The Devil in the Saddle

by Julia London

  They made it to Amarillo that night on the strength of license plate games, Hallie’s awful singing of show tunes, Slim Jims, and iced tea. Five miles from the city limits, they saw a sign for a motel that was friendly to dogs, truckers, and children.

  “In that order?” Hallie asked.

  Rafe grimaced when he saw the place. He was fairly certain Hallie had never in her life darkened the door of a motel like this. But she went right on in, took a look around, flipped on the light in the bathroom, said, “Gross,” and then stepped out. “Under no circumstances will I step foot in that tub.” She bounced onto one of the two beds and invited Sulley to join her.

  Rafe had stretched out on the second bed, his legs feeling cramped from the drive. He could feel himself dozing off when Hallie’s phone pinged. He opened his eyes as she picked it up, looked at the screen, then tossed it aside.

  He didn’t ask her who. It was her ex again. He wanted to say that he didn’t like it, but in no scenario did he have that right. Neither of them had tried to define what had happened in Aspen. They weren’t exclusive. And the farther and farther they moved from Aspen, the more uncertain he was about what they were, exactly, and the less of a right he had.

  Plus, he was leaving for Chicago. That hadn’t changed—he’d invested too much of his time and money into that project. But that didn’t stop him from hating the doctor with everything that he had.

  He looked at Hallie. She was scratching Sulley’s ears. “Do you remember telling me you were going to Aspen to get clarity on what was next for you?”

  She looked at him with a funny smile. “Yes.”

  “Did you?”

  Her smile faded a little, and she glanced off. “In some ways, yeah. In others, not so much.” She stopped scratching Sulley’s ear and looked at him. “What about you? Did you find some clarity?”

  This was where his head and his heart were going to have a showdown. It was long overdue, really. But Rafe still couldn’t grapple with his thoughts. He couldn’t put them into any logical order. Or make sense of them and find a path through. “I think so, yes.”

  Her eyes widened slightly. And she grinned, resumed scratching Sulley’s ears. “We had an amazing time, didn’t we?”

  That didn’t sound like clarity. That sounded like she’d just gotten back from some trip, and now it was business as usual. That didn’t sound like she was thinking about what had happened between them and what it meant. “We damn sure did, Hal.” He reached across the space between the two beds for her hand.

  Hallie reached for her camera.

  Rafe mentally shook his head. This seemed all wrong, like an abrupt end to a movie. He didn’t want what had happened in Aspen to end, but what was he going to do, invite her to Chicago to sleep on Chaco’s couch with him? Make ends meet while he worked with underprivileged kids and worked toward his social work license?

  But why not? He didn’t care about the struggle he was facing if it was for her. And Hallie was not without her own resources if she needed them. Maybe she could find a dance class there. He didn’t know how that worked, but his head was filling with images of her walking Sulley along the shore, of the two of them nestled in a cozy apartment.

  “Hey, look at these.” Hallie moved to the bed he was on, nudging him until he made room for her. She showed him some of the pictures they’d taken. There was Rafe, on his back in the snow. There were the pine trees and aspens, the snow glistening on the mountaintops. There were several pictures of Sulley, and a few pictures that Rafe had taken of Hallie, always laughing, always smiling. A dab of snow on her nose, her eyes scrunched up with laughter. Her ridiculous snowplow form.

  And the last one. It was a picture of him, taken just last night. He was lying in bed, obviously naked, a sheet barely covering his lower half. He had curled his arm behind him to pillow his head, and he was looking at Hallie as she took the picture.

  It was the expression on his face that jolted him—it was a look of pure adoration. It was the look of a man who had pined for a woman for many years. There it was, glowing out of him. “Come to Chicago with me,” he blurted.

  Hallie snorted as she flicked through the pictures. “You don’t want me anywhere near a plumbing project.”

  “No, Hallie—I’m serious. Come with me. Live there. You and Sulley and me. You don’t have anything to hold you at Three Rivers now.”

  She looked startled. “Are you serious?”

  “More serious about this than I’ve ever been about anything in my life.” He sat up. “Chicago is a great city. Lots of culture and things to do. I am sure there are dance studios all over town.”

  “Wow,” she said softly. “I wasn’t expecting this.”

  He wondered what she did expect. “Just think about it,” he urged her. He pushed the camera aside and pulled her into his arms. “I love you, Hallie Jane. I want to be with you. I know it’s not what you’re used to, but we could be happy there.”

  “I want to be with you, too,” she said quietly.

  But she didn’t say yes to Chicago.

  The next morning, they were on the road by seven. Hallie didn’t talk as much as she had the day before. She said she was tired and slept through the miles where the air turned warmer as they passed from plains to hills. Rafe tried to talk, but his thoughts were descending into his own personal hell. The closer they got to San Antonio, the more uncertain he was. It seemed like Aspen had been a dream from which he was slowly waking, and his biggest fear—that he’d made a mess of things—was coming true. She was distracted. A little distant. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  Hallie drove the last leg, and pulled into the drive at Three Rivers Ranch at a speed Rafe would not consider safe. They sailed down and around the house to the garage area, where she hit the brakes a little hard.

