idea, Dylan. And you're right."
He stilled. "Exactly which of my ideas am I so right about?"
Her heart was aching, but, by God, it was still beating and she thought she finally knew how to protect it from Dylan. "Forget about normal. Who cares about conventional? I'm going to stop wishing for something I can't have and embrace my heritage. From now on, I'm letting all those Wilder genes out to play."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kitty woke up late Monday morning, alone in her bed. Dylan had left following their discussion the night before, apparently silenced by her declaration that she'd decided to toss away her need for the conventional and was going to release her Wilder genes. He'd looked at her, shaken his head, then given her mouth a gentle kiss on his way out the door. She hadn't touched him at all.
It hadn't seemed wise.
"Wise" had seemed like stripping the bed linens. Then she'd gone out her back door and into the dark to gather the clean sheets she'd left hanging on the clothesline that morning before work. Though her single-wide garage held both a dryer and a washer, she liked to hang the sheets in the fresh air. The summer temperatures in Hot Water made them dry just as quickly anyway.
But burying her face in them had provided little solace. Yes, they'd smelled fresh, but they'd also smelled like home - warm air, tangy manzanita, and just a hint of the lavender growing in the garden next door. Sheets wouldn't smell like this when she moved to Seattle. At the prices she'd heard tell of, she wouldn't have a prayer of affording a place big enough for a potted plant, let alone a yard.
To drum the thought from her head, she'd hurriedly made up the bed, then attacked the financial work she'd let stack up again. After an hour, she'd sat back in her chair and stared at the computer screen, waiting for the expected elation.
Thanks to Dylan's presence as sheriff, their Old Town admission receipts were up. Way up. And while she'd realized that the living-history district had definitely been more crowded lately, Dylan's presence had distracted her from absorbing exactly how crowded. They'd taken in oodles of money.
The reenactors' portion would set a new record. By summer's end, Kitty's share would easily cover all she owed Aunt Cat.
Funny, though, the elation had continued to elude Kitty. Finally giving up on it, she'd gone to bed. The birds were starting to twitter when she at last fell asleep.
They were in full song now as she dragged herself up from the twisted covers and went about her usual day-off activities. In the morning she accomplished a week's worth of errands, and then after lunch she chauffeured Aunt Cat to her usual appointment at Locks, Stocks, and Barrels. Later, when she went inside to pick her up, she steeled herself in case she found her mother there.
Samantha wasn't present, but the shop went quiet as Kitty walked in. There was a time when she wouldn't even have noticed the silence or been suspicious. In general, people liked her and she liked them right back. Furthermore, for all her licentious ancestry, she'd never done anything worth gossiping about - at least anything that anyone knew. But once Samantha had returned, Kitty began to feel every citizen's eyes on her, their breaths collectively held. It was as if they were waiting for her to finally show her Wilder ways. And if she did, she knew the townspeople would look at one another and nod, telling themselves they'd expected such behavior from her the entire time.
Last night Kitty had told Dylan that being a Wilder was exactly what she planned on doing.
Yeah, right.
Acknowledging her own falsehood didn't make her feel any better. Still miserable, she floated Aunt Cat home in the T-bird, then slowly sailed the few blocks back to her house. Catching sight of a man on her doorstep, she nearly drifted into a mailbox. But then she saw it wasn't Dylan.
Thank goodness she'd turned off the engine before seeing who it really was. And what he carried.
In the summer, high schooler Eric Hardin made deliveries for his mom's florist shop. He held a box of flowers addressed to Kitty. A big box filled with two dozen long-stemmed red roses.
Eric's beat-up Volvo was long gone, but Kitty remained on her porch, staring through the cellophane window at the beautiful flowers. Traditional. Classical. Romantic, even. But best of all ... conventional.
They were the conventional flower