Page 89 of Mourner for Hire
OR… YAWN!
I was having difficulty crying at one of my funerals, and all my tricks weren’t working. These were the internet solutions.
The next few lines are random grocery items, some crossed off, followed by a quote and note from me.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” -EdgarAllan Poe
Good man.
So, yes, Dominic probably thinks I’m absolutely insane, and I’m okay with it. It’s a shame he didn’t get to the list of items for the renovation or the sketch of the bookshelves I’m going to build, but beggars can’t be choosers… or something like that.
A showerand three hours later, I throw on jeans and a white T-shirt and meet Connor at the stables. He’s standing just outside the horse trailer, holding the reins of a white horse and wearing dark denim jeans and a Hawaiian shirt.
“Hi,” I offer, smiling wide.
He smiles back at me with boyish excitement. “Her name is Elsa.”
“Pretty,” I comment, petting the horse’s nose as she bows her snout toward me. “Which one do I get to ride?”
“This one. With me,” he explains as a gentleman emerges from a truck.
“Oh. I didn’t realize we were doubling up.” Or that he thought me incapable of riding my own horse.
“Yeah. I figure it’s easier to talk.”
“Ahh,” I muse aloud.
Connor turns to the taller man with a jean jacket and cowboy hat, holding a clipboard out to me. “Sign your life away, darlin’.”
“With pleasure.”
I sign my name and sneak a glance at Connor. He winces at the gentleman’s comment, probably because it alluded to death, and as this town has come to realize, death surrounds me.
A few minutes later, the gentleman in charge has given us the rundown on safety and where we’re allowed to ride. He’ll be around, never more than fifty yards back, to give us privacy in case we need assistance.
Though with my crotch saddled up against Connor’s ass, Icould whisper threats or sweet nothings in his ear and no one would even know.
“Are you liking Shellport?” he asks.
“Sort of. The circumstances are strange,” I admit, shifting on the back of the saddle so it doesn’t bruise my crotch bone. I wince and squeeze the horse with all the strength my inner thighs can muster in hopes I can move with the animal.
“Understandable.” He nods. “Feeling reckless?”
He tosses the question over his shoulder, and I say, “Sure.” Because truthfully, this slow pace is only inadvertently making me grind against his tailbone, and while I know he thinks this is a date, I’m not in the mood to be romantic.
Connor makes a clicking noise in the back of his throat and shakes the reins enough to let Elsa know she can speed up. We immediately start bobbing up and down like a Whack-A-Mole game at the arcade that is malfunctioning.
I withhold a laugh because it is hard to make horseback riding glamourous when I’ve only done it five times in my life… if that.
I’m a novice when it comes to horseback riding, but I do understand physics. And with the way Connor just made Elsa start trotting, coinciding with the fact that my ass does notphysicallyfit comfortably on the saddle with him, I know I’m going to be sore tomorrow.
“Do you like your job?” he all but yells over his shoulder.
“Yeah!”
“A bit unconventional, yeah?”
I ignore the insinuation. I don’t want to defend my job to Beach Ken, so I turn the question on him.
