A fish struck his line as he heard the sound of a horse whinny nearby.
Reeling in the cutthroat, he turned to see a bay horse come out of the trees being ridden by a young woman. He recognized Maggie McTavish and thought of the gangly girl who used to ride across the pasture next to his ranch. She’d always ridden hard and fast as if running from something.
Over the years, he’d watched her go from pigtails to ponytails and finally the thick single braid that swung against her slim back as she thundered past. She’d changed from gangly to sleek and beautiful, and still she seemed to be running either from something or toward it. He never knew which.
He just knew that one day she wouldn’t ride past and that he was going to miss seeing her.
She reined in now, slipping off the horse with graceful ease. That she was beautiful was only part of the young woman’s appeal. There was something strong and determined in the way she held herself. Almost defiant.
“Nice trout,” she said as he brought the cutthroat the rest of the way in. “Dinner?”
Grace didn’t like him to bring fish home. She said they stank up the house when he fried them.
“Not tonight,” he said, and held up the beautiful fish. The colors caught in the sunlight as bright and multihued as a rainbow. “You interested?”
She shook her head and looked toward the lake. “I didn’t mean to disturb your fishing.” She turned as if to leave.
“Don’t leave on my account,” he said as he carefully lowered the fish into the water at the edge of the lake and watched it swim away in a ripple of clear water. “I have to get back. You can have the place to yourself.”
She turned to look at him then, her green eyes luminous. Her long plaited red hair hung down almost to her waist. She reached back to unbraid it. Waves of crimson fell around her slim shoulders. She was even more beautiful up close.
“If you’re sure,” she said.
He nodded and began to break down his rod so he could pack it and his gear into his saddlebag.
“This is where I come when I need to think,” Maggie said, gazing out at the lake. “There is something so peaceful about this place.”
He looked past her to the small mountain lake ringed in huge boulders left by the last ice age. Mirror Lake was so clear he could see submerged rocks down a good ten feet, then nothing but bottomless dark water.
“I’ve been dreaming of a swim all morning,” she said turning back to him.
“Swim?” He laughed. “Do you know how cold that water is?”
She smiled and for the first time looked like the teenager she still was. There was something timeless about her. But when he gazed into those green eyes, he saw an old soul, a young woman wise beyond her years. What had made her that way? he wondered. Or had she been born knowing truths that should have been saved for much later in life?
He watched her sit down on a nearby rock and pull off her boots and socks. As she reached to unbutton her jeans, he turned away to finish loading his horse for the ride back to the ranch. In truth, he wasn’t ready to leave the lake. The thought of going back to that house, back to Grace and her anger and hatred, back to the decision he’d been putting off for weeks...made him want to stay here forever.
But he felt uncomfortable being here with Maggie. She made him feel old and full of regrets, as if he’d wasted his life.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her slip out of her jeans and drop them beside her boots. She was unbuttoning her shirt when she said, “Dare you to go in with me.”
That made him laugh and turn toward her. She stopped unbuttoning her shirt for a moment to give him a challenging grin. “Chicken?”
“I don’t think—”
“So don’t think. Just do. We all think way too much.” She peeled off her shirt. Barefoot and down to her underwear, she ran up the smooth surface of a large boulder at the edge of the water. There she stopped to look back at him. “You really don’t know what you’re missing.”
He might have argued that, but she didn’t give him a chance. She dived off the rock. He would always remember her long sun-browned body clad only in white bra and panties caught in an arc over the glistening water. She looked like a sea nymph, her long red hair floating out behind her as she sliced through the clear water.
JD felt such a moment of supreme loss that his heart ached with it. He wanted desperately to jump in with her. He wanted to feel young and free like her. He wanted to feel that jolt of ice-cold to awaken the man he’d been.
Instead, he stood on the bank and watched her glide through the water. At that moment, he knew that life was captured in fleeting moments, choices taken and not taken, opportunities lost. As he watched her swim, he knew he’d just made a choice he would regret.
“You shouldn’t swim alone up here,” he called to her.
“I know. There are a lot of things I shouldn’t do,” she called back.
* * *
RUSSELL MURDOCK CHECKED his phone, turned it off and replaced it in his pocket. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”
The elderly woman sitting in the chair next to him raised her head and looked around as if not recognizing her surroundings. Millie blinked in the bright sunshine before giving him a radiant smile.
“You know, I can’t remember what we were talking about,” she said with a laugh. “It happens more and more all the time.”
“Don’t feel bad, it happens to us all,” he said. She was a slim, pretty woman with white wispy hair that covered her head like a protective cloud. Her hair was in stark contrast to the vivid blue of her eyes. Her face was soft, her skin only lightly creased. She looked like a kindly grandmother.
“We were talking about Dr. Venable. He rented from you when he worked at the clinic outside of town.”
She frowned and looked around the courtyard as if again wondering how she’d gotten there.
“Ralph,” he suggested.
She turned toward him then, her face brightening. “He was such a polite man. Nicest tenant I ever had. He would bring me little treats,” she said confidentially as she leaned toward him. “Don’t tell my children. They worry about my health. He knew I loved chocolate.”
Russell saw that he’d lost her again. She seemed to have been transported as if by time machine to twenty-five years ago. He tried to imagine what Dr. Venable had looked like back then. According to Russell’s calculations, he would be close to Millie’s age now, seventy-two. But unlike Millie, maybe he wasn’t now suffering from dementia.
“Did he ever talk about his work?” Russell asked. He desperately wanted to ask about Sarah Hamilton and if Ralph had ever mentioned her. “When Ralph brought you treats, chocolate, did he mention his patients?”
He wasn’t sure which word did the trick, but Millie was back. The nurse had told him she was having a good day and might be able to help him.
“He liked helping people,” Millie said. “He hated to see them suffering. When I told him about my nightmares after my husband died, he got tears in his eyes. He told me he could help me forget.” She shook her head.
“You weren’t interested in having your memories erased?” Russell said, trying hard not to sound too eager.
“No, our memories are all we have at the end. We don’t get to pick or choose. The bad ones make us stronger—at least that’s what I tell my children.” She smiled sadly. “You know he lost his wife. So tragic. Suicide is a terrible thing for those left behind. He said he tried to take away the bad in her life, but had failed. He swore on her grave that he wouldn’t let it happen to anyone else.”
“So