He stood up, cleared up the remains of the picnic and she helped.
“I blame hormones.”
“Hormones?” He stowed the rest of the food in the cooler. “You’re telling me you would have done those things with anybody?”
“Yeah, pretty much. We bad girls don’t much mind who we’re bad with.”
“So I was just in the right place at the right time.”
“That and teenage experimentation. I was a bad influence on you.”
He decided this wasn’t the time to dispute that. Instead he stooped and moved the rope before she could trip over it. “We should make a move before it gets late.”
“If I go home now they’ll still be there and I’ll have to face the inquisition. I’m not sure I have the strength for it.”
He raised the anchor. “After what you told me, I’m not sure I’m ever going to be able to look them in the eye again either.”
“They won’t notice. They’re not looking at your eyes. Apart from Rita, who is obsessed with your eyelashes.”
“Stop. You’re starting to make me nervous.” He tried to focus on sailing the boat back to the marina.
“Now you know how I felt.” She pushed her hat down onto her head. “And they’re reading one of Matilda’s books for their book group.”
“That’s nice. Supportive.”
“Have you read Matilda’s books?”
“I can’t say I have.” He headed back across the bay, the waves slapping gently at the sides of the boat. It was a perfect evening, and there were plenty of other boats on the water. “I go more for thriller and crime than romance.”
“They’re pretty hot.”
“Seems like you learned something new about your grandmother today.”
“I learned a couple of things, and one of them was that I don’t know my grandmother as well as I thought I did.”
“Which surprised you the most? The fact that they read Matilda’s books or the fact that they play poker for money?”
She was silent for a moment. “The biggest surprise was that she’s proud of me.” She leaned on the rail of the boat and stared across the water. “Never knew that before.”
He glanced at her, but all he could see was her profile. “You didn’t know your grandmother was proud of you?”
“No. It never occurred to me for a moment that she was proud of me. Why would it?”
It seemed a strange question to him. “She’s your grandmother. It goes with the territory.” And then he saw her expression and was reminded that her territory had looked nothing like his. And that had been part of the problem. Handling Fliss had been like landing in a different country without a map or a phrase book. “I’m sorry. Give me a minute while I pull my foot out of my mouth.”
“Don’t. Don’t ever tiptoe around me. I don’t want that. The truth is I didn’t give her a reason to be proud.”
Her comment made his heart tighten in his chest.
Did she really believe that? “I’m sure you gave her plenty of reasons.”
“No. I was always the one causing trouble.”
He wondered how much to say. How far to push it. “And you did that to take the attention from your sister.”
She turned her head and met his gaze. “Excuse me?”
“You kept your father’s attention on you so that he didn’t start on Harriet.”