She’d hoped Papa would take Charles Farrington III and she could guide Jonathon today. It would be so much simpler. This two-week excursion was going to seem like two years if she had to spend every day with this man.
“How’s the beautiful Miss Nessling this morning?” Charles Farrington III met her at the workbench on the side of her cabin. His cavalier stance put Abby on edge, not to mention he was chewing on a silly toothpick again. No, no. She couldn’t be jittery already. She needed to be sweet, hospitable, welcoming … She met his chocolate eyes, and the twinkle in them made her look away.
Charles Farrington III moved closer to see what she was working on. She was packing a fishing basket, for goodness’ sakes, it wasn’t that exciting! Back away, sir, back away. Abby could smell his cologne. Maybe the flies and mosquitos would, too, and he’d be eaten alive, forced to retreat back to his cabin.
As she chided herself for her mean thoughts, she also tried to quell the excited twist of her stomach that his presence caused. Her body froze as she felt his hand rise and his fingers fondle a strand of her hair that escaped her braid. The back of his knuckles brushed her neck. Good heavens! He was bold, daring, attractive … She could probably write lists of adjectives to describe the indecency that was Charles Farrington III. She opened her mouth to protest but was stopped by a flurry of red.
“Mother of—Moses!” Charles Farrington III leapt backward, spitting out his toothpick, as Harold alighted on the tabletop, his red tail swiping across the man’s hand.
Abby pressed her lips together as she attempted not to laugh at the man’s quickly abbreviated curse and the incredulous look on his face as he met Harold’s challenging, black-eyed stare. The squirrel chattered at him.
“You’ve a squirrel as a guard dog?”
Abby graced him with a stern smile. “Harold is quite protective of me, yes, Charles Farrington the Third, and his teeth are razor sharp.”
“Charles. Charles. This whole ‘Farrington the Third’ bit is loathsome.” He held out a finger toward Harold, who nattered on louder. “But he is a cute little fellow.”
Abby raised her eyes to the heavens. Lord, give me grace. She batted Charles Farrington the–fine, Charles’s–finger away. “He will bite you.”
Charles withdrew but tilted his head to the side. “Does he fish with you?”
“Sometimes.” Abby didn’t bother to tell Charles that she was trying to break the habit of locking Harold in the cabin for fear an owl or hawk would swoop down and eat her only friend. He was meant to be free, only she didn’t want him to be.
“Well. Are we to begin, your beautiful highness?”
The words. Oh, the words! He was pithy and shallow, and … Abby swallowed as he gifted her with a lazy smile.
“Yes,” she responded. Graciousness. Her mother always touted graciousness in the face of distress. But most of Abby’s tenacity to be amiable fled with Mama when she died. There didn’t seem to be all that much to be gracious about.
“Do we get to fish the river today?”
Abby shook her head. “I was thinking the stream.”
“Very well.”
He was so agreeable it was sickening. Abby handed him a fly rod that leaned against the work table. “Here. While I prepare a few things, why don’t you practice casting in the clearing.”
Charles reached for the rod, but Abby held onto it even after he gave it a little tug. She skewered him with what she hoped wasn’t too patronizing of a look. “Watch for the trees.”
His grin broadened, deepening those ever-present dimples. “But it’d be delightful to watch you climb one to retrieve my hook.”
Abby released the rod and Charles gave her a wink as he spun on his booted heel and marched into the clearing between the cabins with purpose in his stride. His wide shoulders made his cotton shirt taut over his upper arms as he lifted the fly rod, and dark curls teased his collar. He was completely insufferable. It was important she remember that.
The sharp sting, followed by the inarguable feel of the hook piercing his skin, stilled Charles’s forward motion with the rod. His left eye shut, he reached up with his hand and felt. If the pinching pain wasn’t enough evidence, the feel of the fly against the corner of his eye was plenty to verify the hook that was embedded in his skin.
There wasn’t a manly way in the world he could explain himself out of this one. With the line swinging from the hook hinged at his eye and attached to the fly rod, only humor could save his pride now. Humor, and hopes that Abby knew how to unhook more than a trout from her fly.
“Miss Nessling?”
She didn’t answer. Charles twisted and saw her petite form bent over her workbench. A tiny hook was clamped in a brace, and she wrapped thread around the hook’s shank. Her silence either meant she was half-deaf, or she was ignoring him. Charles knew it was the latter. He’d had absolutely no effect on the woman but to peeve her more, and while that had bothered him even up to a few minutes ago, it was a non-existent worry now as his eye began to throb.
