For the Love of His Life (5 page)

Raul stared at her back as she walked in front of him.

Look at the way her hips are swaying gently like that…I could get hypnotized watching that back and forth movement! Shit! I called her fat didn’t I? Now she won’t believe me when I tell her I like a woman with enough flesh on her bones for me to look forward to sinking into…and biting it and…

She stopped suddenly and he ran into her back.

“Wha—” he started to say when she held up her hand and put her pointer finger to her lips.

“Shh…” she pointed ahead of them.

Raul moved slightly to one side and looked over her shoulder. In front of them was a family of deer. The doe grazed on the grass close to the lake, the two fawns were taking a drink from the water, and a huge buck with gigantic antlers stood guard in the shadows of the trees, making him harder to see.

“Wow,” Raul breathed softly, taking in a sight he’d never seen before. Obviously it wasn’t a common sight either because Veronica seemed to be as enthralled as he was.

They continued to watch as the fawns joined their mother in grazing on the grass. When a cabin door slammed in the distance, the buck lifted his head and looked in that direction. He made a low sound, and the doe and the fawns leapt off into the woods followed by the patriarch of their family.

“That was really something,” Veronica said softly, “I’d heard there was a huge buck around, but no one has been able to catch him yet. He’s obviously good at sensing when there are humans around so he can warn his family.”

“We might have had guns for all he knew,” Raul began.

“But we were downwind. He didn’t smell or even notice us at all. It was the cabin door slamming that spooked him.”

“Do you see wild animals like that often up here?” Raul was standing close behind Veronica and enjoying her nearness.

Her hair smells like lavender…like Mom used to smell sometimes, when she could afford the frothy purple soap she liked so much. And big Rod is definitely getting off on her curvy ass being so close to him…

Veronica shook her head as she started walking again.

“No, but there are lots of wild critters around. It’s just most of them avoid people like the plague. You can’t really blame them since to them we smell funny and we make a lot of noise. I’ve heard there’s even a bear cub around. He’s been seen around a few lakes, but he’s not really big enough to be without his mama close by, so no one has tried to approach him. There’s also stories that a mama moose and her kid have been seen not too far out into the boundary waters area. But they usually only appear around sunrise. I’m here making pies soon after that so I haven’t seen them.” Veronica shot a look back over her shoulder at the actor who was once again huffing and puffing trying to keep up with her.”You might see them, if you’re lucky. That’s probably pretty close to the time you’ve been getting poured out of Jake’s car. Maybe you’ll be stumbling into your cabin some morning and come face-to-face with a moose. Wouldn’t that be cool?”

Raul snorted. “Honey, the only moose I’ve ever seen is Bullwinkle from the cartoons. I’d probably run screaming in the other direction if I ran into one while I was by myself.”

Veronica shrugged. “Whatever. I guess I’d have the same reaction to a mugger on the streets of Hollywood…that probably is a usual occurrence to you, huh?”

She had stopped to check her lines and she sat down on her haunches as she pulled at each line in turn to see if there was a fish on any of them. Raul tried not to stare at the round globes of her butt cheeks, but he couldn’t help himself.

If I could just get her to turn around, I’d only need to unzip my pants and big Rod could jump right into her sarcastic little mouth…

Veronica looked up at him and smiled, a real genuine smile and he felt like a pig.

What a time for my conscience to start working!

“There’s a pull on one of my lines. Either I have a fish hooked on it, or some lake grass. Let’s just see, shall we?”

She stood and picked up the rod balanced against a tree branch and began to reel in the line. All of a sudden the line lurched away from her and she grinned.

“That’s not lake grass! That’s a fish!”

Having never even seen a fish up close, except on his plate drowning in lemon sauce, Raul leaned forward to try to see into the lake and saw nothing except bubbles coming to the surface from movement under the water.

“So what are you going to do now?” he asked, interested in spite of himself.

“I’m gonna reel him in, clean and gut him, and fry him up for a happy hour snack!” Veronica crowed as she fought against the energy of the fish that must have heard her words about his eventual fate, because he put up a good fight against the inevitable.

Raul stood and watched as Veronica fought against the fish and won…eventually. She sensed when it was beginning to tire itself out and began once again to reel in the line. She made better progress this time, since the fish was obviously too tired to fight much longer.

If this really was the old-time wilderness, I’d starve to death without her help,
Raul realized with a jolt. This didn’t improve his mood, but he gained a new respect for the experience being demonstrated for him by the beautiful blonde in front of him.

Veronica gave one last big pull and the line came out of the water with a big fish unhappily flapping around on the end of it.

“Would you look at the size of that one,” she remarked as she pulled up a net out of the underbrush and lowered him into it. “That’s one of the biggest small-mouthed bass I’ve ever seen! Nice of him to decide to take a nibble from one of my leeches back here.”

Raul leaned over to look with great interest at the fish, still flopping around in the net but with considerable less energy.

“How long can he live out of the water?”

“His time is about over,” Veronica replied as she also pulled a pair of gloves out of the underbrush and put them on to hold onto the fish with one hand and pull the hook out of his mouth with the other.

“Now what?” Raul was fascinated by the unknown.

“Now we get him up to the kitchen so we can see how good he tastes,” Veronica looked at him closely. “You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to,” she began.

“Watch what?”

“While I chop his head off and clean and gut him, then cut him into chunks.”

Raul knew his eyes had opened wide so he made no attempt to look any less horrified. He was also curious and interested.

“Um…I’d like to watch, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. If it gets too gross for you just go into the dining room and grab a beer or something to calm your nerves.” She glanced back at him as he followed her along the trail. “After all, it must be hours since you last had a drink. You might be getting antsy by now. I don’t mind.”

