“I feel ridiculous,” Sam said as Gina tipped her wide-brimmed hat further back off her face.
“You look gorgeous.” Gina cocked her head to the side, assessed her handiwork, and stepped back to snap a few photographs. “Angle your body away a bit…yeah…and look at me…good.” The shutter on her SLR made a rat-a-tat noise that sounded like a miniature firing squad. “Lift the pole a little? Good.”
“It’s a rod, Gina.”
“That’s what she said.” Gina winked and lowered her camera to look at the settings, and Sam rubbed at her cheeks, aching from even the slight smile she had been producing. Gina had insisted on head shots as well as action shots. “Trust me,” she had said. “I know you don’t want to, but if we get a lot of pictures, you’ll have choice and versatility. More importantly, you won’t have to do this again. Not soon, anyway.”
Gina knew her too well. The idea of having to go through this a second time was awful enough to make Sam suck it up and get it over with.
Sam dropped her hand from her aching face as Gina’s head came up, but it was too late. “Did you smear your lipstick?” Gina asked, stepping forward and taking Sam’s chin in her hand to inspect her. “No. Good.”
Sam suppressed an eye roll. “I still can’t believe you put makeup on me. For fishing.”
“Barely any. You won’t look made up in the photos. Trust me.”
“You keep saying that.” Sam sighed and straightened her spine as Gina stepped back again and raised the camera.
“Move your hair off your shoulder? Good.” More snapping. “Can you at least try to think of something funny? Or nice? Or something…not-miserable? Your expression’s getting grim.”
“I could think of throttling you, that might cheer me up,” Sam said through gritted teeth, straightening her spine and recommitting to the fake smiling. Movement on the trail behind Gina caught Sam’s eye and Graham emerged from the trees.
“Oh, that’s much better. You look like you’re actually enjoying yourself for once.” Gina’s camera emitted a barrage of snapping sounds. She must have heard Graham behind her, because she straightened, turning to see the source of the noise.
“Mr. Librarian! Glad you could join us.” She swiveled between Sam and Graham, a speculative look on her face. “How about you walk over as if you’re meeting Sam for the first time, and I’ll take photos?”
“This is ridiculous,” Sam said under her breath, but she forced a cheerful expression and watched Graham as he moved toward her. He had a careful, soft stride. Deliberate. His hiking boots were good quality and well broken in. Her gaze traveled back up to his face and sunlight flashing off his glasses momentarily shielded his expression from her. When he moved back into the dappled shade of the trees, he was smiling a faint, ironic smile. She held out an open palm as he approached.
“Graham Evans.”
She grasped his hand, conscious of its warmth and the way his fingers curled around hers, strong and sure. “Sam Halvorsen.”
“Sam? Short for Samantha?”
“Yes. Do you have a nickname?”
“Yeah. My friends and family call me Gray.” The corners of his eyes crinkled with humor, and he squeezed her hand.
“Okay, that’s adorable.” Gina’s voice cut into their bubble. Sam had forgotten her friend and her camera were even there. She started a bit, pulling her hand out of Graham’s. “You didn’t bring your dog?” Gina asked
Graham looked taken aback. “No. She’d end up in the water as fast as she could and we’d spend the entire time fishing her out instead of actually fishing.”
“And that would scare the actual fish,” Sam said. “And while Graham was kind enough to offer to have you photograph him, he’s also paying for a guide, not to be a model for my website.”
Gina waved an airy hand. “Fine. Start doing whatever you’d do and I’ll try to be as inconspicuous as possible.”
“No Phillipson rod this time?” Sam nodded at his empty hands. He carried nothing this time except a backpack over his shoulders and a bag for his waders and boots.
“Not when I know you have better beginner gear for me,” Graham said, setting down the bag and shrugging off the backpack to drop it at the base of a tree.
“Right.” Sam selected a rod from the ones she had brought and handed it to Graham. “I’m going to attach a fly to the tippet. I want you to watch what I do and I’m going to have you copy me later.”
Graham focused on Sam’s long fingers as she pushed the end of the tippet through the tiny ring of the fly hook and wrapped it back on itself. His pulse stuttered and his breath stopped as she brought the line to her mouth, wetting it with her tongue before drawing it tight and trimming the end with a tool that looked like a simplified nail clipper.
“There.” She grasped the tippet and gave the fly a tug. “Nice and secure. Always check your knots. How about you show me if you remember anything about casting.” Her blue eyes glinted as she winked at him.
Remember anything about casting? After focusing on her mouth, he wasn’t sure he remembered his name.
Ratatatatat
Graham started, recalled to Gina’s presence by the rapid-fire sound of her camera’s shutter. Swallowing, he stepped to the edge of the bank and paused, gathering his composure. Inhaling, he stripped off some line and brought his arm up, elbow tucked in, and extended his forearm, switching it back, then forward again, seeking that swift, metronomic acceleration. Extending his arm one last time, the line hissed through the air and the fly landed with a soft plop in the little pool that had eluded him the week before.
