Chapter 16
There was a trail down to the beach that Becky had pointed out to them, and the horses seemed to know it well, since hers went without any instruction from Birdie. There was a certain rhythm to the horse’s stride that, once she got used to it, was kind of soothing and easy to fall into.
It was neat to view the world from a slightly different position, and the slow pace made it so that she had time to see everything.
She hadn’t realized, even since she’d come to Raspberry Ridge, how frantic the pace of her life had been. Just sitting on the horse’s back, moving at a slow walk, forced her to slow down and pay attention to her surroundings. It was the ultimate in relaxation. That, along with the blue sky with big white puffy clouds and a gentle lake breeze that bent the grass around her and made a soothing swishing sound, made her feel like she had almost entered another world. Or at least another dimension.
“I’d forgotten how enjoyable this is.” Wesley spoke as they reached the bottom of the trail which ended on the beach. He guided Kit to the side so Kat could come up beside her. “I guess when I was younger though, the big deal about riding horses was making them go fast.”
“I don’t think that would be nearly as relaxing,” Birdie said, her voice having an almost sleepy quality she recognized instantly.
“You’re not falling asleep on me, are you?” Wesley said with a laugh .
“I kind of feel like I could. This is...a lot nicer than I thought it was going to be. Although maybe I’m just being lulled into a false sense of security and my horse is going to erupt underneath me any second.”
“I would think falling on the sand wouldn’t be nearly as bad as falling on...something else.”
She didn’t think so either. Although she didn’t want to fall at all. “I didn’t realize Becky wasn’t going to go with us.”
“I think she needs another horse. Or maybe she just thought that we were mature enough to handle it.”
“I don’t know. Maybe if we want someone to guide us, we have to say so.”
“Her business is new, and she’s young. I think she’ll settle into what she needs to do.”
“You know, I was thinking that if we allowed her to take pictures of our faces, it might help her business.” Birdie looked at the ground between her horse’s ears. She didn’t want to glance at Wesley to see what he was thinking.
She didn’t really want to do it, but she wasn’t against using her fame to help others, and there was something that Becky stirred in her heart. Something about a scrappy girl who was out in the world trying to make a living, not sitting around on her duff complaining because things weren’t good enough, or easy enough, or nothing was handed to her.
“That same thought crossed my mind, but I wasn’t going to suggest it to you, because for some reason, I’m thinking you have more to lose than I do.”
“I wonder why you have that idea?”
“I don’t know. You just seem a little bit more protective of your identity. I want to lie low, but the world’s not going to come to an end if I get found out. You, on the other hand, I feel like...it’ll be a bigger deal for you.”
“I guess it would be. But mostly because people just like to take pictures of me. If they take pictures of you and me together, all of a sudden, I’d have a boyfriend, and we’d be plastered together, and people would be asking you questions like how soon are you going to propose?”
“Do you want me to?” he asked, grinning.
“No. Don’t even. You don’t know me, you can’t possibly be thinking about any kind of long-term relationship.”
“Why not? I like you well enough. You’re funny, you’re cute, and I bet you’d even bounce if you fell off a horse. We could try that out. ”
“No,” she said, grabbing a hold of her horse’s mane which is what Becky had told her to do, rather than pulling back on the reins.
“You can also hold on to this. What did she call it, a...pommel?” he asked.
“That’s what it was.” She wrapped her hand around it, interested to find that it felt kind of good in her hand. Like it was made to grip. Although Becky had told her that it was more for wrapping a rope around.
“She picked the perfect time,” Wesley murmured as he looked at the sky that was just starting to turn pink.
“We’ll have a great view the whole way there and the whole way back, since it’s the western sky, and we’re traveling north.”
“I thought women weren’t supposed to be good with directions.”
“Wow. What a misogynistic comment.”
He held one hand up. “I was kidding.”
“It’s a beautiful sky. And you’re right. Becky definitely has that down pat. But I think she’s a romantic at heart.”
“I don’t know. She seems a little crusty. Not in that old lady kind of way just in... She has a shell that she doesn’t let very many people get past.”
“That’s pretty astute. I agree with you. What was your degree in? Psychology?”
“I never finished it. I—” He slammed his mouth closed, like he’d done a couple of times before.
Before she could tease him about it, he said, “There was a girl in college. She reminded me of you, and in fact I thought maybe you were her there for a little bit. She helped me with my English composition class. Which is the only way I passed it.” He held his hand up again and hurried on. “I never cheated. She never wrote anything for me, but she looked at the things I did write and gave me ideas for improvement.”