  Rafe suppressed a groan at seeing Nick’s truck. Luca’s, too. And great, just to round it out, Mrs. Prince was standing in front of a delivery van, its panel doors open to reveal dozens of vases filled with flowers. Mrs. Prince was giving the driver a piece of her mind, judging by how her hands were flying. Hallie put the truck in park and stared.

  “Is that for one of your projects?” he asked.

  “No. I’m not doing the deconstruction anymore, I’m doing the aftermath now.”

  “The what?”

  “Aftermath,” she repeated, and opened the truck door and got out. Sulley bounded out after her, racing for the fence line to bark at the horses grazing there.

  Mrs. Prince turned around as Hallie walked to the front of the truck.

  Rafe was slow to get out. He felt a little queasy. Like he was about to be punched.

  Mrs. Prince looked at Hallie. Then at Rafe. Then at Hallie, her brows sliding down into a V. “Well, what the devil is going on here?”

  “Rafe gave me a ride home. What is this?” Hallie asked, gesturing to the delivery van.

  “This is your ex-fiancé’s latest effort to impress you. Your grandmother hasn’t stopped sneezing. She’s allergic to marigolds, you know,” Mrs. Prince said accusingly, as if Hallie had ordered marigolds from her ex.

  “He sent me flowers?” she asked disbelievingly.

  “Whole van is for you if you’re Hallie,” the driver said. “Where do you want me to put them?”

  “You want me to tell you where? Up his ass,” Hallie said, and folded her arms.

  Mrs. Prince made a sound of surprise. “That’s not exactly helpful.” To the driver she said, “If you would be so kind as to unload them into the garage, we’ll decide what to do with them.”

  Nick and Luca appeared now. Luca was holding Sulley. Rafe could not have asked for a worse scenario. Nick and Luca were giving him curious looks, and Rafe thought he and Hallie might as well have worn matching T-shirts reading “I slept with that one,” with arrows pointing at each other.

  “I must admit, I’m surp
rised to see you, Rafe,” Mrs. Prince said, turning her frown to him now that the driver had his instructions.

  “Hi, Mrs. Prince.”

  “Did you pick Hallie up at the airport?”

  “What?” Nick asked. “I was supposed to fly up and get you.” He sounded disappointed.

  “Okay, would you all stop looking at us as if we committed some heinous crime? Rafe brought Sulley to Aspen because Rico couldn’t, but I didn’t like being up there alone and asked him to bring me home. That’s it, that’s all there is to it.”

  That was it, huh? Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

  Rafe glanced at Hallie, but her expression was shuttered. No matter what he wanted to believe was true between them, he could see the hesitation in her. It was undoubtedly the same hesitation that caught him, time after time. She was a Prince. He was a Fontana. This was never going to be real, and his instincts had been right all along.

  “Speaking of that,” he said, and walked to the bed of his truck, removed her things and Sulley’s food, and set them on the drive. “Here you go, Hallie. I better get home.”

  “What?” Hallie said, turning to face him. “But—”

  “Yeah, I have that Chicago thing I’ve got to take care of,” he said. “I’ll text you later.”

  Hallie watched him as he got in the truck. She was still watching when he turned the truck around. And in his rearview mirror he could see that she continued to watch along with the rest of her family as he drove on.

  He drove almost blindly to his house, his mind working a thousand beats a minute. Angie’s car was parked in the drive, so he pulled up on the road. He rubbed his face with his hands, tried to wake himself up. He was tired and confused, and the scrutiny of his own family required a whole different kind of energy.

  He made himself get out and walk into the house as if nothing was up. As if he was coming home from the gym, or something equally benign. He was expecting a welcoming committee full of questions about where he’d been and what he’d been doing—he’d told his dad he would be out of town a couple of days, but didn’t say more than that.

  What he found, however, was his parents seated at the dining room table with the kids parked in front of cartoons in the living room. There was a somberness between them that alarmed Rafe. “What’s going on?”

  His mother turned a tear-filled gaze to him. “It’s Rico.”

  Rafe’s heart lurched painfully, and he felt like he was swaying on his feet, although he was standing perfectly still. “He’s dead,” he said softly.

  “Nope,” Angie said. “But he might as well be.”

  “He’s in jail,” his father said. “He’s been arrested for public intoxication.”

  “What?” How was that possible? Rico had been home maybe ten days, tops.

  “He’s in jail!” his father repeated. He rubbed his face with his hands. “Stupid, stupid,” he muttered, and stood up from the table and stalked into the kitchen.

  “He made a mistake,” his mother said.

  “Yeah, he made a mistake, all right,” his father said, and slammed the fridge door shut before appearing again. “I’ve got enough going on here with the Prince family falling apart, and now my own family. He’s going to wind up in prison. He doesn’t have any goals, he doesn’t have any ambition—”

  “Dad! He’s got a disease,” Angie said.

  “What he’s got is a lack of willpower.”

  Rafe’s dad had never bought into the idea that addiction was a disease. For him, it was a choice—just don’t drink. Man up. Take care of business. The blood began to drain from Rafe’s face, swirling into hot indignation in his chest. Rico needed help, and he wasn’t going to get it at home. Rafe knew what he had to do. But he resented it—all he’d ever done was help with his brother. And his family. His friends. Especially his father. Look after your mother, look after your brother and sister. Help, Rafe. We need you, Rafe.

