She was with an attractive man. He’d almost kissed her, but then pulled back. She was going to refuse to be a shrinking violet about it.
No! Instead, she would show Jonas what he had missed, what he had said no to. She would make him regret pulling away.
With new determination, Krissy sorted the dog. Once he was sitting at her side, she took a deep breath. She snapped the leash to get the dog’s attention, she set her feet.
Krissy didn’t want to be an actress or a model. She had never even wanted to be the queen!
This was an opportunity to find her authentic strength in role models she admired.
“I am,” she said firmly, “an Olympic medalist going to the podium!”
She strode forward, radiating confidence, strength, victory. She could feel the relief in Chance. He got it instantly, he stepped it up, he aligned perfectly with her.
“What sport?” Jonas asked.
Krissy had never played a sport in her life.
“A woman warrior,” she cried. And she reached up with her free hand and grabbed the elastic that held her hair back. She didn’t slide it off, she broke it. Her hair fell free, and she gave it a shake.
“That’s it!” Jonas said, his voice low and approving. “That’s it exactly!”
But she already knew she had found the sweet spot of confidence she had been searching—maybe all of her life—for. Krissy could feel it in the leash, in the dog’s attentiveness to her, in Jonas’s attentiveness. She could feel the shift in herself, and she reveled in it.
Thinking of the power and the confidence with which Jonas drove his car, she revved into the next gear. She was the shield maiden going into battle. She was Boudicca, she was Joan of Arc. She stepped out, not with fear. Not with anticipation. Not with awareness of all the bad things that waited to befall her.
With glory! With confidence. With excitement for all the victories that awaited her.
The dog got it. Completely And so did Jonas. Completely.
Krissy felt as if she had stepped out of a shadow she was not even aware she had been standing in. She was enjoying playing the part, and it was wonderful to feel a sense of coming into some part of herself.
That was powerful.
And confident.
And amazing.
And dangerous.
She laughed out loud as she immersed herself in the discovery of her own confidence. She was aware of Jonas looking at her, his smile faintly tinged with trepidation. She was not the same woman who had meekly backed away from his rejection of that kiss a few minutes ago.
They came to a section of the trail where dogs were allowed off leash. Which was ironic, because Krissy was wondering exactly what he had unleashed within her when he had guided her to finding her confidence.
“I don’t think he’s ready for that,” Jonas said.
But she suspected maybe Jonas wasn’t ready for things to be completely unleashed, either.
Was she?
“There is a dog park just a little farther up the trail.”
“Perfect.” He was looking at her as if he wasn’t thinking about the dog park, at all.
And somehow that was exactly how it felt. As if this startling, beautiful, electrifying day of discovery was absolutely perfect.
They had the fenced dog park entirely to themselves. They played a game that Jonas said would help Chance learn to come when he was called.
Jonas held the leash, and Krissy went and hid in a small grove of trees. Then she called the dog, and Jonas unclipped the leash. Chance barreled toward her hiding place, ecstatic when he found her, wriggling and ducking and lolling his tongue. But he didn’t even attempt to jump on her. Then they reversed it, Jonas hiding and Krissy holding the leash. Chance’s joy in the game was utterly contagious. Or maybe it was just a joyous kind of day.
But an hour later, they all lay on the grass, panting, tired, happy. Krissy and Jonas lay shoulder to shoulder.
Like the oldest of friends. Or like lovers. Like any of the young couples out enjoying the park today.
“I think the last time I laughed this hard was at last year’s family reunion,” Jonas said. “There’s a big water fight every year. No restrictions on weapons, just as long as they get you wet. My sister, Theresa, had found this gun that shot water balloons. She was an absolute menace. Mike and I ganged up on her to take it away, and then Simon and Garfunkel—that’s what I call the monster nephews—plus their two dogs, were in there, and we were all on the ground, and the rest of the family ganged up on us, until we were wallowing in a mud bog. Those kids and dogs were so dirty, the whites of their eyes were shining.”
Krissy tilted her head to look at Jonas. He was smiling slightly at the memory, looking up at the sky, the utter blueness of it reflected in the deep blue of his eyes. Chance had his big head resting possessively on the flat plane of Jonas’s stomach, a pool of contented drool darkening a patch of the shirt to black. Jonas toyed with the remnants of that torn ear.
She both liked the way he talked about his family with such warmth and affection, and hated the niggling sense of longing it caused in her.
“Or maybe it was at Gar’s birthday that I laughed like this. He was turning four. Simon is six. Gar got a cake shaped like Fuzzy Peter—that’s a cartoon character, not something obscene—and then he wouldn’t let anyone eat it. He was standing guard over that cake, and Simon sneaked in and grabbed a handful from behind, and then I don’t exactly know what happened, but the cake fight was on. Thank goodness we were outside.”
His laughter was rich and warm at the memory. That feeling of longing in Krissy intensified. What he was describing was
