LITMIR.BIZ

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issue, because I used to be one myself.” He glanced at her with twinkling black eyes. “They’re puff adders.”

      She blinked. “Excuse me?”

      “I’ve never seen one myself, but I had a buddy in the service who was from Georgia. He told me about them. They’re these snakes with insecurities.”

      She burst out laughing. “Snakes with insecurities?”

      He nodded. “They’re terrified of people. So if humans come too close to them, they rise up on their tails and weave back and forth and blow out their throats and start hissing. You know, imitating a cobra. Most of the time, people take them at face value and run away.”

      “What if people stand their ground and don’t run?”

      He laughed. “They faint.”

       “They faint? ”

      He nodded. “Dead away, my buddy said. He took a friend home with him. They were walking through the fields when a puff adder rose up and did his act for the friend. The guy was about to run for it when my buddy walked right up to the snake and it fainted dead away. I hear his family is still telling the story with accompanying sound effects and hilarity.”

      “A fainting snake.” She sighed. “What I’ve missed, by spending my whole life in Montana. I wouldn’t have known any better, either, though. I’ve never seen a cobra.”

      “They have them in zoos,” he pointed out.

      “I’ve never been to a zoo.”

      “What?”

      “Well, Billings is a long way from Hollister and I’ve never had a vehicle I felt comfortable about getting there in.” She grimaced. “This is a very deserted road, most of the time. If I broke down, I’d worry about who might stop to help me.”

      He gave her a covert appraisal. She was such a private person. She kept things to herself. Remembering her uncle and his weak heart, he wasn’t surprised that she’d learned to do that.

      “You couldn’t talk to your uncle about most things, could you, Jake?” he wondered out loud.

      “Not really,” she agreed. “I was afraid of upsetting him, especially after his first heart attack.”

      “So you learned to keep things to yourself.”

      “I pretty much had to. I’ve never had close girlfriends, either.”

      “Most of the girls your age are married and have kids, except the ones who went into the military or moved to cities.”

      She nodded. “I’m a throwback to another era, when women lived at home until they married. Gosh, the world has changed,” she commented.

      “It sure has,” he agreed. “When I was a boy, television sets were big and bulky and in cabinets. Now they’re so thin and light that people can hang them on walls. And my iPod does everything a television can do, right down to playing movies and giving me news and weather.”

      She frowned. “That wasn’t what I meant, exactly.”

      He raised his eyebrows.

      “I mean, that women seem to want careers and men in volume.”

      He cleared his throat.

      “That didn’t come out right.” She laughed self-consciously. “It just seems to me that women are more like the way men used to be. They don’t want commitment. They have careers and they live with men. I heard a newscaster say that marriage is too retro a concept for modern people.”

      “There have always been people who lived out of the mainstream, Jake,” he said easily. “It’s a choice.”

      “It wouldn’t be mine,” she said curtly. “I think people should get married and stay married and raise children together.”

      “Now that’s a point of view I like.”

      She studied him curiously. “Do you want kids?”

      He smiled. “Of course. Don’t you?”

      She averted her eyes. “Well, yes. Someday.”

      He sighed. “I keep forgetting how young you are. You haven’t really had time to live yet.”

      “You mean, get fascinated with microscopes and move to New York City,” she said with a grin.

      He laughed. “Something like that, maybe.”

      “I could never see stuff in microscopes in high school,” she recalled. “I was so excited when I finally found what I thought was an organism and the teacher said it was an air bubble. That’s all I ever managed to find.” She grimaced. “I came within two grade points of failing biology. As it was, I had the lowest passing grade in my whole class.”

      “But you can cook like an angel,” he pointed out.

      She frowned. “What does that have to do with microscopes?”

      “I’m making an observation,” he replied. “We all have skills. Yours is cooking. Somebody else’s might be science. It would be a pretty boring world if we all were good at the same things.”

      “I see.”

      He smiled. “You can crochet, too. My grandmother loved her crafts, like you do. She could make quilts and knit sweaters and crochet afghans. A woman of many talents.”

      “They don’t seem to count for much in the modern world,” she replied.

      “Have you ever really looked at the magazine rack, Jake?” he asked, surprised. “There are more magazines on handicrafts than there are on rock stars, and that’s saying something.”

      “I hadn’t noticed.” She looked around. They were just coming into Billings. Ahead, she could see the awesome outline of the Rimrocks, where the airport was located, in the distance. “We’re here?” she exclaimed.

      “It’s not so far from home,” he said lazily.

      “Not at the speed you go, no,” she said impudently.

      He laughed. “There wasn’t any traffic and we aren’t overly blessed with highway patrols at this hour of the night.”

      “You catch speeders, and you’re local law enforcement,” she pointed out.

      “I don’t catch them on the interstate unless they’re driving on it through my town,” he replied. “And it’s not so much the speed that gets them caught, either. It’s the way they’re driving. You can be safe at high speeds and dangerous at low ones. Weaving in and out of traffic, riding people’s bumpers, running stop signs, that sort of thing.”

      “I saw this television program where an experienced traffic officer said that what scared him most was to see a driver with both hands white-knuckled and close together on the steering wheel.”

      He nodded. “There are exceptions, but it usually means someone who’s insecure and afraid of the vehicle.”

      “You aren’t.”

      He shrugged. “I’ve been driving since I was twelve. Kids grow up early when they live on ranches. Have to learn how to operate machinery, like tractors and harvesters.”

      “Our ranch doesn’t have a harvester.”

      “That’s because our ranch can’t afford one,” he said, smiling. “But we can always borrow one from neighbors.”

      “Small towns are such nice places,” she said dreamily. “I love it that people will loan you a piece of equipment that expensive just because they like you.”

      “I imagine there are people in cities who would do the same, Jake, but there’s not much use for them there.”

      She laughed. “No, I guess not.”

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