A Risk Worth Taking by Hildenbrand Heather

Author:Hildenbrand, Heather [Hildenbrand, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: romance
Publisher: Accendo Press
Published: 2013-10-19T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Ford

"Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant."

—Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

I picked gently at the roots, trying to untangle them without breaking or tearing the tiny threads. My hands felt big and clumsy, forcing me to go slower. I calmed my breathing in an effort to remain still. I had to be careful. One tiny pull in the wrong direction and the whole thing fell apart. I didn’t want to have to start over. I didn’t have enough time left in Virginia for that.

Magic seems like something you’d have to experience to believe.

Since our dinner, it was the conversations more than anything else that stuck in my head. I mean, the playing, the mud, the kissing—I’d never forget a single detail of the sunset we hadn’t bothered to watch, and I couldn’t wait to do it again in some form or another. But the things she said; I’d never met anyone who saw the world quite like her. It made me question where my own lens came from.

She hadn’t experienced magic? I took it for granted that I had.

The way the light hit the mountains in New Mexico, turning them so red it looked like a flame had been lit and thrown against them. A single blossom surviving against a sea of failed attempts. A painter’s canvas on a California street corner in some tiny coastal town whose brush strokes captured more essence than the real-life inspiration for his masterpiece. All of these things were magic in some form. Beauty. Hope. Inspiration.

Summer had all of those. She just didn’t know it.

Perception is about making people see what you want, not what really is.

The more I got to know her, the more I wondered if it wasn’t herself she had fooled. Maybe Summer hadn’t met the real Summer yet. I shook my head to clear it. And maybe that girl really was a witch. And I was easy prey.

“Knock, knock.” Casey was halfway down the center aisle when he called out and I jumped, yanking loose a small piece of stem.

“Dammit, Casey, this shit is sensitive.”

“Yeah, you are,” he agreed. I gave him a look to let him know his jokes weren’t appreciated here. “I surrender,” he said, throwing up his hands as he leaned against a tall planter’s box.

“What do you want?”

“I came to see if you got what you want, if you know what I mean.”

I didn’t look up at him. If I did, I’d have to see the smirk instead of just hear it in his words. I didn’t have the patience for that right now. I couldn’t get this root system to cooperate. Any less patience and I’d screw it up and my chances at cross-germination were shot. At least, for this growing season.

“Casey, I am not discussing my love life involving a girl who might as well be your sister. Isn’t that a little weird for you?”

“Only if you break her heart.” Based on the clear, matter-of-fact way he said it, I didn’t doubt him for a single second.

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