Free Stormy Cove by Bernadette Calonego Page B

gave in, mainly not to make Noah look silly in front of the two dozen people watching keenly.
    She met their gazes and smiled.
    “If I freeze, then somebody’s got to light a fire under my bum,” she shouted playfully.
    Now she had the crowd on her side. Until then, she’d thought ice fishing was a solitary endeavor in a little wooden shack. But this event was very obviously a family affair. Lori supposed they were all Noah’s kinfolk. The young women, most of them under twenty, were obviously whispering about her; she could tell by their furtive glances in her direction.
    Noah was talking with an elderly man who held his rod barehanded. But she felt the cold penetrating her feet and hands even through all her layers of clothing. How long was she going to have to stand still and move a little rod back and forth?
    A sudden tug on the line. She jerked up her rod—and indeed, a little fish dangled there! When several people applauded, she could hardly hide her delight.
    “Beginner’s luck,” Noah said, taking the fish off the hook.
    “What kind of fish is it?” she wanted to know.
    “Trout.”
    The four-year-old came running to grab at the flailing fish.
    Lori seemed to be in just the right spot because she pulled out two more good-sized trout in a short span of time.
    The plastic bags people had brought began to fill up with fish. Lori wandered around with her camera, introduced herself, and asked if she could take pictures. Nobody had any objection, but nobody asked questions or struck up a conversation.
    People gradually started to drift away and gather around a fire on the shore. Old iron pans were unpacked and the trout fried.
    The elderly man Noah had been talking to came over to Lori just as she was pointing her camera at the happily babbling teenagers who’d taken off their boots and were warming their feet by the fire. That the photographer from Vancouver showed interest made the kids all the more boisterous.
    The man offered her a can.
    “Here,” he said, “this’ll warm you up.”
    Lori saw it was beer.
    “How nice of you, but I’d rather not. I’d love some hot tea.”
    “No tea here,” the man informed her. “This’ll warm you up faster.”
    His round head rested on a massive neck, and his head was as bare as his hands.
    Lori laughed and shook her head. “I don’t drink when I’m working.”
    The man wouldn’t let it go.
    “Maybe that’s what they do where you come from, but we do things differently out here.”
    While Lori was wondering how to react, Noah stepped in.
    “Archie, she’s got to get used to things. You watch, in a few weeks she’ll be more Newfie than we are.”
    He took the beer, opened it, and handed it to her.
    “Here, one swig to get used to it.”
    Lori saw she couldn’t refuse a third time and took a sip. Archie watched her with evident pleasure.
    “There’s a good girl,” he muttered, a smile deepening the folds in his furrowed face.
    Noah took the can out of her hand and took another drink before saying, “You haven’t tried the trout yet. Fried in lard, you don’t want to miss it. Come on.”
    He escorted her over to a cluster of stunted fir trees a little ways off from the crowd and handed her a paper plate. Lori sat down beside him on the snow and cut her fish with a plastic fork. The trout tasted so good that she almost forgot about her cold rear end.
    “So that’s your Uncle Archie?” she asked with her mouth full.
    “Mm-hm.” Noah picked a bone out of the corner of his mouth. “He’s not my real uncle. His father died in a fishing accident and his mother couldn’t handle fourteen children. When that happened back then, you simply scattered them around to other families. Archie was taken in as one of our own—made no difference to Granny. He’s the last surviving brother of seven because he was the youngest.”
    “Their mother isn’t alive?”
    “No.”
    “And these people are all family?” Lori asked, gesturing toward the