by Quint, Suzie
“And who’s his apprentice?”
“Unofficially, Leah is.”
“Geez, your siblings grow up fast.” Leah hadn’t been much more than a toddler when they’d been married. “How old is she now?”
“Let’s see. She’s three years younger than Daisy, so that would make her . . . fifteen? Yeah, fifteen. Which is why her apprenticeship is unofficial.”
Georgia shook her head. They were going to have their own self-sufficient little village someday.
After they finished saddling the horses, Sol handed her a long-sleeved cotton shirt. “Here. You’ll burn in that tank top. This, too.” He tossed a slightly battered, straw cowboy hat her way.
They rode out through the paddock into the pasture beyond. At the far end, they passed through a gate and onto the dirt track lined on both sides by a barbed-wire fence. They rode along in surprisingly companionable silence. Whatever it was Sol wanted to talk about, he seemed to be in no rush to get to it, and Georgia was happy to let it sit.
In spite of how long it had been since she’d been in a saddle, it was a skill her muscles remembered, like riding a bike. She adjusted to the rhythm of the horse’s unhurried gait without conscious thought. Out in the open, she felt the intensity of the sun and the Texas humidity. A light breeze kept it from being too uncomfortable for the first mile or so.
“How far to this fence you need to check?” Georgia finally asked.
One corner of Sol’s lips quirked up. “We’ve been riding it for the last ten minutes.”
“Oh.” Of course they had. “Did you bring any water?”
Sol handed her his canteen.
The water was warm, but she welcomed the moisture all the same. When she started to cap the canteen, Sol said, “Drink more than that. You don’t wanna get dehydrated out here.”
This time when she was done, she offered it to him. He took it and turned his face up as he put the canteen to his lips. The picture he made with his lashes feathered across his cheekbones, his Adam’s apple rising and falling as he swallowed, was a study in masculinity. In that moment, he looked so male, he seemed almost alien, but in a way that made her pleasantly aware of their differences. She caught herself enjoying the view. “Damn,” she said softly. This ride-along was a bad idea.
Sol’s eyes opened. He fixed his gaze on her as he lowered the canteen. “How come I gotta give up cussing but you don’t?”
“Have you?”
“Given up cussing? Mostly.”
“What does that mean, ‘mostly’?”
Sol’s lips twitched as he capped the canteen. “Guess you’ll have to stick around and find out.” He hung the canteen on his saddle and urged his horse forward.
He was impossible. Not that this was news. She nudged her horse into motion to keep up with him. “What did you want to talk about?”
“How’s your mama doing?”
That wasn’t what she expected, and it certainly wasn’t a topic that justified a “need” to talk. Georgia’s nerves kicked back in. He wouldn’t be that shy about Eden riding, so what else was on his mind that was serious enough he had to work up to it with trivialities?
“Mama’s coming along. If we’re patient, she does pretty well, but she still gets frustrated when she can’t put what she’s thinking into words. Then it seems to spiral. The words refuse to come because she’s frustrated, so she gets that much more frustrated.” She was nervous enough to babble on. “It takes a while for her to calm down. By then, she’s usually forgotten what was so important, but she is getting better.”
“What’s the doctor say?”
Georgia shrugged, pretending an indifference she sure as hell didn’t feel. “That it’s up to her how quickly she recovers.”
He was silent, as though chewing on that. What there was to chew on, she didn’t know. Her mama would get better at whatever pace she decided to. Georgia started counting fence posts as a way to measure his silences. She was up to four when he said, “What are you going to do when the school year starts up if she ain’t able to manage on her own?”
He would have to ask that. “I’ve been hoping it won’t be an issue. I guess I’ll have to wait and see how far she’s come.”
“You really telling me you ain’t thought about it?”
“Well, of course I’ve thought about it.” Georgia sighed. “If I have to, I can take a leave of absence. I’d want to let the school know by early August, so they don’t have to scramble for a replacement at the last minute.”
“What about your apartment?”
