The Wilder Sisters (11 page)

Outside the hardware store the decorative hitching-post rail had been recently painted Santa Fe blue. Lily dismounted and untied the knotted reins, securing the mare with a single slipknot. That way, in case of disaster, the horse could pull away without tearing her mouth. Lily brushed the worst of the horsehair from her crotch before she entered the store. There wasn’t much she could do about how sweaty she smelled, but this was a hardware store, for Pete’s sake, not Nordstrom’s. Who cared what she looked like so long as she bought something? The screen door banged shut behind her. Several old men stood around discussing serious plumbing issues. All they needed was a couple of pickle barrels and a checkerboard and they could have modeled for a Norman Rockwell painting. On and on they chattered, slow and deliberate, as if she were no more bothersome than a housefly. Lily tried not to act Californian about having to wait, but it was killing her, plus she was starving.

“The wax seal,” one of them was saying. “That’s the ticket.” “Yeah, get that little honey off-kilter, might as well go back to

outhouses.”

“Those new water conservation jobs seem like the plan. You get many complaints on those, Bill?”

“Can’t say that I do. Can’t say that I don’t, either.” The men laughed.

“What can you say?”

“Expensive.” “Necessary.”

“Only come in white, so women don’t much care for them.”

There was hardly any subject discussed in New Mexico that didn’t eventually bear heavily on the issue of water. Who got it, how much was used, and where it was being diverted and for what purpose. Lily tapped her foot and studied a box full of mousetraps. She scanned the shelves behind the counter, where dusty keychains shaped like chili peppers and aluminum flashlights abounded. In a long row, jars of salsa with gold labels sat waiting for some tourist who needed a length of rope to tie suitcases to a luggage rack to buy them on impulse. Bottom line? This was guy heaven, she was a girl, therefore invisible. Her stomach growled and her head ached.

“Haven’t had much luck with the push-button handle assembly,” the first man said and Lily couldn’t help it, she sighed loudly.

Behind her she could hear the footsteps of another customer ap- proaching. He cleared his throat, and the plumbing debate ceased. The men looked clean through Lily to whoever stood behind her.

Well, dammit all, no way was she going to lose her place in this mythical line due to her gender. She stepped forward and slapped her hand down on the counter. “Hey, I might have been gone from town awhile, but that doesn’t mean I’m transparent. All’s I want is a roll of fencing wire for Shep Hallford. He said you’d know what kind, you can charge it to my pop’s account, and I’d appreciate get- ting it before I’m eligible for social security.”

A hand touched her shoulder, and she spun around angrily, ex- pecting a fight or, worse, additional plumbing facts. Instead she looked straight up into soulful brown eyes surrounded by lashes so long it was criminal they’d been wasted on a male.

Just saying his name made her throat ache. “Tres?” “Sugarbush,” he said, low and easy, using his pet name for her

all those years ago. The endearment meant exactly what it sounded like, and Lily’s face burned with equal portions of pleasure and shame. “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”

“Unless I am too, you’re not.”

A pretty, dark-haired, very young woman stepped up beside him, locking a possessive hand onto his forearm, the arm attached to the hand that was just barely touching Lily. He placed his hand over the

young woman’s and patted it, but he did not stop looking at Lily, who had unconsciously tried to smooth her hair, which she was certain looked as bad as the rest of her. “It sure is good to see you. When did you get back into town?”

Lily wrinkled her nose and stared at the young woman. What was she? Seventeen? For God’s sake, who did Tres think he was? Woody Allen? “Apparently not soon enough.”

Tres turned to the girl and smiled an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry. This is Leah. Leah, I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine, Lily—” he stopped and gave her a questioning glance.

“Oh, it’s still Wilder.” Tres wanted to know if she was single. She supposed that counted for something, but she couldn’t say what, exactly. Leah was dressed in pressed jeans and nice boots, wearing one of those fancy embroidered denim jackets that cost a criminal amount of money and no one who actually lived in the West would be caught dead in. Lily became painfully aware of the chill of her sweaty T-shirt with the damp stains under her breasts and perspir- ation stripe down her back. Leah flashed a smile reminiscent of Buddy Guy just before he had lunged for the postal worker foolish enough to knock at Lily’s condo door. Lily grabbed three jars of the salsa just to put something in her hands. She turned and walked toward the door because she couldn’t bear to say good-bye.

