The Devil in the Saddle

by Julia London

  “Just me and the blues,” Hallie muttered.

  “You and a blue streak, you mean,” Rafe said. “When I first heard it, I thought it had to be Miss Dolly. No disrespect, but your grandmother can get a little salty.”

  Hallie snorted. “Tell me about it.”

  “But Miss Dolly doesn’t generally cry. And whoever was cussing was sobbing.”

  “Okay, thank you, that’s all I need to hear,” Hallie said, and, mortified, turned her face into the pillow. “Just shoot me, Rafe. Find a gun and take me out back and shoot me.”

  “Nah,” he said, and shifted on the bed. “You’re too pretty to shoot. Anyway, I went to have a look,” he continued, “and as I got closer, who should I see but Hallie Prince hobbling out to the garage like she had a peg leg.”

  “I wasn’t hobbling,” Hallie said. Give her a little dignity in this tale, please.

  But Rafe leaned over and picked something up off the floor. He held up one of her wedding shoes. The heel was broken. Broken? Oh, right—she’d slammed the sparkly silver shoe against a brick wall.

  “That wasn’t all,” Rafe said.

  “How did I know that? Let me guess—you also noticed I was quite inebriated.”

  “Well, sure. I could smell that from thirty steps away. But what I thought was a little strange was that you were wearing your wedding dress. And as far as I knew, you weren’t getting married last night.”

  She wasn’t getting married at all. The spread in Bridal Guide magazine, the feature and registry on theknot.com, three hundred guests, followed by the reception at the Sky Room in San Antonio, and that followed the next day by another reception at the River Oaks Country Club in Houston, where Chris was from. “It’s not my wedding dress,” she said. “It’s one of my reception dresses.”

  “That’s not the first time you’ve said that, and honestly, I have no idea what that means. All I know is that it looked like a wedding dress, and I thought it was a strange fashion choice. That’s when things got interesting.”

  He was enjoying this, she could tell. Drawing out the torture. Hallie was fairly certain she didn’t want to hear the rest.

  “Now, I didn’t believe you could actually pour yourself into the driver’s seat of your car, especially after you practically nose-dived into the hood of it trying to walk around it. But you always surprise me, Hallie. Somehow, you managed to put yourself in the driver’s seat. So I walked up and stood in front of the car, because, obviously, I wasn’t going to let you drive.”

  “You realize it’s a miracle I even saw you and didn’t run right over you,” she said. “You risked your life and all your limbs.”

  Rafe laughed. “Oh, you saw me, Hal. You were so pissed I wouldn’t move that you laid on the horn and sent everything from cattle to baby rabbits running across Texas. And then you got out and Frankensteined your way over to me and started shouting something about a whore and a wedding cake.”

  She groaned with mortification. “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “You got really mad when I said you were going to have to walk if you were that determined to get to Houston. That’s when you went all King Kong on me and started smashing buildings and hurling cars.”

  “You’re exaggerating!”

  “You threw your broken shoe at me.”

  “Rafe! Did I? I am so sorry!”

  “You were wide by a mile.” He smiled.

  She let out a sigh of relief.

  “But then you took a swing at me, and you had some velocity behind it.” He sounded almost impressed.

  “Ohmigod,” she muttered. “I had no idea I was one of those girls who fights when she’s drunk.”

  Rafe laughed. “For what it’s worth, you’re a horrible fighter. Your swing was so wild that it knocked you off balance, and you crashed into me and then grabbed on to cry some more.”

  “Do me a favor and open the window, will you? I’m going through,” she said, and buried her face in the pillow. It was sort of impossible to believe . . . and yet entirely possible to believe . . . that she could make such an ass of herself. She didn’t know who she was these days. “Rafe . . . I am so, so sorry,” she murmured tearfully, and lifted her face. “I’m a horrible drinker. I mean I don’t drink. Until I do, and apparently, I’m about as gifted at that as anything else.”