“That depends on how long I think I’ll be gone. If it’s too long, I may need to let it go and put everything in storage.”
“We’ve got space here if you want to save the storage fees.”
Did he think if he got all her stuff here, he could get her to stay? “Let’s wait and see, okay?”
He nodded and lapsed into silence again.
His easy agreement surprised her. “Was that what we needed to talk about?”
“Nope. I just thought we needed to talk.”
Oh, good Lord, he was still dancing around whatever it was. “About what, Sol?”
“Nothin’ in particular. We just . . . We don’t talk anymore.”
Whose fault was that? Georgia wanted to ask, but that would only start a fight. If he really did just want to talk—no agenda, no manipulation—it would be an interesting change. And if he didn’t, he’d bring up whatever it was eventually. She needed to be patient. She could do that. This summer was about nothing but relearning patience. “That’s really it? You want to . . . chat?”
His brow furrowed for a few seconds. Chatting did sound kind of girly. Georgia almost giggled. Sol was so not the paint-his-toenails-and-gossip type.
“We just need to get along better. For Eden’s sake.”
“For Eden’s sake?” She hadn’t intended to sound skeptical.
“Well, yeah. You want me to make more decisions. And I want that, too.” He said the last quickly, as though he feared she’d take back her request that he get more involved. “I think if we understand each other better, it’ll maybe go easier.”
They understood each other too well, Georgia sometimes thought. Then again, she hadn’t seen the barrel racing coming, so maybe he was right. What could it hurt? “Okay.”
“Okay?” He sounded surprised she’d agreed.
“What do you want to chat about?” she asked, knowing that, whether he gave it away or not, her choice of words would make him cringe. Her question met silence. She’d bet that he had an entire spiel planned to convince her that he was now fast-forwarding through.
“Okay,” he said a couple of fence posts later. “Tell me about teaching third grade. What do you like about it?”
That was easy. “Well, I like—”
“No. Wait,” Sol blurted. He lifted a hand with one finger extended as though making a point. “Tell me what you like best about it.”
That was a harder. Teaching had so many rewards. Sol waited patiently as she mulled it over. “The best part,” she finally said, “is that moment when you see the light go on over a kid’s head. Especially when it’s a kid who’s been struggling. They get so frustrated, and you can see how hard they’re trying, but they can’t seem to wrap their heads around whatever it is, and then . . .” Georgia took a deep breath. “Then their eyes get big as your mama’s Thanksgiving platter, and they get this awed look on their face that takes your breath away, and you know you’ve made a difference in their lives. That whatever else happens to them, they’re going to be ready for the next grade when you turn them loose. Maybe I take too much credit for that, but it feels good all the same.”
“Yeah, I can see that. That’s one of the cool things about being a big brother. I get to help my younger siblings, to teach them stuff.”
To boss them, Georgia thought. Or was she being unfair? He’d been supportive of Aaron without undermining the lesson he was learning in that corner stall, and the swearing notwith
standing, he tried to set a good example for Eden.
“Of course, being an older brother has more leeway that a teacher does.” He gave her a sideways look with a teasing smile. “I can cuff them when they fu— er, screw up.” His self-satisfied smirk disappeared with his near gaffe. “That’s not cussing, is it? I mean, screw doesn’t have to have sexual connotations. If it did, how would anyone ever ask for a screwdriver?”
He was right, of course, but the tips of his ears turned red anyway. Georgia put on her best quasi-serious expression and nodded as if his question had gravitas. “Of course. And you’d have to rename vodka and orange juice or the bars would all go out of business.”
He’d never been dumb enough to miss when she made fun of his serious side. The look he shot her seemed to say, “Keep it up, and you’ll be sorry,” but she’d never been afraid of him. His sense of humor was sometimes warped, and he’d been known to joyfully embarrass the hell out of her, but threats of making her “sorry” were mostly empty.
“And if you wanted to screw something down, you’d have to rename the screws. What would you call them? Pointy bolts? Then when you said, ‘screw’“—she drew out the word, trying for lascivious—”everyone would know that you meant it sexually.”
