Dodge the Bullet (7 page)

He looked at his watch. He’d promised her
he’d bring his horses and look over the other side of the river
that afternoon, but his stomach was grumbling and he had enough
work to do before sundown that he might not even be able to grab a
quick snack at the convenience store, much less trailer some horses
and take a look at her land. He reached for his cell phone to call
her and set a time to do it in the next few days.

When Sarah answered, Dodge imagined her
standing in the kitchen, wearing the same tank top as the night
they’d had dinner, but this time she didn’t have a shirt on over it
and she’d forgotten to wear a bra. She was fingering that medallion
that hung around her neck. He shook his head and reminded himself
to get some food in his stomach and maybe find some time to get
laid before seeing or speaking to her again.

“Sarah, its Dodge. Listen, I’m not going to
be able to come out this afternoon with the horses. I’ve had some
things go to hell in a hand basket today, and--” He stopped
speaking when he heard her giggling.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I haven’t heard
anyone use that expression since my grandfather. You were
saying?”

He’d lost all concentration after hearing
her breathy laugh. Damn, he needed to get laid. “I was just going
to suggest I bring the horses over sometime on Saturday.”

“I’m afraid Saturday won’t work. I’m going
to Denver to pick up my sister and the boys at the airport. Maybe
Sunday, if you’re free? I’m sure the boys would like to meet you.
And Jenny’s going to love you.”

“What am I, a side show?” He wasn’t
offended. In fact this was the first time all day he’d felt
anything other than pissed.

“The boys think I’m crazy for moving us here
to ranch. Maybe meeting a successful rancher might inspire them.
And my sister’s a sucker for a good-looking cowboy.”

He was momentarily distracted by the
good-looking comment when it suddenly hit him she intended to drive
another eight hours in that old sorry excuse for a truck. “Are you
renting a car to drive to Denver?”

“Why would I rent car when I have a
perfectly good truck?”

She was damned attached to that old clunker.
“How do you expect to fit four people and their luggage in that
thing?”

“I admit it’ll be tight, but we’re all
related and the luggage can go in the back.”

“Sarah, I was almost six feet tall when I
was your son’s age. And I can’t see your truck making it on an
eight hour round trip drive.”

“I’m getting pretty tired of defending my
truck. Trust me, we’ll be fine.”

Dodge sighed. Damn woman was stubborn to the
core. “Listen, I have an idea. Why don’t you borrow my truck to get
them from the airport? I’ve got a king cab in the back and room
enough for the luggage.” When he heard her about to object, he
added, “I’m afraid I won’t take no for an answer.”

“My truck can make the trip, but if you’re
going to get your hackles up, I suppose we would be more
comfortable in your truck.”

“Good. Tell me when you plan to leave and
I’ll make sure it’s there. You’ll just have to put up with the
smell,” he said, just to get her goat. Irritating her was turning
out to be the most fun he’d had in a long time.

###

When Sarah saw Jenny, Kevin and Lyle come
down the escalator toward baggage claim she felt a lump form in her
throat. She’d been anxious for them to arrive. Seeing them here, in
Colorado, walking toward her felt like starting act one, scene one
of the play she’d written, the play she’d cast with her family as
reluctant stars. Kevin had a scowl on his face, as usual. Lyle’s
smile lit up when he saw her. Jenny stumbled behind them, weighted
down by the items she imagined the boys insisted they needed on the
plane and then refused to carry. For such a tough woman, Jenny
could be a real sissy with her kids.

“Mom!” Lyle shouted as he made his way
through the crowd to greet her with a hug that almost knocked her
over.

Sarah held him at arms length. “Let me look
at you. I feel like it’s been a year since I’ve seen your handsome
face.” Lyle had Todd’s thick dark hair and warm brown eyes. He kept
it close cut like his dad. When he smiled, dimples appeared that
were destined to make the ladies swoon as soon as he set his mind
to catching their attention.

Kevin ambled over and raised his brows in
greeting. He didn’t even take the earphones out of his ears. Sarah
moved to hug him awkwardly and he tried his best to move away,
embarrassed by the attention. Sarah’s eyes moved to Jenny, who’d
witnessed their attempted embrace. Jenny shrugged.