  “It’s okay, Hal,” he said with a kind smile, and caressed her arm. “You’re entitled to let loose once in a while. Hey . . . I haven’t talked to you in a few weeks. I didn’t know about your, ah . . . wedding,” he said carefully.

  For years, she and Rafe had gone through periods of intense texting to very little texting, depending on what was going on in their lives. Over the last few months, Hallie had been caught up with wedding planning. Rafe had been caught up with school and some project in Chicago. She glanced at him sidelong. “Did I tell you?”

  “You told me. And included some very vivid imagery.” He smiled and squeezed her arm affectionately. “I’m sorry, Hallie. That really sucks.”

  Hallie closed her eyes. He had no idea. “Thanks,” she whispered. “Then what happened? How’d we end up in my room?”

  “Let’s see. I suggested maybe you ought to go to bed, and you decided that was a good idea, because the fight had gone out of you. Unfortunately, no one was home, and I couldn’t trust you not to stab yourself in the eye, so I hung out for a little bit.”

  “You mean you saved me. Again.”

  “I don’t mean that at all. I did what any friend would do. Especially if their friend was drunk out of her mind stumbling around in a wedding dress.”

  “Reception dress. But you know what I mean, Rafe. You’re always there for me. Remember the time you pulled me out the bathroom window at Alexandra Ferguson’s graduation party?”

  He looked puzzled.

  “You don’t remember? I was sixteen and had that ridiculous crush on Jonathan Peavey.”

  “Oh, that time,” Rafe said, nodding. He rearranged himself so that he was sitting beside her now, propped against the headboard of her bed; one leg stretched long, one foot on the floor. “I hate to say I told you so—”

  “Really? You hate to say it? Because you said it like a thousand times, as I recall—”

  “Well, come on, Hallie, everyone knew he was gay. That is, everyone but you.”

  “It’s not like he wore a shirt that said ‘I’m gay.’ I made the biggest fool of myself that night,” Hallie said. “There was no way I could have walked through that party with my head up after I tried to kiss him in front of everyone and he almost fainted with terror. You saved me from even more humiliation, Rafe. You were there for me.”

  “Hallie. You were halfway out the bathroom window when I found you. I just helped you land on your feet instead of your head.”

  “And what about that time in middle school, when Melissa Rodriguez took her parents’ car without permission and we were going to go on a joyride? You told her if she didn’t get out of here, you’d jujitsu her butt back home. I was so mad at you.”

  “I don’t believe it was jujitsu,” he said. “I think I threatened tae kwon do. She was thirteen. So were you. You had no business being in that car.”

  “Well, I know that now,” Hallie said. “The point is, you saved me then, too, because Melissa ended up backing that car into a light pole. If I’d been in that car, my mother would have killed me.”

  “Okay, I helped you out a couple of times. It’s no big thing.”

  “It is.” She eased herself up to sit beside him, propped against her headboard. She glanced down at her reception dress. “You were also there for me when I found out my dad died. Remember?”

  Rafe took her hand in his. “I definitely remember.”

  The day her dad dropped dead, Hallie had been in Houston. Nick called her and told her he was on his way to pick her up. All he would say was
that something had happened to Dad. He didn’t have to say more—Hallie just knew. She’d tried to get hold of Chris, but he was in surgery, could not be reached. For some reason, Hallie had called Rafe’s cell. He’d been in Chicago, but he answered immediately, and he stayed on the phone with her until she could collect herself and gather her things.

  After a long moment, he let go of her hand and rubbed his palms on his jeans. “So it’s really over with you and the doc, huh?”

  An image of Chris’s handsome face danced in Hallie’s mind. His pale blue eyes. His golden hair, streaked by the sun after days spent on the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico in his enormous boat. His naked body on top of Dani’s naked body, who, if memory served, was still wearing her stupid stilettos. “Oh yeah, it’s over,” she said, willing the image away. “He keeps calling and texting, but for me, it’s dead and buried. Beaten and burned. Hacked and—”

  “I’m truly sorry, Hallie.”

