A Wife and a River - A Christian romance Read online

  He couldn’t very well tell her he thought it was a set-up. A gag. He couldn’t hire her. He needed a fellow that he could leave alone in the store so he could go fishing. Not a woman. People would start assuming and matchmaking. And, if his elderly prayer group met her, they’d increase their delivery of cookies to the store. They’d think she was an answer to prayer.

  Their prayers.

  He set the three-part form on the counter, aligned the carbon and readied his pen. “What’s your name?”

  “Mabel Louise Bucknell, but I go by Mae.”

  His shoulders relaxed as he wrote out her full legal name on the top line.

  “Birthday?”

  “November 19, 1939.”

  She’d be twenty-one at the start of winter steelhead season. Seven years younger than himself.

  “Your eye color?” he asked, glad that it was the last question on the form.

  “Blue.”

  Trevor glanced up to confirm. Her eyes were a light gray-blue, just like a Blue Dun, one of his favorite dry flies for trout fishing. He inhaled deeply, turned his back to the girl and looked out the window to the right of the phone. Three blocks west, Gladys’s white bungalow sat peaceful and still on the corner of Third and C Street. One extra car was parked in her gravel drive. The green Plymouth belonged to Clara Chicklesworth, one of the four elderly women in their prayer group. Clara was there now, probably praying with Gladys for someone good at math to interview at his store, and, somehow they just happened to throw in “exceptionally pretty female with Blue-Dun eyes.”

  He should never have shared his prayer requests last week with four doting elderly women.

  “Sign here.” He pointed to the last line and handed her the pen. Her cheeks were flushed and her cursive impeccable. His mother would say from her penmanship that she was a great catch. He tore at the perforated edge and proceeded to fold the license and tuck it inside a plastic protector that had Trevor’s Tackle Shop in cursive across the front.

  “That’ll be four dollars. Keep this with you whenever you’re fishing. It’s the law.”

  She held open the bill compartment of a worn leather wallet and pulled out a five. One, maybe two dollars remained. He pushed down on the lever-like arm and the cash drawer sprang open.

  “I pictured you as old.” Her chin tipped up as she met his gaze.

  She wasn’t the first to comment on his age. He’d only been twenty-two when he’d signed the lease to his half of the building; Doris being the other tenant. At the time, it had been a dream come true for him but had proved the final straw for his already struggling marriage.

  “Fletcher and Henry made it sound like it happened twenty years ago…” Her voice trailed off.

  He glanced up; surprised that she’d mentioned it. No one mentioned it. Except him.

  “Do you mean . . . when my wife left me for a man who doesn’t fish?”

  “Yes.” She chewed on her lower lip.

  From the sounds of it, she’d pictured him to be sixty. Not a touch of empathy resided in her gray-blue eyes. It was as if in meeting him, she finally understood Jocelyn’s side.

  “Well . . .” He shrugged. “We were young, and yes, we both found out the hard way that I don’t have time for a wife and a river.” He handed her a dollar in change.

  “Thanks.”

  “Good luck fishing,” he said, while she started for the door.

  After her old truck passed the front windows, he found the black felt marker and headed outside. On his Help Wanted sign below

  Must have good math skills! he wrote:

  Must be a well-rounded angler.

  He stepped back and reviewed his work. Hopefully, no other women would apply. Especially, young and pretty. That wasn’t the type of lure he wanted for his store.

  Chapter 2

  “Now, remember what I told you about studying a stream.” Fletcher walked ahead of Mae through knee-high grass toward Butte, a nice-sized, free-flowing creek. “The water’s awfully clear, so stay back so the fish can’t see you. Remember they’re lazy. They like to eat and sleep and laze around near logs and large rocks.”

  Over the next half hour, Fletcher talked so much, it was like he’d forgotten that she’d already landed one steelhead or that he’d spent the last month preparing her. Mae recalled his son Henry’s advice before he’d left for work that morning: Don’t let Pop overcoach you.

  “I’ll see what’s around the bend.” She hooked the spinner in a lower guide and reeled the line in tight.

