The Perfect Letter by Chris Harrison Page B

me.
    She went into the house to work on her homework at the kitchen table, but the words swam in front of her eyes, and the algebra equations, which normally she was so good at, turned into Chinese. She’d had no idea that a boy was coming to live at the farm, and it had thrown her. She was going to have to stop swimming naked at Wolf Rock or even the swimming pool. She was going to have to start acting like a lady, like her granddaddy said, and all for the sake of a boy she didn’t even like .
    She was in the middle of planning a scheme that would get them to leave—something about putting scorpions in Jake’s bed, or his boots—when there’d been a ring at the doorbell. She’d opened it to find Jake standing there looking sheepish. “My father said I need to apologize,” he said, leaning against the doorbell and making it ring once more byaccident. He jumped and stood up straight. “He says I shouldn’t get off on the wrong foot the first day with you folks. So.”
    â€œSo.”
    â€œThat’s it, then. See you around,” Jake said, and started to leave.
    Before he could go, Leigh called back to him, “You’re doing a spectacular job of it, you know.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œApologizing. Saying your father is making you apologize isn’t really the same thing as actually apologizing, is it?”
    He grinned and said, “What’s your name?”
    â€œI’m not sure I should tell you. I’m still waiting for that apology.”
    â€œTell me your name and I’ll give it to you.”
    She gave him her best stink eye. “Leigh Merrill.”
    He held out his hand for her to shake, and she took it, tightening her fingers around his, still determined to hate him, still keeping up her defenses. “I’m Jacob Rhodes. And I’m sorry, Leigh. Truly. Your granddad’s place here is lovely, if you don’t mind a talking ass saying so.”
    When he turned and went back to his father’s truck in a nimbus of dust, his jeans sliding around his hips as he walked, Leigh remembered all her anger slipping off like a snake shedding its skin. For the first time she understood what the girls at school were always fussing about. A boy like that would be worth falling for, if he managed not to ruin everything by opening his mouth.
    She went back inside to finish her homework, but it was no use; she couldn’t think of anything except Jake the rest of the day.
    Damn him anyway. He would have to be charming.
    By the end of that first week they’d established something of a routine: after their chores were done, Leigh and Jake would ride out together to the hillsides and the woods, following the trails along thestream that bordered her grandfather’s property, just a trickle in the heat of midsummer but a nice cool swimming creek in April and May. They would explore the caves up in the hills, full of bats and sometimes coyotes, but other times cool and abandoned and private, only the drip of water for company. They would ride in companionable silence, and before long the ice between them had melted away.
    They were determined to be just friends, telling each other their stories, their secrets. Leigh told Jake about her mother, introduced him to Chloe and her friends at school, helped him find his way in the halls of Burnside High. Jake told Leigh about Amy, his girlfriend back in Kentucky, the farms he’d lived on, the horses he’d ridden, the horses he’d helped his father train, his voice swelling with pride. How he planned to go into the family business when he was old enough, train his own horses, be his father’s partner. Maybe they’d even have their own place one day, he said.
    â€œYou should,” she told him. “You’d be great.”
    â€œYou think so?”
    For Leigh, who had never had a sibling, it was like she had a brother all her own. “I do,” she said.
    Her