Epilogue
ALLY
Three Months Later
T he bright yellow glare of sun glinting off of Bandit Lake hurt my eyes but I couldn’t stop staring in the direction of where Clay was rigging up a rowboat. He’d given me a sincere, well-reasoned speech about why I’d love fishing, soft-pedaling the part about rigging up a fishing pole with worms or chunks of raw fish and sitting in a cold boat for hours waiting for something to bite.
The hopeful glint in his eyes was tempered by the hesitancy in his voice while he waited for me to object. I did not. Yet.
“You know, fishing should’ve been an early part of your plan,” Clay called from the boat, a dozen yards away. As though he could read my mind. “If you wanted to be sure you could survive on your own, finding a food source was probably more important than learning to put a tourniquet around a tree,” he observed. Even though his face was lost to the glare of sunlight, I knew he was smiling.
“Maybe I never really wanted to be the kind of self-sufficient that involves worms,” I called back, a smile equally evident in my voice. There were still a few things he didn’t know about me, my ability to catch a fish being one of them.
A second later, he pulled me against him. With the sunlight and all, I didn’t see him coming, but I wasn’t about to send him away. “Oh. Hi,” I said, wrapping my arms around his waist.
“Hi.” He nuzzled my neck and kissed me there. Then he moved along my jaw and over to my mouth. His preferred destination. And mine.
But we risked never making it onto the lake if we didn’t stay focused, and realizing this, he tore himself away. But his eyes never left me as he walked backward to the boat.
Meantime, I busied myself checking our cooler to make sure it had wine chilling over ice and the charcuterie platter I’d pulled together yesterday when Clay proposed the idea of taking a late-summer boat ride on the lake.
Now, tucking a container of fried chicken in next to the various meats and cheeses, I had to admit our basket was photo-worthy. Even the green checkered tablecloth that lined the accompanying picnic basket felt perfect amid the pine trees. The basket contained plates and utensils, along with a loaf of Donner Bakery’s finest French bread and enough dried fruit, brownies, and cookies to keep Clay and me well-fed for a week, just in case our boat sprung a leak or something and we ended up stranded.
Finally, Clay finished wiping down the interior of the rowboat and set up the oars on either side. When he beckoned me over, I noticed orange life jackets splayed out over the bench seats in the silver metal boat. “Oh, I’m good. I know how to swim,” I said.
“Safety first,” he said, giving me a stern teacher scowl that I didn’t buy for a minute.
“Don’t you think you’re going a little overboard?”
“Haha.”
“No. Seriously. Do you really want me to wear a life jacket?”
His serious expression told me he did. Well, fine. I’d kiss that look right off his face. I walked over to the boat, where Clay held up the orange flotation device. Slinging it over my head, he used the webbed straps to tug me closer to him. His lips found mine as he tightened the straps.
“You think you can distract me from what you’re doing that easily, sailor?” I mumbled when he broke the dizzying kiss.
“I think I want you to come back from our little outing alive, that’s what I think.”
“But a rowboat barely moves. I don’t see myself falling out of a stationary boat and getting swallowed by Jaws.”
But there was no dissuading Captain Clay. He tightened the straps a bit more and I sucked in a breath. “Too. Tight. Can’t. Breathe...,” I gasped.
He loosened them only slightly before tossing his own life vest over his head. Somehow, he managed to make a traffic-cone-orange flotation device look sexy as hell on his tall, muscular frame. Catching me ogling him, he gave me the crooked, smiling-despite-himself grin that I loved.
“Okay, ready to take this baby for a spin?” He pointed at the silver boat bobbing in the water, still tied to a post with a long rope. The simplest of boats, it had three faded wooden benches inside the metal shell and two oars resting on top of those. Clay rolled up his pants and kicked off his tennis shoes, before tossing them into the boat. I was about to do the same, reaching down to untie my shoes, when Clay scooped me up with a strong hand beneath my legs. “Allow me,” he said.
I wrapped my arms around his neck as he waded into the water beside the boat and deposited me over the side on one of the bench seats. The boat tipped to the side, so I scooted toward the middle of the bench to right it. Instantly, I realized that this boat could, in fact, dump me into the lake without much trouble, so I straightened out my life vest and turned to watch Clay behind the boat.
