The Devil in the Saddle

by Julia London

  “I had a broken engagement before your grandfather came along,” Grandma announced.

  “You did?” Luca asked. “I never knew that. Who was he?”

  “Oh, he was just some old boy from Tennessee who came through here with big plans to run cattle. He sure was easy on the eyes. He didn’t have a lick of sense, mind you, but he was so cute I said I’d marry him anyway.”

  Hallie laughed. “So what happened?”

  “Well, I got to thinking about it, and I decided I didn’t want to marry a pretty face. The pretty wears off after a while, and then you’re stuck with a dimwit.”

  Luca chuckled. “Thank God you called it off, because we wouldn’t be here otherwise. Is that when you met Grandpa?”

  Hallie knew this story, but she never tired of hearing it.

  “Maybe a year later I met Grandpa at the annual Battle of the Flowers dance,” she said. The Battle of the Flowers was a signature event during the period of Fiesta each spring in San Antonio and surrounding areas, when the battle for the Alamo was commemorated. “He was so handsome.” She sighed dreamily. “Tall, like you, Luca. Rugged, like Nick. Nick looks a lot like your grandfather when he was young.”

  Hallie laughed out loud. “Grumpy?”

  Her grandmother smiled. “Your grandfather was just as smitten as I was, although he wouldn’t admit it. We danced all night, then we went outside and had a little smooch.”

  “Just a little one?” Luca teased her.

  “Goodness, don’t make me blush,” Grandma said. “Oh, I knew he was the one for me after that kiss, let me tell you. Sometimes, you just know. I knew.”

  “Yep. I knew it was Ella, too,” Luca agreed.

  Hallie felt an unwelcome swell of jealousy. She had never felt so certain of anyone.

  “But your grandfather was too stubborn by half. He didn’t think it was a good idea to marry a girl from the country.”

  “What?” Hallie asked as she set the aperture on her camera. “But he was from the country.”

  “Well, sure, but he lived at the ranch with his family. I lived on a little farmstead, like Ella’s. And he had big plans. He wanted to get into oil, and he thought if he did, he’d join the ranks of oilmen and rub elbows with the fancy people, and he didn’t want to be saddled with a country girl.”

  Hallie hadn’t heard the story quite like this and paused in what she was doing. “So what changed his mind?”

  “Me!” Grandma said brightly. “But I made him think it was his idea.” She chuckled, and sipped from her bottle. “That’s what you have to do sometimes, you know. I pretended like he didn’t mean that much to me and made sure he saw me with other boys. Whoo-boy, that settled things right then and there.”

  “That sounds a little manipulative, Grandma,” Luca said.

  “Well, sure it was,” Grandma agreed. “Do you know a better way?”

  Hallie laughed as she got down on her knees and started taking pictures.

  “Now, y’all don’t need to tell Delia I told you that, especially you, Hallie. She’d have a stroke. If you’re going to reconcile with Chris, she wants you to do it on your own terms.”

  Hallie’s head snapped up. “She wants me to reconcile with Chris?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say she wants you to,” Grandma said with a shrug. “But if you do, is all I’m saying. She wouldn’t want you to manipulate him, because that’s what Margaret Sutton Rhodes did to your father, and she’s never gotten over it.”

  “Oh my God,” Hallie breathed. “He cheated on me, Grandma. He betrayed me completely.”

  “I know, honey,” she said, and smiled sadly. “But your mother, well—she reconciled with your father twice, remember. Sometimes, you have to put up with the bad to get to the good.”

  That statement nauseated Hallie. It made her feel sorrowful and angry—furious with the sentiment, of course. But there was something about her mother’s grief that resonated with Hallie. In a weird, sick way, she could understand it.

  Luca, however, was not amused. “Hallie is not Mom. She doesn’t want to be with a cheater. We don’t want her to be with a cheater.”

  “Well, okay,” Grandma said cheerfully. “I’m just saying that if you change your mind, no one is going to judge you. When you get a little older, you’ll understand that things that seemed do or die when you’re young tend to lose their punch with a little time.”

