Every Step of the Way: (Smugglers Cove #1)

by Anna Lindgren

  I’m imagining her view of my bum is quite nice in these boxer briefs and my Xtratuf’s, my hair billowing softly in the wind; I feel like goddamn Fabio. I smirk to myself, feeling more confident about my chances with Cammie. I feel her hungry gaze behind me and remind myself not to bite.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Ten

  Cammie

  I’ve got quite the view as I stare, gawking, at Jake. His strong arms pull me through the forest to a secret hideaway, his back muscles rippling across his body, creating mountains and valleys the sunlight amplifies, casting shadows across his back and shoulders. His light-brown hair blows softly in the wind, his olive skin tanning in the warm sun. His butt…ahem.

  This has been one of the best days I’ve ever had in my life. Whatever this is, it has only just begun. I take in the forest of trees around me. The Old Man’s Beard hanging from the limbs of trees. The forest creating nearly a tunnel up above us, letting streams of light peek through, mimicking spotlights along the stream and banks surrounding. The birds sing through the trees, alerting one another of our arrival. The rushing sound of water up ahead and the burble of the stream running along the boat generate a relaxing atmosphere. However, my traitorous eyes continue to linger on the man leading me through wary obstacles, his only concern being my safety and comfort.

  “On the way back,” he calls out, “you’re leading.”

  I laugh and agree to these contentious arrangements. “Am I allowed to ask where you are taking me?”

  “You can ask, but I’m not going to tell you.” He turns his head around and smiles at me. I take this time to roll onto my back and stare up at the sky admiring the canopy of trees above me. I lift my hands and take a mental snapshot, hoping to never forget this memory. This beautiful day here in Smuggler’s Cove.

  “Alright, we’re here.” I open my eyes to the sound of Jake’s voice and am blinded by the sunlight. At some point, I must have dozed off. “Rise and shine.”

  I blink a few times and squint over to the side of the boat where Jacob’s voice seems to be coming from. My eyes adjust, and there he is, smiling back at me. I smile back and straighten my arms over my head in a long stretch. I notice Jake’s eyes trail down my body to where my shirt has lifted around my waist.

  Heat tinges my cheeks. I sit up quickly and start to look around. He reaches out his hand to help me out of the boat and says, “We’ve got to walk just a little bit upstream. I couldn’t get the boat all the way up at this tide.”

  I reach for his hand and jump onto his back so he can slowly lower me into the water. I memorize the way my body feels sliding along his skin before my blue Keens submerge in the water beneath my feet.

  “Oh my gosh,” I squeal, quickly bringing a hand to my mouth. “That is freezing!”

  “I know,” he chuckles. “My legs feel numb.” He lifts his legs still wearing his boots and black boxer briefs. My eyes explore the ridges and valleys of his abs longer than they should before turning south toward his briefs. I snap my eyes back up toward his having realized my ogling. He smiles confidently at me, fully aware of my objectification.

  “This way?” I point up the stream. Jake nods and gives me his tight-lipped, “yep.” I lead the way as I can’t bear to look at him any longer or I might cave in on myself from the weight of my embarrassment.

  We don’t travel far before I hear the rush of water coming from up ahead. I turn to Jake, the excitement written all over my face. “I love waterfalls.” I nearly jump, trying to restrain my arms from flapping out of sheer joy.

  He just smiles, and we continue moving slowly upstream. The sounds grow louder with every step.

  “Wow, that’s quite loud. How big is this waterfall?” I ask as we continue to move forward. Jake shrugs and continues to follow.

  Finally, at no more than a hundred yards from the boat, we round a corner of trees and are met with the most magnificent waterfall I’ve ever seen. Through a cut between the forest, a hundred-and-fifty-foot waterfall drops into the stream, cascading down both sides of an enormous boulder, creating a split between the falls. The water travels along black slate rock, creating smooth, deep, pools. It flows heavy, slowing down toward the bottom as it splits off in several directions. The bottom is elevated several feet from the stream, and a steady fall cascades across the entire width stretching nearly fifty yards.

