by Geena Maxon
The enticing aroma of the heated braciola filled the hallway as I carried the container back to the office from the lunchroom. I also brought two paper plates plus plastic forks and knives. Not elegant, but serviceable. “Smells great,” I said.
“Maybe I should have brought a bottle of wine,” Gregg said.
“Don’t need wine,” I told him. “You got me with the braciola.”
The food was as delicious as he’d said it was, and we both dug into it. At the end of the lunch there was one braciola left in the container, and after each of us insisted that the other have it, we agreed to split it. “You see,” he said, placing half on my plate, “we can come to a friendly decision, after all.”
“Are we going to spoil this treat with merger talk?” I said. I was in truly good spirits by this time, and didn’t feel like delving into anything troublesome.
“No, no, no. Absolutely nothing like that. That’s not why I’m here.” He shoved the trash from our lunch back into the brown bag they came in, then deposited the whole package into my wastebasket. He looked at me, waiting for me to respond. Then, “Aren’t you going to ask me why I came?”
“Why should I ask? You’re going to tell me, anyway.”
He smiled. Beautiful white teeth. Full,sensual mouth. When I’d met him yesterday, I didn’t care. Now I was beginning to care. “I’m here because I know I made an awful impression last night,” he said, “and I was afraid I’d sunk our relationship before it ever got started.”
“Relationship?” I said. “I didn’t know we had a relationship.”
“There I go getting pushy again. What I mean to say is the relationship I hope we can have.”
“More than as a merger partner, you mean.”
“Forget about a merger. I want to know you, merger or no.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, you like good food.”
“Don’t forget the wine,” I said.
“The wine was from last night. We’ve turned that page. We’re starting all over, from today.”
“Okay.”
“Look, Kit, I like you because you’re real people. And I haven’t known anyone real in a long time. You’re special. You say what you think. You’re pretty and smart and funny and I like the sound of your voice and the way your hair flows over your shoulders.”
That’s a line that could win an Academy Award, I thought. But I didn’t say it. Because on some deep level, I wanted it all to be true. What I did say was, “You’re very kind to say those things.”
“I was hoping we could spend some time together. I’m going fishing tomorrow, and I’d like you to come with me.”
“Fishing? I’ve never been fishing in my life.”
“No problem. I’ll show you how. I have a cabin on Wiley Lake, and a little boat with a motor. It was all Dad's. He left it to me. Pretty rustic, but also very beautiful. It’s only an hour’s drive. We can spend the day on the water. The whole weekend is supposed to be perfect weather. Please say you’ll come with me.”
Fishing. A cabin at the lake, an hour from home. A boat out on the water. I’d be trapped for the day with the man Pa had told me to be wary of, who had a risky plan he was trying to sell, and who had a suspicious reputation. But he was also the man who was beginning to stir a hunger in me, despite my concerns.
“Sounds like fun,” I said.
What the hell, Kit. Take a chance.
CHAPTER 7
Gregg picked me up early the next morning, and though he was all smiles, he said very little as we drove, which surprised me. By 9:30 we arrived at his cabin, the last half mile or so on a dirt road off the highway.
It was a log cabin in a clearing, right out of a storybook. You almost expected to see a young Abe Lincoln come walking out the door. There were two steps leading to a tiny porch under an overhang of the roof, and a stone chimney running up one side of the cabin. Inside, it was all one big room, except for a tiny bathroom with a narrow door, built into one corner. Four bunk beds were pushed against a wall, and in the center of the room was a rustic wood table, with five mismatched chairs. “As someone once remarked: all the comforts of home.” Gregg said. “Electricity, genuine well water, fireplace, and an indoor john.”
“This really is isolated,” I said. “This is the only cabin I see.”
