She had always been fine with that.And anyway, he wasn’t asking about her feelings about the pretty girls around town.
“I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that she looks like anyone,” Matilda said after a moment.“Except, you know.That girl.Always an air of mystery and a trail of folks desperate to solve it.”
“Well in this case, it was resolved.”He tapped the side of his beer bottle, almost as if he was nervous.Or processing some kind of emotion.It was fascinating.“She’s been here a while, but her two older brothers just came into town last weekend.And the next time you see her, you might notice that she looks a lot like Cat.As it turned out, my dad had a whole other family out there.”
He said that matter-of-factly.But she was sitting on his couch with him and she could see the way he almost… braced himself.Matilda didn’t think.She reacted the way she would if an animal in her care seemed to be in pain.
She reached over and she put her hands on his arm.“Did you know that already?”she asked softly.“I’m so sorry if you didn’t.That must have been such a shock.”
When he lifted his gaze to hers again, she felt it go through her like a lightning strike.
“I didn’t know,” he said, his voice a shade or two lower than before.“But I’m fine.It’s my mother I would have worried about, but she’s known for a while.And the funniest part is, they all seem… shockingly decent, despite it all.”
“I’m not sure that I would have it in me to think well of them, even though I know it’s not their fault, what their father did,” Matilda said quietly.She shook her head.“I don’t really have it in me to forgive my mother for being her ditzy, hippie self, and I’m not sure she’s ever hurt anyone on this earth deliberately.She’s just selfish.”
And this was another benefit of who they were and where they lived.They both knew all these details about each other without having to share them now.She knew all about his father’s attempts to sell the General Store—the Lisle family legacy—and all of his many get-rich-quick schemes.She knew that no one had considered him much of a husband or father, and that he’d disappeared while Tennessee was a teenager.They’d found out later that he’d died—or they’d assumed he had.
By the same token, everyone knew Matilda’s father had died too, but her mother remained very much alive, if inaccessible.She liked to call herselfMoonshadowthese days, usually dressed only in undyed, coarse sorts of fabrics, considered herself akeeper of light, and lived on a commune farther out in the mountains.The only thing Matilda liked about her mother, andlikedwas a strong word, was that people assumed Matilda was just as fluttery as good old Moonshadow when she wasn’t.
It was an excellent way to do exactly what she liked without repercussions.
Tennessee nodded, because he knew all of these things.And probably more, because he was older than Matilda.It was a convenient shorthand.She’d always liked living here, and now she liked it a whole lot more.
“We all decided that we’re going to get along,” Tennessee told her.“My father pretty clearly never wanted us to meet.So our mothers are determined to become best friends.And the rest of us are going to make ourselves the healthiest, happiest family that ever existed, even if it kills every single one of us.”
The look on his face was intense.More intense than usual, and she thought she probably should have dropped her hands.But she didn’t, because she was only a girl, after all.And his arm had all of those muscles and was so hard, and hot through the flannel he wore, just as she’d imagined he would be.
She couldn’t help herself.
But she did scold herself into focusing.“Do you think you’ll have to kill people to achieve this?”
He looked at her, and it was like his features softened.She thought maybe he’d taken a breath.
There was no reason it should feel like she was holding hers.
“Actually,” Tennessee said, “I think it might be less of an act than expected.”He shook his head slightly, like he was baffled by that himself.“I was expecting the worst.But so far, so good.”
“I look forward to meeting them,” Matilda told him then.“And I have to say, I’m not sure how everyone else in Cowboy Point will react.An expansion of Lisles?The natural order will be thrown out of balance.”
She was only partially kidding.
“If we claim Wilder Carey as one of ours, and that’s a big if, we’ll outnumber the Careys.”And that time, when Tennessee smiled, it was a real one and it was directed right at Matilda.It made her feel as if she was flying.“Not that I’m looking for ways to quietly win the feud, of course.”
“Of course,” Matilda said at once.
When she had to drop her hands and sit back and actuallyforceherself to talk about animals in the shelter or rescue she wanted to start—when normally, she had to be forced to stop talking about these things—she held onto that smile of his.
And she tucked it away, deep inside, so she could hoard it forever, like the treasure it was.
Chapter Six
February stayed cold,got windier, and then rolled straight over into a blustery March with only a few hints of spring here and there.The northern lights made appearances, the bison down in Yellowstone had a little less snow on their faces, and Tennessee found himself on Matilda’s doorstep one bitterly cold evening with the Milky Way bright above his head and no idea why he was there.
He was sure that he hadn’t meant to come here.That had definitely not been the plan.He’d gone to the weekly meeting of the LPL Club with his happy new family, the way he had every week without fail.And the truth was, the more they all hung out, the more they really did seem to get along.Like they were a pretty easy group of friends instead of complicated siblings with murky pasts.He liked it.He likedthem.
And when he’d walked back across the road after dinner, he’d found himself studying the porch of the General Store, like he was waiting for more puppies to appear.
None did.