  Hallie shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m actually having this conversation.”

  “I can’t either,” Luca said fiercely. “You deserve so much better than him, Hallie.”

  “Really? I don’t know,” she mused. “Maybe I got exactly what I deserved.”

  “What?” Luca snapped.

  “I don’t know, I’m just talking,” she said vaguely, but the thought had crossed her mind. Had she really loved Chris? Ever? Sure, she remembered all those giddy feelings of excitement and lust when they’d first started dating. And she’d had some good times with him. But had she really loved him? Or had she been going along with the life plan that had been set for her? Had she ever even taken a moment to really think about what path she was on? Or had she abdicated all the thinking after her shot at ballet hadn’t worked out? Hallie wasn’t so sure she’d thought much about anything with Chris other than what she was going to wear and what china pattern she ought to pick out. So maybe she had totally deserved that very rude awakening.

  She looked at the photos she had and was satisfied. It was time for the main event. “Okay, Grandma, are you ready to do the honors?”

  “I am indeed,” she said, and stood from her lawn chair.

  “Hope this works,” Hallie said.

  “It’s not going to work,” Luca said. He stood at the other end of the line, his arms folded across his chest. “They’re top heavy. They aren’t going to domino.”

  Hallie ignored him, pulled a box from a corner, and positioned herself on top of it with her camera. “Okay, on the count of three. One, two, three!”

  Her grandmother tipped the first champagne glass into the next one with her espadrille. Both glasses fell, but only one of them broke. The second one completely missed the third.

  “Yet another opportunity in which I get to say, ‘I told you so, Hal,’” Luca said smugly.

  Hallie and her grandmother looked at each other and burst into laughter. Luca shook his head.

  They never did get it to work, but after Luca’s intervention, Hallie had several broken champagne flutes lying on a bed of flowers. She took pictures, and then she and Luca cleaned everything up.

  “Biggest waste of my time since high school,” Luca groused.

  * * *

  • • •

  Luca had Hallie drop him at Ella’s when they were done. Hallie drove Grandma home. When they pulled into the long drive down to the ranch house, Hallie’s heart did a little bit of a jump—Rafe’s truck was parked in the drive of the storage shed. She could see Rafe, too, wearing a canvas jacket and cowboy hat, loading things into the back of the truck. Was he home from Chicago so soon? Was she supposed to be pleasantly surprised, or mad that he hadn’t told her?

  She was going to go with pleasantly surprised.

  “I guess he’s going to put up that porch swing I got at Walmart after all,” her grandmother said. “I think it will look nice over on the east lawn. Sometimes Mary Gruber gets a little dizzy when we’re doing our tai chi and needs to sit down for a bit.”

  Hallie coasted to a halt behind Rafe and rolled down her window, prepared to show him she wasn’t mad, that in fact she was sorry. “Hey!” she said, perhaps a little too brightly.

  Rafe whipped around. And then he grinned, ear to ear. But it wasn’t Rafe grinning at her. It was Rico.

  Hallie squealed, threw the gear into park, and hopped out. “Rico! You’re home!”

  “Hey, girl, you’re l
ooking hot as ever,” Rico said, and grabbed her up in a hug, kissing her cheek. He stepped back and let his dark brown eyes travel over her. “Mm-mmm, you just get better looking all the time.”

  “Oh stop,” she said, batting her eyes at him. “In a minute, I mean. At least go on for a minute. Hey, when did you get home?”

  “Thanksgiving. I’ve been instructed to help Dad around the ranch. He says you’ve lost a couple of hands.”

  “Yep. Are you putting up Grandma’s porch swing?”

  He looked past her to the car. “Is that Miss Dolly? Oh, I’ve got to get a kiss from my favorite grandma,” he said, and very theatrically slinked around the front of the truck. By the time he reached the passenger window, Hallie’s grandmother had rolled down the window, and Rico reached in to hug her, nearly pulling her out.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Grandma said happily.

  Everyone loved Rico—he was the life of the party. Which was what had gotten him into trouble, apparently, but still, everyone was always very happy to see him.