“There are more, down the road a little farther. Dad bought up a big piece of the shoreline during the depression, when land was amazingly cheap. He didn’t have money left to build a real house here, so he put up this cabin, and said he’d build something bigger when he had more to spend. Somehow, he never got around to it.” He unloaded a cooler from the trunk of his car and brought it to the cabin. “Lunch,” he said. “We’ll come back here to eat. By noon we’ll want to get out of the sun for a while.”
The boat was tied up to a dock on the lake. Gregg hooked the hose from a red gas tank to the engine, loaded the fishing gear, and two seat cushions. “The seats in the boat get hard after the first hour,” he said. He held up what looked like a small candy box, only it wasn’t filled with candy. “Night crawlers. Worms. The bass love ‘em. Don’t worry, I’ll bait the hook for you.”
“Very generous, Mr. Monsell, but I’ll do it myself. Just show me how.”
“It’s a deal,” he said. He helped me into the boat, undid the lines to the dock, and tinkered for a moment with the outboard motor. Then he yanked the starter rope a few times, and the engine sputtered into life, then ran smoothly. We swung around toward open water and motored smoothly out into Wiley Lake.
There wasn’t a ripple on the water. The air was fresh and crisp. It smelled like orange blossoms and marigolds and freshly mown grass, all mixed together. It was glorious just to be there, gliding along, with only the sound of the motor intruding on the scene. I was sitting near the front of the boat, facing ahead. I turned to look at Gregg. He sat next to the motor, steering the boat. He was smiling at me. I smiled back.
After a ten minute ride, he stopped the boat and lowered the anchor, a metal bucket filled with concrete, over the side. “This is where the big ones are,” he said. Then, “I hope.”
“How do you know?” I said. “All the water looks the same from the top.”
“Because I’m a wizard. I’ll call those big bass forth from the deep. They wait for me right here, you know. They’ll come to the surface, see it’s me, and jump into the boat.”
More bluster from him, I thought, but in fun. “No, really.”
“Oh, you want really? Why didn’t you say so? Here’s the truth, really. I’ve caught big bass right where we are now, about a hundred yards offshore, straight out from that big rock in the shallows there. The bottom drops off below us out here, and the fish head into the colder water when the weather gets hot.”
“I’m impressed. How do you know all these things?”
“A lifetime of study. Also, I’ve been fishing in this lake since I was a kid.”
“What kind of kid were you, Gregg? I said.
He baited his hook while I watched, impaling the worm, then winding it around the hook. “Interesting question. I was a holy terror. Snippy to adults, always spoiling for a fight with other kids. Not afraid of anything. My father died when I was eight, and my mother never disciplined me. I didn’t become a genuine human being till I got into high school. Played baseball. Ran track. Discovered that girls were different from boys.”
I threaded a big, juicy worm on my hook the way Gregg had done. “I’m sure you know about your reputation around town,” I said.
“As a bad boy, you mean? When I was younger I was proud of that. In my mind I was a big deal. All the kids thought I was some kind of stud.”
“Were you?”
“Not really. Let’s just say my reputation was more exciting than my real life.” He put bobber floats on our fishing lines about six feet above the hooks and we tossed them into the water. “You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?”
“Just one more, I promise. Tell m
e, are you still a bad boy?”
“I’m different now, Kit.” He looked at me thoughtfully, the smile slowly fading from his face. “I’m older, and I’ve seen things. On the front lines in Iraq, and then in Afghanistan, it changes you. You can never be the same person again. Seeing people die all around you, it gives you different values, a different way of looking at the world. The things that used to be important to me aren’t any more. “
“What’s important to you now?” I said.
“I find myself in charge of a company I know very little about. To do right for myself and all those people who work for me, I need help. I need an anchor in my life.”
“Anchor? Really? Am I here to audition for that role?” I was sorry as soon as I said it. It was thoughtless and mean. I thought, here’s this gorgeous guy baring his soul to me, and I’m being a bitch. Again.
But if he was offended, he didn’t show it. He laughed. “Only if you want to be,” he said. “You said you’d ask one more question, and you’ve asked three. My turn now.”
