He came around the side to watch her, holding up the book to shade his eyes. “It’s nice to hear you laugh.”
She laughed again. “I feel like a child.”
“Is that bad?” he wondered.
Pumping her legs to go higher still, she considered. The wind rushed by, freeing a fleet of unruly curls from their plait to tangle in the frames of her spectacles. When her peach skirts billowed, she clamped them between her legs. The sun sparkled on the water. Through her miraculous eyeglasses, the landscape looked clear and bright and beautiful all the way to the horizon.
“No,” she said at last. “Feeling like a child isn’t bad.” At nearly eighteen, feeling like a child was a wonderful respite.
Placing the book delicately on a clump of grass, Ford stepped behind her and gave her a shove. She leaned back, listening to the wind whistle through her ears as she went soaring into the air.
“I can go faster than you!” Jewel cried from the other side of the tree.
“No, I can go faster!” Rowan yelled, and the two of them pumped their hearts out, racing toward the sky.
Ford’s hands on Violet’s back felt solid and warm, his pushes rhythmic and reliable. Her lids slid closed. She didn’t want to go faster than anyone; she preferred to blank her mind and enjoy the motion.
With her eyes shut, she imagined she was flying. She imagined she was beautiful, and Ford was her handsome husband, not just an irredeemably flirtatious young uncle who wanted her help caring for his niece.
“Holy Hades,” Rowan complained, jarring her back into the real world.
Her eyes popped open. “I’ve told you not to say that!” she called toward the children’s side of the tree.
“No matter how high I get,” he panted, “I cannot seem to go faster than her. She swings three times and I swing only two.”
Jewel snorted. “Because you’re bigger, you goose.”
“I’m not a goose,” Rowan said, and Violet cringed, suspecting Jewel had learned that insult from Rose. But Rowan seemed to consider Jewel’s analysis. “Anyway, you’re a girl, so you’ll get tired,” he decided smugly. “And then I’ll go faster!”
“No,” Ford said, giving Violet another push, “you won’t.”
“He won’t?” Violet asked. Rowan’s theory made sense to her. Well, perhaps not the part about Jewel tiring—the girl was a bundle of energy if ever she’d seen one. “If Rowan pumps harder, he won’t go faster?”
“He won’t,” Ford repeated. “The swing is a pendulum—”
“Like in your laboratory?” Jewel interrupted loudly.
“Just like that.” He pushed again. “Only you are the weight at the bottom.”
Jewel’s dark hair streamed behind her, then flew forward to hide her face. “And he’s a heavier weight, so…”
“No, the amount of weight doesn’t matter.” When Violet swung back, Ford wasn’t there to push. She slowed down to listen. “The time a pendulum takes to go back and forth is called the period,” he said, walking over to push Jewel instead. “And the period depends on the length of the string. Or in a swing’s case, the ropes.” He reached to give Rowan a shove. “Jewel’s ropes are quite a bit shorter, so Jewel swings faster.”
“Are you sure?” Rowan asked dubiously.
“Positive. But test it yourself. Switch swings with Jewel. That’s what an experiment is all about.”
The children dragged their feet on the ground to stop the swings, and Ford came back to Violet.
Soon Rowan and Jewel had switched sides and were pumping again. And Rowan was going faster. “You’re right!” he yelled.
“Of course I’m right.” Ford gave Violet another little push. “But I didn’t figure it out myself. Galileo first made the observation.”
“I know all about Galileo,” Jewel told Rowan importantly. “Uncle Ford named his horse after him.” She swung back and forth, back and forth. “I want to go faster again!”
“I’ll swing a hundred times and then you can,” Rowan offered.
“Fifty times.”
“As you wish. But we’ll switch back after another fifty.” In his high young voice, he began counting.
Ford gave Violet a huge shove, and she soared out over the landscape, swinging back so hard one of her shoes flew off and landed on the grass with a plop.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, the word sounding breathless and giddy. “Stop!”
“Why?” He pushed her again, and when she rushed back, he plucked off her other shoe. She heard that one, too, plop somewhere behind her back. “There,” he called as she swung away again, “now you’ll really feel like a child.”
Laughing, she wiggled her toes, feeling free in only stockings. And he pushed her higher. And higher. And higher. “Stop!” she screamed, meaning it this time. “Or I think I might get sick!”
He grabbed the ropes and jerked her to a halt. “Better?”
“Much.” Still holding on tight, she gave a shaky laugh. “I guess I’m too old for this, after all.”
“No one’s too old for this,” she heard him say from behind her. And then she felt his warmth at her back, and an armed curved around her waist. He came around to her side.
Her hands clenched the ropes as a delicate shiver rippled through her. “Rowan and Jewel…” she whispered, turning her head, but as soon as her lips were in reach he covered them with his own. She heard the children’s chatter and hoped that meant they weren’t watching—and then promptly forgot all about them, along with everything else but for one hazy thought…
She was being kissed again!
And it felt just as strange and wonderful and exciting as she remembered. He kept one arm securely around her middle, and when he raised his other hand to her face, skimming his thumb along her cheekbone, she thought she might expire from the incredible niceness of it all.
He drew away slightly, and
