The Northwoods Chronicles by Elizabeth Engstrom Page B

gave Margie a thin-lipped smile
of gratitude, then he sucked her attention back to his tanned face
and those sky-blue eyes with the snowflakes that floated in them.
They whispered promises to her. Promises of a different life of
wealth and city lights, of society and manicured nails, of facials
and gold jewelry. No, not really. Those were the promises that
Margie and Doc thought she saw, and they were there all right, but
Sadie Katherine thought she could have all that junk if she wanted
it, and she wouldn’t need Kenneth Cale to find it.
    No, Kenneth Cale illustrated something far more
insidious. Something blue, like his eyes. Something deep and
precious, something longed for yet unrecognized. He activated a
yearning in Sadie Katherine’s soul that she didn’t have when he
wasn’t around. Or if she did, she didn’t know about it.
    “Let’s go fishing,” he whispered, and, like an
automaton, she slid out of the booth, stuck her Almanac into
her black nylon backpack and followed him out of the diner, not
daring to look back at Margie, whose intense and disapproving brown
eyes stared holes in the small of her back.
    Outside, the spell lessened, and Sadie Katherine
was all business. She readied the tackle while he readied his gear.
They walked down to the dock together, Kenneth with bundles, Sadie
Katherine with buckets and poles, and they arranged them in the
bottom of the boat in a dance they had done dozens of times before.
“Fish won’t be biting until late this afternoon,” Sadie Katherine
said, looking at the morning sun sparkling on the lake. She tested
the pressure in her sinuses, looked at the way the birds flew over
the water, looked at the ripples. “If at all. This isn’t the type
of weather that makes them bite. Tomorrow will be a better
day.”
    “That’s all right. I’m ready to get on the
water,” Kenneth said.
    They got in the boat, Kenneth untied the line,
Sadie Katherine started her little outboard and they motored out
onto the lake. She knew exactly where the fish were this time of
day, this time of year, and she’d be damned if she’d take him to
them, even if they wouldn’t take a second look at his stupid
designer fishing line.
    The summer heat would burn right through their
clothes with no shade, but even though the heat came on with a
vengeance, goose bumps kept rippling over Sadie Katherine’s arms.
She hunched in her shoulders, steering the boat by bumping the
handle with her knee. She hit the kill switch as they reached the
spot, and the boat settled into the silent water with a soft surge
from its own wake.
    Kenneth chose a pole and picked carefully
through the tangle of barbed hooks in a white bucket. He held up a
purple plastic worm and Sadie Katherine nodded at him, although she
knew that no self-respecting fish would ever want to eat that. For
some reason, she wanted to punish Kenneth. She wanted to hurt him,
because she was afraid he was going to hurt her. She was afraid of
him, and that made her angry. Her anger made her want to bite
him.
    Baits in the water, Sadie Katherine tried not to
look at him, and they fished in what she hoped was companionable
silence, but, inside, she was churning. She didn’t want to be out
here with him, didn’t want to be alone with him, was mentally
kicking herself for being so stupid to just come out here with him
at the crook of his little finger.
    At least Margie saw them leave the diner
together. Boats were everywhere on the lake, people enjoying the
summer by fishing, waterskiing, swimming. They were in public. And
Doc knew they were together. Maybe Doc would close up the tackle
shop, jump in his boat and motor on out to check on her. If he did,
she might just tell Kenneth to find his own way home, step over
into Doc’s boat and go home with him, cook him a nice dinner, get
naked, wrap herself around him and hold him tightly to her all
night long.
    “I’ve missed you,” Kenneth said.
    “I’m married.”
    “I’m sorry, I know you