Abby was relieved that today her father had decided to guide Charles and that Jonathon traipsed beside her to the stream. She’d done a miserable job of giving Charles any sort of a pleasant experience fishing, and the concern of him returning to Milwaukee to his adventurous cohorts with a negative review weighed on her. If he continued to skewer his eyes, catch trees, and fail at attracting her admiration, then he’d share that throughout the upper echelons of his social scale. Papa could bid farewell to any recommendations. They needed these wealthy guests to trifle away their leisure time in the great “Up-North.” It was her father’s and her livelihood. Jonathon would share his pleasantries, Abby was sure, but somehow she knew Charles’s extra-flamboyant personality would speak far louder than Jonathon’s reserved one.
“I’ve been looking forward to trying my hand at the smaller fish.” Jonathon’s quiet conversation was restful to Abby. She smiled and pointed toward a bend in the creek.
“You’ll want to drop the fly about seven feet up from that bend. Let it drift down and around the crook. My guess is there are trout waiting in the undercut there.”
“Perfect.” With expert finesse, Jonathon followed her instruction, feeding out line so it could float down the water. A flash and disruption of the surface, and Jonathon tugged his line, snagging a trout. He pulled the line through the guides on the rod, steering the trout toward them.
Abby crouched on the bank and extended a small fishing net. Jonathon steered the trout toward it and Abby scooped it up.
This was fly-fishing guiding at its best, its most relaxing. No flirtatious undertone, no expectations, no charming comments meant to entice her, and most assuredly no winking—not that Charles could wink now. His eye had been swollen this morning. If she hadn’t passed dead away at the sight of the hook hanging from his eye yesterday, she might have laughed, but as it was, she had no grounds to mock. She only hoped Charles’s horrid day was being forgotten as he canoed down the Flambeau River with her father for a leisurely day of sightseeing and testing some exciting white water.
“So, how are you doing?”
Jonathon’s question jerked Abby from her thoughts. The fish that she’d captured in the net was now unhooked and flopping in Jonathon’s fishing basket. Goodness. Her mind had wandered far away in a very fast period of time.
“Abby?”
She shook her head more to clear her thoughts than anything. “Fine. I’m fine.” She reached for Jonathon’s fly rod so she could check the lure, but he pulled it back. His green eyes were searching, brotherly, caring. Sometimes Abby wished there was an attraction between them. He was kind, and everything a good man should be. Contrary to Charles.
“Abigail, you’ve been distracted today, and fainting? Since when does Abigail Nessling faint at the sight of a hook?”
“It was in his eye,” Abby muttered, and busied herself with her tin fly-box. It was in perfect order, as usual, but rearranging the flies seemed like a good idea.
Jonathon crossed his arms and she could sense his gaze burning into her. “You’re not fine.”
Abby drew her brows together in a frown. She toyed with the brown feathered wings of a fly. “You don’t know me well enough to have an opinion, Jonathon.”
His warm hand closed around hers, pausing her frenetic fondling of the collection of hooks and feathers. Abby lifted her eyes and studied his. Concern etched itself in the corners of them, and he tipped his head to the side. The sound of the rippling creek danced musically in Abby’s ears as she breathed deep, inhaling the scent of the woods. The moist smell of wet earth, the fresh breeze that rustled through the leaves of the trees. What could she say? There was nothing to say. She would never be fine. Not content as she had been before Mama passed away. But none of that was Jonathon’s business. Nor was it Charles Farrington III’s.
“Abby.” Jonathon’s gentle tone made her shift her gaze away to the water.
“There’s fish waiting to be caught,” she mumbled. She pulled her hand away.
“You’re avoiding me.”
“Jonathon.” Abby sucked in a deep breath and decided to face him. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. I’m just—tired and concerned.”
“Concerned?”
“Yes. This—this guiding business is father’s livelihood now. He’s too old to work in the logging camps, and this was his and Mama’s dream. I need to help him make it work. I need to make it work.”
“But you need to give yourself time to grieve, Abby.”
Abby nodded. “I did. I have.”
“Have you? Really?”
“Please, Jonathon. We’re here to fish. Let’s fish.”
