The Right Thing Easy

by Laina Villeneuve

  “Give her some good ideas, would you?” Hope winked. “I’d better get back to work. I just wanted to say hi. See you later?”

  “Whenever you’re off, you know where to find me,” I said, wishing the easy days of winter break would last forever. I felt Halley’s gaze on me, so I refrained from watching Hope disappear into the office.

  “So. You’ve got plans to take my sister on a date.” She pulled out her order pad and pencil, tapping the eraser end on her pursed lips. “You could drive down to Chico for some shopping.”

  I frowned, unable to disguise how un-fun that sounded. I considered the time I’d spent with Hope wondering if I’d missed something. “Hope enjoys shopping?” I said, treading lightly, not wanting to offend Halley when she’d offered to help.

  “No. I enjoy shopping. She might enjoy poking around in the little antique store or trading company in Crescent Mills.” That she scribbled on her pad. “That’s closer, anyway, just out Highway 89 before you get to Greenville. Can’t miss it.”

  I reached for the paper, but she snapped it away. “I’m still thinking.” Then her eyebrows shot up. “Best date I ever went on was renting WaveRunners out on Lake Almanor. Or you could rent a pontoon boat, spend the day soaking up rays and swimming on the lake. Our family used to do that once a year.”

  “Less fun in the dead of winter,” I pointed out. She stood there staring at me, and I realized this was a test. Her first suggestion assessed how well Hope and I knew each other. Her next suggestion asked how serious I was. “Write it down, though. We can do that come summer.”

  Satisfied, she jotted down information about rentals out on the lake. “Do you hike?”

  I nodded. I’d rather be on horseback, but I knew there were some areas that required you use your own feet.

  “Good. There’s tons of stuff around Mount Lassen.” She was happy rattling off crazy-sounding stuff, lava tubes and Bumpass Hell, making a list that would take more than one summer to tackle. I let her go on as I ate my lunch, enjoying the sometimes historical, sometimes narrative overview of the area. “Got it?” she asked, blinking sweetly at me.

  “Are you saying there’s nothing to do right now?”

  “Oh, there’s lots of stuff like skiing, inner tubing, any kind of snow thing you can think of up at Buck’s Lake.”

  None of which Hope had ever talked about. “Which doesn’t interest your sister in the least.”

  She beamed at me, a clear indication that, tables turned, I was acing my test. “Not like a cup of cocoa, a book and a fire. Cheap date. That’s my sister.”

  Snuggling with Hope on the couch sounded like the ideal date to me, and a whole lot more romantic than tromping around in the snow.

  Pushing the paper in my direction, she held my gaze for long enough that I expected her to launch into a lecture about how to treat her sister. The words never came, though. She just nodded, released the paper and went back to work as if it were any other day.

  I finished my lunch, left money to cover my bill plus a generous tip for my fountain of information. Taking orders out in the restaurant, Halley waved to me as I stood. I wanted to say goodbye to Hope but didn’t want to disturb her or disrupt the resumed ease between Halley and me. She caught my hesitation and tipped her chin toward the office door with a smile. I couldn’t resist. I rapped a couple of knuckles on the door and waited for Hope’s invitation. She smiled as I pushed open the door and met me for a hug.

  “Halley give you something to work with?”

  “A lot of somethings,” I answered, kissing her softly.

  “I can’t wait.”

  I tightened my grip and then pulled back to examine her, reading her eyes which simply sparkled. “You amaze me.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Just that you told your sister. I wasn’t expecting that.” Her answering kiss went well beyond what I’d opened with, far enough that my hands started getting ideas. “I wasn’t expecting that, either.”

  “Glad I can surprise you.”

  I thought about the direction we were going together and how delightful the surprises of getting to know her intimately would be. “See you later?”

  “You can count on that.” She sat back down, returning to work.

  I hesitated at the door. “Your car’s at my place enough I was wondering about talking to Gabe.” I’d been wanting to tell him but didn’t want to rush Hope, but it seemed like she’d gotten ahead of me.

  “Did you want to invite him to dinner?”

  “Oh, I’m not going that far. I don’t want to share my time with you.”

  She smiled at me over her shoulder. “Good. I don’t want to share right now, either.”

  Looking to a time when we would share our evenings with friends and entertain together felt so natural, I had to consciously rein myself in. Like the groundwork with Eights, it was important not to work too fast or expect too much. The round corral kept her focused on me, blocking out distraction. Though Hope was expanding our working area, I was happy to keep things quiet a while longer, still giving what we felt space to grow.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Pushing the back door closed with her foot, Hope set her bags of groceries on the kitchen table and listened to the house. One unexpected aspect of living with Pauline and Burley was how often she had the house to herself. In winter, Burley did search and rescue that often kept him out of the house for days on end, and Pauline filled those husbandless evenings with crafts and card games at her friends’ places. Some nights, the quiet seemed like a key ingredient to understanding herself, as an entity separate from her family and the church. Other times, it felt oppressive, the way it forced her to think about what she had left.

