Chapter 13 #2
He seized his bag, and she grabbed her backpack. They went to the front door, and she unlocked it. The first time he’d been here, he hadn’t noticed the large deck out back that overlooked the lake, and a dock that stretched out over the quiet water.
“Do you go fishing?” He would love to fish with her.
“Yeah, as a bear and a human. I love paddling too.”
“Me too.”
“Do you want to go paddling now? Before dinner?”
“Yeah, sure.” He hadn’t expected to go paddling, but with it being summer, it was still light out. Though they could see well at night and could even paddle or swim late.
“I’ll grab some thermoses of water. The life jackets are downstairs. That’s a recreation room, storage room, laundry room, and I have a pool table down there.”
“We’ll have to play some pool, then.”
She smiled. “We sure do. Are you a pool shark?”
He laughed. “Not really. I can paddle a boat, but I’ve only played pool a couple of times in my life, at a friend’s house when I was a teenager.”
“Okay, I’ll try to go easy on you.”
He laughed. He loved her sense of humor.
Before long, they were hauling one of the canoes down to the lake, putting on their life jackets, and climbing into the canoe.
The orange color reflected off the blue water as they paddled out across the lake.
“Now this is nice after a day of trying to take down bond skippers and a couple of kidnappers.”
“I love going out on the lake.”
They heard loons calling to each other, saw two ducks and their ducklings trailing behind them, both mommas and their little ones sticking together, and geese way across the lake on a beach owned by one of the local residents, making a ruckus.
Trout were jumping in the water around the boat, and Grayson thought they could catch fish like bears when they went for a swim later.
“You’re thinking about fishing, right?”
He smiled. “Yeah. I mean, with fishing poles would be fun, but as a bear it would be too.”
“I love both,” she said.
They were still paddling when they saw a grizzly bear swimming across the lake, making a fifteen-mile trek. “Anyone you know?”
Kendra studied the bear. “Nobody I know. So not part of our sleuth. It could be a wild grizzly. We rarely see them on the lake, but I have a video of three of them crossing my wooded front lawn last year. And a couple of years ago, a male grizzly swam across the lake and destroyed some boats. You know what he was looking for?”
“Food.”
“Yep. We’d learned the owners had caught fish and had them in the boat until they took them home to eat. They must not have cleaned the boat properly afterward.”
They stayed far away from the grizzly because, even though they had only taken thermoses of water with them and the boat was clean, he could still smell lake whitefish and lake trout in the canoe, which could entice the wild grizzly to turn the boat over in search of a meal.
The bear was getting farther and farther away from them. Good. He didn’t want to have to fight another bear after the last one.
After an hour out on the water, they headed back to the dock. The water lapped at the sides of the boat while he dipped the paddle in and out, in and out. They were really making some progress.
Then they finally made it to shore, and after Kendra got out, he left the canoe and carried it up to its rack near some woods. She actually had four canoes, which was great for visitors too.
“We’ll make the salmon for dinner, and then we can watch the sunset on the deck.”
“That sounds great.” Romantic, like a first date. He was all for it.
He helped her in the kitchen, making salmon, fried potatoes, and green beans.
“A bottle of white wine is in the fridge just for this moment.”
He brought it out and removed the cork. Then they sat down to dinner on the back patio and watched the sun set while the water lapped at the shore, a cool breeze stirred the branches of the trees, and an owl hooted in a nearby tree.
“This is really nice,” Grayson said.
“Yeah, especially sharing it with you.”
“That’s what I was thinking.” He kept looking in the direction of where they had spied the grizzly swimming across the lake.
She glanced that way. “Do you think he is still in the area?”
“Yeah. I’m sure of it. But across the lake. He could very well be foraging for food.”
She received an email and opened it up to check the message. “Oh, it’s my neighborhood site and someone just posted this on their security camera.”
She showed it to Grayson.
He raised his brows as he observed a bear stealing a meal in a sack from one of the local restaurants, left on a front porch. “Anyone you know?”
“Yeah, unfortunately.”
“Hell.” He took a sip of his wine.
“Ivan Osinger. I went to high school with him. He was always stealing other students’ meals. Some thought his parents weren’t paying for his meals or were withholding food from him at home. Some of us felt sorry for him and brought extra meals for him from home.”
“But he was a conman.”
“Yep. And the bad part is that one of these days he might just get shot over it.”
“Where’s the house he stole from?”
“It’s about a half mile from here.”
“Are you done eating?” Grayson rose from his chair.
“I sure am. What do you plan to do?”
He gathered their plates and took them to the kitchen. “We’ll come back and clean up afterward. I want to catch this guy.”
“Let’s go.” She frowned. “Are we going as bears?”