Page 88 of Ever With Me

Cormac nodded. “Yeah. Things change. We’re changing. Even a fish that stops swimming still gets pulled by the current. Nothing you can do about that.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Anyway. I’m gonna head on in and leave you to the sunrise.”

Brooks watched him go, and he furrowed his brows, still thinking about the damn Christmas tree question.

I’ve never cared that I don’t put one up.Hell, last year he’d “celebrated” Christmas in Cabo. Alone, despite Kayla’s wishes. Started the morning off with a swim.

Not that it had felt like Christmas.

But Cormac’s nonsensical thoughts bothered him, too.

When he’d started his career, he’d been in college. The world “ahead” of him.

Now he was thirty-four, and there was nonext thing.

“Well, howdy. Looks like you found your way to the lake after all,” a man’s voice came from the side, just out of his peripheral vision.

Brooks whirled around, spilling his coffee. Peter, the old man who’d driven him to Cormac’s place that first day, was trolling by in a small pontoon, fishing gear on the deck beside him. His blue eyes twinkled as he brought the vessel closer to the dock.

“Good morning.” Brooks wiped the coffee that had spilled onto his hand on his jeans.

He smiled. “Did I sneak up on you? Sorry about that.”

“Just a bit.”

“So did you solve those problems yet? Gotta admit, you still look like you’re walking around with a fifty-pound weight on your shoulders.”

Brooks searched his memory. Hehadtold the man more than intended, that’s right. So much had happened since the beginning of the week that he’d nearly forgotten Peter and his chattiness. “Not yet. If anything, I might have made them worse.”

Peter gave him a sympathetic look. “The offer still stands if you want to go fishing. I’ve got to pick up a friend of mine a little down the ways from here, but you’re welcome to come along.”

“Right now?” Brooks looked back at the still house behind him. Kayla and Audrey were still asleep. He couldn’t just take off in a fishing boat impromptu—could he?

“No time like the present.” Peter brought the pontoon closer to the dock. “Hop on board.”

He could just say a polite no and be done with it. He’d thrown out the man’s number already and hadn’t felt an ounce of regret over it.

But now that Peter was here again . . . something about it felt a bit like fate, tugging him forward.

Brooks nodded. “Yeah, all right.”

The smile on Peter’s face widened, then he docked the pontoon. “You know, I didn’t catch your name the other day,” he said as Brooks left his coffee mug on the dock and climbed on board.

“Brooks.” He held out his hand for Peter.

Peter took it between his own two hands, the palms of his hands rough and callused. “Nice to meet you. Officially. Glad we ran into each other again. Take a seat.”

Brooks sat down on a bench and Peter started forward again, the lake smooth as they cut across it. Funny how he’d spent so long living near the water but had never been fishing out there or any of the many gorgeous places he’d traveled.

The last time he’d been fishing, he’d been a small boy and his father had taken him.

The memory had been soured by his father’s choice to leave them—like all memories of his father—and it had been a long time since he considered himself to be “outdoorsy” in any genuine sense. He enjoyed being outdoors, of course, swimming and running, particularly. But all the other things that outdoorsy folk did—fishing, climbing, hiking, camping—were not his style at all.

He’d much rather eat the fish after a trained chef fileted and prepared it than to catch the damn thing.

He half expected Peter to talk his ear off as he’d done the other day, but he was quiet, his pleasant face scanning the water.

At last, he pulled over toward another dock, where another old man sat in a lawn chair. He frowned at Brooks, giving him a suspicious look. “Who’s the straggler?”

“That any way to treat my guest?” Peter chuckled and met Brooks’s eyes. “Brian isn’t a morning person. Just give him an hour. He’ll come around.”

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