  Her eyes welled. “Thanks, Rafe.” It had been almost a month. She felt a lump of hardness in the pit of her stomach when she thought of Chris. She wasn’t even sure if she missed him anymore. But she was beginning to despair of whether she would ever get over his betrayal. Over the utter humiliation of it. The terrible, soul-consuming feeling of realizing you’d been a colossal fool. Chris had destroyed the last little bit of faith in herself that she’d had. Hallie attempted to choke back a sob, but it sounded more like a honk.

  “Okay,” Rafe said, and patted her leg. “I’m going to go. Try and find something to eat to soak up all that gin.”

  “Tequila,” she murmured tearfully.

  “Ouch,” he said, grimacing. “That is a mean hangover.”

  He stood up and walked out of her room, giving her a last, reassuring smile before disappearing into the hall.

  Good ol’ Rafe. He’d stayed all night with her. After all these years, he was still one of her best friends.

  Her eyes felt heavy and her stomach felt queasy. She should get out of this stupid dress, but she didn’t have the energy. She’d do it in a minute, she thought, as she drifted into the dead sleep of a hangover.

  Chapter Two

  As a boy, Rafe had learned to navigate the service stairs in the mansion at Three Rivers Ranch. Even though the Prince children were their friends, the Fontana children had never been welcome to go traipsing about the main house. That was the law, set by Mrs. Prince. She was not a mean woman, as his sister Angie had believed. On the contrary, Mrs. Prince had always been supportive of Rafe. But she had certain expectations of how things should be, and it was her expectation that her majordomo’s children remained unseen by her and her friends.

  The house seemed awfully quiet. It was just past seven, and he supposed people were still sleeping. But it seemed odd to him—work on a ranch started when the sun came up.

  The mansion had always been at the nexus of a lot of activity beyond the workings of a modern ranch. It had seemed to him that people were constantly coming and going, and that at any given time, one could hear a loud argument or laughter.

  In his youth, the Princes seemed to constantly entertain, throwing parties and events on the terrace—charity events, political fundraisers, anniversary parties, what have you. Sleek cars lined the long brick drive, and music of all types—country western, string quartets, jazz trios from New Orleans—would fill the night sky and drift downwind across the pastures and undeveloped ranch land.

  Those parties had been legendary. Celebrities and high-placed politicians would put in appearances. The Texas registry of Who the Hell Was Who would fly in from around the state just for a good time. And come hunting season, forget it—the ranch had a hunting lodge, and it remained filled with men (mostly) and a lot of booze. Rafe knew this because one of his after-school jobs one year had been to drive out to the lodge and clean it up after a hunting party had come through. He could easily say that even after two tours of duty in Afghanistan, that job was one of the most disgusting.

  But Rafe understood from his father that things had changed since the patriarch, Charlie Prince, dropped dead of a heart attack on the golf course a few months ago. His dad said the ranch was different now. Somber. Other than the funeral reception for Mr. Prince, there’d been only one event here since, and that one was put on by Luca for his conservation project.

  His dad had also said that there were money problems. That seemed hard to believe—the house and grounds looked like they’d walked right out of a glossy magazine about the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Money had never been an issue for the Princes. But according to his dad, there were some big gambling debts. The family had been laying off staff, and his dad was worried.

  Rafe slipped out a side door and into the cool morning mist. The air felt heavy—a norther was supposed to sweep through tonight. The morning sun was only a thin line of yellow on the horizon, hemmed in by a weak gray sky.

  It wasn’t the prettiest sunrise Rafe had ever seen, but this was the part of the day that he liked best. The peaceful moments when the day was still full of promise.

  It was this quiet that he’d missed most about living at Three Rivers Ranch when he’d gone off to join the army. He’d missed summer nights under the stars with no sound but the distant call of a coyote, or a mother cow bellowing to her calf. Cool winter mornings that were so still one could hear the distant thrum of a truck on the highway several miles away. The world could be a very noisy place. Especially places like Afghanistan.

