The Devil in the Saddle

by Julia London

  That was true, but she realized it was more than that. Since she’d broken things off, she felt like she could breathe. She felt totally free of expectation. Well, not counting her mother, but that was a yoke she was destined to bear all her life. But Chris? Society? Looking and behaving in ways others expected her to look and behave? She was done with that phase of her life. She was deciding her own path now.

  “Don’t say that,” he said pleadingly, and his eyes brimmed with tears.

  “May I have my Jimmy Choo clutch?”

  He seemed uncertain, but turned and walked to the dining room table and picked up a box. He handed it to her. “Will you at least think about it? Will you at least consider giving me a chance? How about this,” he said, sounding even more desperate. “I take you out on a date. One date. We start over. You know, we got a little lost there after your dad died. You were grieving, and I was working so much.”

  “Uh-huh. That’s when I needed you the most,” she reminded him.

  “I know. I know you did, and I failed you.” He shoved his fingers through his blond hair. “It was so overwhelming, you know? I wanted to be there for you, and I couldn’t, and I just needed a release, and Dani, well, I warned you about Dani.”

  That was true. He’d warned her that Dani had a reputation for betraying her friends. Maybe he’d warned her because he knew that Dani was already betraying her. With him.

  “That doesn’t excuse it,” he was quick to add. “But I’m just trying to explain that she caught me when I was at my most vulnerable, and I was so concerned about you and my workload, and things sort of snowballed.”

  “Oh,” Hallie said. “They snowballed.”

  “I’m not kidding around here,” he said adamantly. “Why would I beg you if I didn’t truly love you? It was a bad time, and I wanted to keep my problems from you because you were dealing with so much.”

  “Interesting,” she said, and tucked the Jimmy Choo box under her arm. “I don’t know how you could have possibly known what I was dealing with because you were too busy to see me or talk to me.”

  “That’s not true, Hallie. I know you don’t believe it is true because you are here. You’ve come to see me.”

  “Because you wouldn’t come get your dog!”

  “Isn’t it more than that?” he said, and took a step closer. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that you just stopped loving me because of the one mistake I made?”

  “I honestly expect you to believe it. It’s called conditional love, Chris. I promise to love you until you betray me, and then I don’t.”

  “Love doesn’t work like that.” Chris slowly reached for her elbow. He drew her a step or two closer. “You and I have been together for three years, baby,” he said softly, his voice sexy. “You don’t throw away three years because of one mistake. You don’t erase three years of love because you’re pissed.”

  Hallie suddenly thought of her mother and that strange feeling of sorrow she’d had in the warehouse with Luca and her grandmother. She imagined her father saying these very things to her mother. When she looked into Chris’s eyes, she remembered a trip to Tahiti they’d taken in the spring. Tahiti was beautiful, a true paradise. The waters were crystal blue, like his eyes, and they’d gone snorkeling, and they’d made love in a hammock, which, for the curious, was not as easy or as sexy as one might expect. “Sulley just peed on your floor,” she said.

  Chris whipped around as the puppy trotted over to Hallie, his leash trailing.

  “Goddammit,” Chris said, and strode into the kitchen for paper towels.

  Hallie waited until he was down on one knee, cleaning up the mess.

  “Thanks for the clutch. And, oh, by the way, I’m taking Sulley,” she said, and bent down to scoop him up. “Of course I give a damn about the dog,” she said, and turned around and walked out of his condo.

  “Hallie!” he shouted after her, but she let the door slam on his shouting.

  She hadn’t even made it to her car when she received a text.

  I won’t stop until you listen to me and believe me. I know you’re furious right now but there is so much we should talk about. I’m patient. I can wait as long as it takes and I will never stop loving you. And I think you still love me, too, because you came to Houston. You came to see me.

  “Is he serious right now?” Hallie asked. She slowly turned and looked up. Chris’s condo was on the fifteenth floor, but there he was, on his balcony, his arms braced on the railing, watching her.

  “That is, like, super creepy,” she said to Sulley. She put him in the back seat dog harness and tossed the Jimmy Choo clutch onto the passenger seat.

  As she pulled out of the parking lot, she allowed herself to think of that trip to Tahiti again. One night, after a day in the sun, Hallie had been too tired to go to dinner. So Chris had gone down to the bar to have a drink. He returned in the middle of the night, smelling like flowers. Everything smelled like flowers in Tahiti.

  But she also remembered another night, when she was a teen. A family trip to Cabo San Lucas, where they had—or used to have—a beach house in a fancy resort. She and Luca had snuck out one night, down to the beach. And through a window to the resort lounge, she’d seen her father and a woman she didn’t recognize. They were sitting on barstools, facing each other, her legs between Dad’s, and Dad wearing a loopy grin. Hallie had been only fourteen, but she instinctively knew what that was.

  She didn’t think about that grin until she was grown and her mother had kicked her father out of the house for cheating again.

  Chris had been naked with Dani, and yeah . . . that night in Tahiti felt a lot like that night in Cabo.