  “Oh, you will, will ya?” Fletcher chuckled. “Remember, if you get a bite, don’t just reel in; you need to set the hook. Kind of late in the morning, so think of it more as casting practice than anything else. Oh, and if you do get a bite, don’t go screaming and hollering about it, always remember that you’re not the only angler on the creek.”

  While she walked upstream, Mae studied the water and made sure she was far enough around the bend that Fletcher wouldn’t be able to see her. A fallen log on the opposite bank created a deep pool and a nice holding area. She cast toward the log and reeled in the shiny Colorado spinner. After a dozen casts and no action, she walked farther upstream to where a nice riffle curved into a soapstone bank. The deep pool was shaded by alder trees. Her first cast landed on the opposite bank before skittering into the water.

  An hour of fishing passed with no action. She’d make one more cast and then begin her way downstream. Reeling slow, she paused to watch a blue jay fly overhead. An undeniable tug bent her rod; she jerked, raising her father’s old Shakespeare shoulder-high.

  This was no trout. There was way too much bend to the rod. Trout around here are little; she recalled Fletcher’s words. A flash of silver thrashed above the water as the fish tried to shake the hook.

  “Fletcher!” she yelled, looking downstream.

  Was it a steelhead? It sure looked and fought like her first fish had. She reeled slow, keeping the line taut. The bright fish jumped a foot out of the water and then darted upstream, pulling more line off the spool. She lifted the rod and reeled on the way down. This method called pumping was the way Fletcher had taught her to play large fish.

  “Fletcher!” Mae yelled, needing his net.

  “Keep your line tight!” he hollered from downstream.

  She played the fish into the shallows and pushed her rod towards the shore to slide the fish onto the rocks. Gills fluttering, the bright fish attempted to flip its way back toward deeper water.

  Fletcher was still crashing his way through the brush, when Mae splashed into the stream and sank the knees of Henry’s old hip boots to the rocks, corralling the steelhead.

  “Un . . . believable!” he panted, finally reaching her. “Unbelievable!” He unsnapped the net from his side and slid it under the prize fish.

  Mae grinned. Her second steelhead story would be far more enjoyable to tell than her first.

  »»»

  Trevor carried Fenwick spin rods from the backroom toward the front of the store. He set the rods in the upright displays, lining the window, and heard a thump, off to his left. Someone’s back was completely smooshed against the door’s upper glass as whoever it was wrestled with the handle. Then, a green upholstered chair swiveled in and preceded whoever carried it inside.

  “Hold on there, you’re in the wrong store!” Trevor said. Then he saw the back of Jack Johnson’s wavy gray hair and his lean, five-foot-eight frame. His good friend carried the chair toward the coffee counter, where he eventually set it down.

  “My gift to the store.” Jack dusted off his hands.

  Trevor chuckled and knew full well that the chair was more for Jack than other patrons.

  “Now that I’m officially retired, you need a more comfortable chair,” Jack poured himself a cup of coffee. “When I bought Stan’s place, it had this comfy chair by the fire. I already had a comfy chair, so here you go. It’s yours.”

  Jack was setting up shop.

  “Thanks, that’s great.” Last sum
mer, Jack had purchased Stan Dutton’s cabin at the Coon Hole on Butte Creek. The place had come furnished, with a couple of bamboo rods to boot.

  Trevor poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down in the store’s new chair. Unlike the wooden folding chairs, this one was padded, and bound to become an issue with some of his regulars.

  “It’s comfortable, isn’t it?” Jack flicked a hand for him to move.

  Trevor obliged. “Sure is.”

  “Anyone call for me?” Jack sat down and took a sip of coffee.

  “No, are you expecting someone to?”

  “Yes, so be sure and take a message when it happens. I fell asleep last night listening to the creek and looking at one of Stan’s twenty-year-old Heddon catalogs.”

  “When are you going to invite me out to your place for supper?” Trevor asked. Jack dined at his place three sometimes four nights a week, so it wasn’t like he was asking a lot.

  “Last night I ran out of matches to light the fire. So I told myself to think like Stan would when he owned the place. I reached up into the rafters above the woodstove and found a slim wooden box. It was an old Rhodes Mechanical Frog box, 1910.” Jack grinned. “Inside were a fleet of wooden matches.”

