“Sure. But worthy things come from practice, and there’s something pure in practicing. You come at whatever the thing is with intent and focus, expecting to fail, but also expecting to move toward a goal. Personally, I never minded practicing. Come here and let me show you some basics, starting with some terminology.”

Zeke sitting against that boulder, the river moving swiftly beside him, the dappled sunlight falling through the canopy to speckle his khaki hiking pants and chamois vest restored something to her soul. The craving inside her for normalcy, for simplicity, for peace, was allayed by the beauty, by his words, by the fact he’d taken the time to bring her to this gorgeous place and teach her something as old as time.

For the next hour, she did not worry about catching anything. She merely practiced the technique, the rhythmic dance of the line swirling overhead, the staying low, the quick retrieval. All the while, Zeke stood beside her, encouraging and sharing his love for catching brookies up the mountain or the way browns got territorial and thus a black or orange fly mimicked another fish and often netted more strikes. He talked about his flies—what a wet or nymph fly looked like as opposed to a dry one, like the one she was using. He taught her about caddis hatches and mayflies and which rivers yielded the best results in the fall.

Chase didn’t understand most of it, and her arm ached from the motion needed to successfully cast the line, but she enjoyed the way he told stories, reveled in his tales of funny guiding trips, and tried very hard to perform the cast and retrieval.

So it was fairly amazing when upon a good cast (finally), something grabbed her fly.

“Oh! Oh!” she shrieked. “Something’s got it.”

Zeke snapped to attention. “Seriously?”

She might have been offended by the surprise in his voice, but she was too busy pulling the line and tugging against the jerking of the rod. “Oh, it’s a big one. Help me!”

Zeke stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her and supporting the pole. He guided her right hand to the line, showing her how to retrieve it. “It’s okay to take your time. Enjoy the weight of the fish on your line. Steady now. Step out here. Mind your footing.”

He supported her elbow, moving her forward. In the back of her mind, she reveled in the feel of him against her. He smelled like wet canvas and earthiness, not unpleasant in the least.