4. Blaze
Blaze
I shower off the lake in the boathouse’s small bathroom and redress in my nylon trek pants, light hiking boots, T-shirt, and a gray-and-blue flannel that Brooke gave me for my birthday in February.
I find my favorite fishing pole, grab another one that should work for Shawn’s height.
He’s a little taller than me but probably weighs thirty pounds less.
I don’t know how experienced he is, but I go with my gut when selecting tackle.
Fishing wasn’t on the top ten list of what I thought Shawn Camden would be interested in. So far, he hasn’t been what I expected at all.
He’s more attractive in person, for one. I’ve seen him play on TV, and he was always in those dumb mirrored sunglasses and the Laurels’ tan and green uniform. But in regular jeans and a polo shirt, he looks more like a preppy banker on vacation than a shortstop.
I jog over to the lodge and let myself in the kitchen door. Nolan’s assistant, May, is chopping vegetables at the big silver prep table, but the touchy chef is nowhere to be seen. Perfect. I sneak into the cooler and find what I need in less than fifteen seconds.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Nolan’s deep voice startles me as I close the big silver door with a click.
“Holy shit, where did you come from?” I ask, blood jumping.
He doesn’t answer, just looks at what I have in my hand. “Cheddar?”
“I only need a little for bait,” I say, handing it over without question when he gestures to the hunk of cheese.
“You going to catch me something to fry up?” Nolan asks, part snarky, part hopeful, as he takes a knife from an array of them magnetically attached to a stainless-steel rack on the wall and efficiently cuts a modest wedge.
“Maybe. We might catch and release. If we catch anything at all.”
“We?”
“The new guest, Shawn Camden.”
“Just got off the phone with him. So far, he doesn’t seem like much of a challenge.” Nolan sounds disappointed. “He ordered a mushroom omelet for breakfast. I can make that in my sleep.” The chef makes a dismissive wave with one of his kitchen-scarred hands.
“I don’t know about that,” I mutter. There’s something about the guy that’s different from our usual, but I’m not sure what it is.
The very notion of a usual guest is silly—we get all kinds of ages and backgrounds at the retreat, from families to single people.
They come for a week, two weeks, and once in a while an entire month.
They unplug, remember what it’s like to live away from the daily grind, and go back to where they came from with a new lease on life.
That’s the idea, anyway.
I wonder what’s got Shawn wound so tight he decided to unwind here.
Nolan hands me the cheese wrapped in a piece of parchment paper.
“Thanks for the bait.”
“That’s local organic cheddar worth its weight in gold. Bring me something good in payment,” he calls after me as I duck out the back door.
I swipe the tackle box and a cooler from the boathouse, whistle for Misty to get up from where she’s been napping under my desk.
With her trotting at my side, we make our way to the dock.
The late September sun hangs low over the lake, and the waxing moon’s already out.
There’s no wind; the lake surface is glassy smooth.
Shawn’s punctual, walking up to the dock by the time I get the poles set up with lines and hooks.
He’s changed into khaki shorts and sandals but left the polo shirt on.
He’s dressed more appropriately for a Bahama beach resort than a fall evening on a Maine lake.
It’ll get chilly as soon as the sun disappears behind the trees.
He’s wearing a baseball cap, a plain light green one that makes me notice his eyes are green, too.
“How’s it going?” I ask. “Finding everything okay?”
“Sure,” he says. “Wasn’t expecting the no internet thing. Takes some getting used to.”
“It’s a feature, not a bug.” We’ve definitely had folks come who couldn’t hack being off the grid and ended up spending their precious retreat time in town on their phones—those are the ones probably beyond saving.
But Shawn doesn’t dwell. He tells me he’s gone deep-sea fishing a few times in the last few years, but hasn’t freshwater fished since he was a kid.
“Same general idea,” I say, threading a piece of Nolan’s prized cheddar onto Shawn’s hook while he holds the rod steady in large, capable-looking hands. “But we’ll stay on the dock and see how we do this time. If you get ambitious, we can go out some morning in the rowboat.”
“Sounds good. You ever deep-sea fish?”
“Yeah, once off Bar Harbor. Caught a nice halibut. Where do you go?”
“Florida. My buddy Jett and my dad and I went out a couple of years ago, came home with some wahoo.”
It takes me a second to catch on that his buddy Jett must be Jett Montevideo, starting catcher for the Laurels, currently leading the division in RBIs.
I’d forgotten for a second that Shawn was Shawn Camden.
Not that it matters. In general, I find it’s better to pretend everyone who comes to the retreat is a nobody, especially when they’re famous. “You’re all set.”
Shawn walks to the edge of the dock and flicks the rod expertly, releasing the line in a smooth arc. I see but don’t hear the hook plop into the water a few dozen yards away.
“Nice,” I say. “We’ve got brook trout, rainbow smelt, and a few other things. You catch anything, you can always put it back, but Nolan wouldn’t be mad if we brought him something to cook for breakfast.”
“He’s the chef?”
