“Oh.” I blink at the wall, trying to come up with anything.Anything.“I was going to ask you…” I squelch a sigh of frustration. The lie bank is depleted. No sense kicking at the topic and having something fly out. There must have been, at the very least, one other Lucky Clover Ranch in existence twenty years ago. Who know? Maybe hundreds. And at one of those other Lucky Clover Ranches that ran an overnight equine camp for kids, there might have been another John with red hair andlight blue eyes and big hands and feet he still hadn’t completely grown into as well. Because what are the odds that my first crush and first very awkward kiss is right here, sitting in the cottage with me after twenty years? One in a kajillion?
“I honestly have no idea what I was going to say,” I lie because evidently, there was one lie left.
He walks over to the coffeepot and pours himself a mug while my brain continues to whir. But whatifit was his family’s ranch? Whatifwe met before? Whatifhe was my crush? I doubt I left an imprint on his memory, despite him being indelibly stamped ontomybrain. Bringing it up—however I did so—would be a quagmire of questions and lies I don’t want to wade through.
“It’s decaf,” I tell him. “Hope you don’t mind.”
He pulls out another coffee mug from the cabinet, fills it with coffee. “Come here.” I follow him out the front door. He nods to the front porch swing. “The wind isn’t blowing the rain this way. Sit, Tiny. Let’s watch the lightning.”
“Are you sure we’re completely safe here?” I squint out at the trees.
“We’re never completely safe anywhere.”
“Wow. That’s profound.”
“Thank you.”
He sits on the swing, and I move around the porch, lighting the candles on the little marble stool by the swing and the two side tables flanking the round, wicker barrel chairs.
I curl up on the other side of the swing, cradling my mug in my lap.
A burst of lightning flashes. John counts aloud. “One, two, three, four, five.” Thunder booms.
“It’s five miles away. Past the old Grader homestead.”
I remember teaching Trudi, when she was learning how to count, “When the lightning flashes, you count aloud until thethunder booms. That’s how many miles away the lightning is.” And we’d count together.
Another flash of lightning. It illuminates him. He’s looking at me, searching my face.
“What are you thinking?” he asks. “You look like you’re a million miles away.”
Monster scratches on the door, and I let him out to join us, silently thanking him for the disruption. Monster stares out at the night, then thumps to the floor next to the swing and stretches out.
“I was looking at your sketches on the coffee table,” John says.
I wince. “Hopefully not too closely. I just started sketching again after… after many years. It forces me to slow down and see details I would normally miss. I spend way too much time out here on the front porch sketching the birds or wild animals that are wandering past.”
“Has Gigi visited you yet?” he asks me.
“You, Ned, and Danni have been my only visitors.”
“Gigi may not have formally introduced herself. She doesn’t have the best manners. She’s a Florida Black bear.”
I laugh. “Oh!That’sGigi. Yes, Monster and I saw her a couple nights ago. From the window, thankfully. She knocked over my trash can, pushed it all the way over to the tree there, and banged it up. The lock held, though. Monster barked his head off, but Gigi didn’t seem to mind.”
We sit in comfortable silence, the candles gently flickering while the rain taps out a steady rhythm on the tin roof of the porch.
I could get used to this. Which means, I should kick him out now.
I think of what Cat would tell me.Enjoy each small, good thing.
The sound of the rain.
The cool air after a hot day.
The way his eyes are roaming down your legs because he doesn’t think you’re looking.
He catches me catching him. “I’m trying to behave,” he says, “but I’m having a hell of a time concentrating with your legs right there.”
