Front Page Love

by Paige Lee Elliston

  The thought of Danny coming at 7:00 placed a broad smile on her face as she drove home. She had the whole day ahead of her. Ordinarily, she would have been hustling home to saddle Drifter to pleasure ride and to work him a bit. Horses didn’t enjoy blistering temperatures any more than humans did, but Drifter definitely needed some work, needed to run off some of his nervous energy. And another story idea had been poking at her mind, not quite announcing itself but instead giving her quick mental glimpses of it.

  OK, she decided as she parked next to her barn, Drifter needs the exercise, and so do I. Neither one of us will melt. Danny said using him wouldn’t have any effect on his scratches, so why not? She hung her camera around her neck by its leather strap before going into the barn.

  Drifter seemed to think a ride was a grand idea. He left the skimpy shade of the pines in the pasture and loped over to where Julie stood at the back door of the barn shaking sweet feed in a bucket, playing the horse’s favorite tune. He stood in the cross ties patiently, chomping a carrot, as she brushed him and then applied the blanket and double-rigged the western saddle. She eased the bit into his mouth after he’d swallowed his treat, placed her beat-up old Stetson on her head, filled a canteen, and led Drifter out into the sun.

  Julie stood still for a moment, the slightest bit dizzy, before she stepped into a stirrup. This is crazy—maybe we will melt. She ground tied Drifter and went back into the barn to fill her hat with water and then run water over the outside as well. The Stetson was a tad squishy as she jammed it back on her head, but the wetness made a difference. Outside she grabbed up her reins and swung into her saddle, setting Drifter off at a quick walk.

  She mused on the fortunes of the family whose land she was riding to see. Cyrus Huller and his three sons owned the largest corn operation in the county. The spring before the previous one, the Hullers had put in almost three thousand acres of feed corn. They’d done very well the year before, and they saw no reason why they wouldn’t this year.

  They hadn’t counted on the drought lasting or doing any real damage. Julie knew that farming always involved a roll of the dice. This year, the Huller men had bet wrong, sinking most of their finances into the bumper crop they anticipated. Julie had heard rumors about their misfortune. Now, she was going to check them out. Huller land began about eight or nine miles cross-country from Julie’s little ranch. That was where she was headed.

  Once she’d topped a long and gradual rise, Julie had the sensation that she’d ridden out of Montana and into a foreign country. The shrill screeching of insects sawed away with an intensity that was almost violent, and certainly louder than she’d ever heard before. The woods that began a couple of miles ahead of her—once verdant and inviting—were a dusty and limp olive brown. Julie could tell from the constant flicking of Drifter’s ears and the tightness of his stride that the strangeness was unsettling to him too. She turned in her saddle to look behind her, and the dust that Drifter’s hooves had put into the air pointed at horse and rider like an accusing finger.

  Drifter was dancing a bit, nodding his head, obviously wanting to run. Julie tapped her heels lightly against his side, and the gelding launched himself like a missile from a bazooka, scattering dirt and stones and clumps of dead grass behind him as he scrambled for traction on the baked earth. Julie leaned forward in the saddle. The healthy scent of her horse’s sweat was intoxicating, and the raw speed and power of the magnificent creature under her thrilled her to her core, as it always did.

  For a too-brief moment Julie was lost in the rush of the steamy air and the rhythmic, hollow-sounding thud of hooves against the dry earth. The speed washed away thoughts of the frustrating Danny Pulver, her sadness over the death of Dean Kendricks, and her recently completed article from her consciousness.

  Julie reined Drifter down to a lope and then checked him further to an easy canter. For once, he didn’t argue with her. As exhilarating as the burst of speed had been, it had sapped horse and rider.

  Picking through the woods afforded shade, and maybe even a couple of degrees of temperature difference. Julie relaxed in the saddle, letting Drifter weave his way around fallen trees, rocks, and patches of mean-looking brambles.