  Hallie was not her mother. She would not overlook infidelity just to be a Davenport. She would not put up with indiscretion just to have all the Jimmy Choo clutches she wanted. She’d rather live in sweats and hoodies and eat cheap tacos and work for a living.

  If she was going to work for a living, she needed to figure out how and when and where. She wished Rafe were here; she wished she could talk to him about all of this. But he was in Chicago, chasing his dreams, and besides, she’d probably blown it with him. She glanced at the puppy in the back seat. Maybe she was going to be one of those women who lived alone with an entire coterie of animals. “What do you think, Sulley? How does Taco Bell sound to you?” She pulled onto the highway.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was Rico’s idea to do the Jimmy Choo shoot on the east lawn. And when he said “shoot,” he meant with firework rockets.

  Hallie was skeptical about his plan. “What if it goes wrong and we catch the house on fire? My mother will never forgive me.”

  “It’s not going to go wrong, Hallie. Do you think I haven’t experimented with Roman candles and rockets all my life?”

  “That sounds about right,” she agreed.

  Rico had found a section of PVC pipe onto which he had affixed the rocket. On top of the rocket was her Jimmy Choo clutch. Hallie had told him about her trip to Houston to confront Chris about the puppy.

  “So you told him off, huh?” Rico asked as he worked on the setup.

  “I didn’t tell him off, exactly. But I let him know I’m not getting back with him.”

  “Stick to your guns, kid,” he said. “So what are you going to do now?”

  She put the puppy down and watched him bound off toward the bushes. “I think I’m going to Aspen.”

  “Awesome,” Rico said. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  She’d told him about her uncle’s offer last night when the two of them had decided to go into town for hot chocolate and wandered around the square looking at Christmas lights. Rico was enthusiastic about the prospect. “You’ll have that whole place to yourself. Do you ski?”

  “Do I ski,” she scoffed. “Okay, not very well. I like a good snowplow on the harder slopes.”


  “I could teach you how to ski, you know.”

  Hallie looked at him as she picked up the rocket packaging from where he’d tossed it on the grass. “Really? You’re a skier?”

  “You don’t remember? My family used to go to New Mexico every Christmas.”

  She didn’t remember that. But then again, her family had generally gone to places like Aspen or Zurich.

  “I could drive up,” Rico said. “Bring the pup, because you don’t want to leave him to Mrs. Prince. I could bring a few groceries—”

  Hallie’s phone suddenly rang. She pulled it out of her pocket, looked at the screen, and hit the mute button. Chris again.

  “So what do you say?” Rico asked.

  He was asking about Aspen, but Hallie looked at the contraption he’d made. “I say let’s do this,” she said, pointing at it.

  Rico grinned. “Stand back. Where’s Sulley?”

  She glanced around for the puppy. He was busy digging up a bush. “He’s okay,” she said, and started the video on her camera.

  “Okay, here goes nothing.” Rico crouched down, lit the fuse, then ran back, laughing like a kid. The rocket exploded. But it did not shoot the clutch into the pasture as Rico had predicted. The clutch exploded along with the rocket, and pieces of rocket and clutch went flying.

  “Rico!” Hallie shouted, and pointed at a small flare of fire in the grass. Rico was quick to stomp it out, then walked around the lawn to make sure no other hot spots had flared up. When he was certain there were no more, he picked up a piece of her clutch and held it up. They both burst out laughing.

  “What in the hell is going on here?”

  Rico and Hallie jerked around toward the sound of Rafe’s voice. Hallie didn’t know he was back, but here he was, striding into their midst, dressed in jeans and chaps, and holding Sulley, who was struggling to get out of Rafe’s grip. Rafe looked at the debris, then at Rico.

  Hallie felt instantly contrite. “It’s my fault,” she said quickly, raising her hand like a naughty kid at school. “I wanted it for my Instagram page. I’m up to forty-four thousand followers.”

  “Congratulations,” Rafe said coolly, and put down her dog. “You almost lost your puppy. I caught him before he ran up the road.”

  “Oh. Thank you.”

  “Do you realize you could have started a fire?” Rafe said to Rico. “That pasture is as dry as kindling.”

  Rico glanced guiltily over his shoulder.

  Rafe’s gaze raked over Hallie. He walked to where the PVC pipe was still jammed into the ground. “Get this cleaned up before Dad sees it,” he said in a low voice to Rico, then turned and walked away.

  Hallie and Rico watched him go. Hallie glanced at Rico, who shrugged. She ran after Rafe’s departing back. “Rafe!”

  He did not slow as he rounded the corner of the garage. “Rafe, wait!”

  He slowed. He looked skyward. Then down. And then slowly turned to face her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Really, I’m so sorry. Go ahead, tell me what a fool I am.”

  Rafe sighed. “You’ve done some crazy things, Hallie, but that was dangerous. Do you really need to be told that you could have burned down the ranch?”

  “No,” she said sheepishly. “You’re right. I thought it would work. Rico said—”

  “Here’s a tip—don’t go with what Rico says. He doesn’t have the best track record for making good decisions.”

  “Right.” As if she needed to be told that. She was a fool, all right. She was a fool for having made things weird between her and Rafe, for listening to Rico, for trusting Chris. A fool in general.