  I hear Jake laughing next to me before I realize I’m jumping up and down, flailing my arms like an excited child. The loud cawings are not from birds but from my own sounds of delight. “I’m sorry,” I shout with no end in sight of the flailing and jumping. “This is so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I’ve never seen anything quite like this.” He gestures along my body. I become hyper-aware of my antics and ease my body to one of composure. “Don’t stop on my account,” he says with a wry grin.

  “Can we get closer?” I ask shyly.

  “I thought you’d never ask.” He waggles his brow before taking his boots off. I pull my t-shirt off and strip down to my sports bra and shorts. We throw our clothes into a pile at the base of the falls and then start climbing the precarious path up the falls.

  The first pool we come to is shallow and warmer as the sun reflects through it. We continue our trek toward the next part of the falls and start grabbing footholds and handholds as we climb our way vertically along the falls, attempting to find a path of slow-moving water. I grab onto a tree trunk and am about to lift myself from it when Jake grabs my arm.

  “Don’t do that,” he commands softly.

  “Why?”

  “These aren’t safe. It could collapse underneath the smallest disruption, taking you with it.”

  I nod and reposition my foot into the rock instead of the log. I continue to climb when, suddenly, I turn around, realizing I’ve climbed about two thirds of the waterfall.

  “This is magical,” I say as I catch my breath, letting the sweat pour off my body. Jake follows close behind, standing next to me on the ledge of a pool. Sweat runs down the front of his chest, dripping between his solid abs. A dreamy sigh escapes me, and Jake starts to laugh again.

  Shit.

  He’s caught me eyeing him again.

  I look above me and realize there isn’t much of a safe path to continue up. This will have to do. I look down and realize there’s a small pool around fifteen feet below us. I look at Jake and back to the pool. He seems to notice what I’m thinking and tries to object.

  “Cammie, I don’t think it’s safe to––” I plunge myself off the ledge, jumping down into the pool below me, my feet breaking the surface with a sting. The water is all consuming, cold and dark. I can both hear and feel the waterfall pounding into the pool, pummeling the rock formation around me into a smooth soft surface.

  I start to kick my way to the surface just when a crash breaks through the water. I kick to the surface, gasping for air. I wipe my eyes, looking above me for Jake, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Worry starts to bubble up inside me before he surfaces next to me with a gasp for air.

  “Jesus, Cammie,” he says, throwing water in my direction. “That was completely unnecessary,” he scolds.

  “I haven’t seen this side of you before. Were you worried?” I giggle.

  “Worried? You could have died!” he spits. “You should have let me check the depth first. Make sure there wasn’t any exit out of the pool that would have sucked you toward the bottom.”

  “Oh, I didn’t even think about that,” I say, shaking my head. These are the things us non-locals wouldn't think about.

  He’s silent for a moment, his face stern from my dangerous antics. His eyes flick across my bare skin, the sight of me wet as I tread water beside the raging falls. I feel a tug at the corner of my lips.

  “What?” I ask suspiciously.

  He hesitates before shaking his head. “Don’t do that again, okay?”

  “Alright.”

  He looks at me before groaning a surrender. “That was pr
etty awesome, wasn’t it?”

  “It was.” I smile and allow laughter to fill the space between Jake and me.

  “Want to do it again?”

  “Yes,” I swim to the side of the pool and hop out, racing him to the top and successfully beating him before jumping off again. We play around in different pools, jumping from different ledges. I let Jake check the pools first to ensure they are deep enough and that none of them have an exit that we can’t see. To my surprise, there are several that look deep but are shallow and even more that have hidden exits inside the pool that lead down through the rock formations. We stay clear of those and stick to the ones Jake permits to be safe.

  We spend the entire day here, hiking around, looking at different pools and rock formations. The wildlife is abundant, allowing for sightseeing and close encounters. I harvest some berries and wildflowers that I found around the falls and place them next to our pile of shoes and clothes. Once we are exhausted, we decide to make our way back toward the skiff for a snack before pulling pots and heading home.

