Reason Is You (9781101576151) by Sharla Lovelace Read Free Book Online

me we were getting farther and farther from land. I opened my eyes and willed my morning coffee to stay put. We were out in the middle. I zeroed in on a bushy island to the left and counted the waves till we slowed up next to it.
    “You okay?” Jiminy asked.
    “I’m good.” I tried a small grin.
    He touched my arm. “Dani, you’re clammy and shaking. That’s far from good. What’s the matter?”
    I laughed, and it sounded weak to my ears, as the familiar buzzing rush that the river always brought me sang louder than my voice.
    “Nothing, I’m just—” I shrugged and tried to shake it off. “I just get nervous out on the water.”
    Jiminy chuckled. “You grew up on the water.”
    “Over there.” I pointed at the shore.
    “You went fishing.”
    I pointed again. “From over there.”
    He sat back and studied me for a second. “Hmm. Never realized that.”
    I shook my head, just wanting to get on with it. “Okay, teach me something.”
    Jiminy gave me a fish chart, a bait chart he’d made of what was biting on what, and a hat that said “Captain J” on the front.
    “Wow, you’re really organized.” I flipped through the laminated pages. “You update these every time it changes?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    “That’s a lot of work.”
    He adjusted his hat. “People pay a lot of money.”
    We hit every possible cut and cove and sandbar on the north end of the pass. Jiminy didn’t say anything else, but he drove slower and closer to shore. I loved him for that.
    We saw Bessie Heights, Stutes Island, Coffee Ground Cove, among others. I knew them all, since they were on our end and accessible by land—sort of. Some of them were swampy. Saw a cute little houseboat docked right around the cove from my dad’s house. Then what was left of Coffee Ground Cove, which was my hiding place when I was a kid. It had an old abandoned dock and low-hanging trees, and I could disappear in there and pretend the world was beautiful.
    He told me what fish were where and why. Where the ridges were and where the breeding happened, and why the tides were important. He made me cast a couple of times, I guess to prove I could, and actually looked impressed that I remembered the big alligator that once resided in the second cut of Bessie Heights.
    “I named him Herman Munster when I was little.”
    He chuckled and then looked back at me again. “Sounds like something your mother would say.”
    I almost fell out of the boat. “What?”
    He nodded, still looking amused. “You’re Nadine, made over. Look and talk just like her.”
    My fingers went numb. “You knew my mother?”
    “Went to school together.”
    “So did my dad.”
    “Yep.”
    I was amazed. “What was she like?”
    Jiminy flipped over a laminated map and studied it, then grinned up at me. “I’m sure your dad’s told you all that, girl.”
    I shook my head. “I mean from someone else’s point of view. What do you remember about her?”
    His face got a faraway happy look as he looked away. “Her laugh. It was infectious.”
    There was a moment when the only sound was the water lapping the sides of the boat and a nearby frog doing a throaty warble. Then he came back to the present.
    He gestured toward the steering wheel. “Can you drive?”
    I raised my eyebrows and coughed. “On land.”
    He chuckled. “Want to give it a shot?”
    “Not even a little bit.”
    “Come on.” He got up and pointed for me to take the captain’s chair. “Face your fear. It’s easier than a car. No lanes.”
    Shit, shit, shit…
“Is it really necess—”
    “Call it an adventure. Come on.”
    I made it without sinking us or running up on a sandbar, but I wouldn’t go look to do it again on purpose, either. Ever.
    Back at the shop at nearly closing, I was met at the door by Bob the bait guy. Marg told me that Bob was unique, and that was an understatement. Bob grinned up at me from all of five foot two, with a large gap between his front teeth and tattoos all over