Rising (Anderson Special Ops #2) - Melody Anne Page 0,51

than done,” he said with a laugh. “I’ll give it a go. I’ve been a free spirit for most of my life. I love adventure. I constantly need to be challenged, and I’m loyal to my friends. It takes a lot to slow me down,” he said with a grin. “And I’m finding that anytime I’m talking to you or around you, I’m in a great mood.”

“I like to move too. If I sit too long, I feel as if I’m wasting my life,” she told him. “And my mood seems to improve around you too.”

“My first memory was when I was three. A lot of people don’t believe me as most people can’t remember anything before they were five years old, but this memory is as clear as a movie in my head. It was the week after my third birthday. I was child number four, the three oldest were all girls. I set off a landslide of boys though, after me there are five more boys and only one more girl. So, of course, I was always trying to keep up with my siblings.”

“Holy cow, you have nine siblings?” she gasped. “I can’t even imagine how tired your poor mother must’ve been.”

“He laughed. “She was great. I don’t know how, but she was great,” he told her.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but it’s not everyday you hear about a person with that many siblings,” she said, obviously still in shock over that one. “Finish your story now.”

“I never really thought it strange having that many siblings. It was just what it was. But you’re right, my mom probably was tired,” he admitted. “But back to the story. My sisters were doing some chores on the farm, and I crawled up on the tractor that was filled with hay bales. My dad didn’t see me and he started the tractor. When it pulled forward, I fell off and broke my right arm. It’s why I’m left-handed.” He laughed as he finished the story, remembering how it had felt when that bone had snapped.

“You must’ve panicked your mother,” Erin said with a gasp.

“No. She was a farm wife. I lay there stunned for a second, then jumped to my feet and ran behind the tractor, ticked I was being left behind. I wanted to work like my sisters and they always treated me like a baby.”

“You were practically a baby at three,” Erin told him. “Weren’t you in pain?”

“No, I was full of adrenaline. It was an indication of who I’d be later in life. I’ve always gone a hundred miles an hour. I do get hurt, but I never feel it in the moment. Once the adrenaline fades, then the pain seeps in. But I’ve realized we can feel sorry for ourselves, or we can push forward. All pain fades given enough time. If you focus on the future, you won’t think about the pain of the moment.”

“That’s a good attitude, but it could be very dangerous,” Erin pointed out. “We feel pain for a reason, to let us know we need help.”

“Yeah, but too many people use every little excuse they can to give up. I think they’re more afraid of failure than pain. I don’t want to be that person, and I can’t relate to others who act that way. I come across as cold, but really, I want to see everyone achieve the best self they can. I don’t empathize with quitters.”

“You learned all of that at the age of three?” she questioned.

“No, that was just the beginning of realizing who I was going to be and who I am. Over the years I’ve always woken up at four to five in the morning, every day all year round. A farm takes a lot of work. My dad spent every dime we made on the land, and he made sure we all appreciated it. It housed us, fed us, and taught us how to survive. In reality the land was terrible, in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. By the time I was thirteen, there were ten of us kids. My dad bought a lot more land totaling eight thousand acres, and we ran so much cattle I couldn’t keep count.”

“Did you learn on the land?” she asked.

“Yes. I learned a lot. I wouldn’t take any of it away.”

“I’ve seen farms when I’ve driven past them, but I can’t imagine all of the work it takes to run a place like that. I don’t see how