Campfire smoke drifted through the air and the fire crackled, making the cool, late summer night even more pleasant. Charles glanced across the clearing to the Nessling cabin. They were a fascinating pair, Abby and her father. Living in one cabin while renting out another to people like him and Jonathon. It had to be an adventurous life, if not lacking some privacy as they invited strangers into their beloved wilderness. Mr. Nessling was welcoming and very hospitable, but Abby, for certain, didn’t make much attempt to hide her disdain of wealthy vacationers such as himself and Jonathon.
Speak of the devil.
Jonathon lowered himself onto a log and poked at the campfire with a stick. Contentment etched itself into every crevice of the man’s face, and Charles was struck with jealousy—and not for the first time. Must be nice to be secure in one’s future, doing what one loved, with a family that took you as you were.
“Well, this was a fine day!” Jonathon rested the stick in the fire and leaned his elbows on his knees. “And a fish dinner you won’t find anywhere in Milwaukee.”
Charles nodded. The crusty, blackened, campfire-fried bass had been good. Would’ve been better had he added some trout to the mix, but nope. Nope, Abby had made sure to smile cheekily as he finished out the day unwinding, unwrapping, and unhooking his way to an empty fishing basket.
Jonathon’s chuckles interrupted Charles’s thoughts. “I knew she’d get under your skin.”
Charles frowned. “Who?”
Jonathon tipped his blond head toward the Nessling cabin. “Abby. Tried to charm your way into her good graces, didn’t you?”
Charles curled his lip and tossed a pine cone into the fire. It snapped and popped, the sap boiling on one of its wooden petals. “A tad.”
“Told you she was off limits.”
Charles shrugged. “Never stopped me before.”
Jonathon stretched his arms wide then drew them back and interlocked his fingers behind his head. “Abby has always been a fine friend.”
“Then why haven’t you courted her?” Charles honestly wanted to know. Courting was serious business and not something he hankered for, but Jonathon? He was the sensible, family man type, and the Strauss family might be wealthy and stand on pretense, but they were also of deep faith. Charles didn’t think the financial differences between families would stop Jonathon if he were serious about Abby.
Jonathon smiled as he stared at the fire. “My father and Mr. Nessling go way back. They grew up together but had different goals. Mr. Nessling came north and worked in the logging camps. Dad always said Harry was of the earth and he was of the city. Same with Abby and me. She’d never survive in Milwaukee, and I wouldn’t ask her to. I would never survive here. It’s nice for a getaway, but nothing more. Besides …” Jonathon dropped his arms and reached for the stick he’d placed in the fire. Its tip glowed and then crumbled into the coals. “I’ve only seen Abby nigh on four times in my life. While I think the world of her, we don’t have that—that”—he waved the end of the stick to make his point—“spark.”
Spark. That was all Charles felt when he was around Abby. This morning he’d been rather fascinated with her mouth and that little spot on her neck at the bottom of her ear. Very kissable. Now, he wanted to wring her neck for making him wrestle with that daft fly rod all afternoon and catch nothing.
The Nesslings’ cabin door opened and Mr. Nessling exited, running his thumbs down the length of his suspenders. He cast them a wave and retreated around the back of the cabin.
“Mr. Nessling is a good sort,” Jonathon observed. “Shame about his wife.”
“His wife?” Charles watched the open door of the cabin, but Abby didn’t appear.
Jonathon nodded. “She died about a year ago. Mr. Nessling had just bought this land with his earnings, my dad said. Planned to retire from logging and offer expeditions to folks like us.”
“Rotten luck to work your whole life and lose your wife when you finally settle in to what you want to do,” Charles muttered, trying to ignore the memories that surfaced.
“Luck? Nah.” Jonathon tossed his stick onto the fire for good. “God knows we all have a designated time and place.” Charles could feel his buddy give him an indirect glance. Jonathon continued, as Charles knew he would, as he always did. “Grief is hard to master though, even when that loss is nobody’s fault.”
Charles vaulted to his feet and kicked at a renegade coal, knocking it into the campfire. “Yeah. Sure.” He steered for their cabin, for his cot, and wished he was more like his father. A drink would be nice right now. But that was just another difference between them. Charles had seen liquor do its damage in his family and distanced his father even further.
Jonathon’s voice stopped him. “You need to stop blaming yourself, Charles.”
