered braille. It made me a little self-conscious, if I were honest. Without the ability to hear her thoughts, there was no telling what was going through that pretty head of hers.
I wasn’t a stranger to beautiful women. Running a resort on a lake kind of ensured that I was around my fair share. Especially in the spring and summer months when most would prance around in bikinis and frayed denim shorts, begging to be noticed. However, I couldn’t for the life of me remember a time a woman had me so wrapped up that my brain refused to think straight. There was something about this one that caught me off guard, her presence practically hypnotizing me.
In a genuine effort to break the spell she had me under, I glanced down to the one place I’d fought to ignore—the same spot I’d caught her picking at a moment ago. She held the cold can against her heel as if to soothe a pain or ache. A pair of sandals sat next to her, and it made me wonder if she’d stepped on something on her way here. It could’ve been an anxious tic, but other than the first few seconds of meeting her, I hadn’t detected a nervous bone in her body. I gestured to her foot and asked, “Are you okay?”
She dropped her chin to see what I was talking about as if unaware of her actions. “Oh, yeah…I think I got a splinter or something in it when I tried to get up.”
Without a second thought, I leaned forward and wrapped my fingers around her ankle. I’d expected her to put up a fight, but after only the slightest hesitation, she allowed me to pull her leg to my lap. The sun was fading fast, so if I had any hope of not only finding the splinter but removing it as well, then I needed to work quickly.
That meant I had to stop staring at her.
Using the light from my cell and the pocketknife that I carried with me everywhere, I managed to find the sliver of wood lodged in her heel and pulled it out effortlessly. On the one hand, I was happy with myself for removing something that had caused her physical pain. On the other, I was disappointed that I’d done it so quickly. I wasn’t ready to stop touching her.
So I didn’t.
As if my hands had a mind of their own, I began massaging her foot with my thumbs, which elicited a soft, hummed moan from McKenna. I glanced up, and the sight of her immediately caused my breathing to slow. She innocently sucked her plump lower lip into her mouth, her eyes darkening, the red scarf reappearing around her neck again. It was the most unintentionally erotic moment I’d ever witnessed.
An odd sense of déjà vu slammed into me. It wasn’t soft or slow forming. It crashed over me like an angry wave, threatening to drown me. Suffocating. I somehow knew this woman. Like a part of my soul knew her. It was the strangest feeling I’d ever experienced, which left me silent and stoic.
Her shoulders rose and her chest lifted, yet she didn’t pull her leg away. Then a harsh, rushed exhale blew past her lips. She dropped her gaze to the center of my chest before peering out across the lake. But it was only for a moment. As soon as her eyes met mine again, my pulse accelerated until I could feel it in every pressure point. My neck thrummed. Even my fingertips danced to the hurried tempo of my heartbeat.
“Thank you.” Never had two whispered words carried such desire.
I let up on the massage, though I didn’t let go of her foot. I kept it in my lap, resting on my thigh as I lightly stroked it with my fingertips. It was involuntary; I felt powerless to stop myself. I had never in my life felt so compelled to be near another person. I guess it was just one more thing to add to my growing list of confusion.
“For what?”
Her gaze narrowed, followed by a carefully guarded grin. “For getting out the splinter.”
“Oh, yeah…that. Well, you’re very welcome. If you have any other surgical needs, feel free to come see me.”
McKenna laughed, and instantly, the air around us grew thin. It was as though we’d been unknowingly smothered by a heavy fog that vanished without warning. It was easier to breathe and, based on the soft sigh following her tapered giggles, I assumed she’d felt it, too.
She pointed to the embroidered crow on the front of my shirt, the words Black Bird Resort stitched above and below it. “You work here?”
“And live here. My dad owns the place, and I help him run it.” When the dense air that had enveloped us dissipated, it seemed to have taken all the tension with it. I took a swig of my beer and relaxed against the wooden pole behind me. “How’d you hear about Black Bird?”
“I read about it somewhere.” She shifted her gaze across the lake.
It wasn’t entirely impossible that a paper or magazine would mention the area, though I did find it a bit surprising. It wasn’t like anyone around here seemed to care about the history that lay beneath these waters. Then again, maybe it had been written by someone who’d passed through, someone who’d wanted to share the story of the town that had vanished over forty years ago.