“That sounds nice,” Birdie said, thinking that there was probably more to the story, because it didn’t seem like he was stopping.
“We decided that we could pretend to be a couple. I was kind of popular on campus, and she was studious but nerdy. So, she helped me with my paper, and being seen together with me, as we pretended to be together, helped her get a little more popular, and she ended up being class president our senior year. Only I was out of there by then.”
“Well. A fake...relationship.” She had never done any such thing, although she’d heard of people doing them. Pretending to be together to fool the paparazzi, if they were a big star, or if someone’s parents were pushing them to have a significant other, either for a wedding or just because it was that time of their life.
“Didn’t you find lying difficult?”
“We never really lied. We just hung out together, and I suppose I might have dropped the word ‘girlfriend’ around some.”
Wild. That he was so...popular on campus that he could just drop the word “girlfriend” and she went from wallflower to class president.
“You have some pretty big star power,” she said, thinking that maybe she had misjudged him. He was so goofy and funny that she never really thought about him being well known and popular, but he obviously was. Somewhere. Doing something.
“I didn’t really have any other serious girlfriends, not that she was serious, but I was busy...doing other things,” he ended with a grin, and she had to return his smile.
“You almost did it again.”
“I know. I seem to have more trouble with that than you do. Which again leads me to the fact that I think you might have more at stake than I do.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She didn’t really want to get into it, because she might end up telling him more than what she wanted to. She trusted him, and that had a tendency to make her mouth a little bit looser.
“So what about you? Aren’t you gonna tell me about some kind of weird relationship in your past?”
“No. I don’t have any fake engagements in my past. I just have...men that I thought wanted me for me, but I found out they just wanted me for my money. I suppose they wanted me for other things too, but men, you know?”
“Was that a slam against my gender? And if it was, was I included?” He looked over at her, partially joking, but there was a pity in his eyes that made her back feel itchy. She didn’t want people’s pity.
“It was just a fact. Isn’t that true?”
“That men want money? Or that men want sex?”
“I didn’t say the S word.”
“You didn’t have to. I knew what you meant. I was a little offended, because I’m pretty sure that you’ve spent a lot of time with me and I’ve never asked you for either.”
“No. You’re right. You haven’t. That’s probably why I’m talking to you about it.”
“What do you mean? ”
“I guess I have trust issues. And for good reason. Actually for five good reasons.”
He huffed out a breath. “So it’s five guys that have done the give me money, give me sex or I’m leaving you routine?”
“That’s kind of a crude way to put it.”
“I was just paraphrasing you.”
She had done things she wished she wouldn’t have. Things that seemed like everyone else was doing and it didn’t bother them at all. So why did it bother her so much?
“Maybe that’s why I have Gram with me. It’s not that I can’t control myself, and it’s not that I get wrapped up in things and go crazy. It’s just... I want to remind myself of what’s important to me. And I don’t want to get talked into something I know I don’t want.”
“A no-strings-attached relationship?”
“Exactly.”
“The only kind of relationship that two people who don’t even know each other’s real names could have.”
“Yeah.”
“So you were warning me,” he said, like he had just figured it out, and his eyes went up to the sky, which was slowly turning pink and orange above the lake.
“Not really. I told you. I trust you.”
“You trust me enough to tell me that you don’t trust me.”
That really wasn’t what she meant. She hadn’t meant to say any of that. But he knew more about her past relationships than she told anyone, although she’d gone through them in the sight of the entire world. The world just didn’t know her side of it. Since any time they broke up, it had been the man who had gone on to tell all, and she had holed up, nursing her stupid broken heart.
She didn’t want to do that again.
“So no relationship unless there’s marriage involved?”
“I’ve sworn off men completely. I don’t want a relationship at all. I don’t have time for it, and I haven’t found them to be especially beneficial to me. But I have found them to be expensive.”
“So how about any man who wants to be in a relationship with you needs to sign a prenup.”
She hadn’t thought of that. “I kind of feel like they’d find a way around it. ”
“You must be worth a lot, if it’s worth their time to try to find their way around a prenup.”
She didn’t say anything. She didn’t really need to. He’d hit the nail right on the head. The thing was, she knew he wasn’t a scammer, and he wasn’t after her money either, because he didn’t even know that she had any. And as far as she could tell, he didn’t know who she was. There was a part of her that said she could trust him, and he could possibly be an exception to her no-relationship rule, since if he liked her, which he had said he did, it wasn’t because of her money or her fame. Or what she could do for his career. Although... She still didn’t know what that was.