“Yes, I’m positive. I’m sure I’ve seen something there, and the same something or somethings every time. I just can’t tell exactly what it is. And I’ve wished every day I could stay and see if they give me a better glimpse. I can only stay for a little bit.”
“Same here,” he said. “But it’s probably better that I can’t. I don’t know what I’d do if I actually saw Bigfoot.”
“Neither do I,” Opal said.
They both laughed as Kelsi came back while they flipped through the photographs on Opal’s camera.
“Well, aren’t you two cozy. See, you may not know what to do if you find a picture of Bigfoot, but I do.”
He leaned back in the booth and turned to look at Opal, and she smiled as he looked startled to realize that he was sitting next to her. Actually, as startled as she’d been when he’d scooted her over.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said as he stood and crossed back to his side of the table, pink creeping from under his collar.
Opal was surprised that she was actually sorry he moved.
“So you both think you’ve seen him?” Kelsi asked. She folded her arms after she set down Bernard’s cheese and bread and a jar of spicy French mustard.
“Um, no,” Opal said as Bernard looked at her, his eyes wide, and then looked back at Kelsi.
“No, I don’t think so. We’re not sure what we’ve seen, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t Bigfoot.”
“I know, I know, that’s what Opal said this morning, but I think you’re wrong. Would you go look again? Please? Maybe there’s a picture of him in all those photographs you took.”
“I don’t have any way to take a closer look at the pictures,” Bernard said. “I’d hoped that these blow-ups would show me something, but they don’t.
Opal leaned forward and took another look at the prints. She didn’t have a magnifying glass, and she wished she could take the photographs from the memory stick and put them on her computer with the really big monitor that her uncle Aaron had gotten her for Christmas. It was perfect for looking at and manipulating pictures. She was really curious about what was in that glen, but she didn’t want to be presumptuous.
“Please, you guys. I can’t go myself. I’ve been pretty busy for the past year, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change,” Kelsi said as her hand rested on her belly. “I dream about him sometimes, but I can’t go looking myself. Not for a while, anyway. I could really use the help. Please?”
Opal and Bernard exchanged glances. She had no intention on going on a Bigfoot expedition and she was pretty sure he didn’t either. But she did want to know what it actually was out there, so what would be the harm in agreeing to take a look. A better look at the pictures, anyway.
“Coming,” Kelsi said as Bob called her name from the kitchen. “I’ll be right back.”
Opal looked down at her hot chocolate that had gone cold, and she imagined Bernard’s soup had, too, in all the excitement.
Bernard rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m really curious about what’s out there, although I’m sure it’s not Bigfoot.”
Opal cleared her throat. They could at least take another look at the pictures...but they’d have to do it at her cabin, the one she shared with her father, and that was a dicey proposition after her previous experience in the gallery.
“So, what do you think?” Kelsi asked as she set down a bag with Opal and Allen’s lunch on the table. Her eyebrows raised with hope and excitement, Opal decided that she could sacrifice another round of torment on Kelsi’s behalf.
“I have a huge monitor back at my cabin that I use for my photographs. If you want to bring over your memory stick, we could really zoom in much better and see what we see,” she said, fiddling with her spoon in her cold hot chocolate as she wondered if this was really a good idea.
Kelsi let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, that would be great. I really appreciate it, you guys. Two cameras are better than one,” she said as she headed back to the kitchen.
“I don’t think that was optional,” Bernard said as he watched her walk into the kitchen.
“No, not really. How can you deny someone as nice as Kelsi?” Opal pushed her hot chocolate into the center of the table and turned off her camera. “She’s just too excited about this, and I don’t know how to let her down easy. The only way, really, is to show her it’s not Bigfoot.”
“Right,” Bernard said as he took a spoonful of his soup and grimaced. “I guess I should have known this would be cold. How was your hot chocolate?” He eyed the mug she’d pushed away.
“Just as cold as your soup,” she said with a smile. “No problem. I didn’t need it anyway.”
“And I don’t need the soup. I always think it’s going to be like my grandmother’s, but it never is.”
“Oh?” Opal asked. “It was a favorite of yours?”
“Yes. A simple peasant soup, she called it, but it reminds me of her. Of home.”
Opal wanted to ask more questions, but Kelsi plopped down their checks.
“Bernard, you want me to wrap that up to go? You guys kind of missed your window.”
Bernard laughed. “Sure. Everything but the soup,” he said. “Thanks.”
“You didn’t like the soup? Bob makes great soup.”
“Oh, no, it was great. I just lost my mood for it, that’s all,” he said kindly as he winked at Opal.
“Whew,” Kelsi said. “I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell him you didn’t like it.”
“No, it was fine,” he said again.
Opal smiled at his courtesy, not the first one he’d shown since they’d met.
“Thanks again, guys. I can’t wait to see the pictures of Bigfoot when you find him.”
Kelsi was out of earshot before Bernard groaned, albeit with a smile.
“What have we gotten ourselves into?” he asked as he rolled up the photographs and tucked them back in the cardboard tube.
Opal shook her head. What had they gotten themselves into?
