Immortal Mine (12 page)

“Okay, whoa there. What in the world is the
people game?”

“You know, where you make up stories about
the people sitting at the other tables.”

“You have a misguided sense of fun, my
friend.”

I choose to ignore her comment.

“We went to the movie—which
I
paid
for. And he held my hand.” I stop speaking, waiting. It takes
several heartbeats, and then she’s next to me, spinning me away
from the counter, chicken juice and flour flying from my hands,
spattering the floor—giving me another thing I’ll have to clean
before tonight.

“He
held
your
hand
?” I can’t
help the grin that splits my face as I nod. “Wait till the double-H
and all those silly juniors hear this!” she exclaims.

“No, Stace,” I say. “I don’t want anyone to
know. I mean, it may not have even meant anything.” I think about
the strangely intense heat of our hands pressed together, the
butterflies it sent shimmering through me. “He might have just been
being nice.”

“Oh, come on,” Stacy gives me a shake. “Boys
don’t hold hands to be nice. At least, not boys like Sam.”

“Maybe they do,” I argue weakly. “He’s not
from here. Maybe that’s how they do it in New York.”

Stacy opens her mouth to argue, but really,
she doesn’t know any better than me. She shakes her head. “No, I
don’t think he would. I’ve seen the way he watches you.”

I can feel the heat climbing my cheeks.
“Yeah, well, that’s probably because he’s watching for flying
cookies,” I mutter. Stacy laughs.

“So, your first date and first hand-holding,
all in one night, with the hottest guy in town, immediately making
an enemy of every chick between the ages of fifteen and thirty,”
she finishes ominously, tone in contrast with her grin.

“Stace, come on. It was probably nothing. So
it’s not going to matter anyway.”

She looks at me for a long minute, reading
me as only she can. “You liked it?” she asks with a knowing smile.
I give a tiny nod. “You like
him
?” she asks more seriously.
I think about her question for a minute, and realize that I do,
probably more than I should. I have no experience with boys, so
this is way outside of my comfort zone. I give the same tiny nod,
and her grin widens.

“Then hurry up and finish playing with that
chicken so we can pretty you up,” she laughs.



Stacy on a mission is an unstoppable force.
That’s how it is that I end up with curled hair, perfect make-up,
and high heels when Sam and Shane arrive. I feel silly; it seems
clearly contrived for him. However, by the time Stacy finished with
me and I finished dinner, I didn’t have time to at least wash some
of the make-up off, maybe pull my hair up into a ponytail.

“Welcome to our town, and our home,” my
mother is gushing at Shane. It seems she’s under the same spell as
Stacy—who’s standing uncomfortably close to Shane’s other
side—regarding Sam’s uncle. Sam grins at me and winks, as if in on
the joke, and I feel the blush stealing up my cheeks again. Sheesh,
I
never
blush, now it seems that’s all I do.

“Let me get you a drink,” my father offers,
steering Shane away from his fan club—who follow closely behind. I
shrug at Sam, and he takes my elbow, giving it a light caress with
his thumb, leading me after them. And there goes the stupid blush
again.

The heat in my face deepens when he leans
close as we’re walking and murmurs, “You look amazing.”

“Well, there’s no stopping Stacy when she
gets an idea in her head,” I mutter. He lifts one copper brow at my
words, a smile on his face, but he doesn’t comment.

An hour-and-a-half later, after Shane
finally manages to eat his dinner between answering the questions
pelted at him by his adoring fans, we move outside. The evenings
are getting very cool now as autumn takes a firm hold, but my
father has already remedied this by getting a fire going earlier
for us to gather around. That’s one of the perks of living on a
farm—a campfire anytime you want.

Shane finds himself firmly wedged between
Stacy and my mom on the stone bench. He’s such a kind man, or at
least a good sport, as he tolerates their fawning. I sit with Sam
on the log, lower to the ground. My father, always restless,
remains standing, regaling them with stories of their travels,
which is all fine and well until he brings me into it.

“So there we are,” he laughs, “sitting in
this fabulously wealthy sheiks home, with all of his wives, and
Niahm says—”

“‘Daddy, why does that man have so many
daughters
?’” he and my mother finish together, laughing. I
groan, which causes an already chuckling Sam to laugh even
harder.

“All right, that’s my cue to go get our
dessert,” I say, standing up. “Help me, Stacy?”

She shoots me a pained look, and Sam comes
to her rescue. “I’ll help you,” he offers. He follows me into the
kitchen, scrubbing Bob’s head as he pushes up against Sam’s leg,
making it difficult for him to walk.

“Guess you have your own little fan club
there, huh?” I nod my head toward Bob as I open the fridge, bending
to retrieve the pies. I lift one hand in the general direction of
the backyard. “You’ll have to tell Shane sorry about my mom and
Stacy.” I turn toward the counter, a pie balanced in each hand.

“I don’t think he’s too stressed about the
attention,” Sam grins. He moves over next to me, picking up the
knife I laid on the counter and cutting one of the pies now sitting
on the countertop, slicing it into evenly sized pieces. I’m
impressed.

“I guess he gets that everywhere he goes,
huh?” I look up at Sam, realize he’s standing closer than I
thought, and immediately start stuttering. “You know, women… um,
falling over him… I mean, falling
all
over him.” He gives me
a funny look, and I realize the senselessness of my question. Sam
gets that as much as his uncle. I feel like smacking my head in
consternation. Instead, I walk around him to get the small plates
out of the cabinet. As he cuts the second pie, I start placing
pieces on the plates.

“What kind do you want?” I ask distractedly,
“Apple or peach?” When he doesn’t say anything, I glance up at him
and see his sardonic look.

“Guess,” he says, and I grin at him, still
embarrassed at my complete overreaction before in regards to my
pie.