Kevin seemed taller, a fact she would have
pointed out to him if he’d taken the damn earphones out, and his
light brown hair was shaggier than usual. Longer hair on boys had
been around awhile, but Kevin had mostly ignored the trend, until
now apparently. Maybe the girlfriend liked it longer. While Kevin
had Sarah’s lighter hair and green eyes, he was the spitting image
of his father with his broad shoulders, straight, almost
aristocratic nose and fair skin.

Jenny dropped the carry on luggage at
Sarah’s feet. “Hope you’ve got room for the luggage.” She gave her
sister a firm hug and a glad-to-see-you smile.

“You look like you’re ready to get back on
the plane for the return ride.”

“I’m not, but I’m ready to be just an aunt
again. This mothering stuff is not for wimps.” She rubbed her
aching shoulder. “Or those with bad backs.”

“Put those things in here.” Sarah pulled the
luggage cart forward. “We may need another cart, but we can load
this one up first.”

With two luggage carts filled to
overflowing, they padded through the parking lot. Sarah tried not
to let the weight of the cart drag her into one of the hundreds of
cars squeezed into impossibly tight parking spaces. She’d had a
hard time finding a spot for Dodge’s large truck that would allow
her to open the side door more than just a crack.

As they walked, Lyle happily relayed their
last days in Georgia. She heard sadness in his voice as he told her
about leaving his friends and with wicked glee he told of Kevin’s
tearful goodbye to his new girlfriend. Sarah had to roll her eyes
as he over exaggerated the drama of their parting.

She felt a part of her settle with her kids
back within arms reach. When she’d led them to the spot where she’d
parked Dodge’s truck, she had to call Kevin as he’d passed it in
search of her old clunker. “We’re right here, Kev.” She lowered the
back and began heaving the luggage into the truck bed.

“Whoa, don’t tell me you finally upgraded
the old truck.” Kevin stood gaping at Dodge’s nearly new Ford
F250.

“Get rid of my truck? No way.” Nobody
appreciated a classic.

“Whose truck is this?” Jenny asked.

“A guy whose been helping me make some plans
for the ranch. His name’s Dodge and he insisted I take it.” Sarah
knew Jenny would read more into Dodge’s offer than she should.

“Oh really,” Jenny said with a smirk. “You
haven’t mentioned him before.”

Sarah ignored her sister. It was a good
thing Dodge insisted she bring his truck because they never would
have fit themselves and the luggage into hers. They filed into the
truck, the kids in the back and she and Jenny in the front. Before
long they were heading along Denver’s highway system back south
toward Hailey. The kids settled in for the long haul after giving
half-hearted answers to Sarah’s questions. They were soon plugged
into their iPods. Normally she would have insisted they turn off
the gadgets, but this gave her and Jenny a chance to catch up
without the boys listening in.

“So, tell me about this Dodge
character.”

“Not much to tell,” Sarah hedged. “He came
out to the cabin the weekend I arrived as a request of some friend
of his and he’s been helping me out ever since.”

“That’s not what I’m asking and you know it.
Is he young? Old? Hot? Married? Missing a limb? What?”

Since her divorce almost five years ago,
Jenny couldn’t have a conversation about a man without asking about
his physical description, marital status and possible average
yearly salary. “He looks to be around my age and he’s not married,
or at least he doesn’t wear a ring and never speaks of a wife.”

“Is he hot?”

“He’s attractive, I guess, if you like tall,
dark and chauvinistic.”

Jenny looked at Sarah between narrowed eyes.
“I’m sensing some hostility. Is there something you’re not
telling?”

“He’s just old-fashioned in his views about
women. He worries about me being at the ranch alone and questions
most of the decisions I’ve made. He has a lot of sisters and I
think he views women as helpless.” Sarah shrugged. “It’s just a
guess because he doesn’t like to talk about himself.”

“Will I get to meet him before I go
home?”

Sarah watched tumbleweed cross the highway.
“I’m pretty sure he hasn’t grown so enamored with my truck today
that he won’t be interested in switching back.” Sarah could feel
Jenny’s eyes on her. “What?”

