9. Epilogue
Epilogue
Aileen
Eleven Months Later
God, I love being on the lake in the morning.
The water is calm, with morning fog obscuring the trees, and Forrest and I have it all to ourselves.
I'm running my spring population survey, and Forrest is driving because he joins me before his first guide trip whenever I have a survey week. He still calls it local-operator support. But really, we just enjoy each other’s company.
I lean over the side to release a tagged largemouth, holding him in the cold water until his fins kick strong, and when I open my hands he flashes away green and silver into the dark, and the diamond on my left hand catches the first gold light coming over the tree line.
It throws a small bright arc across the water.
I stop to look at it.
I can't help it. I've been doing this about forty times a day since Forrest took me out to that same quiet cove at the end of last summer—the one where my motor flooded, where it all started—cut the engine, and got down on one knee on the deck of his boat with the whole lake sparkling like diamonds around us.
He didn't make a speech. Forrest is a man of few words.
He just held out the ring and said, "You’re the catch I want to keep.”
I said yes before he could say anything else.
We're getting married in three weeks, on the one-year anniversary of the day we met. The trees will be green, the lake will be warm, and the whole loud, nosy, wonderful town is invited because in Mercury Ridge everybody knows everybody.
"You're looking at it again," Forrest says from the wheel.
"I really should stop wearing it to the lake. It’s distracting. And I’d be devastated if I lost it.”
Forrest chuckles. “It’s insured, Doc.”
He cuts the motor and lets us drift, coming back to sit beside me on the bench, and I lean into the solid warmth of him the way I do now without even thinking about it. His arm comes around me. My cheek finds his heart, beating slow and sure beneath his flannel shirt.
Behind us, my truck is parked at the launch with a Mercury Ridge Marina frame around its state-issued license plate.
Ahead of us, the sun is coming up over Lake Mercury—my lake, as I think of it now.
Below us, in water no one can judge from the dock, a whole hidden world goes about its business, healthy and thriving and counted one careful fish at a time.
I spent eight years and forty lakes and six states making sure nobody could ever miss me when I left.
Now I have a job I love, a wedding in three weeks, and a whole town that would form a search party if I missed Thursday pizza.
"Hey, Doc," Forrest says into my hair.
"Yeah?"
"I can’t wait to marry you.”
I tip my face up and kiss him in the golden morning light with no one watching but the loons. His hand settles at the back of my neck, warm and certain, and the lake rocks us gently beneath the rising sun.
He kisses me like we have all the time in the world.
For once, I believe we do.
Thank you for reading The Perfect Catch!