Free Someone Like You by Elaine Coffman

family isn’t the fishing type.”
    “What do you mean? I didn’t know you had to be a type to fish.”
    “We liked fish, but our cook bought it at the market, then prepared it.”
    “You had a cook?”
    He thought of the delicious boiled shad dinners, of the cook’s tendency to burn the roe. “We had a cook—and a butler, nine maids, a groom, a driver, three gardeners, plus a few others.”
    “Your folks were rich?”
    “They were…genteel.”
    “They were rich.”
    He thought of blue china flowerpots filled with spiky palms standing in front of French windows, of drawing rooms and heavy damask drapes, chintz poufs, velvet-covered tables laden with china, silver, and crystal. “Yes, I suppose you would say so.”
    “And you gave all of that up so you could catch your own fish dinner?”
    “It would appear that I did.”
    “Why?”
    He held the fish up. “Are you going to get that string? He looks like he’s about to draw his last gasping breath.”
    “Oh, I almost forgot.” She ran toward the bundle she had dropped and quickly removed the length of twine she had tied it with. When she’d finished and returned the fish to the water, she said to Reed, “If you could put a stake into the shallow water there, I will tie this twine around it so the fish won’t get away.”
    He did as she asked, then sat down and pulled off his boots. He poured the water out of them and set them aside to dry. “A fish that big will make a lot of chowder.”
    “Is that what they eat where you’re from?”
    “Yes, it’s a popular dish in Boston. You don’t eat it here?”
    “No. We don’t have fish very often, and when we do, it’s always fried.” She wrinkled her nose. “You don’t like the food we cook?”
    He paused before answering, delighted by the sprinkling of freckles across her nose that were the same golden color as her eyes. “I like your food, but there are times when I miss some of the things I grew up with. Fish chowder is one of them.”
    She looked as though she remembered something from her past, food perhaps. He was dying from curiosity, but he was afraid to ask, afraid he’d scare her away, so he said quickly, “I can make fish chowder. I wrote my mother and she sent me the recipe. It’s the only thing I know how to cook.”
    When Susannah said nothing, he turned and picked up his pole, then dug around in his pocket. He pulled out a small frog. “I guess I lost all the others when I went in the water.”
    “That one looks dead.”
    “It is, but maybe the fish won’t mind.” He baited the hook and cast it into the creek.
    “I bet you won’t catch another bass. It will be a perch or an old mud cat, more than likely.”
    “It doesn’t matter. Catching is half the fun. Why don’t you come over here and sit down so I can talk to you without getting a crick in my neck, or would you rather stand there like a statue?”
    “I…”
    “I’m harmless. I just want some companionship, a litle conversation. If you’re uneasy, you can cross over to the older side. That log over there is sturdy enough for you to walk on. I crossed over it myself, not long ago.”
    He knew she rarely talked to a man other than to make a few comments about the weather or livestock prices, but he also knew he was different from anyone who had come to Bluebonnet, and he was from Massachusetts, a place she had only heard about. He guessed she might be intrigued, thinking he had seen much of the world. She was a curious person, full of questions.
    “I suppose I could…for a little while.”
    She crossed over the log and took a place on the other side of the creek, sitting on a tree stump and tucking her skirts about her. He liked the way splashes of sunlight leaked through the foliage to paint her with dapples of lemon light. Nearby a bird on skinny stick-like legs hopped along a branch of a dead tree.
    They sat in companionable silence, regarding each other.
    A breeze stirred, rustling the green, waxy leaves of a