“Again, what makes you think so?”
“It’s nothing he’s done, really. More what he hasn’t. I’ve bumped into him on occasion. He’s never gone out of his way to introduce himself.”
“Maybe it just hasn’t been convenient.”
“No, I think there’s more to it than that.”
“Like what?”
“For one thing, I’m an outsider, immediately distrusted because my great-great-great-grandparents didn’t hail from these mountains.”
She smiled, acknowledging that he’d accurately described the prevailing regional attitude. “The people around here can be clannish.”
“I’m a visitor, but I’ve been coming here often enough that a lot of people at least know my name and speak when they see me. Welcome me back. That kind of thing. But whenever I go to the soda fountain at Ritt’s for my morning coffee, I still sit alone at the counter. I’ve never been invited to join the good ol’ boys’ club that fills up the booths every morning. Dutch Burton, Wes Hamer, a few others, all who grew up here. That’s a closed clique. Not that I want to be included, but they’re not even friendly enough to say hello.”
“Then accept my apology for them.”
“Trust me, it’s not that important. But I wondered,” he began, then hesitated.
“What?”
“I wondered if . . . if the reason for him avoiding me was that you might have mentioned me to him.”
She ducked her head. “No. That is, not until yesterday.”
He said nothing in response to that, so after a long moment, it was left to her to fill the ponderous silence. “I was surprised to see you in town. Haven’t you run out of things around here to write about?”
“It’s not subject matter that’s bringing me back, Lilly.”
The bait he’d thrown out was dangerous but enticing and impossible to resist. She raised her head and looked across at him. He said, “I sold an article about our day on the river.”
“I know. I read it.”
“Yeah?” he asked, obviously pleased.
She nodded. “That water sports magazine and mine have the same publisher, so I receive complimentary copies. I was thumbing through an issue and spotted your byline.” Actually, she’d been perusing that and similar magazines for months, wondering if he’d written and sold an article about the kayaking excursion.
“It was great writing, Tierney.”
“Thanks.”
“Truthfully. Your descriptions were vivid. They captured the excitement we experienced. Catchy title, too. ‘The Tempestuous French Broad.’ ”
He grinned. “I thought that would grab those not in the know. You had to read the article to learn that’s the name of the river.”
“It was a good piece.”
“It was a good day,” he came back in a low and stirring voice.
Early June, last summer. They’d been two of a dozen people who’d signed up for a daylong whitewater kayaking excursion. They’d met on the bus that transported the group several miles upriver, where they put in for the wild ride through several Class Three and Class Four rapids.
Equally skilled, they’d fallen into a natural comradery, especially after discovering that their careers were, as Tierney had put it, “kissing cousins.” He was a freelance writer who sold articles to magazines; she was a magazine editor.
When the group put ashore for lunch, they separated from the others and sat together on a large boulder that was cantilevered over the rushing water below.
“You’re editor in chief?” he exclaimed when she told him the position she held.
“Going on three years now.”