The spot that he led them to was perfect. A vast field covered in a carpet of purple flowers, with taller yellow ones mixed in. The mountains surrounded them, great, misty-green guardians with a forest spread out before them like soldiers. There was a little path that led down to a small lake, where Gabe expressed confidence there would be trout.

“I’m not eating birthday catfish,” she announced as she began to get the necessities out of the back of his truck.

His face contorted. He was still handsome. “I’m not going to catch a catfish.”

“In a lake you can’t really be sure.”

“Well, if I catch one, I’ll throw it back.”

“That seems mean.”

He rolled his eyes. “Do you want birthday catfish or not?”

“Not. But I figured maybe you could eat the catfish if you caught it.”

He sighed heavily and got out the tent.

“You’re pitching a tent for me,” she said, barely able to hold back her grin.

“In the metaphorical sense, that’s nothing new, Jamie. Glad to set up a literal tent for you, too.”

He set the tent out in the middle of the field, next to a cleared-out patch with a fire ring that had clearly been used for camping many times.

“Do your brothers take women up here?”

“You’re hoping that I don’t take women up here,” he said.

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“I don’t. My parents come up here sometimes. My brothers and I have come up here. I’m pretty sure our friend Ellie and her husband, Clint, used to come up here.”

“Ellie’s the one who lost her husband,” Jamie confirmed.

“Yes.”

That made Jamie’s heart squeeze tight. She had always known, in a philosophical sense, that her father had lost his wife. But it wasn’t until Gabe that she understood what that might mean. They didn’t even have children together. She never said that she loved him. He never said he loved her. They weren’t married. And yet...

Losing him would devastate her. She would feel like she’d lost part of herself.

She swallowed hard. “Poor thing.”

“Yeah. She’s strong. She’s doing better.”

“What about her daughter?”

“She never knew him. Ellie was pregnant when he died.”

“Oh,” Jamie said, a black hole opening up in her chest. She started hunting around the back of the truck for fishing poles, the rods clattering around against the metal bed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say it like that. Like it was easier.”

“It is,” she said softly.

“Is it?”

“In the sense that I don’t know what I’m missing.”

He looked at her for a long moment, but didn’t press the issue. Then he grabbed the white disposable container of worms and his pole, and she took hers, and the two of them began to walk down toward the lake.

They set up on some rocks a ways from each other and cast out as far as they could. It would’ve been better to have a boat to fish in a lake, but since they didn’t have one, this would do. The place they were standing was a pretty decent drop-off, and Jamie really was concerned that all that she was doing was dragging the bottom and snagging catfish. She reeled back continuously, trying to make sure that her bait didn’t snag the bottom.