“Ask me anything,” I said. Then, stealing a line from Uncle Aaron, "My life is an open book.” That’s what I told him, but I knew there were chapters of my life I wouldn’t share with Gregg or anyone. At least not yet.
“Have you ever been in love? I mean, deeply in love?”
“You don’t beat about the bush, do you?” I said.
“I’m just trying to know you better, to understand you. Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”
“No, I’ll tell you. There have been, let’s say, certain episodes that might qualify as love.”
“Don’t you know for sure?”
“I don’t. Relationships puzzle me. How do you tell if there’s something earth-shaking going on, or if it’s just an immature attraction that draws people to each other? If you can’t tell one from the other, you can make some monumental mistakes”
“You’re very cautious, then.”
While I was thinking how to get out of the verbal corner into which I’d backed myself, Gregg pointed to my bobber, now jiggling on the calm water. “There’s a nibble,” he said. The bobber disappeared below the surface. “You’ve got a bite. Pull your rod up sharply to pull on the line and make sure he’s hooked, then start reeling in. That’s it. Don’t give him any slack in the line. You’ve got him. Keep reeling.”
Now I could see the fish, struggling furiously, break the water ten feet from the boat. “Now what do I do?” I said.
“Get him over here, close to the boat.” Gregg made his way toward the bow, bringing a net. “That’s a very nice small-mouth bass you have there.” He reached over the side of the boat and dipped the net into the water to grab the fish. But suddenly my line went slack, and the fish was gone.
“What happened?” I said. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you did everything exactly right,” he said. “It’s just that sometimes the fish wins. Don’t feel bad. You’ll get another one.”
I laughed. “Maybe I’ll get the same one again.”
“Probably not,” he said. “Your know what they say, ‘Once hooked, twice shy.’”
“That doesn’t just go for fish. It’s the same for people.”
He was sitting next to me now, his arms touching mine. “Does that mean you’ve been hooked, before?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“My mistake,” he said. His face was squarely in front of me, and close to mine. I had the feeling that if I were to lean toward him, just half an inch, he would take it as an invitation to kiss me. And I would kiss him back. The temptation was overwhelming. We had covered a lot of emotional ground in just a few days. I liked how he looked, and how he spoke, and the way he made me feel. But I didn’t lean toward him, and nothing happened. Just as well, I thought. I’m still not sure what Gregg Monsell truly wants from me. Go slow. Be careful.
He was wrong about catching another fish. Both our bobbers floated placidly on the surface, without any sign of fish nosing around our baits below. Our discussion of relationships ended for the time being. Gregg didn’t press me on the subject of romance, much to my relief. After a half hour with no nibbles, we motored to a different spot, but our luck was no better. The noon sun rose in the sky, now directly overhead, and there was no breeze. We decided to escape the heat, and returned to the dock, eager to get to the cold sodas and sandwiches in the cooler.
We decided to wait until late afternoon, when Gregg said the bass would come close to the shallows near the shore to dine on the bugs that ventured onto the water from the tall grasses. And there was often a breeze that came up, he said, to drive away the heat.
But we didn’t get to fish any more. Gregg took me on a tour of the property, lovely woods that extended along the shore on both sides of the cabin. We saw chipmunks and squirrels, and even a red fox who didn’t seem to be afraid of us. “I keep getting offers from people who want to buy pieces of this property,” Gregg said. “Everybody wants frontage on the lake, but there isn’t much left, and what there is costs plenty. I have nearly six hundred feet. But I promised Dad I'd never sell. And I’ll never clear the trees. I’ll keep these woods just as they are.”
We went back to the cabin, which was sheltered by tall oak trees, and still cool inside. Gregg made a pot of coffee on a kerosene camp stove, and we started eating our sandwiches as we talked. Gradually, as we told each other more about ourselves, I sensed a change in the man. Until now, Gregg had been guarded, holding back, never revealing all of what he truly felt and what he wanted. Now he was telling me not only about his past, but about his fears.
