Chapter 10 Annie #2
She held a finger in the air, warning Daniel to keep quiet as she strained to hear any out-of-place sound in the darkness.
The shrieking screams that most people associated with cougars were far less common than their other noises; sounds that were sometimes mistaken for the chirping of birds, or the song of someone whistling in the woods.
Unwitting hikers were sometimes even surprised by the throaty rumble of a purr.
“Watch the woods,” she said quietly, lifting the tranquilizer gun to her shoulder and settling it there. “When you flip the switch, look for eyes between the trunks. Chest height. Go ahead.”
Daniel flipped the headlamp on, bathing the nearest trees in anemic light. He swept the beam back and forth along the lakeshore and Annie followed it, searching the gaps between pine trees for a pair of glowing yellow eyes, but finding only darkness.
An animal, far too small to be the cougar, scampered into the undergrowth with the flick of a well-tufted tail, but other than that, all was still.
For several minutes, Annie kept her vigil, straight-backed in the boat, tranquilizer gun aimed and ready, swiveling her upper body with the slow rhythm of an oscillating fan.
“Anything?” she murmured.
Daniel swept the light across the trees again. “Nothing.”
Annie lowered the gun into her lap with a sigh. “Okay.” She took the headlamp from him and secured it back over her head with a snap. “I’ll go get some snares laid down.”
Daniel looped the rope around a felled log onshore as Annie stepped into the trees with a trap in each hand.
A few meters into the woods, she found an indent in the undergrowth, a small animal trail weaving through the trees, and she left the snares there, about a hundred feet apart, spritzing each generously with skunk oil before heading back to the boat.
Daniel stood on the shore with a swollen moon rising behind him, water lapping at his heels.
“All set.” Annie climbed back into the boat. “Do you think you could check them once a day?”
“I will,” he promised, pushing the boat out into the water and wading in after it. He climbed in and rowed back the way they had come without speaking, and Annie sat with her hands in her lap, trying to embrace the silence that he obviously preferred.
Halfway across, her eyes were drawn to the stars on the mirrored surface of the lake as they danced in the ripples, thousands and thousands of them, reflected in tiny silver flickers, and she watched them, smiling, as they floated by.
And then, without warning, there was quick movement in the water, a brush of bright blue light that glowed for a moment where the oar split the surface. By the time Annie turned to look at it, it was gone, and she blinked at the dark water where it had been.
With the next dip of the oar, more blue light, electric and hazy, lit the black-velvet surface, and her mouth fell open.
She glanced up at Daniel to see if he had noticed, but he was watching her face.
“Did you see that?” she asked, incredulous.
He pulled the oars up out of the water and rested them across his lap. “Just wait.” He tilted his head back toward the water.
Annie turned to look again. Among the reflected stars, blue flashes of light were appearing in multitudes now, sparking faintly, then vanishing, and far across the water, at the very edges of the lake where tiny waves lapped at the shore, thin blue streaks were rising and falling away.
Awestruck, Annie turned a slow circle in her seat.
The entire lake was rimmed in shimmering, vivid blue, and for a brief moment she wondered if she was hallucinating.
Was she so sleep-deprived that her mind was conjuring up the magic before her?
“Annie.”
Annie whipped her head toward him. It was the first time this quiet man had said her name out loud, and the word was a breath. A prayer. It was mist on the mountain, and she could not turn away as she met his gaze in the darkness.
“Watch.” He dipped an oar into the water and dragged it in a slow circle that glowed like blue fire for an instant and was gone.
“What is this?” she breathed.
He stirred the water again, a figure eight of blue trailing the tip of the oar in the silken darkness, around, and around, and around.
“Bioluminescent plankton,” he said quietly.
“They exist all over the world in different places. Thailand. The Maldives. Some bays in South America. And here, for some reason, in a little lake in the mountains of Washington State. They show up around the start of summer, when the conditions are just right.”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Annie recalled a chapter on bioluminescence in one of her textbooks, but she had skimmed through it without the slightest expectation that she’d someday witness its magic.
