‘This you-and-me thing. Whatever it is. I’m sorry, I can’t be a part of it.’
He wondered if she knew how defensive she sounded. ‘You don’t like having friends?’
‘Of course I like having friends. I just don’t like having … complications.’
He grinned. ‘Honey, I’m not that complicated.’
‘You know what I mean. Friends don’t kiss each other beside romantic alpine waterholes.’
He reached out a hand and smoothed her ponytail. ‘You think it’s romantic here?’
She blushed again, and flicked her hair out of his hand. He was really getting a kick out of seeing the pink warm her face.
‘I’m not joking, Josh.’
Neither was he. He just hadn’t realised how totally serious he was about pursuing this … complication … until she’d told him he couldn’t. But he wasn’t going to push anymore, not today.
‘Okay. I’m listening, Vera, I am. Even if I don’t agree. You ready to hit the saddle again?’
She tipped the dregs of her coffee into the grass and handed him back the lid. ‘Sure.’
He boosted her on to Calypso’s back and turned his thoughts to befriending Vera. Sharing laughs, sharing problems and ideas and dreams … it would be a start, and luckily he had just thought of a problem of his own he could share.
‘You want to hear something funny?’
‘Funny weird? Or funny ha-ha?’
‘Good question. Definitely weird and I’m only laughing about it to keep it from pissing me off.’
Vera ducked her head as Calypso walked in close to a low-hanging spruce limb and he trotted in beside her to hold the branch out of her way.
‘So tell me.’
‘We’ve been getting these complaints from town council—well, someone is complaining about us to town council, who then send us stroppy letters which we have to reply to or else they’ll suspend our business licence.’
‘That’s outrageous. What sort of complaints?’
‘Oh, one was about farming chickens, which was pretty random. The next one was about exercising dogs in a public area without them having adequate identification on their collars. The councillor we’ve been talking to has quashed them, but it’s got Hannah a bit rattled.’
‘I bet it has.’
He glanced across at her. The prickles were back in her voice, and she looked as spiky as an anxious echidna. ‘Hannah said you mentioned something about legislation being a bugbear of yours.’
‘Oh, well. I guess.’
‘You guess?’
She shrugged. ‘Before I moved here and opened up the café, my job often required digging up facts from public records. Real estate, city by-laws, federal legislation, corporate ownership structures. Boring stuff.’
‘This was when you were a journalist, right?’
She took her time answering him, and when she did, it wasn’t exactly an answer. ‘That’s in the past. I cook now. It’s what I’m good at.’
Fair enough. She could keep her secrets. For now.
‘Vera. You want to give me a lesson?’
Her look was startled. ‘In cooking?’