A Stallion Dream. Deborah Fletcher Mello

company for how many years now, and you still keep harping on the fact that it took me a little longer to find my way!”

      Matthew chuckled, “When you pay him back for those extra semesters I’m sure he’ll let it go.”

      “That would be a start,” John said teasingly as they all laughed heartily.

      Luke turned his attention back to his nephew. “So, what are your plans? You make any yet?”

      “Still trying to figure it out,” Collin answered as he shot his father a look.

      Matthew nodded. “Collin might do some pro bono work while he gets himself acclimated. He doesn’t know yet if corporate law is what he wants to do.”

      John nodded. “Nothing wrong with that. Take your time and don’t rush into anything. Success comes when you love what you’re doing, and it doesn’t feel like work.”

      “Actually,” Mark added, “I might be able to use you around here while you figure it out.”

      “Here?” Collin’s eyes widened.

      “We could use another mentor for our youth program. You went through it, so you’d be perfect. It’s only part-time and it doesn’t pay much, but it’ll put some change into your pocket until you find something else.”

      Collin glanced at his father and Matthew shrugged, lifting his hands as if he were surrendering.

      “I didn’t say anything,” Matthew said. “I told you everything will always work out when you need it to. You just need to have faith.”

      Mark looked from one to the other, a confused expression on his face. “What am I missing?”

      Matthew laughed, patting his son on the back. Before either could respond, John’s wife, Marah, called to them from the front porch. “Breakfast! Come eat, please!”

      * * *

      Collin slid back into the comfort of the family dynamics like he hadn’t been away at school for three years earning a bachelor’s degree in political science and another three earning a Juris Doctor. Summers when he hadn’t taken classes, he had interned. First, for a private marketing and communications firm, then a local senator at the Capitol building, and for the past two summers, with Mass Legal Aid Services. The experiences had helped him grow and now he was home.

      As the oldest grandchild in the family, he’d always heard his name called first and often. He was pleasantly surprised to see that his cousins and brother were now old enough to step up, the adults no longer looking to him first to run and fetch things or to corral the younger kids.

      He sat between his father and his uncle Mark, listening as his aunt Marah’s father told one of the bawdy jokes he was known for. The women were all shaking their heads and admonishing the old man to keep things G-rated for the many little ears hanging on to every word he was saying, while the youngsters hoped he would slip up and say something out of turn.

      Looking around the table, Collin was in awe of how everyone had seemed to age, still themselves, but not. Grandpa Edward sat at the head of the table. He’d been gray before, but his head of silver hair had thinned considerably. Shortly after the death of Juanita, his second wife, he’d suffered a stroke. Collin had been in high school then, and although it had been a few years since the old man’s health had failed him, Grandpa Edward still struggled with his speech. He also walked with a limp, and one arm was locked tight to his side, permanently disabled. He was particularly cantankerous, too.

      Marah fussed over him despite his constant bellowing to be left to his own devices. He loved to spend most of his time in the playroom on the second floor, watching the younger children play, and slipping five-dollar bills into their pockets when their parents weren’t looking. He and Collin had often fished together in the pond on the other side of the large estate and Collin hoped to be able to do that with the old man again.

      John and Marah sat on either side of the patriarch, Marah fretting and John beaming with pride as he sat back, observing them all. Once or twice he and Collin exchanged a look and Collin knew he embodied every hope and dream his uncle had ever had for all the members of his family. John’s daughter, Gabrielle, and Mark’s daughter, Irene, sat between their fathers, the two teens still bickering about nothing. Despite their age difference—Irene being older by four years—they were the best of friends, and when they weren’t fighting, the two girls were huddled together, whispering and laughing about something.

      Irene’s mother, his aunt Michelle, affectionately known as Mitch to family and friends, and his aunt Joanne, Luke’s wife, were refilling empty platters as they puttered between the kitchen and the oversize dining table. Collin’s mother and his aunt Phaedra, the only sister to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and married to his mother’s oldest brother, Mason Boudreaux, were in the other room rounding up the kids around their own table.

      Aunt Phaedra and Uncle Mason had three children: Cole, Addison and Fletcher Boudreaux. Jake was giving them orders, lording over the younger kids simply because he was older. Collin couldn’t help but think he’d taught him well. He turned his attention back to Grandpa Edward.

      The old man could barely hold his exuberance as he shared his joke. “It was spring in the Old West. The cowboys rode the trails looking for cattle that had survived the winter. As one cowboy’s horse went around the narrow trail, it came upon a rattlesnake warming itself in the spring sunshine. The horse reared, and the cowboy drew his six-gun to shoot the snake. ‘Hold on there, partner,’ said the snake. ‘Don’t shoot! I’m an enchanted rattlesnake, and if you don’t shoot me, I’ll give you any three wishes you want.’

      “The cowboy decided to take a chance. He knew he was safely out of the snake’s striking range. He said, ‘Okay, first, I’d like to have a face like Denzel, then I’d like a body like that wrestler they call the Rock, and finally, I’d like sexual equipment like this here horse I’m riding.’ The rattlesnake said, ‘All right, when you get back to the bunkhouse you’ll have all three wishes.’ The cowboy turned his horse around and galloped at full speed all the way to the bunkhouse. He dismounted and went straight inside to the mirror.

      “Staring back at him in the mirror was the face of Denzel. He ripped the shirt off his back and revealed bulging, rippling muscles, just like the Rock. Really excited now, he tore down his jeans, looked at his crotch and shouted, ‘Oh, my God, I was riding the mare!’”

      Collin burst out laughing with the older members of the family. Irene and Gabby exchanged a look.

      “I don’t get it,” fifteen-year-old Gabby said, looking around the table. Her eyes were wide, and bewilderment swept over her face.

      “You don’t need to get it,” John answered. He raised his eyebrows and tossed his wife a look.

      Marah only shook her head in response.

      Irene leaned to whisper in Gabrielle’s ear. Both girls suddenly burst out laughing.

      Collin was suddenly reminded of his high school graduation, when the girls had been eight and twelve and had thought it amusing to announce at family breakfast that they’d seen him playing with his penis after bursting into his room unannounced. He’d been mortified with embarrassment. Despite his insistence that he’d only been adjusting himself in his boxer briefs as he dressed, the moment had become fodder for too many jokes among the family. He stole a glance at Luke, who was grinning at him.

      He shook his head. “Don’t go there, Uncle Luke.”

      “You must have read my mind.”

      Matthew laughed, “I’m sure we all thought the same thing, but I agree with Collin. Time to let that go.”

      “Time to change the subject,” Marah intoned. “Everyone needs to eat up. We need to get ready to leave for church and from the looks of things some of you need a little more God than others!” She narrowed her gaze on the girls, her head waving from side to side.

      Gabrielle rolled her eyes, then zeroed in on Collin. Everyone had been extolling