Free Seven Sisters by Earlene Fowler Page B

last person I expected to be treating me like I was a piece of expensive crystal.”
    “She’s just concerned,” I said, falling in with her irritated strides.
    “She was breaking green horses when she was pregnant with my mom. Great-Aunt Willow said they considered locking her in her room the last three months.”
    “Maybe that’s why she’s so concerned about you. ‘Do as I say and not as I do. If your friends wanted to jump off a cliff, would you? Don’t make that face, young lady, or someday it will freeze that way.’ All the things mothers and grandmothers say to us to try and keep us from being hurt. What they’re actually saying is—‘I’m afraid the world will hurt you the way it did me and I don’t want that to happen.’ Of course, they can’t stop it and they know it, so they tell us dumb things and for the moment they’re saying it, they feel better.”
    She was silent, and I thought I’d gone too far in my mini-lecture. “Then again,” I added, bumping her shoulder with mine, “they could be just trying to keep us from having any fun at all.”
    She laughed and bumped me back. “I think that’s it.”
    We continued walking up the gravel road toward the house. The flashlight illuminated the path as we looked up to the September sky, wild with stars, trying to remember constellations we’d learned in science class.
    “Too many years ago for me,” I said, after only being able to find the Big and Little Dippers and Orion and the planet Venus. Bliss picked out Aries the Ram and Aquarius the Waterbearer.
    “Did you know that there is a cluster of stars called the Seven Sisters?” she asked.
    “No, I didn’t.”
    “My dad showed them to me.” She pointed up to a spot in the sky where a faint grouping of stars was visible. “It’s in the Taurus constellation. It’s also known as Pleiades. Seven stars can be seen with the naked eye, but with a telescope or really good binoculars you can see that there’s actually a couple of hundred. Look, they appear to be close together, but actually they’re really far apart.” She gave me a slight smile. “As my dad says, just like Cappy and her sisters.”
    “Seems like the name of your ranch has all sorts of hidden meanings.”
    “No kidding,” she said.
    The hint of sharpness in her voice caused me to glance at her in surprise, but she kept walking and didn’t elaborate.
    Sam, I thought, what have you gotten yourself into?
    “Let’s stop here for a moment,” she said when we reached a weathered wooden bench in front of a large metal building. A small security light bathed the area in a stark white glow. “I’m feeling a little sick.”
    I sat down next to her. “Want me to go get the Jeep?”
    “No, it’s not that much farther. It’s just that I seem to be getting my morning sickness at night. Lucky for me, I’m on day shift for the next three months.”
    We sat silently for a moment, uncomfortable with the mention of her pregnancy. The fact that I was married not only to her future father-in-law, but also her boss caused an awkwardness between us that was hard to breach.
    “So, what building is this?” I asked, turning to look.
    “It’s part of the winery. We store barrels of fermenting wine here. My uncle Chase has his office here.” She put a fist up to her mouth, her face grayish-green in the harsh light.
    “Should I go get Sam?”
    She swallowed hard, and her coloring came back. “No, it’s just a spell. Really, I don’t do this very often. I’ve found a good doctor, and he says I shouldn’t have any problems, that this feeling sick is perfectly normal and should pass in another month. I’m going to be able to work until the baby’s born.” She turned pink, which looked a whole lot better than green. “I’ll tell the chief that myself. I’m not trying to, like, pull strings or anything. I’ve made an appointment with him next week to talk about my schedule.”
    I touched her hand. “Bliss, you don’t have