“Hey, lady,” the man behind the counter said. “Don’t you want your wire?”

The way the man spoke the word it sounded like
war
. Lily nearly lost her balance turning back to get it, but she recovered with grace, letting the door slam behind her to tell Tres Quintero what she thought of grown men who dated children.

She tried putting the salsa jars into the cloth backpack she’d brought along for the groceries she’d planned to buy, but they were glass jars—Blaise’s container of choice, she reminded herself, feeling the slight pang of sorrow she knew would dog her for at least a year—and no matter how quietly she rode back to the ranch she knew the jars would clatter together and eventually one of them would break. There was a trash can on the hardware store’s porch, out of which stuck some old newspapers. Lily had her hands in the trash can pulling out sheets of newsprint when Tres and Leah exited the store carrying a brown paper bag full of God knows what they needed.

Leah looked long and hard at Lily before she spoke. “It was nice to meet you,” she said. Tres opened the passenger-side door of a truck, Leah got inside, and Lily hoped the first time she tried to wash it that jacket would lose half its beads, fade, shrink and get lost in the wash.

“Maybe I’ll see you around,” Tres said before he closed the driver’s-side door and started the ignition.

Lily just stood there with the moldy
Floralee Facts
smudging her arms with ink. She could have driven the Lexus, but no, she had to ride. She could have taken five seconds to change clothes, run a washcloth over her face, but no, this was Floralee, a town so small she never expected to see anyone who mattered. But the world was just chock-full of awful coincidences like this one, just aching to test her sanity. She didn’t say anything at all to Tres or that well-dressed little twit, but she did watch their truck pull away, drive down the street, and veer to the right, toward the mountains, where she re- membered that Tres’s parents once had a cabin.

They’re probably headed back to their love nest
, Lily thought.
What a shame it would be if Tres pulled a groin muscle. That kind of injury can take forever to heal
.

5

Mere Hours Away from That Seventh Star

t was six-thirty
A.M.
when Rose cleared away the breakfast plates, surprised to see that Amanda had eaten both her eggs, three pieces

of toast, and all the bacon. Her daughter’s appetite was typically birdlike, and she rarely got up this early. Amanda complained that her mother sneaked fat into everything in an attempt to make her obese. However, not this visit. Rose tried to think of all the reasons why that might have changed. Amanda and Caleb had been bum- ming around the West for months, and musicians weren’t typically the highest-paid members of the work force. Maybe Amanda’d learned to tank up when the opportunity presented itself. Perhaps it was some elaborate show staged for her mother’s benefit, and later on she was planning to throw it all up. Or maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t eating only for herself, a notion that made Rose feel as though she’d swallowed a rock. Beneath those baggy import-store clothes, who could tell what was going on?

“Know what I was planning to do today, before Doctor Donavan stole Max?”

“Go factory-outlet shopping, Mom? No thanks.”

Rose ignored the jibe. Only once had she suggested they try that, and Amanda’s derisive laughter had made her determined never to bring up the subject again. “Drive up to Pop’s ranch and spend the weekend. It’s so pretty up there this time of year. He and Mami are out of town, and the view’s so spectacular from the porch. It’s early yet, but some of the leaves are turning. You could come along if you want.”

Amanda shook her head no.

Rose’s fingers itched to get at the dreadlocks, to pour conditioner over each ropy strand, and even if it took hours of separating and combing, return the lovely brown hair with red highlights to its original shine.

“Look, Mom, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. The band plays in Flagstaff tomorrow night.”

Rose knew there were a dozen things she could have said:
You’re not in the band, you’re only the girlfriend; you could come for a couple of hours; what is the true purpose of your visit to the mother you cannot stand
? But all she said was, “It’s a long drive to Flagstaff.”