  Rhodes Mechanical Frog lures were used for bass fishing, which meant Stan either knew of some local private ponds or may have even traveled a good distance for some of his fishing. Jack’s stories of his cabin on the creek made Trevor yearn all the more for the day when he’d eventually own Walt Schoenberg’s place on the Molalla. He’d spoken with the elderly man off and on for several years about buying the property. Trevor’s name was at the coveted top of Walt’s handwritten list—scribbled in dark ink directly on the wall beside his phone.

  “You didn’t answer my question, Jack.”

  His friend’s gaze narrowed.

  “When are you going to invite me out to your place for supper?”

  Jack shrugged. “I have a can opener and one pot.”

  “You also have a fry pan.” Jack had boasted on numerous occasions about the pan-fried trout he’d enjoyed for breakfast.

  The bell above the door jingled.

  “Get your scale and your camera!” Fletcher Gleinbroch bellowed. “She caught it on Butte.” Past the stocky built, middle-aged man, the angler girl stood holding a nice-sized steelhead.

  “Butte?” Trevor chuckled as he grabbed his camera and the scale from behind the counter. “Unbelievable,” he eyed the nice-size steelhead and pulled the door closed behind him.

  “That’s what I said.” Hands on his hips, Fletcher beamed. “Took her to Butte for casting practice, and she lands a steelhead about a hundred yards upstream from the park.”

  Mabel’s shoulder-length hair was braided into two short pigtails. Her old jeans were soaked to mid-thigh, and her lips were purple-blue. In her angler attire, she was, even more, trouble than he remembered.

  They exchanged hellos, and she took the spring scale from him, threaded the hook under the gill plate, and hung the bright steelhead from the nail in the rafters. There had been two weigh-ins on Saturday when she’d been here. She’d obviously taken note.

  “Did you have your license on you this time?” Trevor asked as the scale settled at nine and a quarter pounds.

  “Yes.”

  “Of course.” Fletcher elbowed him. “Take a picture. We need proof for the board.”

  Mabel lifted the steelhead off the scale. Near her old truck, she held the fish chest-high for the shot and gave him a stomach-knotting smile. He made sure he had both the girl’s head and the fish in the picture, as he was notorious for cutting off anglers’ heads and focusing too much on the fish.

  “I was around the bend when I heard her yelling. She pert near went swimming before I could reach her with the net.” Fletcher crossed his arms in front of his burly chest, grinning.

  “I see that. There’s a fresh pot of coffee and a warm fire in the stove.” Trevor held open the door. “Leave the steelhead hanging out here. It’s good for business.”

  He grabbed a piece of chalk from behind the line counter and wrote: Mabel Bucknell, 9¼ lb. steelhead – Butte Creek on the derby board. “What’d you catch it on?” Trevor glanced over to where she stood near the coffee pot, both hands wrapped around a warm mug.

  “A nickel-plated Colorado.”

  He added the lure name to her entry on the board.

  “Much action on the Molalla?” asked Fletcher.

  “A couple steelhead were weighed in this morning.” Trevor nodded.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll hit the Molalla.” Fletcher turned his attention to the girl. “Don’t let me forget Rooster Tails.”

  Trevor was about to join them at the coffee counter when the bell jingled; and, Howard Armstrong, his grumpiest customer, marched in like he had a bone to pick.

  “Howard, what can I do for you today?” Trevor greeted him near the front and, with his hands on his hips, tried to prepare himself.

  “I bought that tackle box here, and I tell you it was top-heavy,” Howard grumbled, pointing a finger at Trevor’s chest.

  Howard was seventy-four-years-old and a tough old logger. If he wasn’t Clara Chicklesworth’s baby brother—one of the sweetest little old ladies to ever walk the earth—Trevor would have told him years ago to stop shopping here.

  “What do you mean it was top-heavy?” Trevor crossed his arms.

  “Well, it was defective, I tell you. It was flawed.” Howard’s black-lens glasses appeared top-heavy before he righted them farther up the bridge of his nose. “We hit one rapid, and there’s no reason it should have slid across the bow of the boat like that into the river.”