He cleared his throat and leaned back against a tree. It was apparent he had no intention of letting the subject rest. “I know we live in two different worlds—”
“Very different,” she interrupted. She tossed her fly-box to the ground. He didn’t know. He didn’t understand. Mama’s dying, Abby trying to fill her shoes, trying to be a woman that would make her proud, all while knowing that Papa was getting older and one day she would need to care for him, by herself. They needed money, but this crazy dream of Papa’s—to let rich, devil-may-care people tromp through her sanctuary—was not going to suffice for the long term. Bitterness and hurt rose in her stomach, clutching at her heart and squeezing until for a moment, Abby thought she really might cry. But not tears of grief. Tears of frustration, of anger, and unresolved desperation.
She yanked her fly rod to her from where it leaned against a tree. Clawing at the line, she busied herself with unraveling a knot that had somehow formed.
“Talk to me, please.” Jonathon’s low voice ripped at her deepest frustration. It was people like him, like Charles Farrington III. If she’d had what they had …
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Mama is dead.” Abby could hear the sharp edge to her voice. An edge that belied the facade of calm she tried to portray.
“Abby?”
The sound of her name tipped her control. Abby shoved her rod away from her and it fell abandoned to the forest floor. She locked eyes with her friend.
“If people like you and—and Charles—could understand, just for one day, what it’s like to watch your family die in front of you and know there is nothing you can do! But you? You have all the money in the world and you toss it our direction to catch a fish! A fish! If I’d had that money for Mama, to save her, to get her the medical care she needed? Our lives might be different. But fishing? Canoeing? That’s what bothers me, Jonathon. It’s frivolous and unimportant entertainment. People like Charles throw it away as if it’s nothing to them. He acts all charming, while I’m thinking if I only had a pittance of his allowance I could have taken Mama to the city to get help. His money might have saved her life, but he’s spending it to do something he doesn’t even have the coordination to do! That is what is bothering me, Jonathon; that is what has me ripped up inside. I lost my mama, while people like Charles Farrington the Third play as if they’re completely unaware of the heartache around them. Pain they could take part in assuaging if they would put their priorities into others who are hurting.”
Jonathon’s brows furrowed. “So you’re wanting charity?”
Abby swallowed. Hard. “No one wants charity, Jonathon, but if someone with Charles’s financial situation had extended any sort of assistance, I would’ve begged my father to take it.” She knew she was also throwing her bitter spear at Jonathon’s own personal wealth and his choices to spend money on leisure while others in the world suffered around him. But she had said too much now to retract it. “I would have taken anything to save Mama. I would have begged. So, it’s difficult to swallow that Charles Farrington the Third can toss money on a wilderness venture and be all carefree, when money like that may have saved her life.”
There wasn’t much more Jonathon could say, so Abby saved him the trouble and bent to retrieve her fly rod from the ground.
Her words hit him in the gut like the fist of an angry opponent. Charles froze, his foot in midstride. Maybe it was an accident that Mr. Nessling had steered Charles toward the river, following the same trail he’d hiked with Abby. But it couldn’t be an accident that he’d heard her words. God had an ironic sense of humor—a jaded one.
Carefree? As if he’d spent an honest carefree day in his life! If only Abigail Nessling understood. Poor people, woodsmen, logging families didn’t have proprietary rights over loss!
Charles fought against the urge to storm from behind the trees that hid him to confront her. To tell her what it was like to strain through the currents to get to his brother’s flailing form. To try to swim strong enough, fast enough, and still be too late. It was his fault his brother was dead. If he hadn’t instigated playing hooky from school and going down by the river to toss stones, and if he hadn’t mocked David for being too afraid to swim a few yards out into the river, David might still be alive.
Dying had nothing to do with money. It had to do with horrible fate, human error, and in the end, someone had to bear the blame. Either God or man. In Charles’s case, he knew it wasn’t God’s fault. It was his.
Charles took a step, but a strong hand held him back. The fingers tightened into his bicep that was flexed with sheer tension of the moment. He swung around and Mr. Nessling’s stern gaze slammed into him.
“Leave it be. You have enough to bear on your own.”
How did Mr. Nessling know? How did the older man who was so protective of his precious daughter, know that Charles bore a similar agony? Jonathon. It had to have been. Charles should have known Jonathon would confide in an old family friend. The very thought that Mr. Nessling knew Charles’s shame frustrated him.
“Yeah. Sure.” Charles wrestled his arm away and raked his fingers through his hair. A black fly landed on his forearm and he took great pleasure in slapping it with his free hand so hard he had to wipe it off on his pants.