“I’m surprised you want to have anything to
do with me,” I mumble as I turn back to the cabinet, getting out a
tray.

“Why wouldn’t I?” he questions.

“I haven’t exactly been nice to you. I don’t
know if I’d be as patient as you’ve been.” I turn to him,
curiously. “Why did you stick around, keep trying to be my friend?
Especially when you had every other girl in town hot to be the
center of your attention.”

A peculiar look crosses his face, and he
glances away from me. After a moment, he looks back and grins. “I’m
a sucker for punishment?” he offers.

“I don’t think so,” I laugh.

“I’ve been angling for another pie?” He
ducks as I lob an apple at him, swiped from the basket on the
counter, neatly catching it above his head.

“Try again,” I say.

He shrugs, and looks at me more seriously.
“I thought you were cute. Which—” he holds up a finger to silence
me when I open my mouth to protest, “—would not have kept me coming
back, just so you know. I’m not that shallow. But I saw how much
your friends cared for you, the way they listen to you, and I
decided there was more to you than you were letting on.”

“Oh,” is my brilliant response.

He steps closer to me, and I instinctively
step backward, my progress stopped by the sharp hardness of the
counter. I reach back, resting my hands against the edge. He places
both hands on the counter, trapping me between them. My heart
immediately starts to race.

“Have you ever been kissed?” he asks
quietly.

I swallow the lump in my throat noisily,
which Sam hears if his grin is any indication, unable to answer.
One of his hands slips underneath mine. I wonder if he’s going to
kiss me, my mind frantically racing as I try to decide how to
handle it. I don’t want him to kiss me… do I?

No, definitely not. I don’t think. I’m
pretty sure… I don’t know. No, absolutely not. No, not now that
we’re getting along. I don’t want to ruin—

My rambling thoughts are abruptly cut off as
he chuckles, as if he read my mind. I narrow my eyes at him, but
he’s already moving away, placing the plates of pie onto the
tray.

“C’mon, friend,” he says over his shoulder
as he pushes out the door. Bob, who apparently thinks that Sam was
talking to him, bounds happily behind him. I don’t move, except to
take deep breaths, trying to calm myself.

“Silly girl,” I chide myself. I push away
from the counter, only slightly shaky, and return to the fire. Sam
has already passed the pie out, and is sitting on our log. I think
about sitting somewhere else, but he holds a plate of pie out to
me, and I can’t refuse to take it from him. Once I’m next to him,
it seems ridiculous to not sit where I’d been before, so I sink
down.

“Amazing,” Sam says, savoring a bite of his
pie. Stacy shoots a look my way, probably wondering if I’m going to
shove mine in his face.

“Thanks,” I tell him, giving Stacy a look to
say:
See, I can behave.

Sam scoots closer to bump his shoulder
against mine, then stays in place, his arm pressed against mine. I
hope the dark sky hides my red cheeks.

Over the many years I’ve lived on the earth,
I’ve learned to appreciate certain things. One of those things is
the amazing amount of talent that people have. Some of them
recognize and share their talents with the world; too many keep
them hidden, or even undiscovered.

Goshen is a very small town, but it’s packed
full of talent. I’m impressed by the magnitude of the production
these few seniors are putting on. Some of the younger kids audition
for minor parts in the play, sworn to secrecy about details of the
production—which doesn’t seem strange at all to any of them. It
shouldn’t seem strange to me, but I admit, I’ve never seen anything
like it. And that’s saying something.

When Niahm opens her mouth and sings the
first note, I’m floored. Her voice is clear and true, as pure as
any I’ve heard. And yet, she seems completely unaware of just how
good she is. We spend a few weeks in intensive rehearsal, while
performing double duty helping plan and construct the stage, with
help from some of the parents. As soon as Shane signs on, the
number of females volunteering increases. Makes me glad I get to
play the part of the teen.

As if in deference to the upcoming show, the
teachers lighten the homework load. That means weeknights and
weekends are spent with me at Niahm’s, helping her to complete the
overwhelming number of chores she has assigned to herself.

“Let’s take a break,” I tell her one
Saturday as we finish raking and bagging enough leaves to compost
an entire city—a real city, not a small one like Goshen.

She looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind.
It’s beyond her comprehension to “take a break”. I stretch my back,
as if it’s sore, and watch the slight guilt flit across her face.
Of course, my back doesn’t hurt in the slightest, and I’m
completely aware that she feels some guilt for my help. She’s tried
to convince me to stay away, but I keep showing up anyway.

“Okay, if you want to,” she concedes,
reluctantly. “What do you want to do?”

“Let’s take a walk,” I say, nodding toward
town. “Maybe grab an ice cream at Hornsby’s.”

She shrugs, and I wait while she takes off
her work boots, and replaces them with sneakers, putting a jacket
on against the chill air. I realize I’ve never seen her wear cowboy
boots, as many of the residents do.

“So, tell me all about Goshen,” I say to
distract her from thinking about her waiting chores, which I can
see she’s doing by her puckered brows. As soon as I say the words
her forehead smooth’s out and she smiles at me.

“You might not believe this to look at it
now, but Goshen was a pretty happening place at one time.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Back when the mines were open. Once
they closed, people started farming, which still kept the town
booming nicely.” I glance over at her, see the animation that
lights her eyes as she speaks. “But then, the world changed.
Farming
changed. All the ranches got smaller.”

She looks over as if gauging whether I’m
listening or not. I am.

“The largest ranch left is the Rocher place,
which is about a hundred acres. The Stanton place—I mean, the
Coleman
place,” she corrects, glancing at me with an
apologetic smile, “is the next largest at eighty. But it hasn’t
been farmed in years. Do you think you and Shane will?”