Rose ran hot water over the plates and scrubbed the egg spots so they wouldn’t dry caked on for life. No way was she going to make things easy for Amanda—ask what was going on or offer her money. They had been down this road before, and it always ended in flames. “Would you drive over with me to Doctor Donavan’s? Somebody has to ride Max back here.”

Her daughter sat looking out the window, leaning on her fist, which was tucked beneath her chin. “Why don’t you just hitch up the trailer?”

Rose set the clean plates into the dish drainer. “I was thinking you might like to ride your horse back. It’s only a couple of miles. But I can put him in the trailer if you don’t want to.”

Amanda made a face. “What
ever
, Mom.”

Which, if she didn’t say another word, Rose had learned meant yes. She let out a careful breath. “Okay. Just let me take a quick shower, and then we can get going.”

In Austin’s driveway Rose parked the Bronco in front of the adobe retaining wall surrounding his house. The wooden door set deep into the clay bore a carved likeness of the Virgin of Guadalupe. It reminded Rose of Santa Fe’s historical district, the old adobes along Acequia Madre, which ran parallel to Canyon Road. She wondered if Austin had built the house with such attention to detail to please Leah, something along the lines of,
If I’m going to move you all the way out here in the Floralee boonies, I promise I’ll make things as luxurious for you as I can
. If everyone suffered from such good intentions the world would be a much nicer place in which to live. She opened the gate latch and

walked into the courtyard, where more weeds than flowers were blooming.

Rose left Amanda at the barn seeing to Max, who ran loose in the arena with Jewel, the quarter-horse mare Austin had bought several years back from Rose’s father. Shep had pointed at the long-legged foal not long after she was born, remarking that one day she was going to make a wonderful riding horse, a real beauty temperament- wise, and that he hoped she’d end up with someone who’d appreci- ate her talents. When Rose’s father sold Jewel to Austin, horse and rider seemed like a perfect match. Austin had a quiet hand, Jewel was as responsive as they made them. He hadn’t ridden her in the Floralee parade this year, or lately much at all, it seemed—not that it was any of Rose’s business what he did with his mare. She opened the front door of Austin’s house and nearly tripped on the black- and-white blur that came flying around the corner. Bijou, his long- haired border collie, was eager to welcome any visitors. Rose petted the high-strung animal she could never look at her without feeling a pang of sympathy. How close the collie had come to losing her life! Six months back, first thing in the morning, a stranger had marched into the clinic dragging the collie behind him, tied to a length of filthy rope. It was obvious even to Rose that the dog had a broken front leg, but the man wasn’t standing there anxious for help, he was demanding the dog be put down. Paloma tried to ex- plain that the injury wasn’t hopeless, but he stood firm: He wanted her euthanized. “How can you be so heartless?” Rose had said without thinking. She started to explain that if he wanted to put the dog up for adoption there were several organizations she could refer him to, but he began yelling at her about his constitutional rights, and it all got very scary until Austin interrupted all the commotion when he laid a file on one of his surgical patients down on the counter. He hopped the reception counter and untied the dog from the rope, scooping her carefully into his arms. Never once had the collie whimpered or tried to bite, and Rose knew the leg had to hurt. “Consider this dog no longer your responsibility,” Austin had said, adding, “There’s no charge for the leg.” The man balked and one last time demanded she be put to sleep, as if the only thing that would satisfy him was seeing the still form of the troublesome pet. Rose would never forget the look Austin delivered. There was a fierceness present in his face that went even further back than divorce court. Certainly this was about taking care of a mistreated

animal, but his own feelings of abandonment seemed also to be at stake. “I’d like you to leave my place of business at once,” he icily informed the man, who recognized that the warning would soon be backed up by a fist. They never saw the man again. Austin had sedated the collie and set her leg—it was a simple break—nursed her back to trusting men by taking her everywhere he went, on calls and to lunch, errands, what have you. Austin might have forgotten to feed himself, but Bijou was never neglected. In fact, she was so grateful to have a kind home she’d do anything the vet asked of her, including wait forever for him to sober up.

Rose stooped down and petted her. “Hey, Bij. How are you?” The dog lay down, looked up at her, rolled over, looked again,

and then played dead, pausing between each trick, checking Rose’s face for approval.