Love in Maine

by Connie Falconeri

  “How insane?” Hank asked quietly.

  “Fifty thousand dollars of insane.”

  Hank coughed to cover his disbelief. “Your brother is going to pay you fifty thousand dollars to be a normal person for three months?”

  Maddie burst out laughing. “Well . . . yeah . . . when you put it like that it’s even more ridiculous. But, yes, that’s pretty much the crux of it.” She kicked the dirt at her feet again then lifted her eyes to his. “And he’s not giving the fifty thousand to me. He’s going to have to give it to some worthwhile charity . . . I’ll think of something good.”

  Hank stayed quiet and Maddie started to question why she had told him at all. She tried to stuff the realization that she wanted him to know everything about her. She wanted to open herself to this guy in a way she had never wanted to open up to anyone.

  “You think I’m ridiculous.” She said it with a quiet resignation, as if all the grit and heart she was trying to prove she had was never going to be enough to earn the respect of Hank Gilbertson.

  “I don’t think you’re ridiculous, Maddie.” She had started to turn away and he pulled her back with a gentle hold on her upper arm. “Come on.” He pulled her into a quick hug, then released her. “I still wish you had a cell phone, though . . . it’s not safe.”

  Maddie held his gaze. She might have been five inches shorter, but she was not going to be the one to lose this battle of the wills. Hank finally relaxed his shoulders. “This is such a bad idea, but okay.”

  “Good!” Maddie’s smile beamed, and he had a hard time staying irritated with her. She was too damned cheerful.

  “Moderately good,” Hank added.

  “Okay, fine. Moderately good!” But she said it with all the enthusiasm she felt.

  She loved camping.

  A few hours later, she conceded that he was right about the portaging. He had rigged up his canoe with some sort of head strap thing and he carried it like an African woman might carry water from a well. When the paths were wide enough, she walked beside him, but for the most part she stayed behind him and enjoyed the incredible smells and textures and sights all around them.

  Despite her initial excitement and enthusiasm, Maddie had calmed. She’d always loved the woods and found it settling and reassuring on some deep level to just walk through tall trees or paddle through quiet lakes.

  By two o’clock she was starving.

  “Hey, can I have one of the sandwiches? We don’t need to stop.”

  Hank had been leading them through some old path that was apparently one of his childhood favorites. No one was anywhere in view or within earshot. She had a momentary flutter of fear—who the hell was this guy anyway, and what was she doing with him alone in the middle of nowhere? It wasn’t even the middle of nowhere. Blake was the middle of nowhere. This was like a three-hour drive and a two-hour hike from the middle of nowhere.

  He tipped the canoe over and set it down easily on the ground in the small clearing. “We can stop. I’m hungry, too, and my neck could use a rest.”

  “Okay.” Maddie peeled off her backpack, the hot, sweaty T-shirt and skin beneath cooling as soon as the air made contact. “Man, that feels good.”

  “We’re almost there. It’s worth the hike.”

  “Hey. You’re funny.”

  Hank pulled out two of the peanut butter sandwiches he’d made that morning and handed one to Maddie. “Bon appétit.”

  “Are you fluent in French as well as Epictetus?”

  “Very funny.”

  She sat cross-legged on the ground, then looked up at him and used the back of her hand to push a strand of chestnut hair out of her eyes. “Are you going to sit down?”

  “Wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Okay.” She opened the ziplock bag and took a grateful bite of the sandwich. “Yum!” she moaned around the food. “What is this?”

  He liked the sound of her satisfaction. “Secret ingredients.”

  “It’s awesome. Don’t you love how food tastes outside? Why is that? Food just tastes better outside.” She took a swig off her water bottle and then another bite of the sandwich. “Honey?” she said through a mouth full of food.

  Hank nodded and watched her eat. Her mouth was the worst. The best worst. Totally distracting. He couldn’t really look at her because he kept staring at her lips and not listening to what she was saying. And despite his devil’s advocacy in the truck, at base he agreed with her that thinking it was ever cut-and-dried to have sex with someone and never think about it (or them) again wasn’t really his style.

