“No,” I say, shaking my head while my face heats up. “I…we’re…no. He’s my good friend. You know what? You should get out of the sun now.”
She giggles, then takes off back over to the tree and settles herself so she’s lying on her stomach. Walt meows at her and Olive glances up from her book. “Well, come on, you silly boy. I promise nothing bad will happen.”
Walt stops his complaining and stares at her as though trying to decide. I put down the hedge trimmer and watch him as he touches the grass with one paw, then retracts it.
“Come on, Walt. It’s all right.” Olive sits up and pats the blanket with her hand. “When you want something, you can’t just sit there and cry about it. You have to be brave.”
Hmm, I wonder where she’s heard that before?
Walt presses his paw to the grass again. When nothing bad happens, he takes one step forward.
“You can do this.” She smiles at him.
Walt takes three more steps. Now all four feet are firmly in the grass. He freezes in place, then decides to make a break for it and darts toward her. When he reaches the blanket, he launches himself onto the refuge of her lap.
I cheer and so does Olive, and for some dumb reason, I have tears in my eyes.
“He did it!” She grins at me.
I nod and find my voice. “He did, and on Independence Day, too. What a perfect day for an American cat to do something brave.”
I walk over and give him a scratch on his head. “Well done, Mr. Whitman. And well done, Ms. Wright. I don’t think he would have tried if he didn’t have you cheering him on.”
Olive beams.
And somehow the sight of my cat making a leap like that gives me the courage to do the same. I’m not sure what I’ll do, but I feel ready to take the next risk that comes my way.
Chapter Twenty
Courage doesn’t happen when you have all the answers. It happens when you are ready to face the questions you have been avoiding your whole life.
~ Shannon L. Alder
I’ve been having such a busy and emotionally draining day, I completely forgot it’sPride and PrejudiceWednesday. At a quarter to eight, I get a text from Lauren.Ready?
I stare at the word ‘ready’ for a moment. For a small word, it can be the cause of irreversible change. In this case, I know it means I have to fess up and tell Lauren that I’ve been a very bad friend lately.
I pick up my phone and text back:Yes.
Then, I close one eye, using the other to watch for her name to appear on my screen. Shit. There she is. "Hey you, how's July in New York?"
“Oh, you know, horribly humid and filled with sweaty tourists blocking the sidewalks and asking for directions. How's July in 1940 going?"
"Good," I say as my pulse quickens. "Actually, not that good. I have something to tell you and I think it's going to make you happy, then really super pissed at me—which you’ll have every right to be."
"Oh,” she says, dread filling her voice. “That doesn't sound promising."
"It’s not, so let me preface this by saying you are my very best friend in the entire world and I love you no matter what. And I hope you can do the same."
"Abby, you're scaring me," she says.
"I know, I'm scaring me too." I take a deep breath and then let it all spill out. "So the past six days I've been writing a new book. It's not in my regular series, in fact it's set in the 1800s. But I think there’s a chance it’ll be passably decent when I'm done."
“Okkaay. Do you think I’ll be mad you're not working on your Duchess series?"
“You won’t believe how tempted I am to say yes to that.”
“Woman up, Abby.” Lauren’s tone is sharp.
