Page 4 of A Dark and Stormy Night

Where shall we meet?

Cornelia yawned. High school kids were so dramatic. A couple more texts, and if things didn’t improve, she would move on to the next conversation.

Our usual place. It’s dark, it’s quiet … no one can hear when I make you scream. ;)

Well, that was more interesting.

I ought to handcuff you to the fence and leave you. Then *you’ll* scream. LOL

Much, much better.

I have to get home. You know that. If I don’t, she’ll miss me.

Cornelia's eyebrows went up. A kid who lived alone with his mother?

Or an affair?

For a town the size of Virtue Falls, the place was rife with infidelity. Cornelia didn’t really understand the why of it; she supposed it must be the long, dark, stormy winters that made everyone grow impatient with his or her marital partner. Spring arrived and boom! The cheaters were in full bloom, trolling for the chance to pollinate or be pollinated.

Cornelia giggled at her own whimsy.

In her experience, lovers were boring, so she changed channels and landed in the middle of a discussion about which rifle was the best to carry hunting for elk. It was like listening to her father.

Cornelia glanced around, looking for a challenge.

At the far table her old classmate, Erica Copeland, was furiously texting and frowning, texting and frowning.

Something was up.

Cornelia dug through the texts until she found:

I can’t tell another soul about this. Promise me you won’t tell. Although sooner or later everyone will know.

My God, Erica, what’s wrong?

Cornelia smiled the slightest bit. She had nailed this conversation quickly.

Erica typed furiously. My mother — my forty-five-year-old! mother is pregnant!!!

Erica had always been an exclamation point abuser.

Oh. My. God. Dare I ask … by who?

Cornelia rolled her eyes. Now she knew who Erica was talking to. Only Meghan Moen was that catty.

By my father, of all people!!!

Okay, Cornelia was wrong. That was pretty catty of Erica, too.

I am so humiliated. I’m twenty-six years old, long past the time when I wanted a baby brother or sister. What were they *thinking*?

Maybe it just happened. Maybe they weren't thinking of you.

At their ages? What are they doing having sex, anyway? Daddy had that spinal fusion last year. They were worried he’d be paralyzed. Now they’re having sex?

Cornelia's fingers itched to type, Grow up.

But she’d hopped into a conversation a couple of times, and discovered that while the people involved didn’t know who interrupted them — she didn’t tell them — some of them speculated about her and skittered away whenever Cornelia walked by.

---