Page 28 of Quiver

She purposefully tensed her shoulders, neck, and jaw before cueing the muscles to release, not totally certain what exactly either of them thought they were doing here, but, as usual, Kylie was all too happy to step into even the slightest power void.

“Give me the bow.”

She grudgingly relinquished it, but this time Kylie didn’t simply accept a return to their previous workout. Instead, she strode across the barn. Fletcher felt a momentary rise of relief at the distance between them, but it didn’t take long to realize where she was headed. “Don’t touch those arrows.”

“I’m only bringing them back,” Kylie said as she reached the target.

“You better not so much as lift the tip upward.”

“You’d rather I work the shaft?” She pursed her lips together as she twisted the arrows loose. “That’s the correct terminology, isn’t it?”

Fletcher didn’t respond, which, of course, Kylie took as confirmation.

“So, the tip, and the shaft.” She pressed her finger to the point of the arrow and then ran it down the length before sliding gently over the green feathering, while lifting her eyes. “And this is called the … oh yes, the fletcher-ing.”

“So original. Never heard those quips before.”

Kylie smiled slowly. “Don’t blame me. I’m not the archer who named my kid Fletcher, or the kid who chose to go all in on the family business.”

She did her best to stay grumpy even as she felt her resolve to remain aloof waver. Kylie was dangerously close now, close enough to see the shades of green swirling from light to dark in her eyes. “Can we get back to work?”

“You said we were done for the day.”

“We are. I meant our separate work. I have a riding group, and you have … honestly, I don’t care.”

“But we’re not done with our vocabulary refresher. You wouldn’t want the new pop culture emissary for mounted archery to go on the interview circuit using the wrong terms.”

“You don’t know what I might want.” Her jaw twitched at the stab of truth in the statement, and Kylie must’ve noticed, because one corner of her mouth curled as she slipped her finger to the lowest point on the arrow and she ran a manicured nail through the groove there.

“This is called the notch?”

“No, it’s called the nock.” She emphasized the hard sound at the end. “And there’s a spot in the middle of the bowstring called the nocking point. It’s the sweet spot we’ve been working around with your draw pulling. You’ll need to be able to find it by feel with your eyes closed before you get on a horse, because you won’t be able to search for it when you’re at full speed. It has to be a natural, fluid movement.”

“Show me. I promise, this’ll be the last thing I ask today. I’ll go if you show me how it feels when it’s right.”

Fletcher sighed. The offer was too good to be easy, but seeing as how their entire agreement was based on the desire to see this woman walk out the door again, she couldn’t resist the chance to test that theory on a smaller scale. “Fine, we’ll draw once with an arrow, but you don’t get to shoot it today.”

“Got it. All tension, no release. We’ve had plenty of practice, right?”

She shook her head, but Kylie raised the bow and widened her stance.

“Good,” she murmured at both the form and the ease with which she assumed such a technically sound position. “Now take the arrow in your pull hand, which for you is the right. We’re going to use a split-finger technique, between your index and middle fingers.”

Kylie bit her lip and closed her eyes.

“What?”

“I’m trying, honest I am, but you want me to use a ‘split-finger’ approach with my business fingers, and you’re not even snickering a little?”

Fletcher managed to hold in a little snort that would’ve served only to egg Kylie on. “I’m not a fourteen-year-old boy.”

“No fourteen-year-old boy could pull off a split-finger anything with any finesse. You need a full-grown lesbian to—”

“Please stop.”

“You used to like my sense of humor.”

She wasn’t wrong. Kylie’s irreverence had been one of the first things that had drawn them together. Even as a young teenager, she’d been raunchier than the older group of boys her brother had run with. Fletcher had never met a girl so quick and sharp, with so little care for convention. She’d always been a tomboy, choosing the liberty of jeans and boots, but even in a skirt and heels, Kylie’s candor projected a kind of independence Fletcher hadn’t yet been able to comprehend. She’d wanted some of it for herself, and while she’d never been quite as self-possessed, she did manage to possess the young woman who showed her how to aspire to something more.