Free The Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook Page A

fling—I was saving myself for someone special. By the way, my name is Mark.”
    “Ignore him,” the other guy said. He held out his hand. He had cat green eyes and lighter hair and stubble, and he smelled pretty damn good, too. “I don’t think we’ve officially met. My name is Rick.”
    “But he’s thinking about changing it to Dick,” the other guy said.
    I let go and started walking away again. Fast.
    Janie caught up to me first. She matched her stride to mine. “Don’t let them get to you,” she said. “Call yourself whatever you want. It’s actually a great time to make a name change.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Hey, where are you going?” one of the guys yelled behind us. “We need two more players for a Wii doubles tennis match. We played singles last week and it was way too strenuous.”
    Janie and I walked out to the parking lot together, completely ignoring the scruffy guys.
     
    WHEN I PULLED into my driveway, Tess’s daughter was sitting cross-legged at the edge of her lawn. I stopped my car down by the road and got out.
    “Hi,” I said. “I’m Noreen. I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
    “Hannah,” she said. Even sullen, she was pretty. She had blond hair and pale blue eyes, plus that long-limbed, effortless teenage beauty you only appreciate decades later when you look back at it in old photos.
    “Aren’t you getting eaten alive out here? I mean, do you want to come in or something?”
    “Can’t. I’m not allowed to leave the property.”
    I sat down next to her and crossed my legs, too. “How come?”
    “I stayed out a little late, like that’s a big deal.” She rolled her eyes. “Grounded.”
    “How long?”
    “The rest of my life?”
    I laughed. “Don’t worry. I know your mother. She’ll cave before you’re thirty.”
    “Ha.” Hannah sighed. “It’s so unfair. It’s my last summer before college. I’m supposed to go out.”
    “Do you want me to talk to her?” popped out of my mouth.
    “You’d do that?”
    “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”
    “Sweet,” Hannah said.

Day 13
13,555 steps
    TESS ROLLED AN OLD RED WAGON FILLED WITH HANDHELD weights over to my garage. We taped up the strength-training poster that had come with them on the wall next to our mileage map.
    “Are you sure nobody at your house is using them?” I asked.
    “Oh, please,” Tess said. “Do you want the treadmill and rowing machine, too? Talk about overpriced clothes hangers. I’ve also got a butt buster, a tummy toner, and a thigh thing, and somewhere up in the attic I still even have one of those vibrating exercise belts, plus one of those wooden roller machines you sit on to break up the cellulite. Maybe you could dust them all off and open up a garage gym.”
    “Thanks,” I said, “but I think this is probably plenty. By the way, I met Hannah yesterday. She’s adorable. Wow, it really brings it all back, doesn’t it? Remember that last summer before you went away to college, how important it was to spend every minute going out with your old friends, before you all went your separate ways?”
    Tess put her hands on her hips. “Don’t tell me she got to you already. I thought you were smarter than that.”
    “Morning,” Rosie said. “Hey, I’ve got some extra exercise mats I could bring over.” She held up a handful of tangled pale purple shoelaces. “This is all I brought today.”
    “Aww,” I said. “Lavender laces. Where did you find them?”
    “My mother must have dyed them,” Rosie said. “I was going through the junk drawer yesterday, and there they were.” She wiggled a shoelace free and handed it to me.
    Tess was already on the floor, unlacing her sneakers.
    As soon as we’d replaced our laces, we headed for the street.
    “Nobody’ll miss us, that’s for sure,” Tess said. “Maybe we should have calling cards made. You know, The Lavender Ladies.”
    “Or The Lavender Lace Ladies,” Rosie said. “It sounds like a Victorian sewing