It didn’t seem to matter that, as a word, screw didn’t lend itself well to lasciviousness because the red of his ears spread to his face and neck. Georgia grinned, wondering how she could have forgotten that, while Sol was more than capable of initiating sexual situations, when a woman caught him off guard with the same tactics, it made him uncomfortable.
He stared ahead at the fence as he cleared his throat. “Okay. I guess I can use ‘screwed up’ in front of Eden.”
If he hadn’t been making such an effort to be agreeable, she would have kept the pressure on. Instead she said, “Race you to the corner post,” and kicked her horse into a run.
Chapter Twenty-One
The day had grown progressively warmer, and the fast pace created a wind that wicked the sweat from Georgia’s face. Even though his taller horse could have easily outpaced hers, Sol let her beat him to the fence post by a length.
He opened the gate near the corner, and they moved into another pasture to follow its fence. Sol’s daddy had recently swapped a more distant field for this land. At the far end stood a medium-sized frame house.
“What’s your daddy going to do with that?” Georgia asked, pointing at the house as they stopped for Sol to make a repair to the fence.
He shrugged. “Ain’t decided yet. Gunderson’s hired man and his family lived here, but his boys are old enough to take on the chores, so they didn’t need him any longer. We may rent it out ‘til Jake gets his veterinary degree then give it over to him.”
“How many bedrooms does it have?”
“Three.”
“That’s a little big for a bachelor, don’t you think?”
“I imagine some little filly’ll snag Jake’s attention long enough for her to hogtie him one of these days. Then they’ll fill it up.”
They rode on, leaving the house behind, talking some but often in surprisingly companionable silence. Sol stopped a couple of times to fix sagging barbed wire. By late afternoon, Georgia was shifting uncomfortably, her behind reminding her that she wasn’t used to spending so much time in the saddle.
She was about to ask him how much longer they’d be when she recognized the copse of trees ahead and realized the fence they were riding led to the swimming hole that sat on the border of the McKnights’ land. The spot was practically legendary around Hero Creek, but she hadn’t been there since those long-ago days when she was married to Sol. As they neared, whoops and hollers carried to them on the breeze. She shot a raised eyebrow at him.
“When it’s hot like this, the kids take an afternoon break up here to cool down.”
That made sense. She couldn’t deny that the idea of jumping into a pool of cool water sounded better than the trip to Alaska she’d started imagining. It also had the advantage of being right there. She wished he had mentioned the possibility. She could have borrowed something to paddle around in before they’d ridden out.
They rode into the trees in time to see one of his younger brothers swing out from the far bank on a rope. When he got out over the middle, he let go and plummeted, slicing into the deep blue water with hardly a splash.
Sol leaned on his saddle horn, a smile on his face. “I swear, Levi’s part fish.”
Then she saw Eden—no, it couldn’t be. But it was. Eden had caught the rope Levi had dropped from. Before Georgia could do more than tense up, Eden swung out over the water like Tarzan and let go to dropped, creating a much larger splash than Levi.
Eden surfaced and Georgia breathed freely again. With narrowed eyes, she shot a sideways look at Sol to find him watching her intently.
“You said you wanted me to make decisions,” he said as he dismounted.
He was right. And she’d already vacillated too long about this one.
“I don’t know why you didn’t want her up here. ‘Specially since you got her all them swim lessons.”
Georgia barely heard him. She was watching Eden as she struck out for the bank. Their daughter swam with strong, confident strokes. “Would you look at her?” Georgia’s pride busted out in her voice.
Sol put his fingers to his lips and let loose a shrill whistle. Everyone stopped, looked their way, then waved and called out greetings.
Eden changed directions and headed toward them. Georgia dismounted to greet her daughter, letting Sol take the reins and lead the horses into the shade of a tree.
When Eden got out of the water wearing the floral-patterned one-piece Georgia had bought her at the beginning of the summer, she bounced into Georgia’s arms. “Hi, Mama.”