  His father wasn’t through. He returned to the dining area, a lock of his salt-and-pepper hair curiously out of place and hanging over his brow, and gave Rafe a stern look. “Is it true? Have you been with Hallie these last few days?”

  Rico must have told him. “Yes.”

  “You were with Hallie?” Angie exclaimed.

  “Stay out of it, Ang,” Rafe warned her.

  His father dropped his head. His hands curled tightly around the top of a dining room chair. “You don’t know what you’re doing, Rafe. The Prince family will put on a good front, and they’ll make you think you’re their buddy, but when it comes right down to it, they’re as judgmental as anyone you will ever meet—”

  “Martin!” his mother said with alarm.

  His dad looked up. “She’s not your friend,” he said. “Don’t make that mistake.”

  “Dad, I—”

  “I have worked for this family for thirty years, son. You might have a grand old time of it, but in the end, it’s all gonna come out exactly like I’m telling you now—that family will not let her carry on with an employee’s son for long. That’s the way it works around here. We’re probably going to be gone from here by summer, mark my words.”

  “Martin, you’re borrowing trouble,” his mother said. “The Princes have been very good to us.”

  His dad clenched his jaw and looked at the three of them. “I’m just saying that we don’t need an excuse for Mrs. Prince to push me out, not with Rico in crisis. I’ve got no place to go at my age.”

  Rafe sighed. “Rico is always in crisis,” he said calmly. “He doesn’t need to be here, Dad. In fact, this is probably the worst place for him. He needs to be someplace where he can find something that interests him.”

  His mother shook her head. “And where would that be? We don’t have the money to send him anywhere.”

  “I do,” Rafe said. “He can come to Chicago with me.”

  His family looked at him with expressions of surprise and, worst of all, hope. A solution for Rico.

  Rafe to the rescue again.

  Rafe caught a flight to Chicago on standby that night to discover what the problem was with the gym and pave the way for his brother.

  He wasn’t much of a drinker, but he drank on that flight, stacking up the little bottles like a platoon. He was trying, without success, to numb his feelings. He hated himself for believing he could bring Hallie to Chicago and make a life with her there. He hated himself for believing he could escape the problems in his own family.

  What he wanted was to go back to the days in Aspen when he could pretend that nothing else existed or mattered but him and Hallie.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  It had been two days since Hallie and Rafe had returned from Aspen, and she’d received a text from him that said only, Family issues. OMW to Chicago. Talk to you later?

  What family issues? The Fontanas were the lucky, close-knit family that seemed to have a good time no matter what. The Prince family was the one with issues. She’d texted back: When will you be home?

  Not sure. Will let you know when I can. Boarding now.

  And that was that. She hadn’t heard another word since.

  Which would have been par for the course a few days ago, but then there was Aspen and, well, she was missing him terribly. She was having a full-on war with herself—she wanted Rafe. She wanted to be with him, she wanted to be in love . . .

  But she also wanted to pursue the ideas she’d slowly been developing. She wanted to figure out who she really was. To live, for at least a time, without anyone to depend on but herself. She needed to know if she could do it.

  Hallie was mulling this over as she drove around town, giving away armloads of flowers. Things had changed between her and Rafe after Amarillo. Everything had been so perfect in Aspen, and when he’d asked her to come to Chicago, her first thought was a hearty yes. But then something had clicked in her head, a
nd she’d wondered, was she really going to go from a broken engagement into a new relationship? Wasn’t that exactly what she had said she would not do? Was she quitting again?

  The thought had plagued her for the rest of the trip. She didn’t trust her emotions. She couldn’t say with confidence that she wasn’t choosing Rafe because it was the easy thing to do. Part of her wished everything could go back to the way it was before she’d kissed him, because at least she’d understood who and what they were then. But instead, she’d kissed him, and somehow, they’d slid off into a ditch.

  She walked into Jo’s Java with flowers and put them on a table in front of the daily specials board. She’d been Instagramming them in the various places she’d dropped them off yesterday and today. Those pictures had elicited another round of calls from Chris who, mysteriously, didn’t seem to be in surgery quite as often as he used to be.

  She was tired of him, too. It was more than time to put an end to this ridiculous chase of his. It almost seemed to excite him. The last time he’d called, Hallie had answered her phone and asked if they could have dinner.

  “Really? Are you kidding?” Chris asked.

  “Nope. Not kidding. I’ll come to Hou—”

  “I’ll come there. How about we go to Bliss? We haven’t been there in a long time.”

  Because Hallie didn’t care for that San Antonio restaurant. She’d told him that more than once. “Tomorrow night?” she asked. “I mean, can you get off work? I know how busy you are.”

  “For you, of course I can, Hallie. This is great. Thank you.”

  She wondered if he even noticed the irony in his declaration that he could get off work for her, when only a few short weeks ago, it was impossible. Well, Chris would not be thanking her when the evening was over.

  “What’s this?” Jo Carol asked. She stuck a pencil into her beehive and leaned over to smell the bouquet.