“That way.” Mr. Nessling pointed away from the clearing and the creek, where silence had fallen between Jonathon and Abby. What could Jonathon say? He was as rich as Charles, and while he probably didn’t seem as carefree and impulsive, Abby’s words would have their own effect on him.
A squirrel darted across the trail and Charles wondered briefly if it was Abby’s squirrel, Harold. But then he knew it wasn’t. She was too protective of it. She wouldn’t want another loved one to die, even if it was a squirrel.
“It’s good Jonathon got Abby to talk.” Mr. Nessling’s words sliced through the silence as they hiked toward the river.
“Yeah.” There wasn’t anything else to say to that. He glanced at his guide. Mr. Nessling had a reflective expression on his face, as if coming to new realizations himself. Maybe he’d never heard Abby’s turbulent opinions before?
Charles swiped a branch from his path. He could hear the river in the distance. It’d be nice to deviate from the strategic sweep of a fly line to attacking the water with an oar and slicing through it with a canoe. The whitewater would match his angst, even if water in general always conjured up images he preferred to forget.
Mr. Nessling hiked past him and onto the rocky shoreline. A canoe lay overturned, and he maneuvered it right side up and pushed the bow into the water.
Charles took advantage of the moment to take in a deep breath and steady his nerve. He rested his hands at his waist, eyeing the calm, wide waters of the Flambeau River bordered by narrow shorelines and thick, green woodland.
“No money would have saved my wife.”
Charles jerked from his thoughts as Mr. Nessling pulled paddles from inside the canoe. The man strode across the rocks and handed one to Charles. Charles took it, but Mr. Nessling didn’t release it. There was a stricken look behind the frankness of the man’s gaze that affected Charles more than he was willing to admit.
Mr. Nessling turned away. “I know you heard what Abby said. She thinks if we’d had money that we could have gotten my wife to an institution, to treat her lungs, to help her breathe.”
So Abby’s mother had died of consumption? Charles grimaced. It was a dreadful way to go.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. ’Cause what did a rich man say when he was talking to a widower moments after the man’s daughter claimed philanthropists’ money could’ve saved her mother?
“Not your fault.” Mr. Nessling released the paddle. He hiked back over to the canoe and straddled the stern. “Get in. I’ll hold it to keep it from tipping.”
Charles bit back a sigh and followed Mr. Nessling’s lead. The guide clenched the narrow back of the canoe between his knees, allowing Charles to step into the boat. It still tilted in the water, and Charles dropped the paddle and clutched at the sides.
“Keep your body low,” Mr. Nessling directed. “Canoes like to throw you.”
Wonderful. He was an epic wilderness failure. Charles slunk along until he slouched his backside onto the seat in the front of the canoe. Mr. Nessling shoved the canoe farther into the river and then climbed in, his paddle knocking against the side. The canoe wobbled in the water and then settled as Mr. Nessling found his seating. He used his oar to push against the bottom of the river and the canoe shoved out into the water.
“If I’d only known she felt that way …” Mr. Nessling’s voice trailed away with the swipe of his paddle through blue-green water.
Charles didn’t respond. The older man continued as if lost in memories and maybe the new realization of his daughter’s private angst.
“Jonathon’s father telegraphed me when my wife was sick. He offered to pay for her to get the care Abby thinks she needed.”
Mr. Nessling swiped through the water again, the canoe surging forward. A duck, flustered and spooked, quacking angrily as its wings beat the water and it took to flight.
“Why didn’t you let him pay for it?” Charles couldn’t help but ask.
Silence.
Another swipe of the paddle, another slice of the bow through the water.
“It was too late. We knew it wouldn’t help. Abby’s mama wanted to pass at home.”
“And you never told Abby that Mr. Strauss would’ve helped if you’d accepted?”
“Nope. Never thought she needed to know it.”
Charles twisted in his seat to look at his guide. The canoe rocked and Mr. Nessling gave him a warning glance to hold still.
“Why not?” Charles would give anything if someone could explain away the pointlessness of David’s death.
“’Cause Abby never asked.”
“Pardon?”
Mr. Nessling swallowed, and Charles noticed his throat bob with held-back emotion. “I’ve never heard her speak of my wife’s death. Until today.”
Charles turned to face the water. The only sound was the ripples in the water, and the strokes of Mr. Nessling’s paddle. It was true, Charles had to admit to himself. When a person was bitter over the death of a loved one, no amount of talking would ever make it better. Not talking, not money, not anything.