Chapter 19 Annie
The tin pail was heaped high with crimson cherries, and though Annie held her arm steady as she walked, more than a few rolled out, bouncing down the gravel road behind her as she trekked uphill toward the lake.
She had spent the last thirty minutes picking from one of the three wild cherry trees she’d discovered in the sloping wooded acre behind the Proudys’ property and had a full bucket to show for her efforts—yet another advantage this place had over Bend.
This wilderness, during the late spring and summer months at least, could feed a person all day long with its wild fruits and endless variety of berries in every shade of pink and purple and red.
But today’s harvest was not for her own enjoyment; it was a gift for Daniel.
He had his own cherry tree behind the boathouse, of course, but he had stripped it clean already, though it was only mid-June. Annie knew he was partial to the sweet red stone fruit, but more than that, she didn’t want to walk into the boathouse for the first time empty-handed.
Daniel was unfolding to her in layers. It had been six days since their first kiss, five since his confession at the lake, three since the hike along Lewis Ridge she’d chosen for their second date, and today he had invited her to set foot inside his home for the first time.
The gate was open at the top of the hill, and Annie found Daniel waiting on the dock with his hands in his pockets when she strolled into the clearing, holding the pail high.
“Got about three pies’ worth of cherries for you,” she called as he hopped down from the dock and came strolling toward her.
He smiled as he approached, taking the bucket with a nod of thanks, and their hands brushed, the contact sending butterfly wings beating behind Annie’s ribs.
She’d forgotten what a thrill a newborn relationship was, with its novelties and its unknowns. But her father had warned her about that, too, in a conversation she’d had with him at sixteen, waiting for a boy to come and pick her up for her very first date at the movies.
Keep your heart at arm’s length, Annie girl. It’s much easier to fall in love with what you don’t know about a person than what you do know. Don’t mistake mystery for worth. Remember that, Annie girl, build trust and take it slow.
Well, Brendan had sure done a number on her ability to trust, and as Annie followed Daniel to the side door of the boathouse, she took a quick tally of her broken pieces.
She no longer felt that quick flash of anger when she thought about Brendan.
She didn’t stretch out her arms in the night anymore, seeking the warmth of his body, or even slide her thumb over the empty place at the base of her third finger where she used to twist her wedding ring around and around out of habit.
She was moving on, but her willingness to trust someone again would probably be the last thing to fully heal, and it would certainly have to be earned.
She wasn’t about to make the same mistake again.
At the door, Daniel hesitated with his hand on the knob.
“Just so you know, it’s not much,” he said quietly. “I was basically broke when I got here, and converting it was a lot of trial and error. The floor still creaks, and there’s a draft from under the dock door. I furnished it little by little with what I could find cheap over the years.”
He wasn’t meeting her eyes, and Annie reached out, resting her hand on his arm.
“Show me.”
Daniel turned the knob and held the door open. She stepped past him into a bare hall, rounding the corner into a cozy living area, dim from the awning overhanging the lake-facing windows.
Annie stopped. It was exactly right, perfectly suited to the man who lived here.
A stack of worn books on a scuffed coffee table.
A gleaming cast-iron skillet on a hook over a two-burner stove in the galley kitchen.
Low, exposed beams that ran the length of the ceiling, hung here and there with bulbs in blown-glass fixtures—lights that, Annie guessed, Daniel had wired and installed himself.
The lake was the focus of the room, the three tall windows at the front inviting the shimmering green light dancing off the surface into the boathouse and framing the forest that lived beyond it with a generous slice of topaz sky.
Turning around, Annie was drawn to the far wall by four pencil sketches in matching frames, the only decor besides a nautical clock and an old ship’s rope, hanging in a neat coil. She crossed the room, staring at the drawings in wonder.
They were of the mountain in all its moods, snowcapped and majestic in the spring, bald and stony in the summer, ringed in billowing autumn clouds, and midwinter—a heap of whipped cream behind a frosted forest. In the bottom right corner of each drawing was a familiar signature, an uppercase D with an illegible squiggle after it, and Annie reached up to touch one, smiling in surprise and delight.
When she turned toward Daniel, eyes dancing, he was clutching the pail of cherries in both hands, watching her with the apprehension of a defendant before a judge.
“What?” he asked.
“I bought one of your sketches.” She laughed. “In town. It just said ‘local artist’ on it, no name. I hung it above my bed. I just… I can’t believe you drew it.”
Turning, Daniel set the pail of cherries on the narrow kitchen counter and rubbed the back of his neck with a hand as a pleased smile softened his features.
“Yeah, I… I draw a little when I have free time. I’m glad you liked it.”
“I love it.” Annie left the wall and moved around the space with an arm outstretched. She ran a hand along the back of the faded couch, around the base of a smooth-driftwood lamp, and drummed her fingertips along the torn spine of one of the books.
Daniel watched her silently, his posture tense, and Annie sighed as she turned to him.
“This is the first time you’ve had a woman in here, isn’t it?”
He nodded.
For a few beats, Annie said nothing. This was difficult for him.
Brand-new. And given his history, his trust issues were probably just as bad as her own, if not worse.
He had been hiding out here for the better part of a decade without anyone knowing who he truly was.
Inviting someone in to poke around his private sanctuary had to be setting off every alarm bell in his head, and sympathy pooled in Annie’s heart as she gazed at him, standing stiffly in the kitchen.
Just like her, he needed time to open himself fully to someone else, though she sensed that he wanted to, badly.
“Come on,” Annie said, moving past him to grab the pail on the kitchen counter. “These cherries aren’t gonna eat themselves.”
Out on the dock, Daniel pulled the Adirondack chairs close together and Annie took her seat with a contented sigh, kicking off her shoes and placing the pail of cherries between them on the wooden arm.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said as he sat down, “now that I know the truth, do you still want me to call you Daniel?”
Daniel lifted a cherry from the bucket and popped it into his mouth.
“Nico Dunn is dead, as far as I’m concerned.” He spit the pit into the lake. “Daniel’s just fine.”
“How about Danny, then?” she joked. “Danny and Annie?”
He shot her a sideways eye roll.
An hour passed, stretching into another, and the sun floated slowly across the lake, shimmering and hazy. They ate the fruit in easy conversation, laughing as they tried to outdo each other in launching the pits farthest into the water.
The shadows on the western shore were growing long, stretching dark, pointed fingers into the lake when Annie lapsed into a thoughtful silence.
“What are you thinking about?” Daniel asked as she gazed out across the water.
She turned to face him. “Honestly?”
He nodded.
Annie lifted another cherry from the pail and pulled the stem free, twisting it back and forth in her fingers.
“I’m wondering how it’s possible that I feel more like myself with you in less than a week than I did in five and a half years being married to Brendan.”
Daniel’s answer was silent, a simple gesture that said more than words ever could as he reached for her hand and took it in his own, lacing their fingers together.
Annie gently squeezed his hand in return, smiling.
She did feel like herself.
More than that, she felt free, and younger, and bolder than she had in a long time, and when Daniel gave her hand a little tug, she rose wordlessly from her chair and joined him in his, sliding onto his lap and cupping his face in her hands as their lips met.