They walked to the water’s edge and Sara turned her head, looking down the shoreline. Like much of the area, the cove was bordered by two gigantic granite outcroppings, which she remembered frantically paddling past to find the beach in the first place. And she’d run straight up the hill, so it couldn’t be a different place.
Zack looked at her. “Do you suppose it floated away?”
Sara paced back and forth. “No. I dragged it way up onto the beach. It’s not like there are tides on a lake.” The cat began to squirm and Sara crouched to put her down in the sand. “I dragged the canoe up here somewhere. I know it was right around here.”
Sara’s gaze followed the cat, who walked to a spot where there were drag marks in the sand. Sara ran over to the area and knelt down. “Look. Here’s where it was! Someone took it. Even the paddle and life jacket are gone.” She sat back on her heels and her shoulders slumped. “Who would do that? And why? What are we going to do?”
Zack looked down at her and put his hands on his hips. “This isn’t good.”
Sara stood up and faced him again. “No, it’s not. It’s several miles straight uphill to the road, which has virtually no traffic. I think we’re better off staying down here on the beach. If we build a fire, maybe someone will see it.”
“There’s not exactly a whole lot of boat traffic either.”
“Not now, because a storm just passed through, but tomorrow I’m sure some fishermen or recreational boaters will turn up. At some point, people will start looking for us too.”
Zack shook his head. “No one knows I’m here.”
Sara’s jaw dropped open and she clamped it shut. “You didn’t tell anyone? I have to say, your lack of preparedness is stunning. At least someone will be looking for me. I’m supposed to be back at camp right now. And my dog…oh no…my dog is at a boarding kennel. They’re going to think I’ve dumped her there.” Sara put her face in her hands. “This is awful. They’ll think I’ve abandoned Holly.”
“Hey, don’t get all upset. I’m sure your dog will be fine. Right now, I’m more worried about us. I don’t suppose you have more food in this bag of yours, do you?” He held up the dry bag. “Because I’m getting seriously hungry.”
Sara dropped her hands from her face. “Not much. I ate my sandwich. I have my emergency kit though, so I have waterproof matches and a fishing hook.”
“Yuck. I hate fish.”
“You may have to get over it, if you don’t want to starve.”
Zack’s stomach growled noisily. “I don’t suppose there are any berries or something I could eat instead?”
“I can look around for blackberries or thimbleberry, but please don’t eat anything. My first-aid kit is only stocked with things like bandages, which won’t help if you poison yourself.”
“You sure aren’t much of a laugher, are you?”
Sara was sick of this guy. What a jerk. “I have no interest in dying and your disregard for personal safety puts us both at risk.”
He raised his hands in acquiescence. “Fine, don’t get all pissy, lady. Fish is great. Just great.”
Sara sat down cross-legged in the sand with a sigh, opened her dry bag, and removed the small red case that held her emergency supplies. She unzipped it and extracted a fish hook, swivel pins, and line. “Please find a stick, tie this on it, and put a worm on the end of the hook.”
“I have to dig up a worm? With what? Do you have a teeny, tiny shovel too?”
“No.” She stood back up and handed him the fishing supplies, “Improvise. I’m going to collect wood for a fire.”
Zack stared down at the small pieces of metal in his hands with a disconsolate look. “All right. But I hate touching worms. Ick.”
Sara ignored him and walked toward the trees, followed by the cat. What a whiner. The second-graders she dealt with at Alpine Grove Elementary were more mature than Zack. Leave it to her to be marooned with a cry baby.
The little tabby meandered around through the trees behind Sara while she gathered wood. It was difficult to find any branches that weren’t completely soaked from the storm, but some twigs had been nestled deep under the huge evergreens, so they’d stayed mostly dry. The fire was likely to be smoky, which wasn’t necessarily bad, if it meant someone noticed they were here.