Charles rammed his hands into his pockets. Stop blaming himself? That was difficult to do when it’d been made clear to him that it was his fault that David was dead. That he should have saved his brother. He had failed. Plain and simple. It was why he kept moving. To stop, to think, meant he had to relive it all again.
He spun on his heel with a jaunty smile. Flippant but weighted with meaning. “Devil knows I should’ve learned how to swim better.”
At the stunned look on his friend’s face, Charles marched into the cabin. He should have become a stronger swimmer, way back when he was fourteen instead of a handful of trouble. If he had, David would still be alive.
Nights like tonight, Abby missed her mother more than usual. She cupped her coffee mug between her palms and stared out the window, across the way, toward the men’s campfire. Mama had a way of softening Abby’s edgier side. It was Mama’s voice that kept Abby from uttering her snippy thoughts most of the time, but this afternoon? She had been a horrendous guide to Charles Farrington III—even if he did deserve it.
She took a sip of coffee and eyed Jonathon as he sat alone by the campfire. She’d watched him and Charles have some sort of tense interaction, and then Charles had disappeared inside. This couldn’t be good. Not for her father. She’d be willing to bet that Charles was fed up with the defeating day and complaining about it to Jonathon.
Abby bit her bottom lip and sighed. She needed to muster every ounce of her mother’s hospitality and shower it on Charles Farrington III or else it would all go awry.
The cabin door opened, and she met her father’s gaze as he entered. His smile matched the warmth in his eyes. His beard was flecked with more gray since Mama had died, and the color streaked through his temples, almost clouding out his once very black eyebrows.
“Hey, teacup.”
Teacup. He’d always called her his “spot of tea.” As if she were his one joy in the middle of a hard afternoon.
Abby mustered an apologetic smile. She had to get it off her conscience now. “I’m so sorry, Papa.”
Papa frowned, shutting the cabin door behind him.
“Mr. Farrington. I—I don’t believe I did a proper job of teaching him to fly-fish today.”
The clink of the kettle against a tin coffee cup met her ears in response. The sound of liquid pouring into her father’s cup followed. He sniffed. Sipped. Swallowed.
“He’s a bit of a rascal.”
For sure and for certain! Abby refrained from being sidetracked from her confession. She turned and almost tripped over a furry little creature that danced around her toes. Smiling, she bent and held out her hand. The squirrel her father had rescued as a baby earlier in the spring had grown exponentially and was wholeheartedly the third member of their little cabin home. It scampered into her hand and Abby clutched it, bringing it higher so it could jump onto her shoulder. Perching on its hind legs, the squirrel looked between her and her father and back at Abby.
So be it. Even Harold the squirrel wanted her to make her confession more absolute. Harold pawed at her hair and then scuttled down her back to jump onto the windowsill. His bushy tail swung back and forth.
Papa seated himself at the table, his hands wrapped around his mug. Abby gave Harold a fast scratch on his head and moved to join her father.
“Mr. Farrington doesn’t know how to fly-fish, and I didn’t have much patience with him today.”
“Mmm, hm.” Papa gulped his coffee. Waiting. As he always did. He was a man of few words, even more so since Mama had passed.
Abby pressed on. “I don’t believe Mr. Farrington was very happy with me. And if he returns to Milwaukee with a negative review, well—”
“Now wait.” Papa held up his hand. “There’s going to be days when our guests struggle. They’re not used to the woods, to fishing or hunting. That’s why they come here. To experience something new.”
“But what if they don’t believe they’re getting the service they paid for?” Abby argued. Harold scratched at the windowpane and stole her father’s attention for a moment.
“We can only do our best, teacup.”
“But that’s just it!” Abby remembered Charles Farrington III’s teasing eyes, flirtatious and incessant winking, and his intoxicating smell. “I didn’t do my best.”
Silence followed her confession. Harold leapt from the windowsill, scurried across the floor, and up the leg of the chair to take his place on Abby’s lap. She rubbed his back with her finger and waited. Papa took a drink of coffee, then another, and finally set his empty cup on the table.
“Well,” he concluded, “there’s always tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. The word sank into Abby like a metal sinker on a spinning rod. Charles Farrington III was still going to be here in the morning, and the morning after, and … he wasn’t going to be a problem that just went away.