Page 53 of The Wild Beneath

“We should get home,” she says. “It’s going to rain.”

“I didn’t mean to make you nervous... I shouldn’t have gotten so close.” Walker’s voice falters in a way Annie hasn’t heard before.

“I liked it,” she says, before she can stop herself or think of the ramifications.

His hum stills at the base of her spine. Annie stays where she is, as if the hum might stop if she spoke, if she moved at all.

“Me, too,” he says.

It thunders on the way home, the air still and thick. The light rain starts and tamps down the dirt. When it’s pouring, they take shelter under a crab-apple tree near Ruth’s road.

The bark presses into Annie’s back. The branches rub and click in the wind, rain funnels off the leaves. Apples lie on the ground, holes in some, left by scavenging birds. Even under the tree, she’s soaked through.

Walker sits a few inches away from her. Annie is hyperconscious of the space between them, of the precise gap where their skin is not touching. Thunder rattles through the sky and beneath them, through the earth. Walker’s sound is strong and close, a magnetic field. She wants to collect it inside herself. His cheeks are red from the rain and the walk. His wet T-shirt clings to his broad shoulders. Bluish veins curve in the crook of his elbow and raindrops collect on his arms.

Annie wishes he would touch her again.

But she doesn’t know how to ask for that.

The hard rain knocks more apples off their branches and when it finally eases, they collect armfuls. Later, they roast them on top of the wood stove. The insides taste like burnt honey.

Chapter 19

Annie and Walker work onPolarisalmost every evening after that.

Even when he’s out late fishing onGalene, she finds herself there, alone, unable to resist chipping away at repairs, making imaginary packing lists, charting courses that might never exist.

It’s near the end of the week when Evan appears in the doorway.

Annie’s at the top of the ladder working on the trim. For possibly the first time in her life, she doesn’t immediately recognize him—­wearing those logging coveralls with the Hale Timber insignia covering the area between his shoulder blades.

But it’s him: the familiar moves of his body, in the way he takes off his hat and runs his hand through his dark curls. His usual close-cropped sides are growing out. He looks up at her with a small smile, the dimple in his high left cheek, his dark eyelashes.

“Fixing up a sailboat?” he asks.

“You’re here.” Her voice is firm.

He has both hands and one foot already on the ladder. “Permission to board?”

Annie nods. He climbs up and over the lifelines, into the cockpit. The hatch is open, exposing the heart of the engine.

“You think you can fix that?” He points inside.

“I’ve been poring over old repair manuals.”

“And?”

She pauses. “Where have you been?”

“God, I’ve missed you.”

Those words should make her feel happy. They do not. She has to look away from him.

“My dad’s been on a tear,” he continues. “But I needed to see you. I’m towing the log booms tomorrow.”

“Booms?”

“We don’t have enough gas for the trucks.”