She swallows hard and looks away. “So what?” she repeats softly.
“So, what was he like? Your last boyfriend?”
“I didn’t have one,” she says quietly. She’s never quiet, and John knows he’s rattled her pretty good.
Is she serious?
“Didn’t have one in college? I guess that’s understandable. Studying to be a doctor would take up a lot of your time, I suppose. But what about high school then?” he asks. Admiring her profile he watches her brow furrow and her lips pucker as if she’s tasted something bad. “Reagan?”
“I didn’t have one in college or high school. There, are you happy now?” she answers with a roll of her green eyes.
“Really? So you’ve never had a boyfriend? There’s no way. You just don’t wanna tell me,” he accuses. Not with her looks and that body. Guys would’ve been drooling over her. Of course he does every day but she never seems to notice or else she doesn’t care.
“Well, in high school I was twelve. So it wasn’t like anyone wanted to go out with a pre-teen bookworm. And in college, I was sixteen. And again, there you have it. Besides, I didn’t need a stupid boyfriend. They’d just be pissy about me being smarter and outthinking them. It wasn’t like I was going to dumb myself down and be all girly girl just to impress some stupid caveman.”
“But you could’ve dated guys your own age. You didn’t have to go out with just the boys in your class,” he suggests stupidly. Now he feels bad for even bringing it up.
She doesn’t respond or offer any other information about her past dating history.
“What about you, stud muffin? What’s your type? Tall, dumb, big boobs, high heels, short skirts, the usual? Did you have to pay her in dollar bills to get her to go out on a date with you? How many notches do you have in your big ol’ belt?” she asks rather obnoxiously. He knows this is a defense mechanism. However, she’s also asking him about women he’s dated, so maybe there’s hope for him yet. Maybe she is perhaps just the tiniest bit interested in him. Maybe he has heat stroke, too.
“I don’t have as many notches in my belt as you might think. And none of them were serious relationships. Chicks don’t exactly get thrilled when you tell them you’re about to ship out for a year or longer,” he tells her with a laugh.
“So you have commitment issues,” she implies. They ride into the woods at the other end of the wide meadow that will take them back toward the farm.
“Wait, what? How did you get that?” he asks incredulous and frowns.
“You just had a bunch of soldier-on-leave one night stands,” Reagan clarifies. She’s not entirely off in left field, but he’s not going to admit to that one. That is bound to be a hornet’s nest of judgment from her.
“It wasn’t like I had a lot of time to nurture a long lasting relationship with someone, Reagan. We rarely got leave in the last four years, and a lot of times we just flew in to France or Greece or somewhere over there that we could get to quickly. So you’re not exactly being fair.”
“Oh,” she says quietly. “Well, you’re not getting any younger, so when did you think you were ever gonna settle down and start a family?” This one makes him laugh. It isn’t like he is ancient.
“I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t think I ever would. That is until recently,” he adds with a fair amount of suggestion.
“Why recently? Did you meet someone here in the states?” she asks completely clueless. John looks at her pointedly, directly. She never catches on to implication. For a smart doctor- a hot, smart doctor- she is extremely naïve when it comes to people. Reagan looks away quickly. She spurs her horse ahead of his a few feet, and they continue back to the farm in silence. Perhaps she got it this time.
When they reach the inner paddock, Justin, Em and Arianna come running to greet them. Their joyous voices are squealing with excitement.
“Aunt Reagan, we’re going swimming down at the lake and Auntie Hannah and Kelly and Cory are all coming- oh and us- and we were waiting for you and Uncle John to get back to go so we can go. So can we go?” Arianna exclaims in a blur of run together sentences and bouncing pig-tails. She’s literally jumping up and down.
“No thanks, kiddo. You guys go without me,” Reagan says. What? Is she serious? It’s eighty in the shade, and they are both sweaty and covered in dirt from the ride and morning chores.
Arianna starts to throw a fit. John assuages his niece like he always does.
“Ok, ok, Arianna. We’ll be there. You guys go ahead and me and Aunt Reagan will meet you guys down there, all right?” John tells the little ruffian, and she squeals again. All three kids run back toward the house as he and Reagan ride into the barnyard and dismount.
“You don’t speak for me,” Reagan barks at him. They walk the horses into the barn and begin removing their tack. “I’m not going.” She mumbles a few chosen swear words under her breath at him.