  She popped the last bite into her mouth and wrapped her lips around her index finger to get the last crumbs. “Yum! That was just the best. Thank you.” She slapped her hands on her thighs and then stood up. “Are you going to eat yours?”

  Hank looked down and realized he was still holding his sandwich in his right hand, the bag unopened.

  “Now that you’re done watching me eat mine?” The witch gave him a saucy wink and wandered deeper into the forest. “Nature calls! I’ll be back in five!”

  And she was gone. His immediate response was a little patter of panic. He hated that she didn’t have a cell phone. He would have brought his walkie-talkies if she hadn’t been such an airhead and had remembered to tell him before they’d driven the full three hours. He’d heard all sorts of stories about how disoriented people could get in the woods. The slant of the light, the trick of the shadows: it could all wreak havoc on even the most accomplished outdoorsman. Hank had orienteered in all of these woods and wasn’t worried, but Maddie was so easily distracted, what if she—

  “Hey. Why do you look so serious? And eat your sandwich already. I want a swim.”

  Oh, Jesus. Just what he needed. He was almost certain he hadn’t spotted a bathing suit when she was transferring her clothes from her duffle into his backpack. She was going to go all Hero and Leander on him. He scowled at the idea of having to watch her nubile body pulling effortlessly through the steely blue lake water, then ate his sandwich in a few unsatisfactory gulps.

  “You don’t lie. This is awesome.” Maddie dropped her bag.

  “Almost there” had meant another forty-five minutes through the forest. Her body was warm and humming.

  “Do you want to canoe for a bit now?” Hank asked.

  “Shouldn’t we set up camp first?”

  “We can, but it stays light up here for ages. Hours more.”

  “Oh. Okay. Then sure, let’s get the canoe in the water already.”

  They were on the edge of a huge lake that wove through a series of gently sloping hills. “Are those mountains?”

  “I guess they once were. They’ve worn down over time. I think they’re Devonian.”

  “You think they’re what?”

  “Devonian.” He pronounced it slowly, each syllable overly accented.

  “What the heck is Devonian?”

  “It was about halfway through the Paleozoic Era. About four hundred million years ago. Give or take.”

  “Do you just keep stuff like that in your brain?”

  He shrugged. “I tend to remember dates.”

  Maddie laughed and it sang out onto the lake and rose clear above them. “Four hundred million years of dates? That’s a lot to remember.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  She stopped smiling. Completely. “What? No.” She looked at the ground. “I like you.” She looked back up to look at him. “Why would I want to make you feel bad?”

  God. Damn. It. Hank wasn’t sure how many more of these gut-piercing truths he was going to be able to stand. Yes, Hank. Good question. Why would you want to make someone feel bad? Who would do such a thing, Hank? Hmm? You would.

  He took a deep breath. “Sorry. Forget it. Let’s get in the canoe. This’ll be great.”

  But it wasn’t. It wasn’t great at all. Because if there was one thing Maddie could bring to the party it was her share of endurance and upper body strength, and she pulled too h
ard on her strokes.

  “Cut it out!” Hank finally called out.

  “You cut it out!” Maddie snapped back. “I keep trying to go on the opposite side from where you’re going so we can keep heading in one direction and then you switch sides and I feel like we are going to go in circles so I switch sides and then you do it again! Just pick a side already!”

  This did not bode well. If she was this bossy in a boat, Hank could only imagine how bossy she’d be in bed.

  “Why don’t I just sit here in the back and let you paddle for a while, Post?”

  “Good idea,” she said on a huff and began pulling them along at a steady clip toward the far end of the lake.

  Hank sat with the paddle resting across his thighs and stared at her back and her hips. He was momentarily tempted to set down his paddle and do something about the aching pull that was starting to gather in his lap. Maybe letting her take charge wasn’t such a bad idea. In the boat or in the bed, he thought, then smiled because he felt like a Dr. Seuss character.

