The Perfect Catch (Lake Mercury Lovers #3)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Forrest

There's a particular hour on Lake Mercury when it feels like the whole world is holding its breath.

It comes right before sunrise, when the water goes flat and pewter-gray and the mist sits on the surface like it's deciding whether to rise. No boat wakes. No music. No tourists yet. Just the soft slap of water against my hull and the loons calling to each other across the cove.

Most of my buddies sleep through it. Ace paddles early, sure, but even he doesn't come out at this hour. This is mine.

I cut my trolling motor near the drowned timber off Abner's Point and let the boat drift. The bass are stacking up in the shade of those old submerged trees, and I want to know where they're holding before I bring paying clients out here this weekend.

I cast toward the deepest shadow, let the lure sink, and start a slow retrieve.

Three cranks in, something hits it hard.

The rod bows and the line sings, and for about ninety seconds it's just me and a largemouth having a serious disagreement about how his morning is going to go.

He fights like he's got somewhere else to be.

I let him run, bring him back, let him run again, and finally lift him out of the water—a good four-pounder, broad-shouldered and furious.

"Morning," I tell him.

Then I work the hook free, hold him underwater until he’s regained his strength, and open my hands.

He's gone in a flash of green and silver.

Catch and release. Always has been for me. I've never understood the point of keeping a thing just because you managed to hook it.

And never really acquired a taste for seafood.

I'm re-tying my line when I hear an engine coughing somewhere nearby. The wet, sputtering, dying wheeze of an old motor that somebody's been abusing.

I look up.

There's a beat-up aluminum jon boat sitting dead in the water maybe forty yards out, and a woman leaning over the back of it, yanking the pull cord like she's trying to start a lawn mower.

She's got a ball cap pulled low, a life vest cinched over a gray T-shirt, and a boat full of equipment. Coolers, a mess of nets, some kind of gray plastic tote bristling with antennas, and a clipboard bungeed to the bench so it won't blow away.

What’s she doing out here with all that?

She yanks the cord again. Nothing happens.

"You need a hand?" I call across the water.

She goes still. Then she straightens up and pushes her cap back, and even from here I can see she's not happy about being caught.

"I've got it," she calls back.

She does not have it.

She checks the fuel line, adjusts the throttle, and gives the cord one last clean pull. The motor coughs, sputters, and dies. She growls in frustration.

"Choke cable's sticking," I say. "The lever's open, but the plate isn't."

"I know." She pushes her cap back. "This rental boat has been fighting me for two weeks."

"Didn't say you didn't know. Mind if I hold the cable open while you pull?"

She blows out a breath and looks at me for a long second. Behind her, the sun finally breaks over the tree line and lights up the mist, and the whole cove goes golden, and she's standing right in the middle of it looking annoyed and gorgeous, and I forget, briefly, how to run my own trolling motor.

"Fine," she says. "If you're offering."

I ease over to her, slow, and cut my motor a few feet off her stern.

Up close she's got the kind of face that makes a man lose track of the conversation—sharp cheekbones, a full mouth, dark eyes that are currently sizing me up like I'm a variable she hasn't accounted for.

There's a smear of what might be lake mud on her jaw. It doesn't hurt her looks one bit.

"Let it sit thirty seconds," I tell her. "Then hold the throttle wide open, no choke, and give it one clean pull. I'll keep the cable from slipping shut."

She raises an eyebrow but does it. I brace the sticky cable while she waits. Then she gives the cord one clean pull.

The motor catches and settles into an idle.

She stares at it. Then at me.

"That's annoying," she says.

"You're welcome."

Her mouth twitches at one corner like it wants to smile and she won't let it. I decide, right then, that I'd very much like to see what happens when she loses that particular fight.

"You're one of the fishing guides," she says. It's not a question. She's looking at the rods laid along my gunwale, the net, the livewell.

"Forrest," I say.

"Right." She nods slowly. "Everybody in town keeps telling me I need to talk to Forrest."

That surprises me. "Do they?”

"Apparently you know this lake better than anyone.

" She says it a little grudgingly, like she resents needing anyone’s help.

She unclips the clipboard from the bench and holds it against her chest like a shield.

"I'm Dr. Halloway. Aileen. I'm the fisheries biologist doing the summer population survey out here. "

A biologist. That explains the nets and the antennas and the tote full of gadgets.

"So, you're the reason there's a truck with government tags parked at the launch every morning," I say.

"That's me." She glances at my livewell. "You keep what you catch?"

"No, ma'am. I’m a catch-and-release guy.”

Something in her face shifts—just barely, just a small easing at the corners of her eyes.

We sit there a second in the golden light with both motors idling, and I get the strangest feeling that I've been out here every dawn for fifteen years waiting for exactly this boat to break down in exactly this cove.

Then she clears her throat and reaches for her throttle. "Well. Thanks. I've got sampling sites to hit before the lake gets busy."

"You know your way to the north basin?"

"I have the state bathymetric map, current GPS layers, and three years of survey notes."

"Good maps," I say. "The east channel shifted after the spring floods."

Her eyes narrow. "That is not in the update I downloaded yesterday."

"Wouldn't be. The marker disappeared last week, and Bobby hasn't replaced it yet." I glance at her equipment. "Follow me. I'll take you through the west cut."

She narrows her eyes. "I didn't ask for a chaperone."

"Nope," I agree, and drop my motor into gear. "Try to keep up, Doc."

I don't look back. But I hear her engine fall into line behind mine, and I have to work pretty hard to keep the grin off my face.