“Excellent!” Sam’s proud tones overlaid the shutter noise of Gina’s camera and a pang of regret shot through him that he had ever volunteered to be photographed for the website. He wanted to be alone with Sam. Gina was great. He appreciated her loyalty to her friend, but at the same time, he wanted her and her noisy camera far, far away so he could enjoy Sam’s attention without interruption. Sam had Graham repeat his casts a few times, giving him more subtle corrections rather than the major ones she had addressed the week before. He focused on Sam and the rod, doing his best to ignore Gina and her camera.
“It’s really coming back to you. Nice work,” Sam said. “We’re going to get you wading today.”
“Has Gina taken pictures of you wading?” he asked.
“Wading?” Gina said.
“No,” Sam said at almost the same time.
“I brought my waders,” Graham said, “But Gina should still get shots of you wading for the website. Otherwise it won’t look authentic at all.”
“If wading is part of the whole fishing guide thing, then yes, I need to get photos of it,” Gina said. Graham suppressed a smile at Gina’s ignorance about this thing that was so central to her friend’s existence.
“Graham is paying for a guide experience, not a me-wading-while-he-waits-on-the-bank experience,” Sam said, her voice hardening.
Graham reeled in his line, turning to the two women. “Graham wants to see this project through. As a client and…” He held up a hand as Sam started to object. “And as a university librarian invested in Gina’s academic success.” He’d learned that making it about Gina and what she was getting out of it would move Sam more than anything else. Sam folded her lips into her mouth, obviously thwarted.
Gina’s eyes gleamed with approval. “You’re not so bad, Librarian Man.”
“So, Sam…why don’t you get your waders on and show Gina how gorgeous fly fishing can be when it’s done by an expert.”
Expert.
That word, so casually uttered, nearly undid her.
She worked so hard, only to be dismissed by so many men as a sideshow or a curiosity. At worst, attitudes like, What does she know, really? And at best, Look at her, playing with the big boys. Isn’t she cute? The weight she always carried, the pressure against her lungs, eased a bit.
“So?” Gina asked. “What does wading entail? Besides, well, wading. Obviously.”
Sam blinked, returning to the present moment. “Waders, for one.” She waved at her pack a few feet away. “You could take shots of just me after Graham’s session, but I’m sure you don’t want to hang around that long.”
“I’ll be the judge of how long I want to wait,” Gina said, tapping one pink-tipped finger against the body of her camera.
“And I’d be happy to watch you wade for a while,” Graham said. “I’m sure I could learn something just by watching.”
Cornered, Sam looked from her client to her friend and back again.
“Get on with it, girl.” Gina waved her camera at the gear Sam had put on the ground nearby when they had arrived.
Sighing, Sam sat on the ground and took off her shoes, tucking her thin nylon pants into her socks. She took her waders out of their bag and pulled them on, standing to hook the straps over her shoulders. Bending over, she retrieved her wading boots and put them on, double knotting the laces.
“Those are huge.” Gina giggled. “They look like moon boots.”
“This is fishing, not fashion,” Sam said as she bent again to retrieve a rod from the collection she had brought with her. Stepping carefully, she entered the river, the water pushing and tugging at her legs as she stepped deeper. When the water was swirling around her knees, she turned into the current and cast upstream, managing her line by coiling it with her left hand as the fly drifted toward her, keeping just enough slack in the line. Not getting a take, she lifted her rod and cast again, focusing on nothing but the movement of the water and the fly as it drifted toward her. As her muscles loosened and her casts became smoother, she lost herself to the rhythm of the motion and the quiet sounds of the woods and stream.
Graham could watch her all day.
Sam’s motions as she cast her line were fluid. She was utterly focused. Concentration and calculation showed on her face as she watched the fly drift, her left hand drawing the line in, making a neat coil. He barely heard the shutter of Gina’s camera snapping until she elbowed him in the ribs as she straightened, stretching to ease her back.
“She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?” Gina asked.
Graham merely nodded. She was amazing. She made all the things he found so difficult look so easy. Her movements, so precise and powerful, astonished him. She moved her rod tip, executing a mend to take up some excess slack in the line as it drifted. He remembered trying to learn how to do this maneuver, how much it had frustrated him as a teenager.
She made it look as effortless as breathing.
Beside him, Gina sank to her knees to get a different angle, snapping photographs all the while. After a couple more of Sam’s casts, she stood again, lowering her camera.
“I think I’ve got everything I need here. I’m going to scram and leave you two to it. Thanks for letting me tag along. These are going to be great for the website.” She lifted the camera.
Graham shuffled his feet and rubbed the back of his neck. “No problem. I mean, it’s my pleasure. I’m happy to help Sa…um. You. Both of you.”
Gina grinned, a cheeky twinkle in her eyes. “Well, Sa… um…we—yes, we both appreciate it. I’m going to head back and take a look at what I’ve got in here. But I’m pretty sure what I have is gold.”
“I’m sure too.” Graham’s eyes shot back to Sam, standing in the sunshine, glittering water all around her, casting her line in a smooth arc that spun out straight, the fly settling on the moving water with a lightness that took his breath away.