  Julie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand as thoughts of Danny came to her mind once again. “How about a celebratory dinner tonight?” What a sweet thought. But is he just being a good friend? Or is it more than that? He’s been giving me mixed signals for well over a year. Am I looking for something in Danny that doesn’t exist? Does he want a pal—a platonic sort of relationship rather than one that’s based on love and closeness and sharing of lives? If that’s the case, I gotta forget about him, because that’s not at all what I want.

  For a moment Julie resented the marital happiness of Maggie. That her marriage was almost perfect couldn’t be more obvious. Anyone near Maggie and Ian could feel the love between them, how they cherished one another.

  Julie swallowed the thought and the jealousy, momentarily angry at herself for even entertaining her bitterness over the joy of two people she genuinely loved.

  The forest ended abruptly. In one stride Julie and Drifter were among trees, and the next they were in the brassy sunshine. In all three directions, precise rows of three- to six-inch dull brown, desiccated spikes of corn reached for the horizon. The soil around the endless lines was almost chalky, as dry as powder, with no more life or promise to it than the scorched plants. An image of Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., appeared in Julie’s mind, with the parallel columns of gleaming white crosses reaching out seemingly to the ends of the earth.

  She dismounted and brought her camera to her eyes and clicked off a dozen photos, from close-ups of individual spikes to the endless rows of them. Drifter shook his head and snorted wetly. Julie took a long drink of the now warm water from her canteen and poured the rest into her hat, which she held out to her horse. Drifter sucked it dry in a couple of seconds and snorted again, demanding more.

  The trek back to Julie’s home wasn’t a pleasure ride. She realized that she’d gone too far in the hundred-plus-degree temperature, and she was concerned about the thick lather on Drifter’s chest and shoulders. He was sweating too hard for the minimal amount of work he was doing. He wasn’t weaving at all—a sign of dehydration in a horse—and his ears were alert, flicking to whatever caught his interest. Nevertheless, Julie reined in and took a pinch of skin on Drifter’s neck and then released it. The hide flowed back quickly, and Julie breathed a sigh of relief. If the pinched flesh had been slow to return to its normal state, she’d have known that the horse was overly fatigued and that he needed water badly.

  The sight of the barn, even broiling in the sun as it was, was like a view of the Garden of Eden. Drifter tugged at the reins and danced a bit, wanting to run the last half mile to his water bucket and feed trough, but Julie held him at a sedate walk until they arrived at the barn.

  After stripping off his saddle and blanket, Julie washed her horse from a large bucket of cool water, slopping it over him with a huge old sponge. Drifter grunted like a fat sow in mud as she sluiced the sweat, froth, and grime from him and then rough-dried him with an empty burlap feed sack. She turned him into his stall with a half bucket of water and a couple of generous scoops of molasses feed, and headed to her house.

  She checked her watch as she left it and her camera on the dresser in her bedroom and padded off to the shower: 2:14. Plenty of time. I can even straighten things up around here. I don’t want Danny to think I’m a slob. She grinned. He’s a neat freak. I know he is. The inside of his truck, with all his equipment and medication and supplies, is as ordered and precise as a chessboard.

  Julie’s smile stayed with her through her shower and shampoo, and by the time she started getting dressed, she was humming an old Beatles tune—“Norwegian Wood.” She checked the answering machine in her office and was pleased to see that the little red light wasn’t flashing. No news is good news, she thought.

  T
he grating howl of her old vacuum cleaner didn’t irritate her as it usually did as she shoved it over her living room carpet and along the baseboards. She sucked a dust bunny the size of a snapping turtle from under her couch and found a family of them under an end table. She bundled up newspapers, horse equipment, and western wear catalogs and junk mail circulars that had accumulated on her coffee table and stuffed them into the kitchen closet.

  The fresh, citrus scent of spray furniture polish lightened the muggy air, at least momentarily. Julie checked her refrigerator to make sure that her iced tea pitcher was full, and that the knucklebone she’d gotten for Sunday at the butcher shop in town was waiting for him. She looked into the freezer to determine whether or not the quart of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia had escaped and found it to be in place.