“Abby?”
Silence.
“Ahem!” He cleared his throat.
Another wrap of the thread.
“I believe I’ve caught something.” Maybe that would get her attention.
It did. She raised her blonde head and turned those ginger eyes on him. They narrowed, then widened, and her face paled to a color even whiter than her hair.
“Oh my. Oh my!” She clapped her palm to her mouth.
Charles swallowed. His eye twitched and tears squeezed from it as his eye reacted to the painful proximity of the foreign object in his face.
“I could use your assistance.” He couldn’t deny there was a plea in his voice now. Charles was still attached to the fly rod and it would be nice to at least cut ties with the split-cane pole.
Abby slumped onto a stool. She shook her head. “No, no. I can’t. No.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?” This wasn’t good. Charles took a step toward her and Abby turned even paler, swaying in her seat.
“I’m not medically inclined.” Her whisper was a pathetic protest against the pain he was beginning to experience. This was not the reaction he’d expected from plucky Abigail Nessling.
“It’s not surgery, Abby, it’s prying a hook out of my face before I’m permanently scarred for life.” An exaggeration. But neither of them seemed prone to rationality.
The tiny fly-fishing guide slipped from the stool in a graceful motion … and crumpled.
“For the love of—!” Charles bit his oath and marched toward Abby, fly rod still gripped in his hand because, well, what else was a man to do when he was attached to it?
“This is a fine kettle of fish you got yourself into.” Abby’s father had a twinkle in his eye. Charles would have looked away, but Mr. Nessling also had hold of the fly still embedded in Charles’s skin.
“Very funny,” Charles smirked. It was providential that Jonathon and Mr. Nessling had chosen to return to the cabins to retrieve one of their fly rods they’d accidentally left behind. They found Charles gently slapping Abby’s face. Jonathon was quick to take over this task and let Mr. Nessling ply his hook-removal expertise.
Mr. Nessling wiggled the hook and Charles winced. Blasted thing hurt like the dickens. “I’m afraid I’m not the most talented at casting.”
Mr. Nessling didn’t respond. Charles waited, and decided to try again.
“But your daughter is a fine teacher.”
“Mmm, hm.” Mr. Nessling wiggled the hook again, and Charles wondered if there was some sadistic side to the older man that was enjoying the twinge of nerves it sent through Charles’s face.
“She has quite the way about her.”
“Abigail is sensitive.” Mr. Nessling’s response held a warning tone in it. Don’t play with her emotions, Charles could almost hear the man say.
“Of course,” Charles responded.
Mr. Nessling’s finger pushed firmly against Charles’s skin at the base of where the hook was embedded. Charles squinted in pain and Mr. Nessling let up. He leaned back and gave Charles a square look.
“You can’t wince, Mr. Farrington. I won’t be able to get the hook out if you do.”
“My apologies.” Charles focused on keeping his expression still as Mr. Nessling pressed again, twisted the hook, and then tugged.
“Good heavens almighty holy–” Charles searched for every acceptable almost-curse he could find. Mr. Nessling held the fly up and eyed it as he extended a clean handkerchief to Charles.
“Push that against the wound. The bleeding will stop under the pressure.”
Charles held the cloth to his face.
Mr. Nessling waggled the fly in front of him. “Souvenir?”
“No thanks.” Charles grimaced.
Mr. Nessling tossed the fly into a tin bucket and scratched at his peppered-gray hair before leveling a stern eye on Charles.
Nothing like feeling like an eight-year-old kid who just hit his baseball through the window. Charles waited. He could tell Mr. Nessling had something to say, and he wasn’t in the mood to quip in return.
“Abigail’s mama died last year. She’s turned into herself since then. When she decides to break free from her grief, I need someone there to catch her. ’Cause she’s going to fall hard and it isn’t going to be pretty.”
Charles waited. He could tell this wasn’t going in his favor.
Mr. Nessling gave Charles’s shoulder a decisive slap that communicated the firm protectiveness of a father. “She doesn’t need to be caught by a philandering boy who pretends to be a man. She needs a true man.”
The older man’s words jabbed into Charles’s conscience, irked his pride, and ripped into his own assessment of himself.
“Yeah,” he muttered at Mr. Nessling’s back as Abby’s father headed toward the cabin. A “boy.” He’d never really grown up past the age of fourteen. The day David died and time had stopped.