She knew he was still there, watching her, so she went to the phone and called Luke, who answered almost immediately.
“Thank God, Vivi,” he said. “I’ve been going crazy waiting for you to call. I thought . . . maybe . . .”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” she said too sharply. “How about a drink? I need to get the hell off this ranch.”
“Perfect,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at eight. And Vivi: I love you.”
She knew what she was supposed to say, what he wanted to hear, but she couldn’t do it. Instead, she whispered, “Hurry, Luke,” and hung up.
Slowly, she turned to face Dallas again and saw the way he was smiling.
“Good idea, Vivi Ann. Run off to that pretty boyfriend of yours. He looks like one of those lapdog men who like the leash. See if he can scratch your itch.”
“I do not have an itch.”
But even as she said it, she knew suddenly it was a lie.
And Dallas knew it, too.
The Outlaw was quiet on this weekday night. A few haggard-looking regulars sat on barstools, nursing their drinks. Most were smoking. In the back, a couple of older women with long, permed hair were shooting pool. A pair of Native American men stood back by the restroom door, drinking beers. The jukebox thumped out an old Elvis tune.
Vivi Ann let Luke lead her to one of the small, varnished wooden tables to the left of the bar.
“Margarita?” he asked.
She nodded absently, said, “Rocks. No salt.”
When he walked away, she sighed, trying to listen to the music, but she couldn’t rid herself of Dallas’s voice. His words banged around in her head like stones in a coffee can. Clanging and discordant.
Be careful, Vivi Ann
. . .
I might touch you back
.
As if conjured by the course of her thoughts, he walked into the Outlaw. Across the smoky interior, their gazes met, and she caught her breath.
Then Luke was back, sliding into view and blocking Dallas out.
“Here you go,” he said, setting a pale green margarita down on the wobbly table. “Look who I found playing pool.”
Winona stepped in beside him. “Hello, Vivi Ann.”
There was something in Winona’s tone, an acidity that bore considering, but Vivi Ann didn’t care. Frankly, Winona had been a bitch lately, and Vivi Ann was tired of trying to figure out what she’d done wrong to her sister. And all she could think about was Dallas anyway.
She leaned sideways to look at the door, but he was gone.
A quick survey of the tavern revealed that he hadn’t stayed.
She stood up. “I need something out of my purse. I left it in your car. I’ll be right back.”
“I can get it for you—”
“No. Talk to Winona. I know how much you guys like each other.” She patted Luke’s shoulder as if he were a—
lapdog
.
“It’ll only take a second.” She refused to look at Winona, whose frown had deepened.
“Okay,” Luke said. “Hurry back.”
Feeling guilty and yet unable to stop herself, Vivi Ann rushed out of the tavern. The parking lot was empty.
He hadn’t waited for her.
She ran out to the street and saw him. He was at the corner by Myrtle’s Ice Cream Shop. He tilted his head for a moment as if he were listening to something, then he walked into the dark alley beside it.
“Stay here, Vivi,” she said aloud. “This is trouble.” But when he moved, she followed, staying far enough back that he couldn’t hear her. The alley was one of the few places in town Vivi Ann had never been, not even as a kid. It was narrow and dark and thick with litter: beer cans, empty booze bottles, cigarette butts. At the end of it, she paused and peered around.
Cat Morgan’s ramshackle bungalow sat on a lozenge of land that clung to the shoreline by dint of will. The yard was a mess and so was the house. Duct tape crisscrossed several broken windows and the front door hung askew. Moss furred the roof and turned the chimney a sick, nuclear-waste green. Over the years, Vivi Ann had heard dozens of shocking stories about what went on in this house.
Music pulsed into the night, a hard heavy metal song Vivi Ann didn’t recognize. Through the dirty windows, she could see people dancing.
Dallas went up to the front door and knocked.
The door swung open and Cat Morgan walked out. She wore a black velvet halter top that showed off her big boobs and tight black jeans tucked into silver cowboy boots. Hair the color of newly minted pennies fell in wild curls on either side of her heavily made-up face, and a dozen or so sterling bracelets encircled her wrist.
“Hey,” Dallas said.
Cat said something Vivi Ann couldn’t hear, then motioned for him to come inside. The screen door banged shut behind them.
