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He rolls his eyes. “We don’t introduce ourselves by telling strangers our petty squabbles. Does your family?”
I chuckle. “No, we certainly do not. In fact, no one in my family ever says anything unpleasant to each other.”
“No?”
I shake my head vehemently. “No way. My mom was the only exception. My mom would tell anybody anything. Whether it was me or Grandad or a perfect stranger. It didn’t matter if June Guthrie felt that you needed her opinion. And if you got your feelings hurt by what she said, she would always claim that she was just telling the truth. It was… mildly infuriating.”
“Where did the advice to be sweet and clean come from? Because that’s not the woman you’re describing to me.”
My brows draw down. “I think my mom spent her whole life taking a lot of shit from people for being brash. In her way, I feel like she was trying to protect me. I don’t know why my sister didn’t ever get the same treatment from her, though. It’s a puzzle without an answer.”
He pulls back on the reins and brings his horse to a gradual halt.
“It sounds like you still have anger bottled up inside.” He tilts his head to the side, looking me up and down. “I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve been told that stuffing anger deep down is not the best way to handle so-called ‘emotions.’”
“I’m not angry. Are you crazy?”
His blue eyes pin me in place. “Am I?”
“On this topic? Most definitely. Besides, who would I even be mad at? My mom died. You can’t be mad at a ghost.”
Cole’s lips turn up and I see a sparkle in his eyes. “Well, you could. Not sure how successful that would be, though.”
“Blahhh. This mom-talk is bumming me out.” I stick my tongue out. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“How about a race?”
My eyes bug out of my head. “What?”
“Come on. Let’s see how fast we can go up to that big cluster of trees.” He points down the beach.
“I don’t know…. I’m just getting comfortable.”
“Maybe you need incentive.”
“Incentive?” I ask.
“Yup. How about if I win, I get to blindfold you and tie you up tonight. And if you win….” He gives it some thought.
Without even a moment’s pause, I blurt out, “If I win, you have to let me do whatever I want to you without moving or making a sound.”
I grin and his eyes twinkle with a challenge.
“Oh, it’s on,” he says. “I’ll even let you–.”
Squeezing my horse and getting her going, I take off without even listening to the rest of Cole’s words.
30
Cole
“Right here!” Charlie declares. He sets down his tiny folding chair on the beach.
“Good spot!” I tell him.
I drop the ice chest, and whole mess of tarp I’d been carrying, then brush some sand off my shin as I look to our left and our right. Thirty feet away on the right side, Jared Williams and his husband Diego are lighting a fire. Several kids laugh and run around the chairs set up in the area that they have staked out.
Jared looks over, and I raise my hand to him. He waves and then returns to trying to kindle a fire in the pit he has dug out.