“God, you’re being sarcastic again. Being
out here has helped you already.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“You sounded more like the old Sarah just
then, that’s all. I wonder if it’s Colorado or this Dodge fellow
that’s got your spunk level back to normal.”

Sarah shook her head and snorted. “I knew
you were going to blow this way out of proportion. I just knew you
would.”

The
afternoon sun beat down on the balding head of Fred Saxton. No
wonder everybody around here constantly wore a hat of some kind. In
the winter, a hat provided protection from the bitter cold and
biting wind that always blew through the valley. In the other, more
pleasant seasons of the year, a hat provided shade from the sun
that had a tendency to blister the head of any fair-skinned
mid-westerner who ventured to higher ground. In every direction he
peered, mile after mile of dry land sat covered in sage brush and
hard dirt. The spring thaw had filled the nearby creek to capacity,
but it still didn’t affect the desiccated land adjacent the
worthless town of Cooper.

“Damn,” he said to no one in particular and
kicked a potato rock with the toe of his $3000 ostrich skin boots.
The development he’d been working on in outskirts of Cooper had
turned into a debacle. He never thought he’d see the day when the
Idaho project would seem like a cake walk compared to this
calamity. He’d made a fortune turning barren land into gentlemen’s
ranches, catering to the whims of the rich and fancy who wanted to
vacation in the wild west in the lap of luxury. He’d risked
everything on his first development, nearly eight years ago. Now he
stood at what felt like the same precipice where success meant more
money and failure was not an option.

Back then, when he’d started his first
development, all he’d had to lose was his standing with a few
commercial lenders. As his reputation for shrewdness and
risk-taking grew, the small town banks, his traditional source of
loans, became ever risk adverse; forcing him to seek what some
would call questionable sources of money. And gambling with other
people’s money, it turned out, was a perilous game of cat and
mouse. He usually felt like the fat cat in most scenarios, but with
the tightening of the water laws in Colorado, he’d started feeling
more like a mouse. He didn’t like it one bit. The only reason he
decided to bring in Senator Burwick was to help him skirt around
some of the government regulations that were the most formidable
obstacle of the project.

“You’d think a damn United States Senator
could push this water project through,” Fred said to Carlos Irajos,
his part-time driver and full-time body guard. “If I’d known two
years ago that we’d be this far delayed on the project, I’d never
had brought that good-for-nothing son of a bitch in on the deal in
the first place.”

“You wanna wait in the car boss?” Carlos
motioned to the jeep parked in the middle of the three thousand
acre future development site. The lots had been marked into 50 to
250 acre home sites. Each boasted spectacular mountain views, a
year round creek—a highly debatable fact that may or may not be
included in the marketing material, and a lodge house with gourmet
restaurant. Also included in the bargain price of your retirement
fund would be a twenty stall horse barn, eighteen hole executive
golf course and hundreds of miles of trails for riding and
hiking.

The dust created by their entrance had
settled and the jeep sat perched near the only shade for miles,
under an old spruce tree that had somehow survived the drought.
Saxton slapped the black Stetson back on his head after beating the
dust from the brim on his jeans and stalked back to the jeep for
his phone. “The least he could do is be here when he says he’s
going to.”

Just as Fred reached in the jeep for his
cell, a cloud of dust announced the arrival of the Senator and his
hot little assistant. Fred considered her an unwelcome distraction,
but Benji insisted she stay within spitting distance at their
meetings. He’d assured him of her fidelity, all the while coping a
cheap feel whenever he could manufacture an opportunity. Fred
didn’t know why, but there was something about the girl, something
in her eyes, that made him question her loyalty. But as was
typical, Benji thought with his crotch instead of his head. Fred
only hoped she proved as discreet as Benji had promised.

“This where the clubhouse is going to be?”
Benji asked as he squinted around at the dry ground. Fred noted
with disgust the Senator’s uncomfortable walk in his ironed jeans
and flashy shirt. “You got landscaping in your budget, Saxton,
because this is as barren a spot as the rest of the property. I
still think you should’ve put the clubhouse near the creek. At
least the cottonwoods would give the impression of lushness.”