Sara bent to reach under a tree and smiled at the cat. “I need to give you a name. I can’t keep calling you ‘cat’ or ‘kitty,’ can I? I’m terrible at thinking up cute names. When I adopted my dog, it took me forever to finally settle on Holly. Maybe Zack is better at naming than he is at fishing. I’m not feeling too optimistic about our dinner prospects either, but you never know. Maybe he’ll surprise me.”
The cat waved her tail in agreement and circled around Sara’s legs, enjoying all the attention and conversation. Sara carried her load of twigs and sticks back down the beach, where Zack was sitting cross-legged on the sand tying fishing line to the hook.
He looked up from his task and held out the hook. “I caught myself. Maybe all this blood will help us catch a shark.”
“Sharks don’t live in lakes.”
“Maybe they’re just super rare.” He gestured toward the water. “Everyone says the Loch Ness Monster isn’t real, but does anyone really know for sure?”
Sara busied herself gathering large rocks to make a fire ring. “I’ve never been to Scotland to check.”
“I haven’t either, but you never know. We’re probably more likely to find Sasquatch here.”
“So far, all we’ve found is one small cat.”
He shook his head, yelped, and stuck his thumb in his mouth. “My fingers are too uncoordinated to deal with this tiny fishing crap.”
“Why don’t you go collect more rocks and I’ll tie the line?” Sara took the hook from him carefully and looked at it. A fly fisherman would weep at the tangled mess Zack had made. She pointed at an area down the beach. “There are a bunch of big rocks over there.”
Zack wandered off down the beach and Sara sat down. She rummaged around in her emergency kit for the multi-tool so she could cut out the knot in the line. After removing the mess, she neatly retied the line with the swivel pin and attached the other end to a twig.
Zack returned with an armload of rocks and dropped them in a pile in front of her. She pointed back down the beach. “Thank you. Please go get more.” Thank goodness she was a teacher and used to bossing around recalcitrant children.
She stood up and walked down to the water’s edge, followed by the cat. Fishing with such rudimentary equipment was probably going to be a long, boring, and ultimately unsuccessful activity, but she had to try. She walked along the beach, looking for a likely fish habitat or any unsuspecting fish swimming near the shore. A rocky area with a large tree growing near the shoreline had a few underwater weeds where fish might like to hide. She dug around in the dirt under the tree, found a worm, and jammed the unlucky fellow onto the hook.
Standing up on the rock outcropping, she threw the line into the water and sat down on a massive piece of granite to wait. The cat curled up in her lap, apparently having figured out that this project might take a while.
After dumping another load of rocks on the pile for the campfire, Zack walked down the beach to join her and settled in next to her. “Any bites?”
“Not yet. Fishing requires a lot of patience.”
“I’m not particularly good at being patient.”
“Why does this not surprise me?” Sara glanced at his face. Behind the thick lashes, his gray eyes had a darker ring around the iris. He might be somewhat handsome when he wasn’t disgustingly sweaty and filthy. She wriggled the line, hoping to entice a slow-moving fish. “I had an idea to keep you entertained while we wait though.”
He raised his dark eyebrows at her suggestively. “Oh really?”
“Help me name this cat. If she’s going to follow me around everywhere, I need to call her something.”
“I guess ‘get lost fuzzball’ wasn’t working?”
“I don’t know. What are you supposed to call a lost feral cat?”
“She doesn’t seem particularly feral to me. I mean look at this—she’s so adorable, all curled up here like a little angel.”
“Maybe Charlie lost one. Bosley must be bummed out too.”
“Thank you for that seventies flashback.”
“How about Feral Fawcett?”
Sara turned to look at him. “You have got to be kidding.”
“Of course, then she was replaced by Feral Ladd.”
“Spare me.”
“Farrah Fawcatt?”
“How about if you take a detour away from the Charlie’s Angels theme?”
“All right. How about Cat Benatar?”
“I already know someone named Kat whose name is confused with a musician’s.”
“Really? Sheesh, everyone’s a critic. You’re not helping me out here. Okay, how about Olivia Mewton-John?”
