Fishing was his only indulgence in his limited time off, always busy with Cory and his sport, Jake hadn’t spent much time indulging himself for a while. Just being out by the water went a long way to easing some of the tension in his shoulders. His job was stressful even though he loved it and wouldn’t change anything. Jake wondered how Bella coped with the high profile stress in her life. From what he’d seen, she probably thrived on it.
“Where are we going?” Bella glanced out the window as they drove through town past the library and followed the shoreline away from civilization. He took a left turn onto the dirt road through a stand of trees and slowed at a big sign.
“Surprise.” Jake drove up to the Christmas tree farm, and turned in through their gates. He followed the driveway for a few hundred yards before taking a turnoff through the trees toward the water.
“Bit late for Christmas trees, isn’t it and I thought you’d finished the boat?”
“That’s not what we’re here for; have patience. There was something I didn’t show you last time we were here.”
“I don’t have a lot actually. I’m usually going flat-out so patience never comes into the equation.”
Jake smiled. “Perhaps it’s time it did.” He pulled into a small clearing beside the cabin and parked facing out over the jetty where his boat sat tucked undercover for winter. Jake opened the glove box and took out the little yellow buoy key ring that Cory had given him one year for Christmas.
Bella glanced at him, a question in her eyes. “We’re not going out on the lake?”
“Nope. This is the key for my fishing cabin. I’ve leased it off the current owners for years because they have no use for it.” He pointed over his shoulder up a rise to the building tucked behind a stand of trees.
“Okay, great.” She opened the truck door and slid out. “I was kind of worried there for a minute. It’s beautiful out here, Jake. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to how lovely it is no matter how many times you bring me out here.”
“It’s the only place I could think of where we could be alone that wasn’t at your house. Figured you might like to have a change of scenery.” He took her hand and pulled her over the frosty ground to the cabin. Homemade wooden chairs sat on the front porch facing the lake, a touch of snow around their feet from an earlier dusting. He put the key in the door and turned it, pushed it open, flicked on a light switch and stood back. “Welcome to my home away from home.”
Bella walked inside and he followed, closing the door behind them. The cabin had never felt so small or basic before. “Living room, kitchen, and bedroom are all one room as you can see and there’s a bathroom through there. Nothing flashy but it does the job.” He took the basket from her and put it on the table. “Let me light the fire so we don’t freeze.”
He bent down over the hearth and put a light to the paper, watching as it took and crackled its way to life through the wood. “Always pays to leave it ready to go because I never know when I’m going to get the time to sneak up here. So long as I can get warm, I can deal with the place lacking some of the finer things in life.”
Bella walked over and sank down into one of the two big armchairs that faced the stone fireplace and snuggled down into the patchwork blanket covering the old worn leather. “I don’t know. It’s not lacking anything as far as I can see.”
*
Bella leaned back in the chair, watching the final rays of sun play over the water, catching the sparkle of ice crystals closer to the frozen shoreline. “I can’t believe how peaceful it is out here. Wish I could live like this forever.” She’d taken the blanket from the chair and carried it outside to the porch to watch the sun go down.
“It has a special quality to it, sitting out by the lake. Gives you time to think, to put everything into perspective. It’s also a damned good fishing spot when we can get a line in.” He moved over and stood behind her, smiled when Bella reached out to him. It seemed natural to let his hands drop to her shoulders. “That trout you cooked for us? That would have come from Flathead Lake.”
She reached up, took his hand and looked up into his face. “Really? It was pretty special. Now I know why.”
“I think you had something to do with that. That sauce was to die for. Hope you’re putting it in that new book you’re planning.”
“It’s a definite as far as I’m concerned.” She sighed and looked over lake. “That final ripple of sunlight over the water is so pretty. Thank you for bringing me out here.”
“I’m glad you could spare the time. It seems to me that you’re working pretty hard when the idea of you coming out here was to relax more.”
She laughed. “Oh, Jake, how much you have to learn about me. What I’m doing now is nothing compared to the crazy life I had in Seattle. I loved every minute of it.”
Jake, man, you have no hope if you think you’ll ever be enough for this girl. Cut your losses while you still can. No matter how much his words made sense to him, he was already in too deep to ignore what his heart was saying. How the hell was he going to sort this out? With his wife, Lisa, he had no choice but to let her go. Cancer won out in the end as they had known it would. But with Bella, all he had to do was fight her fame and her lifestyle. Should be easy for a heroic fire