  She laughed at herself. I’m like a seventeen-year-old waiting to be picked up for prom. We’re going to barbecue a steak, and I feel like Danny’s taking me to Paris for dinner on the Concorde. A headline goaded her:

  Giddy Reporter Wrecks Date!

  Again she laughed at herself. I’m not going to wreck anything! This is a simple get-together. Of course, it’s quite possible that it could be an essential first step that could lead to something very good for both of us. Not that I’m fantasizing . . .

  Danny pulled in at exactly 7:00 and parked next to Julie’s truck. She watched through the kitchen window as he climbed out of his truck and motioned to Sunday, who bounded out to the ground and then watched Danny unload a huge wooden salad bowl and a bunch of wildflowers wrapped in wet newspaper. He clutched a brown paper bag in the same hand as the flowers. Julie went to the door and opened it.

  “Hey, guys!”

  Sunday hustled forward, dancing in front of Julie, his plumed tail thumping her legs as he moved around her. Julie crouched to welcome the dog, kneading the heavy fur just below his ears, causing him to grunt with pleasure and to draw his warm, wet tongue across her forehead.

  “Looks like you’ve got a friend for life,” Danny said. “He’s usually much more reserved.”

  Julie smiled up at Danny. “He knows how I feel about him.” She stood. “Come on—let’s go inside.”

  In the kitchen, Danny held out the wildflowers to Julie. “I was at Annie Steele’s place setting a broken leg on one of her goats. She said—and this is a quote—‘Ain’t no government flunkie gonna tell me what I can an’ can’t water. I’ve had my flower patch for better’n eighty summers, drought or no drought.’ Then she insisted I take these.”

  Julie laughed. “She’s a pistol, that Annie Steele. She’s got more spirit at eighty-four than a barn full of Quarter Horse stallions.”

  Danny set the salad bowl on the counter. “Here’s the dessert,” he said as he began taking something out of the brown paper bag. “I hope you like Ben and Jerry’s . . .”

  “Cherry Garcia?” she asked, taking her own quart from her freezer. “I absolutely love it!” She put both quarts in the freezer. “I have a wonderful b-o-n-e for your partner. Can he have it now?”

  Danny laughed. “Actually, he does know that word. He’d have been bouncing off the ceiling if you’d said it instead of spelled it. Sure—but send him outside or he’ll slobber all over your floor.”

  Julie took the hefty bone from the refrigerator. Its meaty scent immediately reached the collie, and he stood next to Julie, staring up at her, whining very quietly. When she’d shucked the butcher paper from the treat, Sunday’s whine escalated in volume and intensity. She led him to the door and out and then handed the bone to him, impressed with how gently he received it from her hand even though he was drooling copiously.

  “Thanks, Julie. It was nice of you to think of Sunday,” Danny said.

  “He’s my buddy.” Julie smiled. “Want to have an iced tea before we start the fire?”

  They sat in the living room, Danny on a love seat across from Julie on the couch. Her oscillating fan did little more than stir the thick, overheated air, but the conversation flowed naturally.

  “Great iced tea,” Danny commented. “Strong enough to melt a horseshoe, which is fine with me. That’s my pet peeve—weak iced tea and weak hot coffee.”

  Julie smiled. “That’s your only pet peeve?”

  “I don’t have many of them, actually,” Danny answered seriously. “Life is too short to let little things mess up a day—or even a minute.” He shifted uncomfortably in the love seat.

  “Do you want to sit over here and I’ll take the love seat? Is it too soft for you?”

  Color suffused Danny’s face. “It’s not the furniture. I was, well . . . um . . . butted today while I was bending over Annie Steele’s goat.”

  “Butted?”

  “Butted in the butt, I’m sad to say. That nanny goat hit me like an express train. I thought Annie was going to fall over from laughing so hard. And, knowing her, everybody in town will know about it by now.”

  Julie bit back a giggle. “Are you OK?” she asked. “Were you hurt?”

  “Just my pride, I guess. But I’ll tell you what: I won’t be going riding for a few days.”

  “Could have been worse, I suppose. I saw a goat at the Summer Barrel Racing Finals a couple of years ago whack a Chevy Blazer, and he punched in an entire door panel, even broke the window from the impact.”

