Like a part of my soul knew her. It was the strangest feeling I’d ever experienced, which left me silent and stoic.
Her shoulders rose and her chest lifted, yet she didn’t pull her leg away. Then a harsh, rushed exhale blew past her lips. She dropped her gaze to the center of my chest before peering out across the lake. But it was only for a moment. As soon as her eyes met mine again, my pulse accelerated until I could feel it in every pressure point. My neck thrummed. Even my fingertips danced to the hurried tempo of my heartbeat.
“Thank you.” Never had two whispered words carried such desire.
I let up on the massage, though I didn’t let go of her foot. I kept it in my lap, resting on my thigh as I lightly stroked it with my fingertips. It was involuntary; I felt powerless to stop myself. I had never in my life felt so compelled to be near another person. I guess it was just one more thing to add to my growing list of confusion.
“For what?”
Her gaze narrowed, followed by a carefully guarded grin. “For getting out the splinter.”
“Oh, yeah…that. Well, you’re very welcome. If you have any other surgical needs, feel free to come see me.”
McKenna laughed, and instantly, the air around us grew thin. It was as though we’d been unknowingly smothered by a heavy fog that vanished without warning. It was easier to breathe and, based on the soft sigh following her tapered giggles, I assumed she’d felt it, too.
She pointed to the embroidered crow on the front of my shirt, the words Black Bird Resort stitched above and below it. “You work here?”
“And live here. My dad owns the place, and I help him run it.” When the dense air that had enveloped us dissipated, it seemed to have taken all the tension with it. I took a swig of my beer and relaxed against the wooden pole behind me. “How’d you hear about Black Bird?”
“I read about it somewhere.” She shifted her gaze across the lake.
It wasn’t entirely impossible that a paper or magazine would mention the area, though I did find it a bit surprising. It wasn’t like anyone around here seemed to care about the history that lay beneath these waters. Then again, maybe it had been written by someone who’d passed through, someone who’d wanted to share the story of the town that had vanished over forty years ago.
Before the reservoir, no one lived around here. These were nothing more than bare mountainsides that surrounded a dying town. But once the valley filled with water, houses began to pop up all around. The sad part was that none of the residents had any connection to the submerged land beneath the glistening surface. So I couldn’t exactly blame them for not treating it like a piece of valuable history when it didn’t have any significance to them. To everyone around here, it was a body of water they could see from their back decks that added to their property value.
But to me, it was the buried ghost town of Chogan.
Full of drowned secrets and sunken promises.
The more I thought about it, the more it plagued me. Curiosity consumed me until an even mixture of anger, resentment, and pride swirled within my chest. I’d already begun making bets with myself as to who could’ve written about it and who I knew, without a doubt, didn’t write it. “Where did you read about it?”
McKenna shrugged, keeping her attention across the lake. “In an old book I found.”
“Where’d you find it?”
“In my grandfather’s attic. Why?” That didn’t answer much, but I decided against pressing McKenna for more. For some reason, she didn’t act like she wanted to talk about it. Either that or she didn’t find it important enough to discuss. Regardless, it’d have to wait.
Moving on, I pointed to the water around us. “Did it explain that this used to be a city?”
Her spine stiffened a second before she turned her head and stared right at me, into me, almost through me. The deep lines next to her eyes as she focused on me, as well as the way her lips remained relaxed and slightly parted, made me wonder if she had some connection to this place. But the way she blinked at me, slowly, methodically, left me believing that her connection was with me rather than the lake. I became convinced that she could read me like a book