  “Are you laughing at me?” she asked, without looking over her shoulder.

  “I didn’t make a sound.”

  “I know. But I can sort of feel you smiling back there.”

  “I’m happy. What else do you want me to do?”

  She held up the dripping paddle and they coasted quietly through the water. Maddie turned her head slowly so she could look at him over her right shoulder. “You’re happy?”

  “You don’t have to sound so surprised, you know?”

  “Okay. I’ll try not to sound surprised. I know we only met a week ago, but you didn’t strike me as the happy type.” She had turned back and resumed paddling. “More grudgingly accepting than happy, I’d say.”

  “How miserable. Is that how I seem?” It was easier talking to her straining back, probably because he didn’t have to see her curved lips. She shrugged, and he liked the way the movement pulled her T-shirt up so he could see the skin at the small of her back.

  “How should I know? It’s not like you set your emotions out on a platter.”

  He laughed a little. “Now that’s probably true.”

  She smiled over her shoulder and winked. “I’m not a total airhead.”

  He didn’t think he had actually called her an airhead out loud, but he felt guilty for thinking it just the same.

  “Should I start paddling back to camp?”

  “Probably. I’ll need to go catch dinner.”

  “Oh, how primitive. I love it. Did you bring a bow and arrow? Are you a trapper?” She kept paddling, and he had the wonderful vision of being a trapper, in another time, with his little Sacagawea guiding him through the wilderness.

  “Nothing so heroic. Just a fishing rod.”

  “Oh. Well, I suppose a girl has to make allowances.” She kept pulling the canoe with strong, confident strokes.

  “You’re good with the paddle.”

  “Thanks.”

  The silence of their voices let the sounds of the lake blossom around them: the gentle slap of the water against the edge of the canoe, the little brushes of noise near the shore, the occasional loon crying out for his mate. It was beautiful in that spiritually calming way that Maddie only found in these rare moments of pure, deep silence. “Thanks,” she repeated, in a reverent whisper this time.

  “You’re welcome,” Hank said with a gentle nod to the sloping hills in the distance. He was glad he’d brought her here.

  CHAPTER 6

  The lake was so remote and so full of fish, they caught four in ten minutes. They didn’t really catch them, Hank did, and he held them up by their gills and taunted her. “You know how to clean these?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “As a matter of fact I do.” She took the fish from him and made a bed of leaves. She set them down carefully on the makeshift tray and took out her Swiss Army knife. Hank stared, probably waiting for her to screw it up, she thought skeptically. “Part of no-girls-on-trip training. Worms. Fish. Squirrels. Pheasants. You name it, I had to gut it.”

  “That might be the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Maddie looked up and blew that strand out of her eyes again. “Ew. Why would that ever in a million years be sexy?”

  Hank rinsed his hands in the lake, then walked over to their packs and started to undo the tent bag. “I don’t know, maybe some caveman response to you being able to feed me.” He pounded his chest twice with his fist.

  She kept looking at him and the obvious turn of her thoughts from gutting fish to having him do something crude and caveman-like to her body crackled between them. He kept staring at her. Maybe now that they’d made it through the Nemean Lion of a three-hour drive without her asking for a pit stop, and the Lernean Hydra of portaging, and the Ceryneian Hind of canoeing, and now the Augean Stables of fish-gutting—just maybe they could skip right ahead to the part where Hercules is granted immortality, forgiveness, and a bride in the bargain. A weekend bride.

  “What are you thinking about?” Hank asked. He was driving the tent stakes into the ground with a small hammer and not looking at her.

  “The Twelve Labors of Hercules.”

  “Of course you are.”

  She smiled and kept her attention on the fish. Maddie had already removed the heads and tails, cleaned all the guts, sliced off the little fins, and deboned them to splay them out into filets the way she liked.

  “Did you bring a pan?” she asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Okay.” She went to the water’s edge and rinsed the cleaned pieces of fish and wrapped them up in the leaves. “I’ll be right back.”