  The sound of her mother’s raised voice floated out an open window from the house, and both Hallie and Rafe glanced curiously in its direction. A moment passed before they heard Martin’s softer voice in response.

  Hallie looked at Rafe. “Did you take your test?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Are you ready for it?”

  “I think.”

  Was she misreading the tension between them? Was he really mad about the rocket, or was it still that damn kiss? That stupid, dangerous, and foolish kiss bouncing back and forth between them, a giant pair of lips that neither of them could see around? “I want to wish you all the luck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Her mother’s voice, even louder, reached them again, and this time, Martin’s was raised, too. “What are they going on about?” she asked.

  “Don’t know.” Rafe was staring at the house. He looked worried.

  Hallie wasn’t worried. She’d heard her mom and dad fight plenty of times. Whatever it was would blow over. But whatever the problem, her mother and Martin were having a full-blown row about it.

  “Rafe . . . I need to tell you something.”

  Rafe reluctantly turned his attention from the house. “Okay.”

  “I’ll make it quick,” she said, wincing a little when she heard her mother shout something that sounded like horse’s ass. “You were right. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that.”

  Rafe looked startled by the mention of it. “I don’t think that . . . I don’t think that we—”

  She put up her hand. “I really need to get this off my chest. I can be an idiot sometimes, I know that about myself. And with you, well, you’ve always been there for me, and you’re so important to me, and maybe I felt like my feelings were changing, but the bottom line is that I totally misread the situation.”

  “Wait, Hallie,” he said. “I wouldn’t say that you misread—”

  She couldn’t wait for him to smooth it over, she had to get this out. “Don’t try and make it better. I understand how awkward it must have been for you. I totally get it. You are right, your dad works for my mom, and besides, you’re going to Chicago, and I may be in Austin soon—”

  “Austin—?”

  “And the bottom line is that I took advantage of your kindness and the situation, and I was wrong to do it. So. I’m sorry I got pissy about it, but I was way out of line. I would hate to lose you over something like that. Because we both know nothing could ever really work between us . . . right?” How funny that she should wait so hopefully for him to correct her when she knew what she said was absolutely true.

  Rafe wasn’t going to correct her, no matter how much she wanted him to. Because Rafe, good ol’ dependable Rafe, was too responsible. He shook his head. He gave her a sad smile, almost as if she’d told him her dog had died. “No,” he said quietly. “Nothing could ever really work between us.”

  There it was, a definitive rejection. And now that that was out in the open, now that she knew how he really felt, maybe those giant lips would disappear from her mind’s eye. It was a hot air balloon, hovering over her and ruining everything.

  “I don’t mean that to sound harsh. But I don’t think you really understand. It’s not that I don’t—”

  Hallie’s mother suddenly shouted so loudly that it felt as if her voice rattled the windows. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do, Martin Fontana!”

  “Oh my God,” Hallie breathed. “What is the matter with her?”

  “I think I should go find out,” Rafe said, and was striding away without finishing his thought.

  Hallie would have to settle for his affirmation that there could never be anything between them. But she hadn’t had a chance to ask her last question. Could they still be friends?

  Honestly, she was glad she hadn’t asked that, because she wouldn’t be able to bear it if he was weird about it. As it was, her heart was hammering in her chest, and she felt like she wanted to throw up. She didn’t get it. She’d done the right thing, she’d apologized, and she ought to feel relieved. But she felt almost frantic. She felt humiliated. She felt incredibly sad, like she’d already lost her best friend.

  Why in God’s name hadn’t she left well enoug
h alone?

  Hallie made her way around the edge of the house. Rico had cleaned the lawn and was playing with Sulley. “Hey,” he said as she walked over to him to get her dog.

  “Hey,” she said.

  He peered at her. “You all right?”

  “Yes!” She smiled. “I am so all right.” Because she was going to Aspen.

  Chapter Eighteen

  When Rafe walked out of the building where he’d taken the last final test of his last college course, he paused to look around him. Funny how the sun looked the same. The school, too. The grass, the trees, the cars in the parking lot—everything was exactly the same.

  Everything looked and smelled the same, but really nothing was the same. Because Rafe was a college graduate.

  He couldn’t believe that was true, that he’d actually accomplished that goal. He was the first in his family to have a college degree. He felt elated and capable and . . . and strangely empty. As if everything he’d been holding in his tank had been released. All the hopes, the dreams, the long nights—all of it was gone.

  “Oh my God, we did it!” Arms slapped around him from behind and squeezed hard, and then Brittney popped in front of him, beaming. “A bunch of us are going to get a drink to celebrate. Want to go?”

  He smiled at her, caressed her arm. “Can’t make it. My family is waiting.”

  “Okay. Call me later?” She started to bounce away, to catch up with her friends, but when Rafe didn’t answer right away, she paused. She was smiling. Happy to be done with college, just like him. And she was smiling when she said, “You’re not going to call me later, are you?”

  “What?”

  She shrugged. “I always thought it was a semester thing. I mean, you’re moving to Chicago, I’m getting a job here.”