“Are you for real? We’re both hot and filthy. Let’s just go for a quick swim. We’ve got a few hours till evening chores...”
“No! I don’t wanna’ go, so just drop it!” Reagan practically yells at him. It angers him enough to leave Lady to go stand in front of Reagan, who chooses to ignore him.
“This place isn’t gonna fall apart if we take a few minutes to have fun, shorty,” he says. She scowls briefly up at him and resumes unsaddling Harry. When she gets the cinch unfastened, John removes the saddle and takes it to the tack room for her. When he gets back, she’s already turned Harry loose and is working on Lady’s saddle. She is clearly in a hurry to get out of the barn. Or away from him.
“So what’s it gonna be? Are you going swimming or am I going to have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you down there?” he asks and takes off Lady’s bridle. Reagan gives him a challenging look.
“I just... I don’t wanna’ go,” Reagan tells him more quietly this time as she opens a stall and turns Lady out through its back door to the pasture. He takes the saddle and Reagan takes the two bridles to the tack room.
Once he has hung the saddle, he blocks the door so she can’t get past him. He knows it’s a bullying tactic, but he can’t ever get her to stand still.
“The kids are going to be disappointed if we don’t go down there and swim with them.”
“Move,” she orders. He stands his ground. But he’s also cautious of getting kicked in the crotch while he does so. She sighs heavily, plants her hands on her hips and looks up at him.
“John, just... don’t. You don’t understand,” she pleads. Wow, she called him John, not idiot or moron.
“Then make me understand,” he says, but she only stares at him with her sad green eyes. “What is it? Why don’t you want to swim? I know it’s not ‘cuz of what happened to Hannah because she told me you guys used to go to the community pool in town. So what is it?”
“You don’t get it. Just leave me alone,” she tries at angry but her voice comes off more as depressed.
John takes a small piece of the front of her tank top between two fingers and tugs gently. Her eyes snap back up to his. He has the overwhelming urge to kiss her senselessly, but he knows that
will
get him kicked in the balls. Technically he isn’t touching her but her shirt. This is the closest contact, holding her tee in his fingers that he’s had with her since the incident the first time they went riding.
“What is it, Reagan? You can tell me, boss,” he says softly, trying to soothe her.
“I... I don’t look... I mean, I don’t want to wear a swimsuit. I have a lot of...,” she stammers and kicks a pebble on the wooden floor with her shoe. The deep breath she inhales is shaky and unstable.
“Boils?” he asks seriously. He knows she has scars. He’s seen a few of them around her shoulder and neck. “Leprosy? Lesions? Mosquito bites?” he teases. She almost grins at him. Almost. It’s huge progress.
“John,” she pleads. It’s almost his undoing, but he doesn’t want to let her back out of this.
“Besides, I’m swimmin’ in my skivvies, woman. You’re really gonna have to try and hold yourself back,” John informs her with a wide smile and a raise of one eyebrow.
“Hm, tempting...” she teases back. It’s a first. This is a big day of firsts for her.
“Let’s just run down and swim with the kids. They don’t care what we wear. Just wear what you’ve got on. It’s not a fashion show, Miss Thang,” he suggests with a grin.
She bats down his hand, which is still holding onto her shirt front. “Fine!” she blares at him.
When they reach the lake, the kids are making good use of the end of the long dock jumping in again and again. Cory is tossing Arianna over his head in the water as she screams and laughs with delight. John spies Kelly and Hannah in the shallower bank water. He’s holding on to her upper arm as she gets deeper and deeper into the water. She finally pulls free and starts swimming, but Kelly is right beside her the whole time.
“So Hannah’s not scared of water?” John asks Reagan as they approach the dock. She scoffs indelicately.
“No, she’s just like that. She’s ok with what happened to her. She was always like that when we were young, too. I think she gets it from Grams. They just figure what happens to you is meant to happen, and you better not sitting around whining about it,” she explains.
“That’s pretty poignant for a kid,” John comments.
“Yep, that’s Hannie. She was like that before the accident, too. She would sit back and just listen when we all talked. She’s a very reflective person,” Reagan tells him.
“You can see that about her. It’s like she has some secret she’s keeping or something. Kind of like woman’s intuition only deeper. Your Grams is like that, too,” John observes, and Reagan falls silent beside him.
The children spot the two of them and call for them to jump in.