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “For a relatively small animal, a goat can generate an amazing amount of power in a headlong charge.” He sipped some iced tea. “You know,” he said contemplatively, “this is something I never get tired of.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Listen for a minute.”

  She did so, cocking her head slightly, closing her eyes, still not sure what Danny meant. “I don’t hear a thing,” she said after a moment.

  “That’s exactly my point. The quiet—the peace—that’s such an inherent part of this area. It’s something really special. I’ve come home after a dozen or so hours of treating animals that didn’t at all want to be treated, of driving too many miles, drinking too much coffee, and missing a meal or two. And then I sit out in back of my place and watch the sunset, and all the stress and tension and aggravation just kind of drift off, like a storm cloud being chased by a breeze.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Julie said. “I’ve had the same sort of thing happen. I wouldn’t care to live anywhere else in the world.”

  “Neither would I. When I finished veterinary school I knew I could join a big city practice and make a ton of money and have all the toys and so forth—maybe open an equine-only clinic and treat the hunter-jumpers for the jet set. But that would’ve been a totally different sort of life, and not one I wanted to pursue.” He sighed contentedly. “I’ll take a fence to put my feet on and a lawn chair and my dog next to me over a swimming pool and martinis in suburbia any day.”

  Julie nodded. “Me too. I’ll take my small-town news-paper and my home and life here over anything the big city presses could offer me. I’ll never get rich, but I don’t really care about that. I’ll never get a bleeding ulcer or have to gobble pills to be able to stand myself, either.”

  “I guess we both know what we want—what’s important to us,” Danny said. “There are lots of people who don’t.”

  The silence that followed was an intimate one, and a comfortable one that lasted a few delicious seconds. Then Julie cleared her throat and asked, “Ready for dinner?”

  “You bet—but there’s one thing you haven’t mentioned yet.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “Your article. How did your boss like your story?”

  Julie stood. “I really don’t know. I dropped it off to Nancy this morning, and I haven’t heard anything from her, so . . . well . . . I’m not sure, I guess.”

  “I’m sure, though—she had to love it,” Danny said. “And if there was a problem with it, you’d have heard by now, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Of course you would. Come on—let’s cook that steak!”

&
nbsp; A short while later, they sat down to dinner. Danny’s salad was a work of art: crisp romaine lettuce, fresh Spanish onion, thick tomato slices, tiny radishes, baby carrots, bits of provolone cheese, all bathed in a rich, sweet but sharp Italian dressing. The steak was superb, with just enough marbling of fat to make it sizzle enticingly on the charcoal grill. Crusty chunks of Italian bread, tugged and torn rather than sliced from the loaf Julie had picked up at the grocery, complemented the beef and the salad perfectly. Sunday, just outside the kitchen door with his knucklebone between his forepaws, gnawed away happily as the humans ate at the kitchen table.

  When their plates were empty, Julie pushed back from the table and asked, “Coffee—strong coffee? Or do you want ice cream now?”

  Danny held up his hands in surrender. “I’m never going to eat anything ever again—but coffee sounds perfect.”

  “Why don’t you go into the living room while I brew up a pot? It won’t take a minute.”

  “Can I help you clean up a bit?”

  “There’s not much to do. Go on—I’ll be right out with our coffee.”

  “Fair enough,” Danny said. “Look—I know it’s still hotter than blazes out, but would you like to go for a walk in a while?”

  “Yes—yes I would. I was just kind of thinking the same thing. The moon should be almost full. It’ll be pretty.”

  The moon, just as Julie had said, was close to full. But it seemed to have a rare luminescence to it this night, as if it had grown in size and moved much closer to the earth. The shadows and craters seemed more precisely defined, and the light was pure and opalescent and subdued and fell on them softly, like a loving mother’s touch.

  Danny’s hand found Julie’s as they started up a slight grade following the pasture fence. Their palms met naturally, and their fingers interlocked gently as they walked. Sunday trip-tropped along beside the couple, stopping every so often to raise his nose to check the scents of the night.