Vivi Ann stood there a moment longer, waiting. When it was clear that Dallas wasn’t coming out, she headed back toward the nice part of town. In less than three minutes, she was in the Outlaw again, seated across from Luke and Winona.
Safe
. Like always.
“I’ve been wanting to talk about our wedding,” Luke said. “And now we’re all together. Is this a good time?”
She worked up a smile. “Sure, Luke. Let’s talk about it.”
“I am telling you, Aurora, something’s wrong.”
“Wow, big surprise. Here’s what’s wrong, Win: you’re an idiot. Even with your continent-sized brain, you didn’t get what was happening right in front of you and now you’re screwed. Your little sister is engaged to the man you love.”
“I never said I loved him.”
“And I never said my husband was boring, but you knew, just like I know about Luke.”
Winona sat back and pushed off. They were in the hanging porch swing at her sister’s house. The old chains creaked at the movement. “She doesn’t love him, Aurora.”
“So, what are you going to do?”
“What can I do? It’s over.”
“It’s not over till it’s over. All you have to do is tell Vivi Ann the truth. She’ll make it go away. She won’t marry him. I guarantee it.”
Winona stared out at her sister’s shadowy yard. It was ten o’clock on a weeknight and most of the neighboring houses were dark. Oyster Shores closed up early in the spring. “So all I have to do is admit that I love a man who thinks I’m a good lawyer and a great friend, and tell my beautiful younger sister that my happiness is more important than hers, and—just to add a cherry on the sundae of this humiliation—let Dad know that we won’t be getting Luke’s land by marriage after all, because pathetic Winona got in the way.”
“Jeez, when you put it that way . . .”
“It
is
that way. Maybe I could have done something at the start. I’ll admit I screwed up, but it’s too late now. I just have to suck it up.”
“Do you think you can quit being such a bitch? While you’re sucking it up, I mean?”
“I haven’t been a bitch.”
“Really? Trayna said you bit her head off the other day. And last Sunday after church, you didn’t even look at Luke and Vivi. And then there was the barrel-racing banquet you missed. People are going to notice.”
Winona sighed. “I know . . . I want . . .” She couldn’t even put it in words, this new need of hers. Its darkness embarrassed her. She didn’t just want Luke to suddenly love her. That wasn’t enough anymore. She wanted it to hurt Vivi Ann, to make her understand—for once—how it felt to lose.
“It’s us, Win,” Aurora said quietly, reaching for her hand. “The Grey sisters. You can’t let Luke mean more than we do.”
“I know,” she said, and it was true. She
did
know what was right here, what she had to do. She just couldn’t do it, and the realization of that hurt as much as the rest of it. Self-control had never been her strong suit. Before, that had meant only that she ate too much and exercised too little. These days, though, her emotions were as uncontrollable as her urges. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when she found herself hoping some terrible tragedy would befall Vivi Ann (not a death or anything, but something bad enough that Luke would leave her), Winona wondered what she was capable of. “Just watch Vivi Ann, okay? You’ll see she doesn’t love Luke.”
“Ah, Win,” Aurora said. “You don’t get it. The point is, he loves her.”
“He wouldn’t if he knew the truth.”
Aurora was staring at her now; even in the pale glow of the porch light, her worry was obvious. “You wouldn’t do something stupid, would you?”
Winona laughed. It only took a little effort to pull off. “Me? I’m the smartest person you know. I never do anything stupid.”
Aurora immediately relaxed. “Thank God. You were starting to sound sort of
Single White Female.
”
“You know me better than that,” she said, but much later, when she was home alone, thinking back to the Outlaw, remembering how Luke had looked at Vivi Ann, Winona worried about herself, too, worried about what she would someday do.
From the dining room, Vivi Ann could see the yard, the barn, and the paddock. In the pink light of this early morning everything looked soft and a little surreal.
She told herself she was setting the table, just as she always did, that she wasn’t waiting at the window, but when Dallas came into view she recognized her own lie. Schooling her face into neutral, she opened the door. “Hey,” she said, wiping her hands on a pink rag. It was the first time she’d been here for breakfast with him and even as she did it, stayed, she knew she was making a mistake.