Chapter 8
Opal and Bernard had arranged for him to come over to the cabin in the evening, after work for both of them. She’d told him the cabin number and when he’d offered to bring Chinese food, she’d accepted. She’d need to spend a little time cleaning, and that saved her time. Ordinarily, she was happy to cook...not like Olivia...but this gave her a little extra time.
He’d asked her what she wanted from the Chinese restaurant—said he had an “in”—and she hadn’t been there since they’d changed the name, so he said he’d surprise her. That was fine with her—she and her dad were easy.
Oh, her dad! She’d forgotten to mention he’d be there. He’d been watching the winter Olympics, so she knew there was no way she’d be able to get him to go visit Olivia or Allen during the curling competition.
Well, there was no way to tell him now. She hadn’t even given him her phone number, so he’d have to just be surprised. Hopefully it wouldn’t end up in another “Opal is so great” monologue. Thank goodness for the Olympics.
When Bernard arrived, he didn’t bat an eye when he saw Allen. Quite the opposite—he was gracious and polite as he had been the other times she’d seen him. But Opal breathed a sigh of relief when they were dishing out the Chinese food—which smelled heavenly—and her dad took his plate into the living room.
“Curling’s just starting. You don’t mind, do you? I don’t think we had that in Texas. It’s fascinating,” Allen said as he hoisted his plate and root beer and headed to the couch.
When she’d cleaned, she’d moved the computer away from the TV so it might be a little quieter while they looked at pictures. They took their plates over to the large desk and Bernard pulled up another chair from the dining room table. The cabin was small, so that was the best they could do.
“Thanks for dinner, Bernard,” Allen said during the next commercial, as Opal turned on the computer and got things ready.
“My pleasure, sir,” Bernard said as he smiled at Opal.
He didn’t seem to mind at all, and she smiled in return as he dropped the memory stick into her palm.
As his pictures loaded onto the computer, she pulled hers up. She’d been over them before, but she zoomed in to the area that they’d both noticed, enlarging it as much as she could without it getting too grainy.
“That’s it,” Bernard said as the enlarged image filled the entire screen. “Like you said, though, it’s impossible to see.”
“Right.” Opal closed out her pictures and set his up on the screen. “Which one do you want to start with?”
“That one.” Bernard pointed to one in the center, but he wasn’t that close to the monitor so she couldn’t tell which one.
She moved the pointer to the one she thought he’d meant. “This one?”
“No, this one over here.”
She sat still while he covered her hand with his over the mouse and moved the pointer to the picture he’d been referring to.
Just as the pointer made it, he lifted his hand in a hurry. “Oh, sorry,” he said.
“No problem,” she said as she felt the absence of his warm hand on hers.
She blinked a couple of times to focus on the screen and opened the picture. She immediately recognized the glen they’d both been interested in and enlarged it as much as she could before it all became a blur.
They looked for a while and flipped through other pictures—both hers and his—but couldn’t find anything.
“Do you think we may have been imagining things?” Bernard finally asked. “I only saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and when I got to look at the pictures—nothing. Not even in the enlarged ones. I just can’t see anything. Can you?”
Opal sighed. She’d been up there several mornings in a row—well, many—and each time she knew she’d seen movement. Tree branches rustling along with a figure of some kind darting.
“I just know it’s not my imagination, Bernard. I can’t prove it—there’s nothing in my pictures, either. I just know it.”
“Well, I guess we could go look again. I could mark the places I saw it from and we could check once more. I have some binoculars.”
Opal leaned back in her chair and reached for Bernard’s memory stick, handing it to him and running her fingers through her hair.
“I think maybe my vantage point might be best. The lens on your camera is much better, and between that and the binoculars, maybe we’d have a chance?”
“Whoa, did you see that?” her father shouted.
Opal and Bernard both spun around, and Opal wondered what could possibly be shout-worthy.
“Look at that,” her father said, pointing at the TV.
She did look at the TV and saw a big stone with a handle on it sitting next to a circle—several circles on ice. Nothing was moving except the people standing next to it, and she didn’t think it was remotely exciting.
“I’m sorry. Ignore him,” Opal said as she turned off the computer. When she turned around, Bernard was moving his chair over to where her father sat, gleefully pointing to a new stone by a new target.
She sighed and pulled her chair over, too. She smiled as Bernard and her father heatedly debated the techniques of the sweepers—or whatever they were called—and Opal couldn’t help but think that sweeping that fast was for the birds.
As the competition continued, she got a round of ice cream for the three of them, followed by popcorn to accompany the couples’ ice dancing. By the time the luge competition had ended for the day, she was worn out—and it appeared that her father and Bernard were, too.
“Wow, that was fun. I just love the Olympics,” Allen said as he stood and stretched. “Thanks again for dinner, and for the good company, Bernard.”
The men shook hands, and Opal smiled. It was so nice to see her father having such a good time, and even though she and Bernard hadn’t had much luck with the pictures, she hoped that tomorrow would be more successful.
She reached for the bag of leftover Chinese food for Bernard and turned around to his palms held up in her direction as he shook his head.
