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Jeni closed the door, quickly catching up to him. “Stopping by to ask about Andrew?” she asked, voice laced with sarcasm.
He ignored her as he headed for the kitchen. “Need help with anything, Mrs. Bishop?”
“Please, call me Susan.”
Jeni slumped down into her chair. Just stopping by, my ass. He would have just called Andrew himself if he wanted to check on him. She trained her eyes on the television, determined to ignore Logan’s presence.
It wasn’t long before the five of them were seated around the table in her yellow kitchen, Logan to her left with a smile brighter than the walls. He’d taken off his fleece, and his corded forearm lightly dusted with hair caught her eye. His chair was closer to hers than necessary, and she scooted in the opposite direction.
She could still smell him though. That nice, masculine scent she wished she didn’t find so pleasant.
Her mother set a plate of delicious-looking enchiladas down. “These are cheese and spinach.” She turned to Logan. “The rest are chicken. You’re not a vegetarian too, are you?”
“No, ma’am,” Logan said. “I’ll eat just about anything.”
Jeni’s mom nodded with a smile of approval and set the large dish of enchiladas in the center of the table. “Dig in.”
“I still remember the day you decided you weren’t going to eat meat anymore,” Valerie said to Jeni.
Jeni’s mother laughed. “Me too. What were you, seven?”
“Six.” Jeni waited for everyone to dish out helpings of the meal before she began eating.
“That’s right. You marched in from the field one evening, stood on a chair, and made your declaration. I was sure you wouldn’t last a day.”
“You’ve been a vegetarian since you were six?” Logan asked.
“Yep.”
“What made you want to do it?” he asked.
“She broke one of the basic rules of being a farmer,” Rhonda said. “She saw our animals as pets.”
Jeni picked up her fork. “We had this cow named Daisy, and I loved her. I was brushing her in the barn that day, and Andrew decided that was the moment to enlighten me about where steak and ground beef came from. I’d never really made that connection before—that these living, breathing animals were the same thing I was chewing at the dinner table. He didn’t stop there either. Told me about chicken and bacon and anything else he could think of, though how he knew all this was beyond me. We were the same age.”
“He spent more time with Dad than you did. That’s how.” Valerie sat on Logan’s other side and leaned closer to him. “Our dad doesn’t know the meaning of sugar-coating.”
Logan cut his eyes to Jeni’s and said in a low tone, “Now I know where you get it.”
“It wasn’t just that she stopped eating meat either,” Rhonda continued. “She became a full-blown animal activist for years.”
“Can we not talk about this?” Jeni took a bite of the cheesy tortilla, savoring the creamy flavors. She’d tried going vegan for a while but…cheese.
“Please, keep going.” Logan’s eyes were cheerful, and he took a drink of water.
Jeni shot him a scowl, and he grinned.
“When she was in seventh grade, she joined some sort of online group for PETA. One of their projects was to send letters of encouragement to activists who had been arrested for the cause—”
“Like breaking into a lab and releasing hundreds of test mice,” Jeni put in. She smiled at the memory, despite the fact she hated being the center of conversation.
“One day our dad found a dozen letters going out from our mailbox addressed from Jeni to a bunch of inmates in the state prison system,” Valerie said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so mad.”
“Not even the time Andrew snuck out and took Dad’s old Corvette out for a joy ride in the middle of the night and wrecked it?” Jeni asked, hoping to divert attention from her.
“Not even then.”
“It was close.” Her mom put her fingers to her temple. “You and Andrew are the reason I went gray.”