Be careful, Vivi Ann.
“You gonna leave the dang door open all morning?” her dad said, coming up behind her.
“Come in, Dallas. Have a seat,” she said, leading him toward the table.
Vivi Ann served breakfast and sat down between them. When Dad finished his prayer, they each began eating.
Vivi Ann had eaten breakfast in silence for most of her life. Her dad and cowboys in general were not the most talkative bunch, but this morning it grated on her nerves. She knew Dallas was watching her when she said, “The next roping is coming up. I’m going to need some flyers posted.”
“I c’n do that,” Dallas said. “Just tell me where you want them.”
She nodded. “And that leak in the loafing shed—”
“I fixed that yesterday.”
She looked at Dallas, surprised. “I didn’t write it down.”
“What makes you think I can read, anyway?”
Dad made a sound at that, a kind of snort, and kept reading his magazine.
She forced her gaze away from Dallas’s face and looked at her father. “Can you come to Sequim with me today?”
“I got a full schedule, Vivi,” Dad said, cutting his ham steak. “Six horses to shoe. Last one’s all the way out to Quilcene. You got a horse needs rescuin’?”
She nodded.
“I could help you,” Dallas said.
“No, thank you. My fiancé can help me,” she said.
“Whatever you say.”
She pushed back from the table and went to start the dishes. By the time she was finished, they were both gone and the house was empty again.
For the next five hours she worked tirelessly: teaching lessons, training the Jurikas’ mare, and making up flyers. At eleven-thirty, she returned to the house and made lunch, half of which she wrapped up and put in a picnic basket; the other half she left on the table, wrapped up for Dallas. Then she went over to the yellow Princess phone in the kitchen and called Luke, who answered almost immediately.
“Hey, there. I want to kidnap you today,” she said. “I’ve got an abused horse to rescue in Sequim. We could have a picnic on the beach.”
“Damn. I wish you’d called earlier. I just committed to go out to the Winslow place. Their filly is limping.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sorry. We’re still on for dinner, right?”
“Of course.”
“See you at seven.”
She hung up the phone and walked outside. Standing on the porch, she saw Dallas turn the tractor toward her. When he saw her, a smile spread across his face, and she knew he’d expected her to come looking for him.
“I don’t have any choice,” she said aloud, to herself. “It’s just work.”
She crossed the parking area and stopped beside the tractor.
“It turns out I do need your help picking up that horse,” she said. Without waiting for him to answer, she headed over to the truck and climbed in. Ten minutes later, when she’d hitched up the six-horse trailer, she honked the horn impatiently.
As soon as he climbed into the passenger seat, she shoved the gearshift into drive; the truck lurched forward and they were off.
“You know how to load a skittish horse?” she asked after a long while.
“Yep.”
Miles passed in silence.
They were coming into Sequim when he spoke again. “Your first jackpot was a joke. You know that, right?”
Vivi Ann didn’t know what she’d expected from him: maybe some half-baked sexual innuendo or a silky smooth come-on. Maybe even a comment about Luke. But this . . . She frowned. “So I’ve heard. Repeatedly. Not that anyone has actually tried to help me.”
“I’ll help: Your prizes were too expensive, you had too many go-rounds, and your entry fees were too low. Most of all, you aren’t building up a mailing list. You need more regulars. I could teach roping. You wouldn’t have to charge much. The point is to get the guys used to coming here. Word will spread fast.”
She could see instantly how all that would work; she should have figured it out herself. “How do you know that?”
“We did it on the Poe Ranch. We’d have six hundred teams or more for a jackpot.”
“And you could do that? Teach roping?”
“I’d need a horse.”
“That’s not a problem.”
Vivi Ann glanced out at the field along the highway, watching the breeze cartwheel through the tall grass, and thought about how quickly things could change shape. A little wind, a little information . . .
“Thanks,” she said after a while. There was probably more to say, but she didn’t know what it was and he didn’t seem to care anyway.
“I’m surprised someone didn’t tell you all this before now.”
She came to Deer Valley Road and slowed, waiting for her chance to turn left. “People don’t take me seriously. They think I’m a Barbie doll. All blond hair and a plastic, empty head.”
“That explains Khaki Ken.”