AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Nineteen
Edie
“Yourodeahorse?”
“A big horse.Her name was Betty.”I felt like an excited five-year-old telling my mommy about my day.“She was beautiful.Here, let me send you some pictures,” I said, putting her on speaker so I could get into my photo app.
“Was it safe?”
Why was that always her first question?“Yes, Mom.I wore a helmet.And people have been riding horses for thousands of years.”Mentally, I thanked Jasper for that tidbit.“They train kids to do it here.They start as toddlers.”
“That doesn’t seem responsible to me,” Mom said.I could tell that I was on speaker now as she flipped through the pictures.“Good lord, Edie.You’re all sweaty and red-faced in these pictures.You couldn’t have taken a moment to fix yourself up?”
I looked down at the one I’d just sent her—me standing next to Betty in the ring, flushed with triumph after we’d ridden back from the Tree.Jasper had framed me against the mountains, and I’d thought I looked exhilarated.“It’s not like there was a powder room where I could retire to freshen my make-up,” I said.
“Still.This animal is enormous!”
“She was very sweet,” I said, offended on Betty’s behalf.“She’s eight years old, and they said she was in her prime.You can’t really see it in the picture, but she had the most gorgeous eyes.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
I should have known my mother would want specifics.“The riding teacher.Riding coach?The man who taught me to ride.”
I held my breath, hoping she wouldn’t question further.I wasn’t good at lying, especially to her.“Riding instructor, I believe,” she said with a sigh.“Well.I suppose I’m glad you’re having fun.”
She supposed she was glad?I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and reminded myself that she thought I was having some sort of early mid-life crisis.
Maybe she was right.
“It’s so beautiful here,” I said, perversely determined to prove to her I was having a relaxing vacation at a resort in Montana.“Just this morning, I took a quick walk and I saw some beargrass covered with dew.”
“Beargrass?Are you sure?”
“I looked it up using that plant ID app you made me download.Keep flipping through the pictures I sent you.”
“Oh, well look at that.Isn’t that gorgeous,” my mother said approvingly.I had always considered my mother’s love of plants more boring than sitting in traffic, but my mother took great pleasure in growing things and, when she travelled, made it a point to learn about the local plants.It was not lost on me that she could compliment a flower more easily than she could her daughter.“You took these pictures with your phone?”
“You have to work hard to take a bad picture here,” I said.“The Lodge does guided nature trips, but they’ve done an amazing job with the landscaping.There’s some rabbitbrush right outside my cabin, and a stand of quaking aspens.Did you know that when you see a stand of aspens, they’re all actually part of one tree?
“I did know that,” she said.“I saw some with your father, when…when we were there.”
I knew what she meant: The ill-fated camping trip where my father had seen a shifter and rerouted his whole life.Before that, he’d been a PhD student at the University of Colorado, poised to become a mechanical engineer.My mother was already a passionate amateur botanist at that point, and she’d been the one to talk him into a quick road trip up to Glacier National Park before his internship with a prestigious rocket science company was scheduled to begin.
Of course, he never made it to the internship.And my mother, who hadn’t even known she was pregnant when she saw those aspens, rerouted her life too.She’d been studying to be a doctor, like me, but switched to nursing when she became a single mom.Instead of having the huge garden she dreamed of tending, she’d filled our windowsills of our various apartments with plants and nurtured them through our many moves.Yet another thing she’d sacrificed for me.
“So, how is it going with selling the house?”she asked.
“Mom, I’m not really thinking about it right now.”
“But I thought you had an offer.”
“It, uh, turned out to be more complicated than I’d originally thought,” I said.“I’m going to deal with it soon.”
“Your fellowship won’t wait forever.”
“I know.”Going back to it would be like folding myself tight just when I’d figured out how to open up.But she was right, I’d have to go back.My time here was temporary.“I should get going.The Lodge has a great breakfast buffet and I don’t want to miss it.”
Actually, I’d already eaten.I had been one of the first people in the dining room this morning, since I’d woken up at dawn after another steamy dream about Jasper.It had been more intense than the one I’d had the night before.I shivered as I remembered the feel of his hot mouth as he licked down the center of my body, his sharp teeth brushing my soft belly.
