Page 19 of Butterfly Sisters
“She ran to the market.” Leigh couldn’t help but feel like an outsider around the two of them. She set down the novel she’d brought with her—the one she’d had for four months and never opened back home—and pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. She’d made it to chapter four. “Did you all catch anything?” she asked, trying to be sociable.
Meredith snorted and then fell into laughter, her eyes on Colton, the two of them sharing some sort of insider joke. It made Leigh’s skin crawl.
Her sister crossed her arms and shivered dramatically. “It’s freezing out here. I’ve spent enough time outside. Let’s go in,” she said to Colton.
“I’ll be in, in a minute,” he replied.
Meredith ran back through the door, shutting Leigh, Colton, and Elvis out on the porch.
“How’d he do?” Colton asked, patting Elvis on the side.
“Fine,” she replied, self-consciously tucking her hair behind her ears. She hadn’t expected them back so soon.
He pressed his lips together and nodded, his gaze roaming as if he wanted to say more. Then he sat down next to her, his unique scent of spice and cedarwood tickling her senses. She took shallow breaths to avoid it as much as possible, removed her glasses, and set down her novel. Elvis jumped up on the sofa with him and put his head on Colton’s leg.
“I’ve never left him with anyone before,” Colton said. “But he seems to really like you.”
“He’s a sweet boy.” She shifted away just slightly, sucking in the clean lake air. “Did you and Meredith have… fun?”
“Yeah, you know how she is. It was all jokes and laughs.”
Leigh actually didn’t know what he meant at all. Meredith had never been all jokes and laughs with her. Not even once. “Why do you think she’s so easygoing with you?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I guess it’s because I don’t ask anything of her.”
“We don’t ask anything of her,” Leigh said.
Colton shrugged. “You’ll have to askherthen.”
They sat there together, the quiet swishing of the lake water filling the silence between them. So much time had passed. They were both so different but it also felt very much the same sitting next to him.
“Colton,” she started, feeling as if they’d gotten off on the wrong foot yesterday. “That last summer we had together, when we’d talked about our futures, I didn’t mean to laugh…”
“What?”
“It’s bothered me my whole adult life.”
He batted her comment away. “It’s been years… It’s fine.”
“It might be, but I’ve held onto the guilt over it. I wasn’t laughing atyou.”
“Really. It’s okay,” he said before clearing his throat, the topic not settling well upon them, only serving to make Leigh’s guilt worse because she knew how, at that impressionable age, it would feel to have someone he cared about dismiss him. “We had two very different life paths.” He fiddled with something on Elvis’s collar. “Looks like things turned out all right for ya.” His gaze remained on the dog, unsaid thoughts all over his face.
“You too,” she said. “You look happy.”
That was when he turned toward her, those dark-brown eyes meeting hers. “Yeah… I’m good.”
The door opened and Meredith stuck her head out, which put Elvis on alert. “You coming in?” she asked Colton, ripping through the moment.
“Yep,” he said, standing up, clenching his jaw. “I’ll see ya later.”
Leigh nodded, wishing he’d stay, but not stopping him. She felt as if she needed to get to know him all over again.
“Come on, boy.” Colton went into the cabin with Elvis at his heels.
EIGHT
“I got us fresh strawberries and blackberries from the Johnsons’ farm,” Mama said, sinking her hand into the brown-paper bag, “and they had the biggest cucumbers I’ve ever seen! I got three.” She pulled out a jug of milk, a couple of different cheeses, and fresh snap peas before she asked, “Where’s Meredith?”
