Page 46 of Love In Translation

She wasn’t going to tell Fletch her thoughts. If she did, she’d never hear the end of it. And if she gave him an inch, she might next find herself in a kayak or in a harness preparing to climb a rock face.

Rheo wound her thin sweatshirt around her hips as she recalled yesterday’s fight. Embarrassment still burned. She was too old to make stupid assumptions. At her age, she should know better.

After she recovered from their hot kitchen sex—how was she ever going to enjoy family dinners knowing what she and Fletch had done on that table?—she’d apologized to Fletch again for being so judgmental. He’d nodded and only asked that she not do it again.

But she couldn’t stop the niggling thought... She’d been so quick to assume the worst about him. Did she do the same thing with her family? And after talking to Fletch about her family, she questioned her attitude toward her parents. She’d simply accepted Paddy’s version of her and her dad’s argument about the will. Rheo never reached out to get his side of the story. She made her judgment solely based on Paddy’s perceptions. She trusted her grandmother, but Paddy was intolerant and easily frustrated.

What if, like Rheo had today, Paddy got it wrong?

Her grandmother wasn’t infallible—though she liked to think she was—and she was getting older. What if Rheo’s dad was being honest? What if his explanation was the truth? Ed was many things—he admitted to being disorganized, lazy and unambitious—but he wasn’t a liar. He preferred to avoid painful subjects rather than bring them into the open and deal with them.

Believing Paddy’s version of events was easy. It was what she’d always done. Rheoalwayssided with her grandmother. They were the sensible members of the family, the ones who did things right. According to them...

People have a right to live their lives their way...

Rheo, deep in thought, crashed into Fletch and his arm encircled her, keeping her on her feet.

“Daydreaming, sweetheart? Wishing you were somewhere else?”

While she was lost in her thoughts, they’d hit a stream. A simple but sturdy wooden plank bridge was the only way to cross the water.

Fletch gestured to a fallen log. “Let’s sit.”

Rheo sat and stretched out her legs. Ahead was a clearing, and in the distance, a lake. She turned at the sound of chatter behind her and watched a group of teenage girls approaching them, fit and young and radiating energy. They wore expensive hiking boots, tight shorts, and crop tops. Rheo felt frumpy in her misshapen gray T-shirt and brown leggings. This pair had a hole in the fabric on the inside of her right thigh, so she kept her knees locked together.

The kids greeted them, skipped across the bridge, and strode away. Rheo, because she was fantastically mature, stuck out her tongue at their departing backs.

“It’s nice to see kids in nature and not behind a screen,” Fletch said, pouring hot coffee into the mug from the thermos. He handed it to her. “We’ll have to share the mug. I didn’t bring another.”

Rheo sipped, thanked him, and eyed his rucksack. “Did you bring anything to eat? I’m starving.”

He rolled his eyes. “Again, we are only two miles from home. You had breakfast twenty minutes ago!” he reminded her.

“Fresh air makes me hungry,” she muttered.

“You really need to get out more,” Fletch told her, his mouth quirking.

She loved his smile. It softened his face and made him seem more relaxed. Rheo decided to throw him a bone and used the coffee cup to gesture to the view. “This isn’t terrible,” she conceded.

“Be still my beating heart,” he dryly replied, removing the coffee cup from her grasp, its contents sloshing over the rim. “I’ll take that before you spill it.”

They passed the cup back and forth, the silence comfortable. Fletch seemed happy to be quiet and let her think.

His phone buzzed and Fletch pulled it from the side pocket of his cargo shorts.

“Aren’t you supposed to switch your phone off when you’re out in nature?” Rheo demanded.

“Again, we’re on the outskirts of Gilmartin, not in the upper reaches of the Andes,” Fletch replied, opening an email. He read it and his expression, excited but hesitant, intrigued her.

“Good news?”

He put his phone away and tossed the dregs of the coffee onto the grass. “Discovery Channel wants me to host a program on what they call Lazarus species. I need to tell them whether I’m interested or not.”

“What’s a Lazarus species?”

“They are animals we thought were extinct but have been found, usually in very remote habitats. The Caspian horse, the Fernandina tortoise, and the Somali elephant shrew are examples.”

Rheo had never heard of any of them.

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