“Wow, this is bigger than I thought. How big is this lake?” he asks
“I think it’s about six acres if I remember Grandpa correctly,” Reagan tells him.
“We should fish here,” he says.
“Do you fish?”
“Yeah, me and Derek would go with our dad sometimes and then sometimes when Derek was old enough to drive us, we’d just go by ourselves which was more fun,” he reminisces. A short distance away Hannah laughs at something, followed by Kelly’s own shout of laughter, of course, since he is enchanted by seemingly everything she does.
“Grandpa used to fish out here. He kept it stocked and didn’t let anyone else fish it. I don’t really know how to fish. I didn’t have the patience to sit long enough,” she tells him.
“That is actually
not
a surprise, shorty. But we could probably catch enough to feed the whole family from time to time- me and Derek and Kelly and you if you ever settle those ants in your pants. But right now, all I wanna’ do is swim with the fishes,” he says with a wink.
John whips his dirty shirt over his head and tosses it onto the dock, his boots follow suit. But when his hands go to the waistband of his pants, Reagan spins around as if she’s seen a ghost. He laughs.
“Come on, boss. Get those filthy shoes off. You’re gonna dirty up the lake,” he laughs again.
Instead of arguing with him, she removes her Converse and black socks, a fashion tragedy. Getting up his nerve, John says under his breath, “It’s now or never.”
Reagan half turns, “What’s now or never?”
John runs at her, tosses her like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder and jumps into the water with a resounding splash. They both come up sputtering, he’s laughing, she’s swearing. Hannah and Kelly are also laughing at them, and John is able to escape her wrath as she comes after him in the water like a wild banshee.
They both become sidetracked from her revenge as the kids assail them with splashing and a lot of “look at me” and “watch this” moments. But the cool water feels great, and it washes at least a few layers of crud off of them. After a half an hour of playtime with the kids, they both leave the water by way of the ladder. She refuses to allow him to help her up the ladder, leaving John to assume that she’s still mad for jumping in with her. They are essentially back at square one. They join Cory on the dock for a moment of leisure time before they must all go back for evening chores. They dangle their legs while Cory lies on a towel in the sun. Reagan is wringing out her hair.
Hannah and Kelly come to join them and if it wasn’t for the post-apocalyptic world wars, tsunamis and earthquakes, they might all seem like a bunch of young people hanging out at the lake for the weekend. Kelly helps Hannah find her way to the edge so that she can sit with them the same way. She’s wearing an actual swimsuit. It’s the only thing John’s ever seen her in that’s not white. It’s a hot pink one piece with white polka dots. It’s very conservative and probably something her grandmother picked out for her. She looks really nice in it, but he doesn’t feel right to say so. He doesn’t want her to think he’s a perv. John also doesn’t think the very large man on the other side of her would appreciate the comment, best friend or not.
“Hey, sis. Everything go ok today on your ride? Any problems?” she asks Reagan.
“Nope, we’re good. Nothing to report. What’s been happening here?” Reagan asks and swats a bee away from her younger sister.
“Grams and I are making chicken and dumplings for dinner,” she smiles as she reports this. “Then she said we could all work on making blueberry jam since they’re ready. I don’t mean you guys, John. I mean all us girls. Unless you want to learn,” Hannah offers jokingly.
“Hm, I don’t know. Might be fun, Kelly. Watcha’ think?” he jokingly asks his friend who is wearing his boxers and nothing else.
“Yeah, maybe. But I’ve got to get the milking done, so I’ll be late. Don’t wait for me, though,” Kelly says with a grin.
“Yeah, don’t wait for me, either,” Reagan adds snidely. “You’re going to burn, Hannie.”
“I’m fine. We’ll head back soon. It’s just nice to be out and hear the kids being kids. Turn around, sis, and I’ll braid your hair. You know it’s easier when it’s wet,” Hannah orders. Reagan doesn’t put up a fight like she does with everyone else. He’ll just store this for later in case he ever needs Hannah’s back-up.
When she is sitting in front of Hannah, cross legged, she wrings out her tank top to get rid of about a gallon of lake water. What she doesn’t realize is that it gives John the briefest glimpse of a small three inch section of her flat, bare midsection where her shorts and shirt meet. He catches a peek of two wicked looking white scars on her stomach. It looks like other scars intersect them because there are slashes bisecting them. When his eyes meet hers, Reagan realizes her error and tugs her shirt down self-consciously.