Free With a Little Luck by Janet Dailey Page A

that she didn’t hear him. He crossed over to stand in a small space behind her.
    “Let’s go to the northern side of the lake,” he leaned forward to repeat his suggestion.
    “I’m not familiar with that area. We don’t usually go up that far.” Eve half turned her head to answer him and discovered he had bent closer to hear her, which brought his face inches from hers. Her gaze touched briefly on his mouth, then darted swiftly to his eyes to be captured by their vivid blueness,
    “Neither am I. Let’s explore strange waters together,” Luck replied, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
    “Okay,” But there was a breathless quality to her voice.
    It was some minutes after she turned the boat north before Luck abandoned his post behind her. It was only when he was gone that Eve realized how overly conscious she had been of his closeness, every nerve end tingling, although no contact had been made.
    Familiar territory was left behind as they ventured into unknown waters. When a cluster of islands appeared, Eve reduced the boat’s speed to find the channel through them. She hesitated over the choice.
    “Want me to take over?” Luck asked.
    “Yes.” She relinquished the wheel to him with a quick smile. “That way if you run into a submerged log, it will be your fault instead of mine.”
    “Wise thinking,” he grinned.
    “Look!” Toby shouted, and pointed toward the waters ahead of them. “It’s a deer swimming across the lake.”
    In the lake waters off their port side, there was the antlered head of a young buck swimming across the span of water between two islands. Luck throttled the engine to a slow idle, so they could watch him. When the deer reached the opposite island, it scrambled onto shore and disappeared within seconds in the thick stand of trees and underbrush.
    “Boy, that was really something, huh, dad?” Toby exclaimed.
    “It sure was,” was the indulgent agreement.
    With a child’s lightning change of subject, Toby asked, “When are we going to have our picnic?”
    “When we get hungry,” Luck replied.
    “I’m hungry,” Toby stated.
    Luck glanced at his watch. “I guess we can start looking for a place to go ashore. Or would you rather drop anchor and eat on the boat?” He included Eve in the question.
    “It doesn’t matter to me,” she shrugged.
    “Maybe we can land on one of the islands,” Toby suggested.
    “I don’t know why not,” Luck smiled down at the boy, then began surveying the cluster of islands for a likely picnic spot.
    “Who knows? Maybe we’ll find Chief Namekagon’s lost silver mine,” Eve remarked.
    Toby turned to her. “What lost silver mine?”
    “The one that belonged to the Indian chief the lake was named after. Legend has it that it’s on one of the islands on the lake,” she explained.
    “Is it true?” Toby frowned.
    “No one knows for sure,” she admitted. “But he paid for all his purchases at the trading post in Ashland with pure silver ore. Supposedly the old chief was going to show the location of his mine to a friend, but he saw a bad omen and postponed the trip. Then he died without ever telling anyone where it was.”
    “Wow!” Toby declared with round-eyed excitement. “Wouldn’t it be something if we found it?”
    “A lot of people have looked over the years,” Eve cautioned. “No one has found it yet.”
    “How about having our picnic there?” Luck pointed to an island with a wide crescent of sand stretching in front of its pine trees.
    “It looks perfect.” Eve approved the choice, and Luck nosed the boat toward the spot.
     

 
    Chapter Five
     
    THE THREE OF them sat cross-legged on a blanket Luck had brought from the boat while Eve unpacked the picnic basket. “Cheese, fruit, crackers,” Luck said, observing the items she removed. “All that’s missing is a bottle of wine. You should have said something.”
    There were too many romantic overtones in that remark. Eve wasn’t sure how to interpret it, so