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shooting.”
    That surprised her. “ You like to shoot guns? After you were shot ?” She covered her mouth. “Sorry, that came out wrong.”
    Archer smiled. “It took me a little while to be able to put my hands on a gun again but yeah, I like to shoot. Long guns over hand guns. What about you?”
    “I have a job, thank you very much. Just got it a couple of weeks ago.” Her eyes glowing, she explained that she’d fallen into the very part-time position by writing a letter to the editor of the local paper. “He was so impressed, he called. He about backed out when he found out I’m only seventeen but Daddy and I went in to talk to him. After I got into a heated debate with him over the merits of the candidates for the local school board and won, he caved. I’ll be doing a column every week. Maybe more if it works out. So what do you like to read?”
    “I don’t read much,” he admitted with what he hoped was a casual shrug. He figured he had a low chance of pulling off the nonchalance, given how intuitive Amelia had seemed so far. He was right.
    “Why not? Don’t you like books?” She was obviously shocked. Given the fact that her entire family seemed to have a love affair with the written word, Archer shouldn’t have been surprised.
    “I don’t read very well. So I don’t enjoy it.”
    She faced forward, giving a puzzled shake of her head. “Do you not enjoy it because you don’t do it well, or because you don’t like reading in general?” she asked softly.
    “Do we have to talk about this?” He pulled up a piece of clover and twirled it around, focusing his gaze on the white blossom.
    “Of course we don’t, not if you don’t want to. But if it’s something that bothers you, why don’t you do something about it?”
    Her voice was quiet, not judgmental at all. That alone kept him from biting her head off. “What is there to do? I’m a grown man. I should be able to read but I can’t. Am I happy about that? No. But it isn’t like I can go back to school and ask to join the second grade again.”
    Amelia was quiet, her chin resting on her upraised knees. “How is it that you can’t read?”
    He heaved out a sigh. “My mom died when I was six. Dad had a hard time with it. A real hard time. For the first couple of years, we just drifted along barely keeping things afloat. Most of that was Logan keeping us sane. And I fell behind. By the time Logan figured it out, I was too far behind to catch up. Too proud to ask for help. I quit school when I was sixteen and went to work full-time at Dad’s garage with his best friend. We’d been running it together anyhow after Dad died. I’ve always been good at math, and I hid not being able to read.”
    “None of your teachers ever noticed?”
    He shook his head. “They were too full of sympathy. ‘Those poor Gibson boys, lost both their parents.’” There was bitterness in his voice as he remembered that smothering sympathy and he didn’t bother disguising it.
    “So it isn’t that you have some learning disorder, necessarily, but that you didn’t get the instruction you needed. How well can you read?” Her eyes were narrowed and Archer could almost see the wheels turning in her brain.
    “Is there a point to this interrogation?” He reclined on his elbows and looked up at her against the sun.
    Amelia reached over and goosed him in the ribs, making him jump. “Yes, silly. Of course there’s a point. Well?”
    He groaned and flopped back onto the ground. “I don’t know. I can read my ABCs, simple sentences, words, but it takes a lot. Just picking out a card for your sister a few weeks ago was torture.”
    “I can’t imagine how hard life has to be and how many coping techniques you’ve had come up with in order to have hidden this for so long.” She sighed. “I work with Mom at the library as a volunteer for the literacy program. If you want to read I’ll teach you. But you have to want to learn.”
    Her tone was serious. When