Before the reservoir, no one lived around here. These were nothing more than bare mountainsides that surrounded a dying town. But once the valley filled with water, houses began to pop up all around. The sad part was that none of the residents had any connection to
the submerged land beneath the glistening surface. So I couldn’t exactly blame them for not treating it like a piece of valuable history when it didn’t have any significance to them. To everyone around here, it was a body of water they could see from their back decks that added to their property value.
But to me, it was the buried ghost town of Chogan.
Full of drowned secrets and sunken promises.
The more I thought about it, the more it plagued me. Curiosity consumed me until an even mixture of anger, resentment, and pride swirled within my chest. I’d already begun making bets with myself as to who could’ve written about it and who I knew, without a doubt, didn’t write it. “Where did you read about it?”
McKenna shrugged, keeping her attention across the lake. “In an old book I found.”
“Where’d you find it?”
“In my grandfather’s attic. Why?” That didn’t answer much, but I decided against pressing McKenna for more. For some reason, she didn’t act like she wanted to talk about it. Either that or she didn’t find it important enough to discuss. Regardless, it’d have to wait.
Moving on, I pointed to the water around us. “Did it explain that this used to be a city?”
Her spine stiffened a second before she turned her head and stared right at me, into me, almost through me. The deep lines next to her eyes as she focused on me, as well as the way her lips remained relaxed and slightly parted, made me wonder if she had some connection to this place. But the way she blinked at me, slowly, methodically, left me believing that her connection was with me rather than the lake. I became convinced that she could read me like a book and fill in the blank spaces with her own words.
It made me ask, “Do I know you?”
She licked her lips and tilted her head to the side. I was positive she was about to say yes, agree with me that we’d known each other at some point in time, but she didn’t. Instead, she fluttered her lashes rapidly, as if clearing her thoughts, and said, “No, I don’t think so.”
“Have you been here before?” I was desperate to find out how I knew her.
She answered by shaking her head.
“Did you grow up around here? A nearby town, maybe?”
Her posture appeared to soften, her spine not as rigid, yet her curious expression remained. “No. I was born and raised in Mulberry—about six hours south of here. This is the first time I’ve ever been to these mountains.”
“But you agree…we somehow know each other.” It wasn’t a question.
“I don’t even know your name.”
I wanted to point out that I’d been convinced of knowing her prior to learning her name, but I decided against it. There was no reason to freak this girl out on her first day here, especially if I had any hope of figuring out who she was. “Drew Wheeler. Does that help?”
“Sorry,” she whispered with the slightest shake of her head, sympathy clinging to her expression. “I guess I just have one of those faces.”
That couldn’t have been it. There was nothing generic or common about her. Everything from her eye color to the dimple on her chin to her name was unique. There was no doubt in my mind that she was one of a kind. And I refused to think otherwise. “I don’t know what it is, but there’s something familiar about you.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.” A smirk tugged at one corner of her mouth, and humor lightened her tone. She jerked her chin in a silent gesture toward the lake, keeping her gaze steadily on me. “So are you going to tell me about this town beneath Lake Bennett?”
I cringed and sucked in air through clenched teeth. “You should probably know that we don’t refer to it as that around here.”
Her face pinched in doubt, but she didn’t argue. “Then what’s it called?”
“Crowe’s Lake,” I said with pride.
She shrugged, and it was the first time since I walked up to her that she showed any sign of timidness. “It’s not my fault that I don’t know that. I wanted to take the boat tour, the one that takes you out on the lake and gives you the history of it all, but when I went to sign up, it was sold out.”
“Yeah, that one fills up fast this time of year. The boat is small and only runs twice a day. This is our busiest week with it being the Fourth of July and all, so we typically book up quickly.” We ran into this issue every single year. We only had so much room, and it didn’t make sense to spend money on another boat just to accommodate this one specific week.
McKenna smiled, though it was clear as day that it was to hide her disappointment. However, she didn’t seem to let it get to her. Instead, her attention wandered toward the water softly lapping against the dock below us. “So, Drew…what can you tell me about Crowe’s Lake?”