Georgia hugged her daughter, not minding that Eden was all wet. It was a nice contrast to the heat. She pulled back and smoothed Eden’s hair from her face. Heavy with moisture, it hung halfway down her back. “You swim like a mermaid.”
Eden glowed at her praise. She hugged Sol, jumped back in the water, and swam for the other bank.
Georgia turned to Sol, wanting to rake him over the coals for letting Eden come up here, but when she saw his face, she got sidetracked. Anyone who didn’t know him as well as she did would say that his face was expressionless, but Georgia knew that unblinking stare and the shallow breathing. Something had blindsided him, but he was trying to play it cool.
“Sol, what is it?” She touched his arm. “What’s wrong?”
He swallowed hard then drew a breath in through his nose. His voice, when he finally spoke, was soft and his lips barely moved. “She has breasts.”
Georgia was dumfounded that he’d noticed.
“They’re just . . . mosquito bites, but . . .” He turned his head and looked into her eyes with a panicky gaze. “Breasts,” he said again.
Georgia covered her mouth and tried not to laugh. What the hell had he expected? He had, after all, married the girl who’d been well out of her training bra by the eighth grade. If Eden’s barely there breasts floored him this badly, he’d faint dead away if he knew she was getting pubic hair, too.
The thought pushed her over the edge, and she couldn’t stifle her laughter. Sol had never liked being laughed at, but he was too shell shocked to even scowl. Such a tough guy, but realizing his little girl was on the threshold of womanhood threw him completely off kilter. Georgia laughed until she snorted and had to wipe tears from her eyes.
“It’s not funny,” Sol said softly. “There are going to be boys. And they’re gonna wanna touch . . .” He drew a shaky breath. “Oh, hell.”
She was laughing too hard to reprimand him for his language.
“Still not funny, Georgia. I’m going to have to kill some poor boy for following his urges. They’ll send me to prison, and then who’s gonna be there to protect Eden?”
Oh, Lord. He had the scenario all worked out in his head already. She hung on to his arm to keep herself
upright while she laughed.
“She’s not dating until she’s twenty-five. Maybe thirty. You wanted me to make decisions; that’s my decision. You can make all the rest. I don’t care. But she’s not dating. Is there an all-girls school in Dallas? One run by nuns maybe? It’s a big city. There must be. If there is, we need to send her there. I don’t care what it costs—”
“Stop, Sol! Please, stop!” Georgia’s ribs were starting to hurt.
“But, Georgia—”
She clamped a hand over his mouth, pushed him back into the trees where they were less visible, and forced herself to stop laughing. All this worry must have been churning around in his subconscious, waiting for the moment to arrive when he could no longer deny his daughter was growing up. True to his nature, Sol was overreacting. In a weird way, that pleased Georgia because he overreacted like this only when he really cared.
“Sol. Stop it. You’re borrowing trouble. She’s barely interested in boys.”
“But she will be. And they’re going to be interested in her. You know, Zach warned some boy’s parents to keep him away from Daisy last year. I thought he was overreacting some, but holy shit, he wasn’t.”
“Language, Sol,” Georgia warned.
“And damn him.” He didn’t even seem to hear her. “Zach’s got the luck of the devil. He’s got a boy who’ll help watch out for Abbie. Why couldn’t we have had a boy?” He scowled at her as though it were her fault.
“Would you really trade Eden in for a boy?”
His lips turned down at the corners. “No, I guess not.” He looked out over the water. “Do you think she might wanna be a nun?”
Was he starting to get his sense of humor back? Georgia wasn’t sure. “We’re not Catholic, Sol. And no,” she added before he could suggest it, “we’re not converting.”
He harrumphed. “Not willing to make the sacrifice for your daughter? Where’s your maternal instinct got to?”
“My maternal instinct is fine. It’s your paternal one that’s in overdrive. You need to get a grip on that. She’s going to turn into a teenager.”
