“Well then, drive me,” she added.
“Any chance I can finish my ice cream first?”
Her sigh was to tell him she wasn’t happy, but seconds later, she dropped down beside him, making sure to leave a decent space between them. They sat in silence, finishing their cones. The water was cool, even in summer, and he watched the wind skimming along the surface. This was his place, his home. Even when he’d gone away to med school and then the army, he’d thought about it every day and wondered why he’d been so eager to leave. It was his bolt-hole now, the place he’d come to heal.
“I never really looked when I was here before.” Jake turned to watch Branna as she gazed over the water to the mountains beyond. “I never took the time to see what was special about Howling. But it is special, Jake, magical almost.”
“You’ve only been back a few days, Rosebud.”
She curled her tongue around the cone and heat licked through him again.
“I know, and I could do without some of the Howlers, McBride, and I hate that everyone knows my business, but this place is nice. I love the hills that surround it. I love the trees and the lake, and I like that it’s slower than the big cities.”
“Washington, right?”
She nodded.
“What’s Mikey’s story, Jake?”
He finished his ice cream, then bent to wash his hands in the lake. He got the signal that personal questions were not allowed, which annoyed him, but he could hardly complain, as they were off limits with him too.
“His mother travels with her job, so his grandmother cares for him. She’s in her eighties, so it’s hard on her, especially as two of her children live out of Howling and the one that does live here is pretty hopeless.”
“Connor?” Branna questioned.
“Yeah, he’s not a bad guy, but tries to play at it. Helps Buster out now and again when he’s busy, but he dropped out of school and hasn’t held down a job since then. I haven’t had that much to do with them, only what I hear through Buster and Mom.”
“Mikey needs to be challenged, needs that stimulation, or he’ll grow bored and that’s when the trouble starts,” Branna said.
“Is that what happened to you?”
“No.”
“No, you didn’t get in trouble or you didn’t get the correct stimulation.” She threw him a suspicious glance to see if there was any double meaning in his words.
“Yes to the first and no to the second.”
“Buster told me that you and your dad were teachers, and now you’re both writers,” Jake added.
“So, Belle told me you started out a doctor and now you’re a mechanic?”
“Come on, Rosebud, throw me a bone here. I’m just trying to be nice.”
“I thought you weren’t doing nice anymore?”
“I can still pull it out when required.”
“I hate that about small towns,” she added with a fierce frown.
“You don’t like it when people are nice?”
“I hate it when people appear nice, so that they can find out everything about you, right down to your shoe size,” she corrected.
“And yet you came back.”
She sighed again and looked over the lake once more as Jake studied her profile. She was fine-boned, small ears and nose, curved chin, high cheekbones. Her skin was beautiful, soft and smooth, a hint of color in the cheeks.
“I had to,” she said the words slowly.