“I was on night patrol with my men, and we heard noises in the darkness. There were enemy snipers waiting for us. There was a shot, just one single shot, and my sergeant fell dead. They got him right in the forehead. I moved the men into the rubble of a bombed-out building, not knowing how we were going to get out. We were pinned down there for an hour. Finally, I decided the only way out was to take the offensive. There was a big firefight. We killed a couple, and drove the rest away. Believe me, I was scared. We were all scared."
“I didn’t think you'd be afraid of anything,” I said.
“Any soldier who says he’s not afraid is lying. War is full of fear.”
On and on we talked, about books, schools, movies, politics, even our craziest dreams and fantasies. Everything under the sun — except the possibility of merging our two companies. That would have broken the spell. The conversation grew mellow and beguiling. We couldn’t stop, and the hours simply melted away.
I connected completely with Gregg, and he to me.. It was as though we were the only two people in the face of the earth, alone in the woods, with only each other for companionship and comfort.
Our coffee grew cold and the sandwiches remained half-eaten. Gregg looked at his watch. “It’s five-thirty. The fish may be hungry by now,” he said. “Should we try to catch some?”
Catching fish was about the last thing on my mind now. “Seems a shame to drown those worms. We could let them go.”
“We could do that.” Gregg stood, holding his hand out to me. I took it, and he lifted me to my feet. “Kit, I know you’re a strong-willed woman, and I don’t want to make you angry, but there’s something I have to ask you.”
“What is it?”
“I have this overwhelming urge to kiss you.” He grinned at me. “Would you mind?”
Don’t give him a smart-ass reply, I thought. He wants to kiss you, and you want to be kissed. “Actually, I’d love to kiss you,” I told him. For me, that was a pretty good answer — not sarcastic, and totally truthful.
Gregg stepped closer to me, and then we were touching. He was so tall. I turned my face up, inviting him. I felt his arms enfolding me, his hands on my back tracing the lines of my shoulder blades with his fingers. Slowly and gently, he drew me to him. My eyes were open. I wanted to see everything as our lips touched, softly, but with growing passion. Even in the cool of the cabin, there was no mistaking the body
heat as we tasted each other’s mouths for a long, delicious moment.
I would have remained like that for an eternity, but every kiss has an ending. Gregg parted from me. “More,” I said, and he took me again, kissing my mouth, my eyes, and with a search of his lips, finding the secret spot on my neck, just above the collarbone. It was — what’s the word? — heavenly.
We kissed again and again. I moved back a step and put my weight against the table, pressing on it with my hips, leaning backward. Gregg moved with me. His hands stroked me — up, down. Slowly, slowly. I could sense that fragrance he used — the scent of oranges and lemons.
I was on fire. He had set a flame in me, and it filled the cabin, the woods, everything, everywhere. I ran both my hands through his hair, touching his face.
Finally, catching my breath, I said, “It was cool in here, and now it’s hot. Something we did, I wonder?” It was a dumb remark, but I felt I should say something. I smiled at him so he’d know I was just trying to be funny.
“Yes,” he said, “but I heard once that some like it hot. ” He kissed me again, a quick, playful peck on the lips. “Do you?”
“Do you?” I said.
“I asked you first.”
“I like your after shave,” I said.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said. “Say, it’s so hot, why don’t we go for a swim?”
“I didn’t know we’d be swimming. I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”
“Not a problem,” he said.
“Are you suggesting we go skinny-dipping? I don’t think I’m ready for that.”
“No such thing. We just strip down to our skivvies and we swim. There isn’t that much difference between skivvies and bathing suits. Perfectly proper. We can swim off the end of the dock. Water’s is less than four feet deep.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re just trying to get my clothes off?” I said. Swimming in my panties and bra seemed like an appealing idea, but I didn’t want to sound too eager. Let him convince me.