“Olivia is pretty.” Sara stroked the cat’s head again. “What do you think?” The cat yawned and rubbed an ear with her paw.
“She’s a cat. They aren’t big believers in answering questions, you know.”
“I suppose. I have a dog, so I don’t know much about cats. I do like Olivia though. Thank you.”
Zack placed his palms on the rocks behind him, leaned back, and stretched out his legs with a groan. “No problem. In exchange, feel free to catch something before I die of starvation.”
“There are a few chips in my dry bag.”
Zack leaped up. “Really? Why didn’t you say so? I’ll be right back.” He capered off down the beach. In addition to lots of sand, something else was on the back of his calf. What had he been up to that had gotten him so incredibly filthy? Sara watched as he dug through the bag for the prize. He popped a chip into his mouth, making faces of rapturous joy as he walked back toward her. Sitting down next to her, he handed her the plastic container. “That’s totally the best junk food ever.”
Sara ate a chip and smiled. “Being prepared isn’t all bad, you know.” The line jerked and she moved Olivia so she could stand up. “I think I’ve got one!”
Zack stood next to her observing as she pulled a rather sizable trout out of the lake. “Wow, that’s a real fish. I figured you’d end up with a minnow or something. Like one of those nasty kipper snack things that come in a can.”
“Yes, it’s surprisingly large. I’m glad it didn’t break the line.”
“Me too. I’m hungry.”
“Yes, you mentioned that before. Let’s go back and make the fire.” She pointed at the rock pile farther down the beach. “Could you scoop out a depression in the sand and then arrange all the rocks in a circle?”
“You’re kind of a taskmaster, aren’t you?”
“Would you prefer to clean the fish instead?”
He put his hands in his pockets and kicked at the sand as he walked, “Nope, not really.”
“Well then...” Sara felt deep sympathy for Zack’s mother, wherever she might be. The woman must have had an astonishing level of patience and self-control to have survived raising him.
Zack kneeled and began scooping sand and relocating rocks for the fire ring while Sara worked on preparing the fish. Cleaning fish was not high on her list of favorite activities, but it was even worse trying to clean it using the tiny multi-tool. Olivia was extremely interested in the operation and worked diligently to tidy up any stray morsels of fishy debris that might be cluttering Sara’s rocky workspace.
Cooking the fish was going to be tricky, and Sara opted for the roasted-marshmallow approach, putting pieces of fish on the ends of branches. She lit the fire with a minimum of fuss as Zack looked on quietly. He was oddly subdued, sitting in the sand with his arms wrapped around his legs.
Sara handed him a branch, deftly dodging Olivia’s eager paws. “I think Olivia would like dinner too, so you may have a bit of competition.”
Taking the branch, he moved his arm away from his shin and Sara’s eyes widened at the long gash on the back of his calf. It wasn’t dirt…it was dried blood. That wound had to be extremely painful.
Zack looked down at the cat. “Go away. I’m bigger than you are.”
Olivia sauntered back to Sara, since she was obviously more amenable to sharing. Everyone sat and stared at the fire as the smell of roasting fish swirled through the air.
Sara coughed slightly and glanced at Zack. “I didn’t notice that cut on your leg. When did that happen? I should clean that up for you so it doesn’t get infected. As I said, I have a first-aid kit with me.”
“I guess.” He rubbed his leg and glanced at the blood on his fingertips. “Gross. Yeah, it kinda hurts more now that I’m sitting here and not moving around anymore. The fire feels good. I think I might actually dry out someday.”
“That’s good, because when the sun disappears behind those hills, it’s going to get a lot colder.” Sara ate her piece of fish and bent to rummage through her dry bag. “I think I threw an emergency Mylar blanket in here when I grabbed the first-aid kit. That might help.”
Zack moaned and leaned forward, putting his forehead on his knees. “I can’t believe I’m going to be stuck here tonight.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it. At least we have food. I’ll look for some black caps before it gets dark.”
“Black caps?”
