Heartland Read Free

mirrored by Kelly’s. Both of the girls were clapping their hands together and jumping up and down. Steven was watching them with tolerant amusement as he removed the three-inch fish from the hook.
    â€œCan we have it for dinner tonight?” Jennifer begged.
    Lara exchanged a look with Steven. “Honey, it’s pretty small,” he said. “It wouldn’t be much more than a mouthful. Maybe you should let it go so it can grow up to be a great big fish.”
    Jennifer looked at her prize catch thoughtfully. “He is little,” she admitted. “What should I do, Aunt Lara?”
    â€œThat’s up to you, but I think maybe Mr. Drake is right. He’s just a baby. By next summer he’d be plenty big, and you could try to catch him again.”
    Jennifer took the tiny, squirming fish by its tail and squinted into its left eye. “Okay,” she said finally, as if satisfied by the exchange. She took a few steps into the water and lowered the fish gently into the stream.
    â€œBye, fish,” she said solemnly as she let it go.
    Kelly, her expression clouding over, poked her thumb into her mouth.
    â€œAll this talk of fish has made me very hungry. How about some lunch?” Lara suggested as a distraction.
    â€œMr. Drake, too?” Jennifer asked.
    â€œI’m sure Mr. Drake has things to do this afternoon.”
    â€œNothing that can’t wait,” he said, meeting her gaze evenly, the challenge clear.
    â€œHe can share my sandwich,” Jennifer offered as a convincing final argument.
    Lara sighed and gave in to the inevitable. She distributed the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and lemonade, carefully avoiding all eye contact with Steven. The first bite of her sandwich seemed to lodge in her throat and stay there. She had no appetite for more.
    Suddenly warm fingers brushed hers as Steven took the sandwich from her hand. “If you’re not going to finish that, I will,” he said.
    â€œSteven,” she began impatiently, then got lost in the expression in his eyes. How many times had he stolen the last bite of her sandwich, the last cookie, the last swallow of her drink? It had been a running joke that she’d have to learn to eat faster or starve to death around him. He grinned boldly, and she knew he was remembering, too. The gesture had been a deliberate taunt.
    â€œWe have to go,” she said, hurriedly cleaning up the debris from lunch. “It’s time for the girls’ nap.”
    â€œThey’re already half-asleep now,” he pointed out. “Why disturb them?”
    â€œTheir bathing suits are wet. They could get a chill.” It was the best excuse she could come up with, far better than admitting that she was the one who wanted to leave.
    â€œLara, it’s eighty-five degrees out here. They’re not going to get a chill.”
    â€œBut they’re in the shade.”
    â€œLara.” Amusement filled his voice. “Would it be so terrible to spend just a little time with me? We have a lot to catch up on.”
    â€œI have nothing to say to you,” she insisted.
    That drew a grin that sent a tingle down her spine. “Oh, I doubt that. I think you have quite a bit to say. What about all those things you didn’t get to say eleven years ago? Or maybe what you wanted to tell me that day in the bank when I bought this land? Start there and we can work our way up to the present.”
    â€œI try not to use that sort of language in front of the girls.”
    He threw back his head and laughed at her deliberately prim tone. Ironically, Lara found herself wanting to laugh with him, wanting to put all the pain and anger behind as if it had never been.
    Apparently he sensed her confusion, because he pressed his advantage. “Don’t you think we could be friends again, if we tried?”
    Friends? It was such a pale word for the way she’d once thought of him. Soul mate was closer. Lover even