Page 42 of When Wildflowers Bloom

I roll my eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”

He leads the way, down a short rocky ledge then across to the top center of the highest slab. The water, barely deep enough to cover my toes, rushes across our feet and slips down the rocks. It’s so cold I wince, and goose bumps shoot up my legs.

I gasp. “Jesus! This is freezing!”

“That’s part of the fun, Pam Beesly.” His tone implies this shouldn’t terrify my heart to a point of pounding at a different rhythm.

We sit, ass to frigid rock, hand in hand. The water is so cold as it flows around my hips my skin hurts to numbness.

I look at him; he nods.

“Bo, I don’t thi—”

I’m too late. He scoots himself forward just enough to hit the first slope, gravity taking him down the same way the water is, pulling me along with him.

We’re sliding—fast. One drop. Two.

My fingernails dig into his hands, breeze licking at my skin, rock bumping underneath me. When I scream, it’s only for it to be swallowed by the water.

It’s an awful, heart-stopping, breath-stealing temperature that shoots a numbing pain from the roots of my teeth to the tips of my fingernails. My entire body feels like a brain freeze.

Our heads pop out of the water at the same time and my, “Holy shit, that’s cold!” mixes with his deep, throaty, “Ahhhh!”

He smiles, droplets of water that are one degree shy of becoming icicles hanging on his beard. The desire to touch it—him—is visceral.

As if he can read my mind, he squeezes my hand that I’d forgotten he’s holding.

Treading water, inches away from each other, and instantly I forget the cold or the pounding of my heart from the adrenaline over what we just did.

“Now what?” I ask, breathless from the cold, or him, or both.

“Let’s do it again,” he says, squeezing my hand again.

I respond with an instant smile and nod.

Like two overgrown children, we climb back up the trail and slide down the rocks again. And again.

Fourteen

June fades into Julyand my life falls into a routine that is just different enough to make me notice it. I go to the same classes at the gym, see my same clients during the day, and walk the dog with Huck every evening, but now Bo is waiting for me at the grocery store on Friday nights and invites me to church with him on Sunday mornings.

For the first time in my life, there are people besides my dad waiting for me at the end of the day, and it warms me as completely as facing palms to a hot fire on a cold day. I still can’t commit to dinner with him; for whatever reason, that seems like a bigger deal. Like saying yes to a meal at his house means saying yes to something else—something I can’t name but know I can’t do.

Smiling toward the late July sun—finally warm enough to be considered hot—I cross Veda’s yard.

My “Knock! Knock!” call at her door I usually give when I push it open three mornings a week dies on my lips. The door is locked.

For the first time in nearly two months of working here, I have to use the key she gave me. When I get inside, “Veda?”

Standing in her living room, every light is still off at eight o’clock and the coffee pot is empty.

“Veda?” Her name echoes around the colorful details of her quiet house. I walk back to the sunroom.

Empty.

“Veda?”

I walk down the short hallway—she isn’t in the bathroom, but her bedroom door is closed. I knock gently.

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