Page 20 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
Gulliver threw his hand to his chest in mock surprise. “I’m shocked by this. We could leave him with Laverne. She never minds keeping him.”
I gathered my raincoat and draped it over the sleeping bag on the small dinette. “She offered, but Mojo loves to explore new places, and he needs the exercise. He won’t be any trouble.”
Gulliver sat patiently while I jammed everything in a bag to take with us. “True, and he will keep the bears from getting too curious about us as well.”
I spun on my heel with my heart pounding. “Bears? You’re kidding me, right? It’s an island.”
“Fun fact. Bears love to swim because they love to fish. There are black bears all over the Apostle Islands.”
I threw up my hands in frustration. “Forget it. I’m not going.” I plunked down on the dinette while he laughed, falling to the side of the couch, his whole body shaking. As much as I wanted to be mad at him for laughing at me, he was too cute. When he sat up, there was a smile on his lips, and his eyes were shining bright, the green and brown vying for dominance in the sunshine reflected in them. “What’s so funny?” I huffed.
“Dear, sweet—”
I waved my hand around. “Yeah, yeah, I know, dear, sweet, naive Charity.”
Gulliver struggled to hold in his laughter again while he tried to compose himself. “All I’m saying is, if you think you’re safe from bears in this campground, you’re delusional. We’re in the middle of Northern Wisconsin. There are bears everywhere.”
“We shouldn’t go, Gulliver,” I said, gripping his shirt. “What if we run into a grizzly?”
He grasped my hand and removed it from his shirt, holding it lightly in his. “We don’t have grizzly bears here. Only black bears live in Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Remember, they’re more scared of us than we are of them. We’ll be safe today. We aren’t camping, and we’ll leave the cooler on the boat. Also, Mojo will be with us, and bears are afraid of dogs. Not to mention it’s a beautiful, warm summer day in June. There will be plenty of people on the islands, and bears won’t come around.”
“If you’re sure. I’m a chicken, but I’m also the size of one and a bear could eat me for lunch in one bite.”
He tickled my side gently. “Nah, you’re far too grizzled for them to pick you for lunch.”
I shoved him in the shoulder as he laughed until I couldn’t help but join him. Finally, he held up his hands. “I’m kidding. If I were a black bear, I’d pick you to eat first.”
The innuendo was there, and I could hear the heat in his voice. After our kiss at Butterfly Junction, he wanted more than a stolen kiss in his office from me. The question I asked myself as we walked down to the dock to load the boat was if it was fair to keep spending time with him when I knew I couldn’t stay.
I excelled at two things in life: hacking and fearing commitment.
So far, I was two for two with Gulliver Winsome.
CHAPTER 6
Laverne’s boat was bigger than I expected it to be, considering the way she described it. It was a twenty-foot Boston Whaler with a gigantic one-hundred-and-fifty horsepower motor on the back. The canopy over us blocked the sun, and the boat rode over the waves of Lake Superior with no problems. It was a beautiful day to be out boating, especially with someone who enjoyed nature the way Gulliver did.
“We better get back to the campground,” Gulliver said, helping me over the side of the boat and to a chair. “It would be nice to get there before dark. I was hoping we could have a campfire by Myrtle.”
“I even have hot dogs!” I exclaimed, and Mojo’s ears perked up.
Gulliver chuckled as he untied the boat and started the motor. “I suggested it because I happened to hear from a little bird named Laverne that the aurora borealis are predicted to be visible tonight.”
I spun toward him with my mouth open. “Seriously? The northern lights? Tonight?”
He nodded as he backed the boat away from the dock and headed for open water. “Laverne said they’d be a three tonight, which is bottom of the barrel in vibrancy for this area, but they’ll still put on a show. If you haven’t seen them, you don’t want to miss the chance.”
I clapped with my hands near my chin. “I haven’t! It’s the last item on my bucket list. I’m so in! I’ll drink twenty cups of coffee to stay awake if I have to!”
Gulliver’s laughter could be heard over the motor as he pushed the throttle forward. “Darling, I think twenty cups of coffee would fill you from head to toe.”
The motor was too loud now for conversation, so I sat back against the seat and watched the scenery go by. We’d spent the afternoon on Oak Island hiking, staring out over the water, and talking. Gulliver’s prediction that there would be a lot of visitors on the island was accurate, but I took notice of none of them. As we talked, laughed, searched for butterflies, and tossed sticks for Mojo, we were the only two who existed on the island as far as I was concerned. I was sad when it was time to leave, but it was smart to get back to shore before dark. Being on Lake Superior in a small boat in the dark was more than dangerous. It was suicide. If the waves picked up on the big lake, they’d sink this boat faster than they sank theEdmund Fitzgerald.
He slowed the boat down near the shore of a small island and pointed forward with his finger. “You see the rock there?” he asked. It was a little hard to miss the golden monolith off the shore. It was stacked on top of several other tall boulders. “They call it Lookout Point.”
The sun was setting around it, making the rocks glow like a shiny gold coin. “It’s beautiful. How would you get up there, though?”
His laughter floated across the water like a wave of sunshine even as the sun set. “It used to be connected to the island,” he explained, motioning at the pile of rocks between the point and the other side of the island. “The lake wore a keyhole through it until it collapsed.”