He swept the rope over the top of the post and rolled it up as he walked back to the boat. With one hand on the side of the boat and a skilled hop, he hefted himself inside the shell and settled himself on the bench facing me. Then he handed me one of the oars.
“Ready?”
I was too busy marveling at how he did everything with such easy grace. If I hadn’t fallen for him already, I’d have yet a new reason.
“I feel like I should be wearing a frilly dress, and holding a parasol,” I said in a coquettish Southern accent. “Like we’re a scene in a Monet painting.” Except that we weren’t. Not in casual clothes and orange life vests.
Clay chuckled and started rowing, his back facing the lake. His body moved with easy grace, those well-defined arms working the oars. No wonder I couldn’t concentrate on my own rowing. I gave it my best effort, but I was barely moving the boat compared to Clay’s strong strokes. “If I’m about to hit the Loch Ness monster or something, you’ll let me know, okay?”
I looked over his shoulder and confirmed, “Nessie must still be sleeping.”
His smirk let me know he expected me to have a similar fear of water creatures as I’d once had of bears. But he didn’t know everything about me, especially some of the lengths I’d gone to in order to feel self-sufficient.
Over the past several months with Clay, I’d come to realize that being truly self-sufficient meant knowing what I needed in order to be happy. And he was sitting in front of me, rowing backward, knowing he could trust me to guide him in the right direction. The feeling was mutual.
The lake was calm and still in the late morning. A couple other boats bobbed in the distance, but out here, surrounded by water, we were alone. Soft ripples in the water lapped at the sides of the boat and rocked it gently beneath us.
Once we’d rowed far enough from shore to reach the sunny part of the lake, Clay pulled in the oars and handed me a fishing pole. I examined the fishing pole while he opened the container of bait. It was a Quest spin rod, which made sense for fishing off a boat for medium-sized fish, the type stocked in Bandit Lake each summer. We’d catch mainly striped bass or trout, and I’d had experience with both. The fishing course I’d taken a couple years back required me to learn a list of over three hundred species of fish that could be found in Tennessee. This little outing on the lake was going to be a snap.
“It takes a bit of getting used to. The bait smells awful, but it’s part of the fun.” Clay winked and it was all I could do not to yank his face into my hands and kiss the smirk from it, but I waited patiently for the rest of his explanation.
I held the hook steady as Clay opened a container of tiny crawfish. The sight of them made me squirm, even if I knew they made the best bait. Bravely, I reached for one and skewered it on the hook, making sure it was good and stuck so it wouldn’t drop off when it hit the water.
Clay took me through the basics, pulling me onto the middle bench where he sat and wrapping his arms around me tighter than they needed to be for a fishing lesson. As I let my head fall back against his chest, I decided that fishing was my new favorite hobby. “I don’t care if we catch any fish. Can we just stay here like this?”
Leaning in to kiss my neck . . . my cheek . . . my temple . . . he nodded. “As long as you want.”
Being careful not to tip the boat too much to either side, I turned so our lips met more squarely and Clay let the pole fall to the floor of the boat. The little craft had a nice wide bottom, so I wasn’t overly worried about tipping as I pressed against Clay’s hard chest and our kiss grew heated and deep within seconds.
The thwack, thwack of canoe oars in the near distance stopped us from testing the balance of the boat under very different conditions. Clay’s cheeks were pink as he backed away and gave the paddler a wave.
“Okay, I think I’m ready to give it a go.” Still sitting beside Clay, I brought the pole up at an angle, gave it a sharp toss, and let the line go. The lure and hook went sailing out over the water and dropped cleanly in a few dozen yards away.
“That look okay?”
Clay’s head whipped around and he caught my smug expression before his smile broke wide open. He wagged a finger at me. “You’ve been holding out on me, honey.”
“I know how to fish,” I admitted.
I’d never seen such a big smile on Clay’s face. “You know how to fish,” he confirmed.
Nodding, I reeled my line in taut and gave it a little tug.
“What else do you know how to do?” he asked, hanging his arm around my shoulder and leaning back on his other hand to take in the view around us.