  “You gonna be around, Hallie?” Rico asked when he finished chatting with her grandmother. “If you need me to, I could do a little ass kicking for you. I hear you might have someone in mind.” He grinned.

  She had to appreciate someone who could speak about her dumpster fire without wearing a woeful look. “If there is any ass kicking, I’ll do it,” she said. “But you can watch. Sure, I’m going to be around.”

  “That makes two of us,” he said. “But between you and me, I gotta get out of here. Dad is already breathing down my neck about paying him back for everything I’ve ever done by working it off. The only problem is, I don’t think his idea and my idea of a solid day’s work are going to match up.”

  “Knowing Martin and knowing you, I’d say probably not.” Hallie grinned. “Great! I’ll see you around.”

  “Awesome.” He smiled with genuine affection.

  Hallie was still smiling when she got in the car. “That boy is such a player,” she said to her grandmother.

  “But he’s a darn cute one,” Grandma said. “If I was sixty years younger, I’d be doing a double take.”

  Her grandmother was right—Rico was a very handsome man, just like his brother. Only Rico was a lot flashier. In high school, on those days he’d deigned to attend, he always wore mirrored sunglasses and a studded belt. He had a nice physique, but he wasn’t as thick with muscle as Rafe was. He sported tattoos, where Rafe sported none, at least none that could be seen. Rico let his hair go long and shaggy, where Rafe kept his neatly cut. Rafe was a choirboy, her father had once said of him.

  Hallie remembered the evening her father said it. The two of them were on the patio, watching the sun slide west. Rafe had come riding in from the pastures, and the two of them watched him trot up to the stables and the paddock, and come down off his horse. He was wearing boots and jeans and a white T-shirt that fitted him close, and was drenched with his sweat.

  “See that kid?” her father had said, and pointed a cigar in Rafe’s direction. “That’s the kind of kid you hope your own kid turns out to be. He’s more concerned about others than he is himself.”

  “He is?” Hallie had asked. She was sixteen, and all she thought about was ballet and boys and clothes.

  “Damn sure is. You know what Martin told me? After school, Rafe volunteers his time to teach martial arts to these mentally challenged kids from the south side of San Antonio. Now that’s a calling,” he’d said, and hoisted a beer bottle to his lips. “Let me tell you something, Hal,” he’d said, and pointed his cigar at her. “It takes a special person to see the world by looking outward. Most of us stand in the world and look inward. Always helping others. You know his mom is sick, and he looks after the other two kids and even makes dinner some nights. Martin told me,” her father had said, and gave that remark a shake of his head. “Don’t see too many people like that. That’s a different sort of heart than what any of us have,” he’d said.

  “What do you mean?” Hallie had asked.

  “Bigger. Expansive.” Her father drank more beer, then said, “Can’t say that about any Prince I know. Just not how we’re wired.”

  Hallie had laughed.

  She hadn’t really understood her father’s regard for Rafe that day or why he was making Rafe sound like Mother Teresa. But her father had been right about Rafe.

  She probably shouldn’t have tried to kiss Mother Teresa. She’d wanted to, and she still did, but she needed to respect his wishes.

  And he did not wish her to kiss him.

  They reached the house, and Hallie helped Grandma with her lawn chair. When they walked into the house, Hallie’s mother was waiting for her, one arm crossed over her middle, the other hand holding a martini. She looked annoyed. “Hi, Mom,” Hallie said as she hauled a box into the mudroom and set it on a counter.

  “I thought you’d never get home.”

  Hallie laughed. “Why?”

  Her mother stepped to her right. Behind her, a very chubby black and brown puppy with speckled fur, one floppy and one pointed ear, and an enormous red bow tied around its neck was lying on the floor with a massive bone. Its back legs were splayed behind it, and its front paws, which were the size of tea saucers, were holding the bone as the puppy gnawed on one end.

  “Who is that?” Hallie asked.

  “Your new puppy,” her mother said, and sipped from her glass. “And there’s not enough gin in the world.”

  “Mine! What are you talking about?”

