The Carrier (The Carrier Series Book 1) by Diana Ryan Page B

The feeling of his hand sent a million tiny sparks jumping through my
hand and up my arm. I felt so ecstatic that I felt we could fly through the air
if we only took the leap. We said nothing for a few minutes until a hawk broke
the silence. It glided smoothly through the air upon its impressive wingspan
until it landed on a tree branch downriver from us.
    “Thank you for bringing me here,” Nolan said to
me as he squeezed my hand. He turned to face me and searched my face with his
beautiful eyes. “This is the best date I’ve ever been on.”
    A smile graced its way onto my face, and I
replied, “But it just got started.” I stared back at the winding river below
us. “You know, the Winnebago had their own creation story on how this river
came to be.” I looked at him and noticed his eyes willing me to go on. “They
believed a great serpent came down from the north and pushed its way through
the Wisconsin countryside. When it wiggled and slithered through the soft
sandstone, its body created the twisting riverbed and water rushed in behind
it.  Tiny snakes fled, terrified, from its path and created the small
tributaries and waterways on the Wisconsin today.”
    “Fascinating,” was all he could say. Most men
would want to move on with the date and turn to hop back into the car at this
point. But I realized that Nolan was someone special. He stayed to take in the
view, to really breathe it in and immerse himself in
this piece of nature that I truly loved. He was interested in what I was
interested in, and he really wanted to get to know me and that felt good.
     After a short while, I led him back down
the path to the car and hated to let go of his hand when we reached the door,
but he followed me over to the driver’s side and opened my door for me.
    Aw, a card-carrying member of the dying breed
of gentlemen.
    I sat down, started the car, and we jumped
forward with a jerk. I took him on the tour of the neighborhood I grew up in,
including the elementary school, high school, library, and community pool. I
asked him questions about his life and he asked about mine. A friend once told
me a first date is basically an interview, and I seemed to believe her at this
point. I guess I hadn’t really ever been on a first date before. Aaron and I
were friends before we started dating and knew a lot about each other before
the first “date” we ever went on alone.
    Soon, I parked the car at the community
baseball fields. The sun had set and the light of the moon was all that
illuminated our walkway. He took my hand again, and I led him down a grassy
path that was parallel with the train tracks. We walked hand in hand, talking
until it was time to cross the tracks. We walked carefully passed over the
tracks by some tall trees and then walked down a very steep, deep pathway out
to a flat rock cliff.
    The surface of the cliff was illuminated by the
silvery-blue moon shining down from the sky. I led Nolan to the end of the
cliff, and we looked down to the rocky beach below. I could feel him shaking as
he realized it was easily more than one hundred feet down to the rocky beach
below us. I giggled underneath my breath at his fear and backed us up a few
feet to sit down on a boulder securely resting on the top of the rocky ledge.
     Another breathtaking view of the river
stood before us. A glance to our right showed the docks where the Bailey and the other boats were sleeping quietly for the night. We were right on a
bend in the river so a look in front of us showed the point where the Ducks
entered the water at Echo Point, and further down, we could see the baby grand
piano—a rock formation that truly looked like a piano that had been tipped off
a rock cliff and landed on its side. The Wisconsin River looked much more
mysterious and magnificent by moonlight. The water was as still as glass, and a
thousand shining stars reflected off its surface from above. Nolan slid his hand
around my waist and pulled my hip in close to