“No, none for me, thanks. There’s a lot more where that came from. You guys keep it.”
Opal raised her eyebrows and cocked her head. “My roommate works at the Chinese restaurant in town—well, sort of—but there’s a lot of Chinese food to be had. He’s looking for another place to stay closer to town, but until then there will be no shortage.”
Opal laughed. “Great, then I can tell dad he can have it for breakfast. I won’t need to make it for him before we leave, so we can head out early.”
“You make his breakfast for him?” Bernard asked, and she couldn’t quite read his expression. Surprise? Judgment?
“Yeah, I do. Every day, if I can. Been doing it since my mother died. It makes me happy,” she said, and his expression was now clear to read.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Don’t be. How could you know?” It wasn’t the first time someone was uncomfortable when they found out that her mother died, and that she’d stuck around to help take care of her dad.
He seemed to recover quickly, and Opal was glad. Her father was her family—especially now that Olivia was married. And it had been her commitment to help him in any way she could.
“He’ll be thrilled with the Chinese food, so thanks for helping me look after him,” she said to lighten his mood, maybe even make him smile. She had come to truly enjoy his smile.
And it worked.
“Good. I’m happy to do it. Not something I’ve ever done before,” he said as he pulled on his coat, hat and gloves and reached for his camera.
“Well, thanks. See you bright and early, then?”
He turned before he closed the door behind him and she got to see that smile again.
“You bet. Bright and early. See you then.”
As she tidied up the kitchen and put the Chinese food in the refrigerator, along with a note for her father to enjoy his breakfast, she wondered a bit about Bernard. He didn’t talk much about his family, although he’d been steeped in hers. Maybe tomorrow she could find out a little bit more about him—although she wouldn’t admit to Olivia in a million years that she even wanted to.
Chapter 9
The bedroom was pitch black when Bernard’s alarm sounded—something he wasn’t used to. He rolled over and turned it off, basking in the brief silence.
He eventually hopped out of bed and into the warm shower as fast as he could, anxious to see Opal again and to try to find their quarry—still knowing full well it wasn’t Bigfoot, but knowing that it was something with an animal shape.
Out of the shower, he packed a thermos of coffee and several chocolate croissants in case they got hungry, and as he did, he laughed out loud.
He could hardly believe they’d been at this for almost a week now, spending the mornings looking for—something—through their camera lenses and their evenings watching the Olympics with Opal’s dad.
They’d taken turns cooking, and he’d even made his grandma’s famous—well, to him, anyway—peasant soup and homemade bread. They’d both loved it, and Opal said it tasted like...old times.
Bernard couldn’t remember when he’d had such a good time, laughing and shouting at the TV with Opal and her father. The US team was still in the running for gold, and it was a rousing win that they’d witnessed.
That was certainly something his family had never done, even when they’d been in the same country at the same time. The last he remembered anything like that was watching sporting events with his grandfather during the summers he’d spent in France.
But now his thoughts had turned to the hunt he and Opal had planned for today.
He packed their breakfast and some napkins in a backpack, and made sure he had his camera and an extra memory stick. Opal and Allen’s cabin wasn’t too far from his and Brandon’s—where was Brandon, anyway?—and Opal had said they’d be walking to her favorite vantage point.
At the last mi
nute, he realized that if Opal hadn’t been able to get pictures before with her lens, his was only a tad bit better, so he grabbed the heavy-duty binoculars he used for the show, to count best angles and placed them in the backpack.
The morning was crisp and clear, and black had turned to gray as the sun glowed behind the mountains to the east. His frosty breath hung in the air as he walked steadily over to Opals.
With a soft rap on the door at exactly six a.m., he turned to look behind him. The sun would be peeking over the top of the mountain soon, and he couldn’t wait to see what they would find.
Opal opened the door and smiled up at him, her eyes gleaming. She held up a finger to her lips and turned back into the house, pulling on her coat and gloves and grabbing a backpack of her own. She wrapped a ruby red scarf around her neck, and her green eyes seemed to glow as she stepped out of the house into the early morning light.
“Thanks for staying quiet. Dad’s still asleep. I think the curling must have done him in,” she said with a laugh.
“I thought I was going to have a heart attack myself. Who knew sliding a stone over the ice could be so exciting?”
Opal rolled her eyes as they set out on the path down to the lake. “Me, that’s who. I never knew, and I still don’t, but you guys sure seemed to enjoy it.”
“Aw, come on. It’s a really old sport. I looked it up when I got home. It was invented in Scotland, and it’s quite complex.”
“If you call sweeping ice in front of a stone complex...I guess I could see that,” she said as they laughed together and he followed her on the narrow path that she turned up after the docks at the lake side.
It was still cold, but signs of spring were popping up all over, Bernard noticed as they walked in silence. Small, yellow flowers peeked out from under small patches of snow, and purple ones from under piles of pine needles.
As the sun spilled over the mountain and began to fall into the valley, bird calls began and Bernard even thought he could hear the chirps of baby birds, even though it seemed a little early in the season for that.
Picture Perfect (River's End Ranch Book 45) Page 4
