Page 85 of The Cowgirl's Forever Love
Kelli gave her the evil eye as she accepted a drink from Brooke. “Tell me what we’re doing, because it looks like it might burn off a little frustration.”
She gestured with her free hand at the piles of paper waiting on the table.
Lisa gave Rose the go-ahead to explain, settling back beside Kelli and watching Tyler attempt to focus.
“Pick a theme if you’d like,” Rose said. “An emotion, a place. A word. Let’s go with a word. Pencil that on your page, then flip through the magazines and find pictures and sentences that you like. Rip them out or cut them out, and pop them on the paper however you want—no perfectionists allowed.” She glanced at Brooke. “If I see you get out a ruler, I will spank you with it.”
“Promises, promises,” Brooke answered with a grin.
Rose made sure everybody had glue sticks and solid pieces of cardboard to use as a base.
Lisa rearranged herself, sitting on the floor with her frame on the coffee table. Her brain flitted everywhere—butterflies with ADHD would be calmer.
She forced herself to put her pencil to the paper and, with clear block letters, wrote the word ADVENTURE across her page.
Maybe this would help get some of her jitters to settle.
“Toss me thatNational Geographic,” she told Tansy.
It took a while, but as they ate and drank and chattered, all the while ripping pictures out of magazines and gluing them on their pages, a sweet sort of peacefulness snuck in. Lisa let her mind wander, halfway paying attention to the conversation, barely paying attention to the pictures she was selecting.
“What does HFH stand for?” Julia asked out of the blue. “You know, when Lisa said the HFH was officially open?”
Rose opened her mouth and then paused. “Hang on. We’ve never had a title to these meetings before. Lisa?”
Oops. “Twenty questions time,” Lisa said perkily. “I bet—”
“Don’t do it,” six voices said in unison to Julia, who Lisa just happened to be looking at.
Everyone laughed.
Lisa tried her hardest to look indignant. “I wasn’t actually setting up a bet,” she insisted.
“With you, it’s hard to tell,” Tamara flashed back. “HFH. If you followed any kind of logic it should be Heart Falls something, but this is you. It’s probably a spin on the whole Canadian tradition of using Her Royal Majesty’s etc. etc., which would make it Her Finest…Hussies?”
Brooke snorted. “I know. Heart Falls Heartbreakers.” She breathed on her nails and buffed them against her shirt. “Although two of you are no longer solo—oh wait. I miscounted. Tamara, Hanna,andKelli. That makes three permanently out of circulation.”
“I hear you’re seeing a certain firefighter,” Hanna teased. “Either that, or he’s having an awful lot of engine troubles. Brad swears that his partner’s truck is constantly at your mechanic shop.”
“Sothat’swho you are,” Julia said eagerly before slapping a hand over her mouth. “Oops.”
All eyes pivoted. Brooke put down the magazine she was glancing through, leaning on an elbow toward Julia. “Who said what? And there is no lying or evasion allowed amongst us Heart Falls Hooligans.”
Another snicker sounded.
Julia shrugged. “I hang out down at the Fire Hall when I’m not out on a call. Seems there’s a certain tall, built firefighter who burnt supper three days in a row because he was distracted by texting with his mechanic.”
Brooke’s grin widened. “Good to know.”
“Lisa, you have to tell us when we guess the answer.” Rose said sternly. “Or are you just making this up as you go along?”
“Yes.” Lisa ducked as glue sticks flew across the room from all directions, smacking into her. “Hey. I should make you pay a penalty to get them back.”
Conversation continued, all of them taking turns holding Tyler when he fussed, wandering the room with that rocking motion that kicked in out of nowhere when holding a baby.
Finally it was time to display their projects, holding them up to accept both friendly banter and admiration. Eight different projects, eight different messages.
Tamara had filled the word LOVE with pictures of family and sunsets and food. She grinned as they teased about that last one.