  Tonight, there was no internal silence. Voices from the day followed her home and around the kitchen as she stowed her food, leaving out tortillas, butter and cheese for a quesadilla dinner. Any time she’d shown her face at the counter, someone had asked about her car being at Pauline’s place. She grated some cheese directly on to a tortilla in the pan. She added a dollop of guilt for letting people believe that she was doing Pauline a favor, staying over for the spells that Burley was out of town. Quelling the worry about Pauline’s health, she’d caught Halley staring at her, hand on hip, challenging her.

  The checker at the grocery store had noted that she’d seen Halley shopping with their father, pointedly trying to figure out the last time she’d seen him. Hope knew the answer—that her father hadn’t been inside the store since she’d earned her driver’s license. She didn’t want to talk about why she wasn’t purchasing the family’s groceries any longer or why she was in so often for just the ingredients necessary to throw together a quick meal. She wanted to impose on Pauline and Burley as little as possible.

  The groan of the garage door announced Pauline’s arrival. “Hey, you!” she said, slamming the door with her foot just as Hope had.

  “I’m having a quesadilla. Want one?”

  “Sure. Just a half.” She unwound her scarf and hung it with her coat just inside the door. “Brrrr. Don’t you believe in heat, girl? Take this off. I’m stoking the wood stove.”

  Hope flipped the quesadilla in the pan and then took off her own coat.

  “How many times do I have to tell you to make yourself at home?” Pauline said, returning to the kitchen.

  “I know. I’m doing my best.”

  “I know you are.” Pauline rubbed Hope’s back. “I’m surprised you’re here, anyway.”

  “Classes started this week,” Hope said.

  “Oh, well. That explains it.”

  Hope frowned at her friend. “I note the sarcasm. What?”

  “Dani does seem like the kind of person to blow you off when her life gets busier.”

  “She didn’t blow me off, I…” Hope stopped midgrate, realizing what Pauline was inferring. Dani hadn’t said anything about changing the routine of Hope stopping by after work to have dinner with her. Hope had decided independently that it would m
ake Dani’s life easier to give her space when she had to teach. She was trying to have as little impact as possible, both with Pauline and Dani. “Point taken.”

  “Just tell me it’s not the wagging tongues that have you here tonight.”

  Hope’s face fell. “Who did you run into?”

  Pauline waved her hand dismissively. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “To you it doesn’t.”

  “No. I happen to like the attention. I haven’t been the focal point of questions for a whole lotta years.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “And it should be the same for you.”

  Hope turned back to her dinner as Pauline munched on the quesadilla wedges in front of her. She’d heard this lecture before, about how small towns loved gossip, how it shifted from person to person, and the important thing to remember was that it would shift again. She could hear the words and knew they were true. Pauline, herself, was evidence, having been whispered about during and immediately after high school. People still talked about her “wasting her substance in riotous living” even though she’d been the stable town librarian for far more years.

  “I still say easy for you to say. You got married.”

  “Not to a white guy.”

  “Still, you married a guy, and you don’t fool around on Burley. People stopped talking because you didn’t give them anything to talk about.”

  “Your point?”

  “Once people find out about me and Dani…”

  “You don’t think they’ll ever stop talking.”

  “Getting married doesn’t solve it for me.”

  Pauline’s face lit up. “Did she propose?”

  “Come on, Pauline. It’s a little early, don’t you think? We haven’t even said anything about love.”

  “You don’t have to say it out loud for it to be true, and my bet is she feels it but doesn’t want to say it and scare you off.”

  “You barely know her.”

  “I saw how easily she deflected all those available men.”

  “You’re trying to distract me because you know I’m right.” Hope sat down with her own sliced quesadilla. “Once people know about us, we’ll be in the spotlight forever. We’ll be the town lesbians.”

  “I’ll say it again. Doesn’t matter, or…No, I correct myself. It shouldn’t matter. If it does matter to you, then you do have a problem, because if you really care about what people are saying, you’re screwed. You can only live your life for yourself. If you don’t, then how are you going to share it meaningfully with anyone else?”

  Having said her piece, Pauline ate in silence. Hope felt the truth of her words and reluctant to admit how many of her actions and decisions she had made based on what others were going to say. She’d never had to think about it before. When she dated in college, she conveniently left that part at school when she came home, allowing her to keep her secret. She bit her lip. “I’ve been thinking about what people would say if my car wasn’t here overnight.”

  “Or at your dad’s place.”

  Pauline constantly pushed Hope to be more honest about what she was feeling. “If my car was, for example, at Dani’s overnight.”

  Pauline shrugged. “She’s not on such a public street. Very little traffic to notice.”

  “Mrs. Wheeler lives out past Gabe’s ranch. So does the bishop.”

  “You’re worried about the church finding out. I get that, but they have to find out eventually. You know that, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then I was right. It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is where you want to be and what you want to do.”

  Hope suppressed a shudder as Pauline’s words took her back to Dani’s couch, their favorite place to be during the last week of Dani’s winter break. She closed her eyes and remembered how leaving got harder and harder, especially after they discarded their books. What started with running her fingers through Dani’s hair led to lips brushed against her ear. She loved to caress and nibble until Dani’s book fell. Dani would stretch her chin out, exposing more skin for Hope to explore before meeting Hope’s lips with her own. Only after the night that Dani had spun in her arms to return her kisses did she realize how safe she had been keeping things, kissing while they both faced the same direction.