“Wild black raspberries. I think they might be ripe now. I’ll look around. They tend to grow at the edge of forested areas.”
Zack lifted his head and smiled. “Sounds like you have dessert all figured out.”
Sara handed him another twig with fish on it. “I hope so. It might be too late in the season, but maybe there are still a few left. They’re very flavorful.”
“I suppose you went berry-picking on your family camping trips?”
“Yes, we did! It was so much fun. Later in the summer, there are huckleberries too. My sister and I used to compete to see who could pick the most. I love huckleberries.”
“That sounds nice.”
“I guess you never went camping when you were young?”
He shook his head and stared at the fire. “I moved around a lot.”
“Did you grow up around here?”
“No. I was born in New York City, but I don’t remember much about it. Then I lived with my grandmother for a while. After she died, I ended up in the system.”
“What do you mean system? What system?”
He gestured toward the fire. “You know…child protective services. The department of family services? Foster care? That whole system.”
“Oh, I see.” As a teacher, Sara had met a few kids in foster care, and sometimes they were sensitive about talking about their past. Given the expression on his face, Zack didn’t look thrilled by the turn in the conversation. Asking about the present was probably a better idea. “So you know I’m an elementary school teacher. What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a business consultant.”
Sara wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. “Do you help people start businesses?”
“Usually I work with existing businesses to help them solve a problem they’re having.”
“Like what?”
“Sometimes their products aren’t selling, management is a mess, production or operations is costing them too much, manufacturing or supplier snafus.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Or a bunch of other stuff. I analyze the company to figure out what’s wrong, but it could be anything. Businesses can screw up in a thousand ways.”
“I suppose so.” Sara’s business knowledge was virtually zero, so she’d take his word for it.
Zack put a piece of fish in his mouth and grimaced. “I can’t believe I’m eating fish and I don’t hate it. I’m trying to pretend it’s a Filet-O-Fish, all breaded and greasy straight from the drive-through.”
“I get the impression you have spent a lot of time eating fast food.” Sara smiled at him. “But this fish is good, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. The fact that I’m starving helps the flavor. Thanks for dealing with the fish guts.”
Sara ate the last of her fish and threw the sticks and bones into the fire. She stood up and held her hands out in front of her. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to rinse off my hands and then I’d like to take a look at your leg.”
Zack had his hand wrapped around his calf and looked up at her. “What do you mean look? You’re supposed to go get dessert. My leg is fine.”
“The way you have been gripping your calf, I can tell it is hurting you.” She smiled. “I’m a former nurse, remember?”
“All right. But I want those berries.”
Sara went down to the beach, splashed her hands around in the water, and detoured up toward the trees, looking for any likely berry canes. She found a cache, gobbled a few berries, and cupped a few in her hand to take back to Zack.
She walked to the campfire and held out a berry. “Have a black cap.”
Zack took the berry and popped it into his mouth. “Not as good as the junk food, but better than the fish.”
Sara sat down next to him, took his hand, turned it up, and dumped the rest of the berries into it. “Now please let me see your leg.”
Zack threw the berries into his mouth and contorted himself so his leg was stretched out behind him. “It’s just a scrape.”
Sara examined the wound, which was surprisingly deep. “How on earth did you get such a horrible cut?” She bent over and swept away some sand. “I spent time in emergency rooms and you see a lot of knife wounds there from kitchen accidents and so forth.” She paused and looked at his face. “Would you like to tell me how you managed to get cut with a knife?”
He jerked his leg. “Ow! That hurts. Whatever you’re doing, don’t.”
Sara sat back on her heels and stroked his ankle gently. “I’m sorry. Let me get some stuff from my bag and I’ll clean it and put on a bandage. I also should put in a couple of stitches.”
Zack pulled his leg away from her. “I don’t need stitches. And I don’t want stitches. Are you nuts?”
The Treasure of the Hairy Cadre (An Alpine Grove Romantic Comedy Book 8) Page 4