“Sorry I’m late.” Billie picked up a menu and stared absently at it.
“That’s okay, honey,” their mother said cheerily.
“Trouble finding your keys?” Bobbie mused.
“More like trouble with Whiskey,” Billie mumbled to herself.
Their mother reached over and lowered the top of the menu so she could see Billie’s face. Alice Mancini was a rare mix of strong-willed and lovingly sweet, and even though Billie knew her mother was often baffled by her, she had always known their mother would walk through fire for her. She had fair skin, wavy shoulder-length blond hair that was always a bit tousled and frizzy, and she never wore much makeup. Bobbie had once asked her why she didn’t take more time to pretty herself up, and their mother had said she had enough real things to spend her time on to worry about that. She had been naturally beautiful when she was younger. Now she had fine lines around her eyes and mouth, her hair was thinner, her waist thicker, but she was still pretty, especially when she smiled, and Billie thought her not-so-perfect style suited her to a T.
“Do you want to talk about it?” their mother asked.
“Not really. I don’t even want to think about it,” she said as Flo arrived with her coffee.
Flo looked at Billie curiously as she set the mug in front of her. “Word around town is that the Daredevils have been canoodling.”
Billie stopped herself from rolling her eyes. “Gotta love small-town gossip.”
“I remember when you, Dare, and Eddie—rest his soul—would pop in here all hyped up and sit at the counter yammering about skiing or racing dirt bikes, drinking milkshakes and stealing each other’s fries.” Flo glanced at the picture of Dare on the wall and turned a warm smile on Billie. “I swear you used to look at those boys like they’d hung the moon. But there was always a little extra spark in your eyes for Dare. I always wondered when you kids would figure it out. You’re a lucky girl, Billie. Those Whiskey boys turned into good men, and we all know they’re the hottest bachelors in town with all the good they do out there at that ranch. Now we’ve got to find a nice young man for this beautiful lady.” She smiled at Bobbie.
“Why don’t we see how Billie’s love life pans out first?” Bobbie set that smirk on Billie again.
This time Billie did roll her eyes.
They ordered breakfast, and after Flo left, their mother said, “I had lunch with Wynnie yesterday, and she mentioned that you and Dare have been spending a lot of time together. I’m glad you’re mending that fence. You were such good friends for so long, and we were all heartbroken when you drifted apart.”
Billie knew she was just being kind by implying she and Dare had both actively put distance between them. That was all me, and I didn’t just drift. I put myself behind bars.
“I still want to know how he got the chip off your shoulder,” Bobbie pushed. “Not that I’m complaining. I’ve had the house to myself every night this week, and it has been heavenly.”
Billie gave her a sister a thanks a lot look. She hadn’t even had a chance to tell their mother that she and Dare had been seeing each other, although she was sure her father probably had.
“Well, then, I guess you have your answer, Bobbie,” their mother said with a smile. “It sounds like our girl has been getting some good lovin’, which was long overdue, in my opinion.”
“Can we not go there?” Billie asked.
“I’m just saying that it explains a lot,” their mother said. “Kellan said you’ve been less snappy at work and smiling more. So you must be happy about it, despite whatever’s got you upset this morning.”
“I am happy about it.”
“Then why do you look like if you don’t go for a run, you’re going to start breaking things?” Bobbie asked.
“Bobbie,” their mother chided. “She said she didn’t want to talk about it. Billie, honey, how is Dare? What’s he up to today?”
“The thing I don’t want to talk about,” she grumbled.
Her mother and sister exchanged a concerned glance, and Billie thought about what her father had said about her moods. She might not like to talk about things, but she owed it to her family to try.
“He’s jumping over buses on his motorcycle. Six buses, to be exact.” Even saying it brought a wave of worry.
“Oh goodness. I’ll have to stop by and see Wynnie after breakfast,” their mother said. “She must be worried sick.”
Bobbie looked at Billie compassionately. “You’re worried, too, aren’t you?”
“Of course. Aren’t you now that you know?”
“Yes, but I’m not in love with him,” Bobbie said.
Billie was stunned into silence. She and Bobbie were fairly close, but while Bobbie would lay her heart on the table and label every feeling and nuance of her love, Billie had always kept hers under wraps.
“Don’t look so shocked, honey,” their mother said. “Just like Flo said, it’s been written in your eyes since you were a little girl trying to outdo his every trick.”
She wasn’t even going to try to deny it. She was tired of hiding her feelings, but she didn’t want to pick them apart, either, so she circumnavigated. “Do you have any words of wisdom for me about him jumping over buses? How am I supposed to watch him do something so dangerous? I don’t want to stop him from doing what he loves. I love that he’s fearless and driven and wants to be the best at everything. But I can’t…” Tears stung her eyes, and she turned away, willing them not to fall.
Bobbie touched her hand. “It’s okay to be worried about him.”
“I can only tell you how I got through it with you,” their mother said. “It’s not easy supporting someone you love when they’re doing things that terrify you, and I had to learn how to handle it when you were just a toddler.”
“A toddler? That has to be an exaggeration,” Billie said.
“I assure you, it’s not. Let me give you some examples. When you were two, you climbed over every gate we ever put up, including the one at the top of the stairs. At three, you asked me for a bowl of ice cream just as the mailman arrived, and I said I’d give it to you after I gave him a package. In the few minutes it took for me to do that, you’d pushed a chair over to the kitchen counter, climbed up, and somehow opened the freezer. To this day I don’t know how you did it, but when I came in, you were hanging from the top of the freezer door by one hand, with a half gallon of ice cream in the other, grinning from ear to ear like you hadn’t just given me a heart attack.”
Bobbie laughed. “Sounds like Billie. She’s always hungry.”
“That was just the start,” their mother said. “That same year, she climbed the curtains and hung from the curtain rod because she wanted to be in the circus, and a few days after her fourth birthday, she carried a baking pan up the stairs while I was in the bathroom and proceeded to sled down, running headfirst into the wall.”
“Jesus.” Billie was amused and astonished. She was coming to understand why she confounded their mother so much.
“Obviously I got the brains in the family,” Bobbie teased.