A look of panic came over Matt, and he quickly looked around the room. Rebecca laughed. “We didn’t bring them here, silly. Jo Lynn is looking after them.”
“Wait—you bought a king cab truck?” Matt said as his gaze swept her from head to foot. Rebecca nodded. Matt grinned. “I think you must be the best-looking Farmer Fred I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said, folding her into a big hug.
That night, Matt took them out for his version of a gourmet meal, to Guero’s Taco Bar. As they helped themselves to the fajita fixings—and Grayson built a volcano made of cheese and guacamole—Rebecca mentioned the candidate’s forum.
“You went?” Matt asked, only mildly surprised, having grown accustomed to her attendance at all the candidate events. “I thought about going up, but I had a hearing I couldn’t get out of.”
“It was interesting,” she said as she carefully selected a strip of chicken from the cast iron skillet. “Tom’s really pushing revived commerce.”
Matt glanced up. “The party’s platform is education.”
Rebecca shrugged. “The best speaker of them all was Russ Erwin, the Independent.”
“Oh yeah?” Matt snorted before taking a swig of his beer. “Now there’s a tree-hugger looking for an audience.” But as he drank his beer, he saw that Rebecca’s fork had frozen in midair, and slowly lowered his bottle. “What?”
“He’s not just a tree-hugger looking for an audience. He’s a rancher who is fighting big government’s encroachment on his life.”
Matt was groaning before she could even finish. “Rebecca, honey, you’re kidding, right?”
“I am so not kidding, Matt. I am very serious. Russ Erwin makes the most sense of any of them, and I like him. I think he has what it takes to be lieutenant governor.”
“Mom, are you gonna eat that?” Grayson asked, pointing at the chicken on her plate.
Matt planted his elbows on the table, and leaned forward. “Rebecca. I admire the fact that you are learning about the issues. But organic fruit is not the way to go.”
For a moment, Rebecca could only glare at him.
“What?” he asked, seeming clueless as to how patronizing and arrogant he was. “Do you understand what I mean?”
“Oh, I understand,” she said, barely able to speak. “I understand that when you told me I should get involved, you really meant, Rebecca, you’re just a former beauty queen, so let me give you my expert guidance and maybe you can begin to understand—”
“Rebecca!” he said quickly, laughing a little as he reached over to put his hand on her wrist. But Rebecca moved her hand just as quickly so he couldn’t do it. Matt’s eyes narrowed; he slid a look at Grayson, who was busy sticking meat in his volcano, oblivious. “I am not telling you what to think. All I am trying to say is, that if you listen to him for more than a moment, you will probably hear him advocate something that comes really close to socialism.”
Rebecca really couldn’t remember from tenth-grade government class what socialism was, precisely (but she’d definitely be looking it up as soon as she got home), yet as far as she knew, this was a free country. She sniffed, straightened in her chair, looked away from him.
“So what, you’re not talking to me now?”
“Of course I am talking to you, Matt,” she said in the same patient voice she often used with Grayson. “I just believe, being an American and all, that I can listen to whomever I want, and you can go straight to hell. Or listen to Tom if you choose, providing, of course, you’re ready for a superhighway-slash-pipeline in your backyard. And in the meantime, we can go on our merry little way, being a little democratic unit, each of us free to think and vote as we please.” She glared at Matt, daring him to argue.
He sat for a long moment as if he was actually debating whether or not to argue, tapping his fork against the side of his plate as he considered her. But then he suddenly grinned, stabbed more chicken, and put it on his plate. “You’re right—I can’t argue with an impassioned plea for the right to vote our conscience. So I am going to change the subject. Tom says that we have almost three hundred affirmative replies to this shindig you’re throwing.”
“Three hundred and twenty-five,” she said pertly. “And about fifty calls from people wanting to get their friends in. I can’t believe it, but I think this is going to be one very cool and hip event.”
“What about your dad?” Matt asked, rolling a tortilla.
Dad. “Don’t remind me,” she moaned, and moved to dismantle Grayson’s second volcano.