  The moment Dani shifted, Hope felt a rush of heat between her legs. Her body burned remembering Dani’s hands on her hips, sliding up her rib cage, stopping just before she reached Hope’s breasts. Impatient, Hope had scooted her body down until her hips nestled against Dani’s. Though she was beneath Dani, she had to work to get what she wanted, arching her back to push her breasts into Dani’s hands, pulling Dani down to deepen their kisses, pulling her ass tight as she ground against her, nearly climaxing with her clothes on. She began to fantasize about what would happen if she further encouraged Dani’s kisses and exploring.

  It was so easy for her to imagine Dani leading her to the bedroom where they would slip into bed. Hope knew once they were there, she would have to stay the whole night to even come close to getting enough of what she wanted. Pauline’s hand grasped Hope’s, forcing her to return to reality. Flushed, she looked up to find a huge smile on Pauline’s face.

  “Seems like you know exactly where you want to be. It’s just a matter of whether you’ll stop listening for what people are likely to say. They’ll talk. You can count on that. Let them. If they feel like wasting their energy dishing about your life, let them. I, for one, would rather spend my energy on something else.” She patted Hope’s hand, laughing a little. “At least now I get why you refuse to turn on the heat. You clearly have no trouble producing your own.”

  She left the kitchen before the flush covered Hope’s face. She closed her eyes again, letting herself feel Dani’s weight right where she wanted it. She felt the way Dani nestled her head against her chest, letting both of them catch their breath, hands stilled, hearts pounding. Hope was sure if she tugged at Dani’s shirt that it and everything else would be discarded, no more barriers. But Dani had never asked for more. Hope marveled at Dani’s patience and ability to read her and trusted completely what was happening in her house, the place that felt so much like home to her. To nurture that, she knew she would have to quiet her worries about the people on the other side of the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  My feet were back on campus, carrying me up to my mailbox and back down to the barn, taking me to meetings and getting me through my classes. My hands were on campus, tossing on saddles or pointing out how students needed to shift their posture. My mind, however, remained on winter vacation. Without warning, I would flash on Hope beneath me, her body begging to be touched, and my belly would bottom out on me.

  Totally unprofessional, I chastised myself over and over again. I did my best to keep my brain so busy it would have to stay on the task at hand, but it was squirrely and kept slipping away from me. The training class with Halley offered the best hours of my workweek. The combination of unpredictable horses, green students and Halley’s presence kept my brain plenty busy. The first week of classes, I’d brought Eights in, and each student had a chance to work with her, getting the feel for working with the flag, learning how to read her posture. She stood well for saddling, and I’d worked her to the point where she was taking a snaffle bit for me.

  That task fell to Halley on our third class session, and she had no trouble slipping the bit into the mare’s mouth, gently tucking her ears through the browband.

  “That’s beautiful,” I said as Halley rubbed Eights’s face. “Are you ready to ride?”

  Halley’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure?”

  “Why are you asking me? Ask the horse and yourself. Does she seem ready?”

  “She seems focused on me, but she’s not nervous. Her feet are quiet.”

  “That means her brain is quiet too. How are you? Your horse, especially a young horse in training, is going to take cues from you. If you seem nervous, worried that something
is going to go wrong, they’re going to be sensing that too. If you project calm, like this is all in a day’s work, that’s how she’ll react.”

  “I feel good.”

  The dozen students in her class scooted to the edge of their seats on the bleachers. Many were like Halley and had hung around to watch the fall training class when Eights had spent an impressive amount of time trying to buck off the saddle. I’d been on her enough hours to trust her in class, but they hadn’t seen that progress and wondered if they were about to get a show. I walked to Eights’s head and held the bridle for Halley as she swung aboard in a soft, fluid motion. I’d specifically chosen her to get on first knowing she wouldn’t plop herself down on Eights’s back like she was an old trail nag.

  Halley took both reins in her right hand and ran her left along Eights’s neck for a few minutes, soothing her and letting her get used to having her aboard. I stepped back into the middle of the round corral, giving her space.

  “Let me work the gas and the brakes,” I said, picking up my flag. “Keep your hands wide, out by your hips, but don’t offer more than a hint of direction. We’re mostly getting her used to having someone other than me in the saddle.”

  Halley nodded, so I waved the bag tied to the end of the whip, clucking her into a walk. I watched Halley’s face as much as my horse. Her jaw was tight with concentration, but her hips moved in time with the horse. Around and around they went. When I suggested Halley cut through the middle to switch directions, and she did so without a hitch, she relaxed even more, her eyes sparkling in excitement. The next set of students started trickling down the road, passing the round corral to get to the main barn where they’d tack up their horses for Intermediate Roping. Many were from my first Intro to Training class and stopped at the fence to watch Halley and Eights.

  “The way that little mustang bucked last semester, I thought for sure you’d be using her for roughstock next year when we get our bucking chute, Blazer,” Black shouted.