  “Well, I think it is safe to say this is one of my favorite spots on Earth,” I say to Jake before we leave.

  “Mine too,” he says, causing me to look over at him to see his eyes admiring the falls above us.

  “How did you find this place?”

  “My dad used to take us here all the time when I was a kid. It’s pretty well known to locals,” he says as his eyes meet mine.

  “Thank you,” I say, allowing my eyes to drop toward his lips. My body begs me to make a move, knowing that I want to feel his lips, the pressure of his strong body against the flesh of mine. But the moment of hesitation stops me, reminding me this is just a phase and that he, too, will end up letting me down. I shake off my emotions and start heading toward the skiff.

  Jake catches up next to me but doesn’t say a word. He can see the shift in my body language. My thoughts are written all over my face. My eyes start to well up as I think about my dad and how he chose to leave. How I won’t ever have any spaces reminding me of him in a positive way like Jake does. How the places that remind me of him are filled with anger and resentment.

  Why wasn’t I enough for him? Why didn’t he want to stay around for me? How could he just vanish without any sort of contact in the last twenty-two years? I wipe a tear away from my face, keeping my head down hoping it goes unnoticed.

  We get to the boat, and I have maintained some level of self-control. I don’t want Jake to think he has done anything wrong. I turn to him and speak softly, knowing my voice wants to break with emotion. “Thank you for taking me here. It means a lot.”

  He nods in understanding as his eyes drift across my face. He motions for me to hop into the boat. “No, I can pull us. You did it on the way here.”

  “Get in the boat, Cammie.” He commands with soft intent. “I’m not making you pull me out to sea.”

  I want to fight, but my mind and body are too exhausted to do so. “You really are a chauvinist, aren’t you?” I ask with a weak grin.

  “Something like that,” he says, returning my smirk.

  I hop into the boat with Jake’s assistance and sit down toward the back of the boat, creating as much physical distance between Jake and me as possible. The tide has come in more since we were up at the falls, so he doesn’t have to walk far before he jumps into the boat. Once inside the comfort of the skiff, he pulls his pants and shirt on. Is this disappointment bubbling up inside of me?

  I follow his lead and redress myself, pulling my t-shirt on first and then my sweatshirt over the top. I tie the hood tight around my face to try and keep myself warm while my hair dries.

  I peer over at Jake who is staring at me in bewilderment, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging slightly ajar.

  “What?” I ask, sounding more harsh than I mean to.

  He laughs. “You just keep surprising me.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Your, uh, hood. It’s pretty damn adorable,” he says with a light chuckle. Suddenly, all my contempt from moments before has left, and in its place comes light. Happiness returns to my body at the sound of easy laughter between two friends.

  “I really do mean it. Thank you for taking the time to show me your home,” I say, dipping my head with gratitude.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” he says, meaning it in return. “Want to go check our pots?”

  “Yes,” my excitement is back, washing over me like a wave. I can feel my heart start to pound as the adrenaline picks up.

  “Alright, what side do you want 'em on?” Jake asks as if I have any inclination of what I’m supposed to do.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The buoy,” he says, looking me over, seeing the questioning look I give him. “Have you pulled pots before?”

  I shake my head in quick succession.

  He slows the motor and wipes a hand through his light-brown hair, his skin looking slightly burned from today’s adventure.

  “It’s simple; you are going to lean over the boat and gaff the buoy with this.” He hands me a gaffing hook. “Then, you pull it toward you. You want to pull them in as fast as you can, like so.” He shows me the technique of reaching close to the water with one hand and then the other.

  “When you get to the pot, you are going to want to lift out away from the boat and toss it up here. He motions toward the middle row. “Got it?”

  I reluctantly nod, still feeling unsure of myself.

  “The first one will be our practice one.” He reassures me with a genuine smile.

  We pull up toward the first buoy, approaching slowly as the buoy knocks against the left side of the boat. I lean down and try to gaff it, but I miss.