Unable to help herself, she leaned over the side of the boat and dipped her hand into the water, swirling her fingers through it as her eyes danced with wonder. She trailed her fingers back and forth across the surface, watching the tiny streaks of blue lightning that followed in their path.
“That’s why it’s called Lake Lumin?”
Daniel nodded.
Annie drew her arm back and flung it forward, slapping the surface of the water and sending forth a shimmering blue splash, the drops rippling outward in cobalt rings.
Pure delight, deep and childlike, welled up within her and Annie laughed, the high, tinkling sound echoing out into the quiet darkness around them.
“This is amazing,” she marveled.
“It is.” He still dragged the oar gently back and forth in the water.
Annie looked up to find him smiling softly down at the blue glow.
There was a strange ache deep in her chest at the sight of that smile.
He looked so young. He was so young. And with that flicker of joy in his eyes, she could see the boy he had once been in the face of the man he was now.
The man who, for some reason she might never know, had chosen a life of isolation out here in the wild.
The oar stilled in the water at last, and he turned, his eyes seeking hers in the dark. Annie met his gaze, transfixed, her chest tightening around a realization that she could not deny.
He was beautiful.
Daniel Barela was beautiful.
The oars dragged across the surface, lighting up the water around them as the boat turned in a slow circle beneath the stars.
Who are you? The ache expanded, filling her chest. Tell me who you are.
Moments passed that felt like hours, and then Daniel began rowing again, looking away from her as he turned the boat around, back toward the north shore.
He did not speak again as he rowed them to the boathouse, and when they reached the dock, he climbed out first, offering Annie his hand.
This time, she took it, aware of every place that his skin touched hers.
He lifted her up onto the dock where they stood mere inches apart.
Annie took a breath, inhaling his scent of woodsmoke and pine, and his gaze dropped for a split second, half a heartbeat, landing on her lips before he looked down at the dock.
“Thank you,” Annie said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
He nodded, and lowered himself back down into the boat to retrieve the headlamp she had left on the bench.
“Here.” He passed it up.
She lifted it from his hand, hesitating.
“I really do mean thank you,” she said after a beat. “I know you’re protective of your space up here. I was a little surprised that you actually called.”
Silence fell after her words, lasting moments too long.
“I had to,” he said at last.
Annie stood on the dock, searching his face as she waited for him to explain what he meant, but he didn’t speak again.
“I should go,” she said at last. “You’ll call me if you hear anything else?”
He nodded.
She took a step back. “Good night.”
She resisted the urge to look over her shoulder as she walked to the edge of the dock and jumped down onto solid ground.
Despite every single ounce of her better judgment, she wanted him to call out her name, to invent some reason for her to stay a little while longer, but she knew he would not, and in silence she walked to the Jeep, opened the door, and climbed inside.
Annie turned the key, and the engine rumbled to life. She sat still for a moment, the motor idling in the soles of her feet, then she backed away from the boathouse.
The beam of the headlights swept the clearing once, lighting up Daniel where he stood on the dock. His face was still unreadable as he watched her turn around and pull away into the night.
Annie stared at him in the rearview mirror, heart pounding, until she passed through the gate and the first curve of the road stole him from sight. Only then did she exhale, letting out all the air in her lungs.
What on earth had just happened?
It was impossible. Completely unprofessional. And yet, undeniable.
He had stirred something in her, that strange and quiet man of the woods. He had stirred something as alive and electric as those lightning-blue streaks she’d stirred up with her fingers.
Annie drove along the dark road in silence until, through the trees, she caught the lit window of her small room over the garage, winking bright with the lamplight she’d forgotten to extinguish on her way out.
She could not undo what had just happened, but she could leave it there. Chalk it up as a strange and beautiful dream, a onetime thing, and cut it loose. Forget all about it.
But as she rolled slowly down the last gravel hill, somehow still feeling the touch of Daniel’s hand against her own, she could not manage to think about anything else.