An Engagement in Seattle - Debbie Macomber [104]
They spent most of the morning fishing, until both boys had reached their limit. Although Chase had brought Lesley a fishing rod, she didn’t do much fishing herself. Twice she got a fish on the line, but both times she let the boys reel them in for her. Chase did the same, letting the boys experience the thrill.
By eleven o’clock, all four were famished.
“Let’s have trout for lunch,” Chase suggested.
“I thought Lesley made sandwiches,” Kevin said, eyeing the fish suspiciously. “I don’t like fish, unless it’s fish and chips, and then I’ll eat it.”
“That’s because you’ve never had anyone cook trout the way the Indians do.” Chase explained a method of slow cooking, wrapping the fish in leaves and mud and burying them in the coals, which had even Lesley’s mouth watering in anticipation. He also explained the importance of never allowing the fish they’d caught to go to waste. The boys nodded solemnly as if they understood the wisdom of his words. By then, Lesley guessed, they both thought Chase walked on water.
“I’m going to need your help,” he said, instructing the boys to gather kindling for the fire. “Then you can help me clean the trout.”
“You won’t need me for this, will you?” Lesley asked hopefully.
“Women are afraid of guts,” Eric explained for Chase’s benefit.
“Is that so?”
“They go all weird over that kind of stuff. Mom’s the same way. One time, the neighbor’s cat, a black one named Midnight…you know Midnight, don’t you, Lesley?”
She nodded.
“Midnight brought a dead bird into the yard and Mom started going all weird and yelling. We thought someone was trying to murder her.”
“I thought Dad was back,” Eric inserted, and Chase’s eyes connected briefly with Lesley’s and for an instant fire leapt into his eyes.
“Anyway, Mom asked Kevin and me to bury it. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven Midnight, either. She gives him mean looks whenever he comes to visit and shoos him away.”
While the boys were discussing a woman’s aversion to the sight of blood, Lesley brought out the plastic tablecloth and spread it over a picnic table close to where they’d parked the car.
“That’s another thing,” Eric said knowingly, motioning toward her. “A woman wants to make everything fancy. Real men don’t eat on a tablecloth. Kevin and I never would if it wasn’t for Mom and Lesley.”
“Don’t forget Grandma,” Kevin said.
“Right, and Grandma, too.”
“Those feminine touches can be nice, though,” Chase told the boys. “I live in a big log cabin up in Alaska and it gets mighty lonesome during the winters. Last January I would’ve done just about anything to have a pretty face smiling at me across the dinner table, even if it meant having to eat on a tablecloth. I wouldn’t have cared if she’d spread out ten of them. It would’ve been a small price to pay for her company.”
“You mean you wanted a woman with you?” Eric sounded surprised.
“Men like having women around?” Kevin asked.
“Of course,” Chase returned casually.
“My dad doesn’t feel like that. He said he was glad to be rid of us. He said lots of mean things that made Mom cry and he hit her sometimes, too.”
Chase crouched down in front of Eric and Kevin and talked to them for several minutes. She couldn’t hear everything he said, because she was making trips back and forth to the car, but she knew whatever it was had an impact on the boys. She was touched when the three of them hugged.
After a while, the fire Chase had built had burned down to hot coals. The boys and Chase wrapped the cleaned fish in a bed of leaves and packed them in mud before burying them in the dirt, which they covered with the hot coals.
“While we’re waiting,” Chase suggested, “we’ll try those sandwiches Lesley packed and go exploring.”
“Great.” After collecting their sandwiches, both boys eagerly accompanied Chase on a nearby trail. Lesley chose to stay behind. Trekking into the woods, chasing after those two, was beyond her. She got a lounge chair she’d packed, opened it and gratefully sank down on it.
She must have