  “This puppy is a gift from your ex, Hallie. Chris came by today. Actually showed up at this door. He said you told him if he gave you a puppy, you would talk to him. Well, here’s your puppy, so now I guess you have to talk to him.”

  Hallie’s fury was instantaneous. She was going to kill him. She was going to use her bare hands and strangle the life from him. “I didn’t mean it! He knows I didn’t mean it!”

  “I don’t care if you meant it, what are we going to do with this dog?” her mother demanded.

  “We should name her first,” Grandma offered.

  “It is a he, and if we name that dog, we keep him. You know how this works, Dolly.”

  “We’re not naming him,” Hallie said. “He’s going back.”

  At that, the puppy’s head came up from the bone. He seemed to realize that there were others in the room, and sort of flopped around until he gained his feet and trotted over to have a good sniff of Hallie’s shoes.

  “You’ll need to house-train him,” her grandmother said.

  “I’m not keeping him! Chris is an idiot! I said that because he is afraid of dogs.”

  “He’s afraid of dogs?” her mother asked incredulously, and drained her martini glass. “What is the matter with people?”

  “Oh, look, that little cutie just peed on your boot,” Grandma said with delight.

  “Shit,” Hallie said, and shook it off.

  She was going to kill Chris.

  Chapter Fifteen

  There was nothing that could force a man to face his demons quite like an uncomfortable couch in a freezing basement in Chicago. That couch, which Rafe surfed for two nights, had become his sounding board. In the middle of the night, with one arm slung over his eyes, he thought about what had happened with Hallie on Thanksgiving. He thought about all of it—how aroused he’d been, how stunned he’d been, and how goddamn practical he’d been.

  Why was he like that? What possible childhood trauma could have made him so responsible? Why could he never be the guy to cross a line from time to time?

  But he wasn’t. Maybe because Rico was the line crosser. Growing up, it had seemed like having two line crossers in one family was a lot. Someone had to clean up the mess.

  All that regret made for some miserable nights in Jason Corona’s house.

  Jason lived with his family in a cra
mped bungalow in the Ashburn neighborhood of Chicago. In addition to him, there were five younger brothers and sisters, an abuela, and his parents, all under one roof. Rafe had once asked Jason why he lived at home—he made pretty good money working in security for the Chicago Bears football team.

  Jason had seemed surprised by the question. “Where else am I going to live?”

  Rafe would have thought anywhere else. Some place he might at least have his own bathroom—there were only two in this house. Rafe had been living in his family’s home for a few weeks, having given up his apartment when his dad said he needed help. But for him, it was a temporary gig, a stop on his way to Chicago, and even knowing that, he couldn’t wait to get out of there. Nothing against his family—but he was a grown man, and he didn’t need his mom asking when he’d be home for dinner.

  Jason’s family was a big, fun-loving group, and not one of them seemed to mind living like sardines. They spoke mostly Spanish, and while Rafe himself was Hispanic, he didn’t know much Spanish, other than some schoolyard Spanglish. His parents had been raised at a time when many Hispanic Texans tried to erase their ethnicity and appear to be white. They spoke English, and some had adopted English names. Fortunately, things had changed a lot since then, but Rafe and his siblings had never learned the language.

  He and Jason and Chaco worked all day at the new gym, bolting suspension straps to the walls and putting in a wood floor for the martial arts training. They’d go home for showers and meet up for dinner. Tomorrow, Rafe was returning to Texas.

  He was returning to the mess of his emotions he’d left behind. He’d tried like a soldier to churn those emotions out of him as they worked, but that tactic wasn’t as effective as it used to be. There were too many questions rumbling around in his head.

  His emotions were also jumbled up with the news that the project had hit a small road bump. The former retail space he and his friends had taken was in an old building, in a run-down part of the neighborhood that worked by its own set of rules. Jason’s dad had greased the wheels, but there were some holdups to getting the permits they needed to finish the work. The biggest obstacle was the permit for the overhaul of the ancient plumbing. “It’ll come through,” Jason had told Rafe and Chaco. “Just going to take some time. That’s the way it works around here—you grease one palm at a time.”