  He’d been raised a mile from here, the two houses separated by a well-worn path through cactus and cedar and along a riverbank. His father, Martin Fontana, was afforded the use of the ranch-held property for his family as part of his compensation. The house was a modest three bedroom, two bath. Rafe and his younger brother Rico had shared a room and plastered the walls with posters of baseball and basketball idols. Angie, his kid sister, had the room next door to them, her walls painted bubblegum pink, and her bedspread ice blue. His mother was a stay-at-home mom, always puttering around the kitchen, attending every school function, and sewing patches on the knees of his jeans. Until he was thirteen. That was when his mother suffered through her first bout of cancer. She was so sick, none of them thought she’d make it. Rafe’s dad was a great ranch manager, but he was a horrible caregiver, and the burden had fallen to Rafe. There wasn’t much worse than seeing your mother sick and weak and helpless.

  Rafe yawned as he walked down the side of the house. He’d slept very little through the night, too self-conscious and absolutely terrified of getting comfortable in Hallie’s bed. So he’d read most of the night while she slept. When he and Hallie were kids, they’d shared a love of reading that the others didn’t have. They’d liked to exchange books—Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, the Chronicles of Narnia, to name a few. Rafe still loved to read, although he didn’t have as much time for it as he would have liked. Apparently, Hallie was still a voracious reader, because the bookshelf in her room was stuffed so full it was practically bowing at the seams.

  He turned the corner of the house to walk down the brick path that led to the garages and, beyond that, the stables. As he passed the expanse of lawn on the west side, he saw Miss Dolly, the mother of the late Charlie Prince. He’d spotted her in town recently and had been surprised to see that she’d colored her silver hair a shade of blue he was going to have to classify as interesting. But today it was pink and blue, and from a distance, she looked like a county fair snow cone in her white sweats. She was in the company of two women and a gentleman, all of them probably fellow octogenarians, judging by the way they were bent at the shoulders. The four of them were silently and solemnly moving through a series of tai chi poses.

  Rafe couldn’t help but smile—he was a little proud of himself, to be honest, because he was the one who’d taught Miss Dolly tai chi a few years ago when he’d been home on leave. He was a martial arts fanatic—it was his juice. He loved practicing and
teaching it.

  Miss Dolly had come to see his mother, whom he’d been tending after another bout of cancer. Miss Dolly had complained about her balance and held on to the wall as she’d walked down the hall to his mother’s bedroom. After a friendly discussion, she’d agreed to go to a tai chi class with him. After that class, she’d challenged him to design a training program for her. Well, Miss Dolly walked without needing a wall to hold on to now. His father said she was out here most mornings, going through the poses.

  Rafe ducked behind a hedge so as not to disturb them, and emerged onto the drive in front of the multicar garage. The door behind which Hallie’s Range Rover was parked was still open. He’d neglected to shut it last night after picking up her shoe and then dragging her inside. He walked over to the garage and pushed the button to close it.

  “Hey, Rafe.”

  Rafe jerked around to see Hallie’s older brother, Nick, standing a few feet away. “Dude, you startled me,” Rafe said. “Where were you hiding?”

  Nick grinned. “I wasn’t hiding. I just came up from the shed,” he said, gesturing with his chin to one of the nearby outbuildings.

  Nick had dark brown hair like Luca, and when he smiled, his unusually dark blue eyes took on a sparkle. Rafe had always thought Nick looked like Mr. Prince, whereas the twins looked more like Mrs. Prince. “What are you doing here?” he asked, clapping Rafe genially on the shoulder.

  “Home for the holidays,” Rafe said. “I promised Dad I’d stick around a few weeks. He says you’re a little shorthanded around here.”

  “Yeah,” Nick said, and his smile faded. “I’m sure Martin told you that my dad left us with some unexpected debt we’re trying to dig out from under. We had to let some of the hands go.” He winced. “Even Rick.”

  “Rick? No way.” Rafe was shocked—Rick had cowboyed at Three Rivers Ranch longer than he or Nick had been alive. No wonder his dad was so worried.