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Authors: Donna Andrews
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bathroom in the barn to make living there tolerable for the summer. Later on, it would be handy for cleaning up after gardening or a particularly messy workday in my forge. Remembering all the poison ivy I’d seen during the day, I didn’t skimp on the soap or hot water.
I could still hear voices from the tack room when I finished, so I headed for the house.
“Hello!” a voice called when I was halfway there. One of the students fell into step beside me. Not Tony, the tall redheaded one who kept trying to pick me up, though from just “Hello” I couldn’t tell which of the other two this was. Graham spoke with an English accent, and Bill, the other, hardly said anything.
“You’re back,” I said, trying to make it a statement of fact rather than a complaint.
“I never left, actually,” he said. Aha. Graham, the Englishman. “I wasn’t up for a lot of bother, so I just ate leftovers from lunch and had a bit of nap in the
back of the van. I’m not as keen on pub crawling as Tony and Bill.”
“Sensible of you,” I said. “Especially if the chief does let us resume the tournament tomorrow.”
“Hope he does,” Graham said. “Long drive from West Virginia just to sit around being suspects.”
Aha. So they were the West Virginia team.
“How did you end up at a college in West Virginia, anyway?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“It’s rather a joke on me,” he said. “You see, I’ve always been keen on the American West. Cowboys and Indians. The gold rush. Dodge City. Deadwood. Bonanza. That sort of thing. So when it came time to go to university, I thought it would be a super idea to apply to some schools in the frontier states.”
“I see,” I said. “You ended up in West Virginia.”
“I’m afraid I did a rather bad job of research.”
“Right place, wrong century,” I said with a shrug. “Back in Colonial days, the only period of history that really matters in large parts of the Old Dominion, West Virginia was the frontier.”
“How kind of you to say so,” he murmured, and his face lighted up with an expression of abject gratitude and devotion that would have made a deep impression on me during my undergraduate days. Now, it just made me nervous—how many times did I need to introduce these kids to Michael, anyway?
Possibly the time for such subtle measures had passed.
“Does the soulful, lonely exile act work on the girls back in West Virginia?” I asked.
He blinked.
“Not particularly,” he said in a more normal tone of voice. “I’ve been assuming it was because the girls in Pineville think I’m a perfect dolt for coming to West Virginia in the first place.”
“Maybe it’s more that you make it pretty obvious that you think you’re a perfect dolt for going there,” I suggested. “Could lead them to assume you think they’re dolts for not leaving.”
“You could be right,” he said. “So I’ve totally blown my chances of ever getting … a date in Pineville?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Why not just concentrate on being more positive when you meet new people?”
“What new people?” he said with a sigh. “Total enrollment’s only five hundred—we all rather know one another by now. For that matter, the population of Wyoming County can’t be much over twenty-five thousand. Coming from Bristol, with over half a million people—”
“The population of where?”
“Bristol,” he said. “It’s where I grew up; a city on the—”
“I know where Bristol is,” I said. “Did you say Wyoming County?”
“Yes. How was I supposed to know it was in the middle of Appalachia instead of the Rockies?”
“There’s a county in West Virginia called Wyoming?”
“Yes,” he said, looking puzzled. “That’s where Pineville College is located. Wyoming County.
Southwest West Virginia. Any farther southwest and it’d be part of Kentucky, or so I’m told. In a place that small, how am I supposed to meet—”
“Let’s talk about this
I could still hear voices from the tack room when I finished, so I headed for the house.
“Hello!” a voice called when I was halfway there. One of the students fell into step beside me. Not Tony, the tall redheaded one who kept trying to pick me up, though from just “Hello” I couldn’t tell which of the other two this was. Graham spoke with an English accent, and Bill, the other, hardly said anything.
“You’re back,” I said, trying to make it a statement of fact rather than a complaint.
“I never left, actually,” he said. Aha. Graham, the Englishman. “I wasn’t up for a lot of bother, so I just ate leftovers from lunch and had a bit of nap in the
back of the van. I’m not as keen on pub crawling as Tony and Bill.”
“Sensible of you,” I said. “Especially if the chief does let us resume the tournament tomorrow.”
“Hope he does,” Graham said. “Long drive from West Virginia just to sit around being suspects.”
Aha. So they were the West Virginia team.
“How did you end up at a college in West Virginia, anyway?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“It’s rather a joke on me,” he said. “You see, I’ve always been keen on the American West. Cowboys and Indians. The gold rush. Dodge City. Deadwood. Bonanza. That sort of thing. So when it came time to go to university, I thought it would be a super idea to apply to some schools in the frontier states.”
“I see,” I said. “You ended up in West Virginia.”
“I’m afraid I did a rather bad job of research.”
“Right place, wrong century,” I said with a shrug. “Back in Colonial days, the only period of history that really matters in large parts of the Old Dominion, West Virginia was the frontier.”
“How kind of you to say so,” he murmured, and his face lighted up with an expression of abject gratitude and devotion that would have made a deep impression on me during my undergraduate days. Now, it just made me nervous—how many times did I need to introduce these kids to Michael, anyway?
Possibly the time for such subtle measures had passed.
“Does the soulful, lonely exile act work on the girls back in West Virginia?” I asked.
He blinked.
“Not particularly,” he said in a more normal tone of voice. “I’ve been assuming it was because the girls in Pineville think I’m a perfect dolt for coming to West Virginia in the first place.”
“Maybe it’s more that you make it pretty obvious that you think you’re a perfect dolt for going there,” I suggested. “Could lead them to assume you think they’re dolts for not leaving.”
“You could be right,” he said. “So I’ve totally blown my chances of ever getting … a date in Pineville?”
“Not necessarily,” I said. “Why not just concentrate on being more positive when you meet new people?”
“What new people?” he said with a sigh. “Total enrollment’s only five hundred—we all rather know one another by now. For that matter, the population of Wyoming County can’t be much over twenty-five thousand. Coming from Bristol, with over half a million people—”
“The population of where?”
“Bristol,” he said. “It’s where I grew up; a city on the—”
“I know where Bristol is,” I said. “Did you say Wyoming County?”
“Yes. How was I supposed to know it was in the middle of Appalachia instead of the Rockies?”
“There’s a county in West Virginia called Wyoming?”
“Yes,” he said, looking puzzled. “That’s where Pineville College is located. Wyoming County.
Southwest West Virginia. Any farther southwest and it’d be part of Kentucky, or so I’m told. In a place that small, how am I supposed to meet—”
“Let’s talk about this
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