Ice Hunter (36 page)

EPILOGUE

It was nearly daylight. The rain fell softly and steadily as it had for nearly a week. Cat meowed to be let out and Newf sniffed at her as they waited impatiently.

Maridly Nantz let the two animals out, stretched and yawned.

Service began to dance slowly around the porch, looking out on the creek.

Nantz poured two cups of coffee and sat on the glider she had bought the day before at Forsberg's store.

She watched Service for a while and said, “Is that a dance or a palsy?”

“Rain dance,” he said, continuing.

“We have rain,” she said.

“I want more,” he said.

She smiled and raised her cup in salute. “Dance, baby, dance.” After a pause she added, “I have to fly down to Lansing at the end of the week.”

Grady Service stopped dancing and sat beside her.

“For what?”

She looked smug. “I took the CO test,” she said.

He stared at her.

“I've already talked to Lis and Captain Grant and now they want me in Lansing.”

“You never said anything about this.”

“There was nothing to say before now. How do you feel about it?”

He had no doubt that she would be good at the job.

“I was thinking about this before we met. I want work that counts all year.”

Service said, “As a probie they'll move you all over the state for a year.”

“Whatever it takes,” she said. “Does that bother you?”

It did and he said so.

She reached over and rubbed his neck. “Good answer.”

They had been taking it a day at a time and not talked seriously about a future together. Since their time in the Tract they had split time between their places.

Nantz kissed his cheek, patted his hand, and whispered, “Don't worry. We're going to be just fine.”

“We are?”

“Damn right,” she said, giving him a long passionate kiss he wished would never end.

“Hungry?” she said, breaking away.

“The cupboard is empty.”

She went into the house and got his fly rod but didn't hand it to him. “Nature always provides.” She picked out a size-eighteen Adams and tied it on quickly. He followed her down to the creek and sat down on a log.

“Tough casting down here.”

She ignored him, stripped out some line, and cast across the creek and slightly upstream, mending automatically. On her fourth or fifth cast a large fish sucked the fly under. The rod immediately bent under the fish's weight. It took a few minutes to get the fish to the bank, and by then Service had fetched a net, which he slid under the struggling trout. It was a good eighteen inches.

“Perfect for two of us,” he said.

“Let it go,” she said. “Others need its genes.” Newf came down, sniffed the fish, and galloped back up the bank.

Service gently released the trout into dark water and felt her arms slide around his neck. “I won't kill a fish like that, and I won't do anything to kill us either.”

She felt good in his arms.

“What do we have?” he asked.

“A very interesting future, Service.”

When she went back to fishing, he returned to his log and watched her silhouette as she worked the water gracefully and efficiently.

After a while he said, “Is there anything you can't do, Nantz?”

“I think we are in the process of finding that out,” she said as she deftly threw another cast.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joseph Heywood is the author of
The Berkut, Taxi Driver, The Domino Conspiracy, The Snowfly,
and the Woods Cop Mystery Series, featuring Grady Service. Heywood lives in Portage, Michigan.