I smirked at her correction and the emphasis she used while my stomach did somersaults at the sound of my name on her lips. “This whole area used to be well-known for its agriculture. It had a lot of land for farming, and with the river running by it, it was a pretty popular place for fishing too. But between the mid-fifties and late sixties, the town grew smaller and smaller, meaning it produced less and less. Its popularity had dwindled until it could barely sustain itself, and eventually, most of the residents moved away, choosing to live in busier, more developed cities.”
“Why?”
I usually hated it when someone interrupted my explanation, yet for some reason, it didn’t bother me when McKenna cut me off to ask questions. “Things change, I guess. Farming is a hard job, lots of manual labor, and I wouldn’t be surprised if people got tired of sweating for pennies when they could sit in an office and make two, three, maybe four times the amount of money.”
“So they just turned it into a lake because everyone moved away?”
I laughed to myself and shook my head. “No. In the early seventies, the major power company in the area—in conjuncture with the surrounding cities—bought the land to use as a hydroelectric reservoir. They built two dams, redirected part of the river to run through the valley, and flooded Chogan.”
She stared at the water, as if she could see to the bottom. During the day, that would’ve been possible, though now, without any sunlight, she would have been lucky to see her own reflection. “That must’ve taken forever to clear it all out.”
“Not really. They more or less skipped that part.” The first explosion of color brightened her face, giving away her disbelief. It swam through me and lit a fire in my stomach, a desire to make this night last as long as I could. “They made sure the people were gone, but they didn’t do anything about the buildings or landmarks. In fact, if you dive down, you can still find houses and abandoned buildings. There’s even a school bus.”
“A school bus? As in just one?” She must’ve found this incredibly fascinating, because she didn’t pay any attention to the fireworks exploding over her head, or the fact that her foot was still resting in my lap, my hand covering the smooth skin on her leg. It was as if sitting in this position was completely normal for us. Like we’d done this dozens of times before. “Why would there be only one?”
“I can’t really answer that. Some say, by that point, the town was so small and grossly underpopulated that there wasn’t a need for more than one bus. Others say it was an oversight and somehow got left behind. There’s no way of knowing since anyone who lived here back then is either dead or long gone from the area.”
“Interesting.” Excitement shadowed the corners of her eyes. “What else is down there?”
“For probably a year after the flood, random artifacts floated to the surface. Fishermen, along with workers and some of the first people to build houses along the water, had handed them over, so we have the majority of what was found; it’s all displayed in the main house. You’ll have to stop by sometime this week. It’s nothing special—basically, a stuffed animal, pictures, random things that were left behind and either floated to the surface or were washed ashore by the current. There are still a lot of things on the bottom, and that’s where they’ll stay.”
/> “So if you go down there, can you, like, swim inside the houses?”
“No. Most were wiped out when the flood started, especially the ones closest to the river opening. There are areas in the deeper part of the lake that still have standing structures, although you wouldn’t want to go in them. But other landmarks are still visible, such as the cemetery. Did you know that the graves were never dug up, so some people believe the lake is haunted?”
“Is that what you believe?”
Slowly, I raked my short nails along her calf, feeling her powdery-soft skin beneath my fingertips. I’d told the lake’s history so many times it was nothing more than a memorized story, but this time was different. I wanted to tell her things I’d grown up hearing—the in-depth stories you wouldn’t get from anyone who hadn’t lived it. And while I contemplated just how much to give her, I ran my palm over the top of her foot.
“I believe there’s a haunting presence to the lake, but I don’t think it has anything to do with the deceased buried in the cemetery.” My voice deepened and scratched my throat, sounding as if I were about to choke on my words. “I personally believe it’s more of a curse.”
Just then, several large bursts of color exploded in rapid succession above us, reflecting off the surface of the lake. I glanced up to watch the light dance among the stars in the darkening sky, but as soon as I turned back to McKenna, I noticed her attention glued to my face.
“You might want to watch the show.” I pointed to the explosions of red and blue. “It doesn’t last very long.”
She hesitated for a moment, and I couldn’t help but feel like she wanted to say something but stopped herself. A slow-forming smile curled her lips, and her lids grew heavy. Her soft hand fell to my leg that I’d stretched out next to her, the heat of her palm scorching my bare skin. But she kept it there and lifted her gaze, locking her stare with mine.
I wanted to etch the sight into my memory, the image itself so serene it sent a calming wave straight through me.
There was something about her.
An inexplicable pull.