In speed and race through shallows again—wind’s whip and blow of hair—she thought from the blue and lake before to one of childhood and home: petrifying stands of timber flooded in the raising of the dam; empty, open shorelines; Corp of Engineers reserve for flood and silting catch-preserve before monied lake below—summer houses all around, much as lake of shallows they traveled then. She thought of the coves, the endless hides; how it was to beach the boats to shore and walk into the woods—to disappear into the wall and canopy of green.
Of past and present, imagination blended; and she smiled on him then—imagining them home, or where once was so. She imagined beaching on the shore, disappearing into the woods; summer suits rid fast in hands’ explore and move of play; to make love amidst the hide—open of the water seen through windows of the leaves—to smile and laugh in levitous of after; dressing once again and only the red of blush and mirth-bright of sated, romance eyes giving them away.
She felt the warmth then in her skin, its hue and telling through as a meekness then became—aware to thought’s loss of control.
She didn’t mind. Neither did he.
He loved to see her change.
She loved to know her seen; and in the blush and windblown rush; his eyes in see and know; she had no doubt, if given chance and wooded shore—with her—he would right then.