The World is a Stage by Tamara Morgan

you’ll like him.” He said the words with an absurd quantity of misplaced pride. What sort of a man bragged about living among legumes and felling trees? He might as well have one hand pounding his chest and the other liberally scratching his balls.
    “I’m sure any family member of yours is filled with surprises and intellectual insights.”
    “Stop. You’re making me blush.”
    “Oh, go on, then.” Rachel rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. This was going to be like being led to the gallows. “Impress me with your incredible bloodlines.”
    Within half an hour, Rachel was ready to admit she might have been a trifle hasty with her judgment. She’d met quite a few of the men, and they were actually a pretty interesting set of people. The pretty blonde from before was attached to a gorgeous Asian man who had a strangely large working knowledge of historical fashions. Another man named McClellan, who had an affinity for Hammerpants, volunteered to show her the steps of the Highland Fling.
    “These guys are pretty amazing, aren’t they?” the pretty blonde woman asked after Rachel politely declined the dance. She introduced herself as Kate. “You’d think they’re nothing more than overgrown jocks, but they’ve got hearts of gold. Especially Michael.”
    “It’s the hair,” Rachel murmured, trying not to get caught staring at Michael standing across the party.
    “The hair?” Kate asked with a smile.
    Rachel nodded. “It makes him seem nicer than he really is. It’s all floppy and cute and makes you think he’s twelve years old underneath all those muscles. But I’m not fooled. He’s trouble.”
    Trouble that was doing far too good a job pulling down her defenses.
    And Jennings, Michael’s cousin, was the biggest defense-destroyer of all. He turned out to be old, somewhere in his early seventies, and was set up on a vinyl lawn chair with a beer in one hand and a corncob pipe in the other. He also turned out to be quite articulate and was explaining Dostoyevsky’s views on nationalism when Michael pulled up a chair to join them.
    “Are you boring my poor friend here?” he asked. He set a plate of food on Jennings’s lap and exchanged the pipe for a fork. “If that’s the case, then I’m going to tell you the deer are getting into the south field again.”
    “Bullshit!” Jennings used his fork to stab at the air. “I was down there with my gun this morning.”
    “I know. I saw the tree you were making target practice of.”
    “Is that safe?” Rachel asked, taken aback.
    “Not in the least,” Michael said, laughing. “But Jennings here refuses to do anything half-assed. Including scaring the deer away. Or talking about Russian philosophers.”
    Jennings reached up and turned off his hearing aid. With a smile that shone just as brightly as Michael’s, he winked and busied himself with his food. Steak cut up into bite-size pieces. Corn cut off the cob.
    Despite herself, Rachel softened.
    “And you’re really cousins? I find that hard to believe.”
    “Second cousins. Or maybe third? Removed like eight times?” Michael shrugged. “I can never keep track, but he’s been around for just about ever. I think he’s secretly a vampire. You hungry?”
    Rachel wasn’t really hungry—she’d eaten ahead of time, unsure what sort of conditions awaited her here—but she nodded, her head swimming. If she didn’t know better, she’d say she was enjoying herself. Maybe even feeling impressed by the Mule himself.
    That can’t be right. She put a hand on her brow.
    A car pulled up then, the crunch of tires on the dirt road punctuated by Molly’s squeal. Her sister really had it bad this time around. Rachel looked up, expecting to find a miniature sports car or a truck with a pair of blue balls hanging from the hitch. Instead she saw a maroon minivan with a yellow smiley face bobbing cheerfully from the antenna.
    That’s Eric’s car?
    Molly pulled the sliding door open, completely at home