Chapter 45 Daniel
In the peaceful stillness of late afternoon, Daniel walked up Lake Lumin Road.
Pinched under his arm were the nine NO TRESPASSING signs that had lined the quarter-mile stretch leading up to the clearing, and tucked in his back pocket was the hammer he’d used to wrench their nails free.
As he stepped into the clearing, he stretched out a hand to brush the jagged, broken hinges attached to the fence post. The gate was gone, and the gap it left behind continued to catch his eye like a missing tooth, but, somehow, he knew that he’d never replace it.
He was done barricading himself from the rest of the world.
Done barricading his heart, starved of love since his youth.
He carried the signs to the bonfire he’d left roaring in the circle of stones and dropped them into the flames, then hopped up onto the dock and reclaimed his seat in the Adirondack chair. Smiling, he reached for his sketch pad and flipped it open to the drawing he’d been working on since sunrise.
It had come to him in the basement of the church, and it was the first time in his life he’d sketched something he had not seen. Something imagined. Something he hoped would one day be.
It was Annie, older than she was now, with her hair loose around her face, standing beside the lake, looking back at him over her shoulder with a smile on her lips. A vision. A dream. A future.
Daniel etched fine lines of patience and determination into her features and shaded with soft shadow, but his gaze kept sliding up past the top of the paper to the lake beyond, the silken surface pearled with late-afternoon light.
He’d almost lost her. He’d almost lost Annie to this very lake, and he would never be able to repay Jake for saving her life, though they had about fifty years’ worth of fishing weekends for him to try.
The light on the lake dulled as the sun dipped behind the treetops, and Daniel set down the drawing pad at last and went inside to warm a pot of soup on the stove. As he stirred, he glanced at the clock.
He was itching to see Annie now that she was awake and recovering, but on the phone from the hospital, Jake had told him to stay where he was, that Annie had insisted on coming to him when she was ready, and not the other way around.
That was two days ago, and time was absolutely crawling as he waited, ear constantly attuned for the sound of a rumbling engine on the road.
He couldn’t wait to see her. Couldn’t wait to sit across the fire from her and speak as they once had, without the investigation hanging between them.
Daniel ate his soup with his eyes on the clock.
When he was finished, he rinsed his bowl in the sink and settled into the corner of the couch to wind down the early evening hours with the novel he’d started yesterday, but just as he cracked the cover, there it was—the telltale growl of a motor outside.
The book slipped from his fingers as he lunged to his feet, flying across the room to the window. With his fingertips pressed to the glass, he waited and watched the trees. The sound rose with the hope in his chest, and then, just behind the pines, he caught the flash of beige and wood paneling.
It was her.
Sudden nerves flooded him, and Daniel darted to the back room to check his reflection in the mirror, running his fingers through his hair a few times as anxious butterflies erupted in his stomach. Outside, the sound of the engine rose to a pitch as the Jeep pulled into the clearing, then fell away.
A few moments passed, then a knock sounded on the side door, and Daniel moved to answer it.
What should he say to her? What should he do? After all they’d been through, it was impossible to know where to start.
Breath held, he opened the door.
Annie did not hesitate, but stepped inside and threw her arms around his neck, clinging tight.
The dam inside Daniel broke and he kissed her over and over and over.
He pressed his lips to her hair, her cheeks, her mouth, saying her name between every kiss as though the word itself was the breath in his lungs.
“I love you,” he murmured without forethought, kissing the tear that had slipped down her cheek. “I love you, Annie.”
She clung tighter to him, crying steadily now as he said the words again and again, until at last she said them, too.
“Come on,” he said, bringing her farther into the house, and she shook her head.
“Wait, I… I have to tell you something.”
With great effort, Daniel released his grip on her, and she stepped back, breathless.
“I asked Jake to do something for me,” she said, swiping at the tears that had fallen. “I sent him down to Redmond.”
Daniel stilled, staring at her as his throat constricted, but Annie shook her head quickly.
“I had to know. And you should, too. Gary died of a heart attack a year ago.”
Daniel’s blood seemed to stop flowing as the words landed, and he searched her eyes for truth.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “It’s over, Daniel. You’re free.”
Daniel gathered her into his arms again, hands trembling. The last chains of fear binding his heart had been cut in one fell swoop, and the broken links were falling to the ground in pieces.
“Thank you,” he whispered into her hair, and led her inside by the hand.
Later, as a weary sun slipped violet light through the western pines, Daniel and Annie sat on the dock with their hands joined in the space between the wooden chairs.
Crickets sang softly in the alders behind the boathouse, and overhead a single star pierced the darkening dome of the sky.
Daniel tracked a dragonfly as it chased its mate across silver water, then turned to Annie, who was watching him with a tender smile on her lips.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
Daniel met her gaze and did not look away. “That this place has never felt more like home.”
Annie’s smile widened, and her chin dipped in a single nod. “You read my mind.”
Daniel lifted her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers, then turned back to the water.
The lake was smooth as glass in the palm of the forest that held it.
Quiet had come to the woods again.