“Yep.” I pick up the second rod, hesitate. I’d assumed he’d want me to hang around, but he seems to know what he’s doing. Maybe he wants to fish alone. “You want me to come back in a little while?”
Shawn glances back at me, light eyebrows scrunched up under his ball cap. “Why?”
“No reason.” It’s part of my job description to keep the guests company when they want it, but sometimes it’s awkward to figure out if they’d rather be alone.
I jam some cheese onto my own hook and join Shawn at the end of the dock.
“I guess if I fish, too, we’ll have better odds of making Nolan happy.
And believe me, you want to keep him happy. ”
Shawn smiles sidelong at me, and we settle into quiet, letting the sounds of the evening fill our ears.
Besides the usual crickets and birds, I can hear the periodic croak of a frog somewhere down the rocky bank, and the lap of the water on the wooden dock posts.
My mind wanders to the construction project going on across the lake, almost directly across from where we are.
If I squint, I can make out some of the bright yellow construction equipment.
They’ll be done for the day by now. I run through my mental contacts list to see if there’s anyone I can press into Luis’s crew.
I’m coming up empty, but Shawn starts reeling in his line.
“Got something?” I ask, watching him carefully manage the tautness. His biceps tighten against the fabric of his polo shirt as he controls the line. I shouldn’t notice quite as much as I do.
“Think so.” The end of his rod jumps. “Yeah, something’s on there all right.”
A few minutes, later he’s got a ten-inch brook trout in the cooler I brought in case of success.
“Nice work.”
“Thanks. This is a nice rod.” He grins at me, and I smile back. He’s really cute when he smiles. I duck my head because it feels like I’m blushing behind my beard. I rummage around needlessly in the tackle box to hide my face just in case.
“Guess I’ll try out where you were.” I rebait my hook and offer him the cheese so he can rebait his own.
This time when he casts the line, I notice a slim, curved scar on the inside of his right elbow.
It looks relatively fresh. As a baseball fan, I recognize the sign of Tommy John surgery.
I don’t ask about it though, and we fish in companionable silence.
By the time the sun slips behind the trees and leaves us in semi-darkness, I’ve gotten an eight-inch trout and Shawn’s picked up two small rainbow smelt.
“I think we did good,” I say as we clean up. “Not bad for your first attempt.”
He smiles at me again, and I stumble leaving the dock for the sand. I’ve never been tempted to hit on a guest before, but that smile is something else.
“Thanks. That was fun. Totally got me out of my head.”
“Good to hear.” We walk back to the boathouse together. He’s got the rods, and I’ve got the tackle box and cooler.
Shawn’s bouncing on the soles of his feet. “Hey, what else do you recommend I do while I’m here? I totally thought my agent was crazy when she told me—well, when I got here and realized how out of the way it is—but I might as well take advantage of it, right?”
“Right.” I file away the notion that coming here wasn’t his idea and think. “Kayaking is always fun. There’s good hiking nearby with some awesome views. I can recommend a few trails. I think it might rain tomorrow, though. When it rains, I usually set up some activities in the ballroom.”
“Rain?” Shawn glances up at the crystal-clear evening sky, then laughs. “How do you know what the weather’s supposed to be without an app?”
I cock my head at him. “I’ve lived here my entire life. I have intuition about these things.”
He squints at me, and I relent. “Also, I have the internet at my house.”
“Your house?” He looks at me inquiringly.
“I live on the other side of the lake.” I point. “About a mile away.”
He glances in the direction of my finger. “Nice commute.”
“It’s pretty sweet.” We get to the boathouse, and I unlock it using the keypad. “I’ll take care of this stuff. You’ve got dinner waiting.”
He hands me the fishing poles but doesn’t leave.
“I’ll take the fish to Nolan,” I say, thinking that’s what’s keeping him here.
“Okay. Thanks, Blaze. I mean, thanks for tonight. I really needed it.”
“Oh, sure.” I’ve heard that refrain before. That’s why this place exists, why I have a job. We remind people that life can slow down, and it’s okay.
I put the poles away, stow the tackle box, and flip off the lights. I’m hungry for my dinner, too, but Shawn hovers.
“So a hike tomorrow,” he says, “if it doesn’t rain?”
“You got it. But I’m pretty sure it’s going to be wet.” I hoist the cooler and pat the side. “Gotta get these to the kitchen.”
“Right. Okay. Goodnight.”
“Night, Shawn.”
I wait until he’s taken a few steps toward his cabin before heading to the lodge.
I don’t especially want to say goodnight to the guy, but it’s not like he’s going to ask me to eat with him.
That’s definitely something I’ve never done with a guest, outside of the occasional Sunday supper.
I’ve barely even been in any of the guest cottages.
My territory is the boathouse and the lake itself.
Shawn’s probably a little adrift, a little lonely. It’s nice that he seems to enjoy my company, but he’s a guest—keeping him happy is part of my job. The fact that his smile makes me feel curiously aware of my body is my problem, not his.