  “A tackle box doesn’t belong on the bow of the boat when you’re going through rapids, does it, Howard?”

  “It sure doesn’t,” Fletcher said in the background.

  “All my stuff was in it—my pliers, lures, sinkers, fishing license... everything.”

  Howard’s orneriness, today, was on account of his pocketbook. Trevor sighed. “I’ll replace the tackle box if you replace everything that was in it… here.”

  “You have a deal!” Howard slapped him on the shoulder and then ambled down the aisle.

  “The same box, Howard. The Old Pal, three-dollar one.”

  Fletcher chuckled. “I’ve heard that about you before—how you can’t say “no” to anybody.” He crossed the aisle to set a metal baking pan holding two Rooster Tail spinners on the front counter. The girl joined him, carrying her cup of coffee.

  “Is that so?” Trevor moved behind the register. The girl’s raised-brow expression was plain; she recalled a couple of times that he’d said “no.” Her gaze lowered to the counter between them. Beneath the glass, his most expensive fly reels were displayed on a bed of pinto beans.

  “Mr. Dawber, is there a lure you favor for steelhead fishing on the Molalla?” she asked.

  “Donald said he has lures that you can just have.” Fletcher pulled a dollar bill out of his wallet and handed it to Trevor.

  “I looked, and they’re rusty.”

  “Grab another cup of coffee, and I’ll show her.” Trevor handed Fletcher his change and the bag of spinners, and then he led the girl to the lure aisle. Ten feet of lures lined the pegboard while small tackle boxes covered the knee-high shelf. He pulled a Luhr-Jensen Apple Knocker off of a peg and held it between them.

  “This is a favorite of mine for steelhead.” He handed her the fifty-nine cent lure.

  “Why won’t you hire a woman?” She studied the spinner’s gold Indiana blade teamed with an orange teardrop balsa wood body.

  “So, that’s what this is all about.” Fletcher didn’t know about the interview, and she was trying to get him off to the side. “One reason I won’t hire a woman”—he kept his voice low—“is because of fellows like Howard. This is a man’s store.”

  “And . . . ?” Her gaze drifted to the knot of his gray-and-black checked tie.

  She must think him a man of opinions.

/>   “Very rarely will a lone female shop here; and when one does, it’s obvious she’s fishing for a husband. If I were crazy enough to hire you, my customers would think the same about you.”

  “Well, I don’t agree with that one.” She averted her gaze, keeping an eye on Fletcher.

  The girl hadn’t seen what he had. During the six years that he’d owned a tackle shop, it was always obvious, at least, to him, when a woman’s pretense in fishing was merely bait to catch a man.

  “I need some trout hooks, too,” she said.

  He grabbed a metal baking pan and led the way to the other side of the display, one aisle over, where, hooks were organized by size and color in glass custard cups. He lifted up a bowl, turned toward the aisle, and puffed like he was blowing out birthday candles. Dust particles floated in the air.

  “What size hook should I use for trout?”

  “If you’re using night crawlers, you’d use a size eight bronze baitholder hook.”

  “And if I’m not using worms?”

  “For eggs, you’d use a size ten gold egg hook.”

  She nodded and set half a dozen bronze hooks in her tray.

  “I’d also like a couple of your favorite lures or spinners for trout fishing.”

  “You’re getting ready early.” He chuckled and dismissed an uneasy feeling as they returned to the lure aisle.

  “This little trout spinner,” Trevor pulled an Indiana off the peg, “is one of my favorites, and it’s easy on the pocketbook at twenty-nine cents.”

  “How would you fish it?”

  The girl knew enough about fishing to ask. “Well, you can tie a six to ten-inch leader to it, and then you run a night crawler behind it. Sometimes I like to use a fly.”

  “On a fly rod or a spin rod?”

  “A spin.” He suppressed a chuckle. “I’ll tie a black wooly worm… fly behind it.” He tried to be as informative as he’d be with any customer. “And then, I’ll wade out about mid-thigh and let it out behind me in the current.”

  Eyes alert, she listened.

  From the coffee counter area, Fletcher cleared his throat for their attention. “Mae, we need to get going. That roast is going to take a couple hours of cooking.”