Raul bit back the retort he wanted to make about not having even thought about a drink. He’d actually been thinking about how a cold beer would probably taste good with a chunk or two of the fish she was going to fry up.

“I want to watch,” he said a bit defensively.

Veronica shrugged. “Okay,” she said as she pushed open the back door to the main cabin and strode into the kitchen. “Gram-Marie? I got a big small-mouthed bass on one of my lines!” She announced on her way in the door.

The tiny, white-haired woman appeared in the doorway that led to the dining room. She and Veronica spent some time admiring the fish before they got out sharp knives and made quick work of rendering it ready for the frying pan. Raul only had to look away once or twice when the sight of blood reminded him something had died to become their food.

Marie got some butter melting in the pan while Veronica dredged the pieces of the fish in a mixture she poured out of a plastic bowl from one of the cabinets. Then she tossed the chunks of fish into the pan and the smell almost made Raul drool, even though he had eaten just a short time ago.

While the fish was frying, Veronica went through the door into the dining room and returned a few minutes later with three bottles of Canadian beer. She twisted the tops off of all three of them and handed one to Raul. He smiled at her, taking a big gulp as she put the other two on the countertop near the stove. She grabbed one of the high stools and sat on one, waving at another one to indicate that Raul should join her. There were two close together under another counter and he grabbed both of them so Marie would be able to sit too, once she was done cooking the chunks of fish.

As the chunks were done, she put them onto paper towels in a dish. Once she had all of the fish fried up, she brought the plate over to the counter and put it in the middle, within easy reach of all of them.

“Dig in,” Marie said with a twinkle in her eyes.

Raul nodded his head to Veronica, “You first. It’s your fish…you caught it, you cleaned it…you deserve to be the first one to taste it.”

Veronica smiled at him. “Don’t mind if I do,” she said as she grabbed one of the steaming pieces and popped it into her mouth. “Umm! This is great!”

Raul waited until Marie had taken a piece before he grabbed a large chunk from the paper towel and popped the whole thing in his mouth. He bit down experimentally and was thrilled at the sweet, buttery taste. The light, flaky fish flesh was so much better than anything he’d ever eaten in seafood restaurants!

“Oh my God, is this good!” He leaned forward to grab another morsel.

Veronica grinned, “I’ll bet you’ve never had fish so fresh before, huh? From the lake to your mouth in less than an hour.”

He nodded. “Is that why it’s so good? Because it’s phenomenal!”

Marie sniffed. “Far be it from me to say, but my special blend of herbs and flours you dredged the bits in had a little to do with the taste…”

“Of course it did,” Veronica agreed. “You always know just how long to fry it and you use just the right blend of butter and oil.”

“Still, it is a very tasty fish,” Gram-Marie remarked. “And you got it from one of your lines you left out back? Shows how much your Dad knows about it, since he always says you’re wasting your time leaving lines unattended.”

“I always say what?” A tall gray-haired man strode into the kitchen and without saying anything else, he grabbed a big chunk of the fish and stuffed it into his mouth.

Marie laughed. “You always say Ronnie is wasting her time with those lines she leaves out back. But this yummy small-mouthed bass was on one of those lines. I guess you don’t know everything there is to know about fishing, huh?” She smiled as she chided her son.

He looked wounded. “Mom! I never said I know everything. Just mostly.” He smiled and turned to his daughter. “Ronnie, this fish is great! Good job there, girlie.”

He turned to Raul as if he had just noticed him. “I taught her everything she knows, you know,” he confided in a man-to-man confidence that made Marie roll her eyes.

Veronica grinned. “Dad, this is our guest, Jared’s actor friend, Raul Roderick. Raul, this is my father, Erik Sorrenson.”

The two men nodded at each other as they shook hands. Then Erik turned to look at the plate again.

“I know you are a guest and all, but I feel like I missed most of the feast. Is it alright with you if I gobble those last few tiny pieces of fish?”

Raul grinned. “It has nothing to do with me, sir. I didn’t catch it, I didn’t clean it and I sure didn’t cook it. You’ll have to ask them…”

He gave his daughter a sad, puppy-dog face. She laughed.

“Sure, okay, Dad. We’ve been gorging on the rest of it. Go ahead and finish it off.”

“Oh, and I should probably tell you there’s a couple of folks out there wanting to order an early dinner,” he nodded his head in the direction of the dining room.

“Fine, I’ll go do my job.” Veronica got up and pulled an apron off of a hook on the wall.

“Do you all do everything around here?” Raul asked, looking around.

Erik shook his head. “Nah. The dinner waitresses come in at six because we don’t get that many customers until then. And the cook will be here soon. We just cover it until they get here.”

“Who’s this
we
?” Marie asked as she took the now empty plate over to the garbage can and wiped the plate with the paper towel before discarding it and placing the plate into the dishwasher. “You haven’t worked here since you got out of college.”

“But I used to,” Erik protested.

“As I remember you did grounds-keeping and sometimes helped your sisters clean the cabins. But you never did any of the cooking.”

“I’m better at the eating,” Erik replied, with a conspiratorial grin at Raul who nodded.

“Well now you two men need to make yourselves scarce. You’re in the way in my kitchen and I’ll probably need to get going on some food soon. Out! Scoot! Get out of the
zone
, so I can get into it!”

The two men walked out of the back door. There was an awkward silence for a moment until Erik grabbed Raul’s hand to shake it.

“Now we’ve been properly introduced, let me say I’ve never seen any of your movies, but if Jared thinks you’ve got talent, you must have it. I’m actually on my way home from work. I’ve got to get there soon or my wife will think I’m not coming home for dinner. The last time she thought that, she fed my dinner to the dogs and I had to make do with some of my mom’s left-over soup. So I’ll see you around, Raul.”