He grinned. “You must’ve played doctor, too.”
Alex didn’t rise to the bait, knowing that he was trying to sidetrack her. “I guess the two of you eventually grew out of that stage.”
“We didn’t play doctor anymore, no, but we talked about everything. No subject was taboo between Celina and me.”
“Isn’t that the kind of relationship a girl usually has with another girl?”
“Usually, but Celina didn’t have many girlfriends. Most of the girls were jealous of her.”
“Why?” Alex already knew the answer. She knew even before he shrugged, a move that rubbed his shoulder blade against her breast. Alex was hardly able to speak. She had to force herself to ask. “It was because of you, wasn’t it? Her friendship with you?”
/> “Maybe. That, and the fact that she was by far the prettiest girl around. Most of the girls considered her a rival, not a friend. Hold on,” he warned her before guiding the horse into a dry gully.
Inertia pushed her forward, closer to him. Instinctively, she hugged his torso tighter. He made a grunting sound. She asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“You sounded… uncomfortable.”
“If you were a guy sitting astride a horse taking a steep incline and were being crammed against the pommel of the saddle so that your manhood pushed into your lap, you’d be uncomfortable, too.”
“Oh.”
“Jesus,” he swore beneath his breath.
Until the ground leveled out, there was an awkward silence between them, broken only by the horse’s clumping tread as he carefully picked his way over the rocky ground. To hide her embarrassment and keep the cold wind off her, Alex buried her face in the flannel-lined collar of his coat. Eventually, she said, “So, Mother came to you with all her problems.”
“Yes. When she didn’t, and I knew something was wrong, I went to her. One day she was absent from school. I got worried and went to her house during lunch break. Your grandmother was at work, so Celina was there alone. She’d been crying. I got scared and refused to leave until she told me what was wrong.”
“What was the matter?”
“She got her period for the first time.”
“Oh.”
“From what I gathered, Mrs. Graham had made her feel ashamed of it. She’d told her all kinds of horror stories about Eve’s curse—crap like that.” There was disapproval in his voice. “Was she that way with you?”
Alex shook her head no, but didn’t remove it from the protection of his collar. His neck was warm, and smelled like him. “Not that severe. Maybe Grandma had become more enlightened by the time I reached puberty.” Until Reede reined in the horse and dismounted, Alex hadn’t realized that they’d reached a small frame house. “What about Mother?”
“I consoled her and told her that it was normal, nothing to be ashamed of, that she had officially become a woman.” He looped the reins around a hitching post.
“Did it work?”
“I guess so. She stopped crying and—”
“And…?” Alex prodded him to continue, knowing that he had omitted the most important part of the story.
“Nothing. Swing your leg over.” He reached up to help her down, taking her around the waist with sure, strong hands and lifting her to the ground.
“Something, Reede.”
She clutched the sleeves of his coat. His lips were drawn into a thin, stubborn line. They looked chapped and consummately masculine. She remembered looking at the newspaper picture of him kissing Celina when he crowned her homecoming queen. As before, Alex’s stomach swelled and receded like a wave far out in the gulf.
“You kissed her, didn’t you?”
He made an uneasy movement with his shoulder. “I’d kissed her before.”
“But that was the first real kiss, wasn’t it?”