Page 22 of Smoky Lake

She stole a glance at Gil’s face. At least he wasn’t dismissing her theory outright, even though it sounded pretty crazy.

“I suppose that could explain that note in your pocket,” he said slowly. “He could have been under the influence when he wrote it. Although why he put my name down?—”

“Wait,” she interrupted. “There were two different pens used. Maybe he just wrote your name on a scrap of paper that was already in his pocket. He wanted me to come find you.”

“Then why not just say so?”

She thought back to the scene in the little airport. They hadn’t been the only ones there. A mother had kept chasing down her toddler. An older man wearing a fedora held a cane tucked under his arm. Then there was the girl who weighed the baggage, and of course the pilot. All had seemed perfectly unremarkable to her eyes. But Victor hadn’t talked to any of them; only her.

“He seemed kind of paranoid. Maybe he thought people were watching him. Maybe I was the only one he trusted.”

“Why would he trust someone he’d never met before?”

“I helped him. Also, I’ve been told that I have a trustworthy face.” Ani jokingly framed her face with one of her hands, nearly losing her oar in the process. “Which is a huge advantage for a pediatrician. Kids warm up to me quickly, and that relaxes their parents.”

“You have a beautiful face.”

The words, spoken so simply and matter-of-factly, sent her jaw dropping. Never would she have pegged man-of-action Gil McGowan as a sweet-talker. “You don’t need to flatter me to keep me rowing away from deranged missile-firing mercenaries hunting for a new hallucinogenic.”

“I’m not.”

She glanced at him curiously. “Do you always say that kind of thing to women?”

“No.” He set his jaw and focused forward, no doubt scanning the shore for their destination.

Okay. Apparently he’d decided to turn monosyllabic at the most interesting possible moment.

They didn’t speak for a long time after that. The trip felt endless to Ani, her muscles aching with each stroke. Now and then she rested, but Gil never did. He kept paddling, keeping the boat going all on his own. Down to the bone, she felt his silent support, his rock-solid presence, the safety he offered.

“There it is,” he said, finally. “The cabin’s behind that spruce grove. There’s an old pier post we can tie the boat to.”

Praying her arms wouldn’t fall off, Ani helped paddle the last few strokes toward the old steel post that had once been part of a pier. Yet another eerie feature of this lake, she thought. The ghost of the boat dock joined the spirits of the saplings that couldn’t survive the ice flooding. And now the ghost of the research facility would join them.

No wonder Smoky Lake had such a timeless feel. So much had come and gone here.

“I don’t see a place to tie up to on shore. I’ll have to use one of these posts. I’ll drop you on the shore, then swim from the boat,” Gil said.

She wanted to protest, but since the alternative would likely be for both of them to swim, she didn’t.

When the bottom of the boat touched silt, she climbed over the side. But her hip betrayed her, as it sometimes did in stressful situations. With a terribly timed awkward move, she knocked the Igloo cooler over the side. It splashed into the water and drifted away.

“Oh no!” She cried. “There’s smoked salmon in there. That might be our only food.”

Gil didn’t hesitate. “Be right back.” He dove into the water and stroked toward the cooler. But the wind kept pushing it just out of reach. He swam after it, barely touching, then losing his grip.

“Never mind!” she shouted. She knew he must be absolutely freezing in that pure glacial water. “It’s not worth the hypothermia!”

But he kept going until he disappeared around an outcropping.

Suddenly she felt extremely alone. Safely on shore, she grabbed the bow-line of the boat so it didn’t drift away, and wondered for a mad moment what unlikely life choices had brought her to this moment, lost in the wilderness except for missile-toting foreign adversaries.

A few minutes later, Gil trudged out of the woods, soaking wet from head to toe, shivering, and without the cooler. His shirt clung to his torso, revealing an even more muscular physique than she would have predicted. And those thighs, thick and strong…she shivered, ironic since she wasn’t the one who’d just swum through ice water.

She met him at the shoreline with the jacket he’d left with her. It was a good thing he’d been so chivalrous. “Are you okay?”

“I’m alive, and right now, that feels like something. Sorry about the cooler.” His teeth chattered as he spoke, and his skin looked blotchy.

Visions of hypothermia and numb fingers swam through her mind. She switched into doctor mode. “Don’t worry about it. You should take that shirt off and use this jacket instead.”

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