  Hank looked up from the last tent stake and watched her amble off into the dimming forest. “Don’t go far!” he called.

  “I won’t,” she called back, her voice floating from the dense emptiness.

  She returned several minutes later with a few long sticks, then proceeded to sit on a rock by the edge of the lake and whittle the bark off the ends of a few of the sticks. Then she created eight shorter sticks, smooth and sharp. She retrieved the fish and pierced them, creating two perpendicular pieces that fit neatly into the end of the longer stick. When put together, the whole thing became a rough-hewn frame into which each of the filets was elegantly secured. When she was finished she stood all four sticks in the soft ground. “Bon appétit!”

  “I have to say, I’m impressed, Post.”

  “Thanks, Gilbertson.”

  She looked down at her hands and her dusty self. “Do you mind if I go for a swim?”

  It was turning into a gorgeous early evening, the purples and oranges of the sky beginning to rise up from the horizon to crowd out the piercing blue of the late afternoon sky.

  “Sure. I guess.” He stood staring at her.

  “Want to come?”

  His stomach coiled tight. Did he want to come? Was she joking? He honestly didn’t know. If she was joking, that is.

  “Sure. I’ll swim.”

  “Awesome!” She reached for her backpack and he thanked everything that was holy when she whipped out a bikini.

  “Back in a flash!” She jogged off into the forest again and was back a couple minutes later looking as hard and ready as an Olympic swimmer on the starting block.

  “Jesus, Maddie.”

  She looked down at herself. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He scowled and pulled off his shirt, then bent down to take off his hiking boots and socks. Still in his cargo shorts, he waded a few feet into the freezing water, then dove long and elegantly across the surface and below.

  Maddie took a moment to appreciate him in his natural habitat. He was definitely meant to be in the water. His long body rose to the surface and swam with long strokes, about a hundred feet out into the lake. He turned back to face her, treading water. “It’s amazing! Get in here!” he called.

  She took it back about the happiness thing. He definitely knew how to be happy. Apparently he just had to be wet.

  She stepped onto t
he cool, wet stones at the water’s edge and then walked a few feet into the shallows. It took every bit of control she had in her to resist the urge to scream at the icy temperature.

  “Too cold for you, Post?”

  “Nope!” she cried, way too quickly. She sounded like an auctioneer yelling sold.

  “What are you waiting for?” he prodded.

  She took a deep pull of air, relaxed her shoulders, and dove in. When she came up for air, she was beyond caring. “Oh my god! This is freezing!”

  Her lips were trembling, and she swam to him as hard and fast as she could to try to raise her body temperature. “How long before we die of hypothermia?” she asked through chattering teeth, when she reached him.

  “Come here.” He pulled her hard and fast against him. His body was so warm and strong compared to the arctic deep that touched her everywhere she wasn’t touching him. He held her firmly under her arms, his arms snaking around her back. He could almost cross his forearms behind her.

  “You feel good,” he whispered.

  She reached her hands up to circle his neck. “So do you.” For some reason, she didn’t want to initiate the next move. She wanted to kiss him so badly, but all that hooker and hussy talk had gotten under her skin. Maddie wrapped her legs around his hard middle, linking her ankles together at the base of his spine. He made treading water appear effortless.

  “Am I too much?” she asked. She hadn’t meant it as a double entendre, but of course it came out that way.

  “Probably,” he said over a groan, then took her mouth in a possessive, demanding kiss.

  The freezing water swirled around them, and the warmth of his mouth and his skin seemed so hot by comparison. Maddie felt everything in the extreme: the cold of the water, the warmth of his skin, the slick welcome of his mouth. His lips started roaming down her neck, and her head dipped back into the water. His hand was there to cradle the back of her skull. He pulled her tighter against him and began to breathe harder as he kissed her neck. Hank moved his lips back up to the lobe of her ear, his legs never stopping the continuous scissoring stroke that kept them both afloat.

  “Still cold?” he whispered with a near-painful tug on her ear.