  I whip my head around to Jake, shaking it profusely. “Sorry.”

  He laughs and waves me off. “It’s your first time. You’ll get it.”

  We go for a second try, and I’m able to hook the line around the gaff. “I got it,” I shout excitedly.

  Jake cheers me on. I grab the buoy and toss it into the boat and begin to pull the pot as fast as I can, using the technique that Jake showed me mere minutes before.

  “There you go; you’re a natural.” Jake encourages me on. Water is splashing across my sweatshirt and down my bare legs. I’m laughing at how chaotic this must look from a seasoned fisherman’s perspective.

  Nearly a minute passes by the time I reach the pot. I grab hold of it and lift it into the boat. The pot is full of Dungeness crab. I yelp and toss the pot toward the middle of the boat.

  Crabs look and move like spiders, I observe. They are the spiders of the sea, I decide. Jake looks over at me fondly, although I’m sure my facial expression shows the disgust I feel.

  “Alright,” he says with a clap and rub of his hands. “Now we get them out and measure them.”

  “What?” I practically spit.

  “We can only keep the males. Females get thrown back. Then, of the males, we have to see if they are of legal size,” he says.

  “How do we know if they are males or females?”

  He flips a crab onto its back. “See here?” He points to a phallic-looking design on the belly of the crab. “This is a male.”

  I choke on my laughter. “Fitting.”

  We sort through them—well, Jake does most of the sorting. I oversee the festivities from behind him, remaining in safe proximity from the crabs. Each time Jake finds a male, he holds it up to a ruler and measures the points of the shell. Some he keeps, and some he tosses back into the water.

  “Nice. We got four keepers in that pot alone,” he notes as we still have five other pots to collect.

  “Wow, that’s pretty cool.” I stand on the bench with both hands on my hips, hovering above him. I keep watch as he places the keepers into a bucket of water.

  “Want to hold one?” he asks, and I shake my head at the idea.

  “No, no. I’m fine. Thank you. That won’t be necessary. I feel perfectly safe with this distance between
me and the crabs.” I wave my hand between myself and the bucket Jake is holding.

  He shakes his head, rolling his eyes ever so slightly. “That’s it, now you have to hold one.”

  I look up at him, praying he’s joking. He is not.

  “Here, you grab them from behind so you avoid their pinchers.” He shows me how to position the crab in my hand. I close my eyes and reopen one far enough to peer through it as I grab hold of the Dungeness crab. I’m doing it, I think, I’m actually holding a crab.

  “Here, let me take a picture. You’re going to need to document this,” Jake says, pulling out his phone and snapping a few photos. “That’s cute, but you look absolutely petrified,” he says, and I spit with laughter.

  I set the crab back into the bucket and shake my hands off. Jake shows me the photos he took where I do, in fact, look terrified. He got one of me laughing. It’s a great photo, except that my free hand is making a pinching gesture.

  “Oh my God, what is that?” I exclaim.

  Jake chuckles. “It looks like you are mimicking the crab. Look how pissed he is.” He zooms in on the crab who does look quite upset.

  “Well, I would be, too, if some woman manhandled me and I was about to be eaten,” I say in defense of the crabs.

  Jake continues to laugh as he moves back toward the back of the boat and we repeat the exercise five more times.

  We have pulled all of the pots and, in total, have eighteen keepers, the crabs we can take home and eat. Jake’s been teaching me all the lingo which I guess is needed if I plan to stay in Smuggler’s Cove.

  “This is one of the best days I have had in a while,” I say, feeling more alive than I ever have.

  “Good, I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it so far,” Jake says, smiling over at me.

  I’ve untied my sweatshirt hood, and my hair billows in the wind as it begins to dry in the setting sun. I lift my chin toward the sky and inhale the salty sea air, allowing the occasional wave to splash up over the side of the boat, the mist spraying onto my face. I have the silliest grin spread across my lips, but I can’t help it. I am so incredibly happy. I feel a sense of belonging, more so than I have… ever?