Picture Prompt today is a river scene. Melody and Levi were  at a table eating sandwiches. Melody jumps up to make another sandwich. Levi slips up behind her after telling her he doesn't need another sandwich. This is where today's excerpt starts.









EXCERPT
“You startled me. It’s amazing how quiet you can move.”

Levi's lips tilted up, but not quite a smile, but as if he was considering it, but hadn’t quite made up his mind. “Amazed me too. Didn’t think I’d be able to move as quiet with the fake leg, but I’m learning to, I’m just not as fast.”

His proximity left her nerves a little jangled, not to mention that his nearness made other parts of her kick into automatic overdrive. Not a viable candidate might as well calm down.  Too bad, her body wasn’t listening to her brain. She inhaled deeply wondering how she was going to get by the sizable man in her way. She stepped to her right intending to go around him, but his hand landed on her shoulder stopping her.

Children’s voices drifted through the screen door as she found herself caught in Levi’s intense gaze. His sharp, alert eyes missed very little. His continued existence bore witness to the fact. Part of her heard a child shout Ready or Not.   A bead of sweat rolled down her neck and slipped under her shirt.

Melody found herself drowning in his gaze. It reminded her of the time she almost fell into the river. A stranger grabbed her arm before she hit water.  

Her heart pounded hard making its presence known. Would he kiss her again? Her tongue slipped out licking her lips in anticipation. It would be a bad thing and would make things more complicated. Instead, her mind spun a fantasy affair where the two engaged in a torrid romance all in the span it took for his words to coalesce in the air.  

“I’m not Roy. Not some sick, old man on the edge of kicking off. Don’t let the lack of a leg fool you. I don’t need you taking care of me or feeling sorry for me.” His hand dropped as he pivoted and headed for his room.

The wooden rowboat bobbed in the water. Melody kneeled to touch the lacquered sides. Mr. McDaniel enjoyed talking about how he created the boat. At the time, his nephew lived with him, and helped him to sand the lumber. As his hospice nurse, she remembered previous trips where she skimmed the rowboat across the water as her patient sported a wide grin, strapped into his modified seat. Near the end, Mr. Roy McDaniel could no longer sit up on him own, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to have that final trip across the water.

No one came around to see Mr. McDaniel anymore. Even the nephew he raised as his own was absent. Her patient made excuses for the missing boy, telling her he was in the service, far away. Maybe that was true but she doubted it. No reason he couldn’t call or write. He did neither.

For their last ride in the boat, she duct-taped a sand chair to the board seat to give the man the ability to sit up. She used an entire roll of tape to secure it. Cancer had taken the once robust seaman down to barely a hundred pounds. As a hardy female, as Mr. McDaniel referred to her, she had no problem lifting him into the boat. His wheelchair restraints kept him secure in his improvised seat as she rowed.

Old Roy, as she sometimes called him, felt more like family. Apparently, he felt the same way. She looked up at the man standing on the dock behind her, decked out in wingtips and a dark suit. “Are you sure he wanted me to have the house and the rowboat?”

The man consulted his paper while she backhanded a tear away. “It says here the house and the boat are to be shared equally between you and his nephew, Levi.”