The Mountain Between Us by Cindy Myers Read Free Book Online Page A

He’s visiting in town.”
    â€œDoes he know she’s the mayor?”
    â€œI imagine he does.”
    â€œIt seems funny to think of Grandma dating.”
    â€œBecause she’s the mayor?”
    â€œBecause she’s Grandma.” He tilted his head to the side, thinking. He reminded her of an owl, eyes magnified behind the glasses, tufts of blond hair sticking up like feathers. Except he looked less babyish these days, more evidence of the man who’d one day be breaking through. She wanted to shake him and tell him to stop. She’d barely gotten the hang of being a mother to a little boy; she hadn’t the slightest idea how to cope with someone older.
    â€œI guess Grandma is kind of pretty,” he said.
    Lucille wasn’t classically pretty; she was too tall and raw-boned for that. But she had a striking quality and an elegance she’d grown into. The face that had looked back at Olivia in the dressing table mirror this evening had indeed been beautiful.
    â€œYes, I guess she is,” Olivia said. She took the lasagna from the freezer and flipped the package over to read the directions.
    â€œWe should eat the fish I caught,” Lucas said.
    â€œYour grandmother can cook the fish tomorrow. Tonight we’re having lasagna.”
    â€œD. J. told me how to cook it. He said to stuff it with lemon and butter and wrap it in foil and bake it.”
    When they’d been together, D. J. had done most of the cooking. He was much better at it than she was. “That sounds good,” she said. “I’ll let your grandmother know.”
    She set the oven for 400 degrees and slid the block of frozen pasta from the package.
    â€œD. J. is going to teach me how to tie flies. You use real bird feathers and stuff.”
    D. J. again. Lucas would talk about nothing else if she didn’t change the subject. “Janelle and Danielle are hiring me to paint a mural on the back wall of the Last Dollar,” she said.
    â€œThat’s cool.” Lucas helped himself to a banana from the basket on the counter. She started to tell him he’d spoil his supper but bit back the words. One banana wasn’t going to dull his appetite; he ate everything in sight these days.
    â€œYou’re not surprised they asked me instead of some professional artist?” she asked.
    â€œYou’re as good as any professional.”
    He thought that? Really? She couldn’t hold back a grin. “I’ll need you to help me decide what to draw. I don’t know much about the history of Eureka.”
    â€œYou should put in the Native Americans who first settled here—the Uncompahgre. And the gold miners.” He made a face. “ ’Course, Miss Wynock is going to want her family in there somewhere.”
    â€œMiss Wynock?” Olivia couldn’t place the name. Not a patron of the Dirty Sally, then.
    â€œThe librarian. Her family supposedly founded the town. It was all in the play I was supposed to be in at the Hard Rock Days festival.”
    Of course—that Miss Wynock. How could Olivia forget? The woman had been a tyrant about that damn play, and she’d practically busted a blood vessel when Lucas had failed to show up to play his part in the Founders’ Day Pageant. He hadn’t made the play because he’d been trapped in the French Mistress Mine up on Mount Garnet. Olivia had been too worried about his absence to pay much attention to the play.
    Right now she couldn’t imagine anything more boring than a bunch of historical people painted on a wall. She wanted something bright and interesting—something that captured the wild, beautiful nature of this corner of the world. “If I’m painting this mural, I guess I get to say who’s in it and who isn’t,” Olivia said. “Well . . . and Danielle and Janelle, since they’re paying for it.”
    â€œThen they probably don’t want Miss Wynock’s