I didn’t want to admit that I hadn’t ever really thought about all that I’d learned to do in service of being self-sufficient, which didn’t feel any more like code for being alone. I’d simply done it because each new thing was a step in front of the one behind it. And here I was, self-sufficient and relaxing in the arms of someone who loved me for it.
I shrugged and planted a kiss on the warm skin of his shoulder. “All to be revealed in time.”
Pulling away so he could look at me, Clay gazed at my sun-heated face like I was a marvel or just very interesting. “You never cease to surprise me, Alexandra Dalbotten, and I will never stop loving that about you.” I tipped my head against his shoulder, so content as our little boat bobbed on the water, my fishing line glinting in the sun. “I’ll never stop loving you ,” he said, more quietly, almost like it was a thought he didn’t realize he was speaking out loud.
That’s how it had become between us—a shorthand of thoughts and words that all pointed in the same direction. Me toward him, him back toward me. I couldn’t imagine a life apart from Clay, and it astounded me every day to be able to affirm that thought.
“I love you too, Clay. So, so much.”
I’d spent so much time thinking about how to surprise Clay with my fishing abilities that it never occurred to me he planned to surprise me with something himself. So even when he moved off the bench to kneel in front of me, I still wasn’t getting it.
The boat drifted and turned, which caused the sun to hit my eyes, so I couldn’t quite see what Clay was doing, except that I had a vague sense of him reaching for something in the pocket of his shirt.
“You have a fish in there? Planning to slip it onto your line when I wasn’t looking and claim you caught something?” I teased.
“Exactly right. Gotta have a fish story to tell the grandkids.”
“Grandkids?” It was then that the boat turned enough that I could fully see Clay, who was holding out a ring box with a beautiful solitaire diamond ring that made my eyes bug right out of my head.
“Clay . . .”
He nodded. “Alexandra. I knew that once I had you, I wouldn’t be able to let you go. I knew it when I was seventeen. And I knew it when you walked into my yard with fourteen jackets. You’re my forever.”
After all the hours and hours I’d spent reading romance novels, soaking up every storybook proposal, dreaming of a moment like this, and never quite believing it could happen to me, I needed a moment to take it in.
And yet . . .
That was one moment too long. That was the moment a rather large fish took the bait off my line and began swimming away with the hook. My line whizzed from the rod, and on instinct, I let it race for a moment before rapidly cranking the spindle and fighting to reel the fish in. Standing up, I braced myself against the center bench, but the boat lurched to the side.
Clay jumped up to help, but that unsteadied us further. As I grabbed on to him, he caught the fishing pole falling from my hands and took over reeling the fish in as the boat listed even more to the side.
I’ll always see what happened next as if it played out in slow motion. The boat tipping farther. Me crying out and gripping Clay’s arm. Clay leaning toward the center of the boat to steady it. Me watching the ring box fly out of his hand and leaning toward it. The boat tipping the rest of the way and landing both of us in the water.
The moments after that were a blur. Kicking, swimming, bumping my head on the shell of the boat, worrying because Clay was underwater for what seemed like way too long.
And then he emerged. I’d never been so relieved to see a person’s face. He flipped water from his hair and looked me over. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I panted, treading water. Clay tugged on my life vest, pulling me closer. In between us, his other hand emerged from the water holding the ring. “Oh my God, I thought it went overboard!”
“It did. But the box had foam in the lid, so it didn’t sink,” he said, going with the flow as though this was part of his plan to begin with. For all I knew, maybe it was.
Sliding the ring onto my finger, he asked me again to be his forever. His wife.
“Yes. Yes, greyhound. I’m yours.”
The fishing pole and the fish long gone, we stayed in the water, allowing the life vests to do the work while Clay held my face in his hands and kissed me until we were chilled through from the lake water. And then a little bit longer.
When he leaned away to look at me, he chuckled and tipped his head against mine. “Guess I was incorrect.”
“Why?”
“Because this is the story we’ll tell our grandkids.”
Indeed.
Want more stories in Green Valley? Read on for a sneak peek of My Bare Lady by Piper Sheldon, Book #1 in the Scorned Women’s Society series !
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