The wheels started churning in Merry’s mind. A sense of hope, of excitement, uncurled in her gut. What she’d said to Joel was true. Aguas Milagros was worth more than just a couple of throwaway pieces posted on the Internet. It was a corner of the world unlike any other she had visited. A place that made you want to stay, get to know folks. Even set down roots. “You think anyone would be interested in reading a book like that?”
“I think…” Bob rested one warm hand on Merry’s shoulder. “I think with a book like that, you could make a real difference in this town.”
You make a difference, Merry thought. Aguas Milagros could hardly survive without Bob and his unique café. Dolly makes a difference. Jane makes a difference. And hell, Sam, sour as he is, makes a difference here. But how can I?
What does this town need?
A draft of autumn air swept Dolly into the café.
“I need Merry.” The screen door slapped shut behind her with a bang, and she caught sight of Bob, standing by Merry’s booth with his dishcloth in hand. “Don’t think I’m speaking to you just because I’m speaking near you, Bob Henderson. I only came looking for my redheaded ranch hand.” Her eyes lit on Merry. “Ah, there you are. Child, I am pure overwhelmed, and I need you back at the ranch. We’ve got to get prepped for the Wool Festival at Taos next weekend, and I’m about up to my eyeballs with everything that needs doing.”
“Um, Dolly…there’s something I have to tell you. Can you sit for a minute?”
Dolly plunked down opposite her in the booth, giving Bob the hairy eyeball as if daring him to challenge her right to be there. “What is it, child? You look worse than even Bob’s margaritas can account for.”
Bob’s lips tightened, though he pretended not to notice the jibe, heading back to the counter and his prized cappuccino maker. The sound of steam could be heard, coming, Merry thought, as much from his ears as the machine.
In as few words as she could, Merry filled Dolly in on the situation. Bob busied himself refilling Merry’s coffee cup, and brought over a cappuccino for Dolly as well. Merry noticed Dolly’s had a Medusa head drawn in the foam. Dolly sipped at it, then scowled when she realized she’d accepted Bob’s hospitality. She didn’t seem to notice the Gorgon she’d slurped.
“So, Don’t Do What I Did is basically kaput, though I’ll try to keep it going on my own website and see if I get any traction,” Merry finished. “I can keep doing my best for you around the ranch until Luke gets back, but I won’t have the same readership I once had. All that publicity I promised you and the Happy Hookers…well, I don’t know that I can deliver on that anymore.” She hung her head.
Dolly patted it, stroking her chapped fingers through Merry’s hair in a motherly gesture. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, hon. You’ve done plenty for us already, and it ain’t like I’d have gotten a ranch hand I didn’t have to pay if it hadn’t been for you coming here. Worry about yourself right now. Didn’t you tell me you planned to head straight on to the next gig after you were finished here, and your place was rented out meanwhile? You got somewhere to go after this?”
“Ah…I haven’t exactly figured that out yet.”
“Well I have, and it doesn’t take much figuring. You’ll stay at the ranch ’til you sort yourself out.” Dolly thumped the table decisively. “Looks like Luke’s taking his sweet time down in T or C anyhow, canoodling with his new bride. Might be a while before he makes his way back up our way, and with autumn settling in like it is, we’re gonna need someone handy with the ‘women’s work’ we do in the colder months. Spinning wool and such. Dyeing yarn. I can’t pay much, but I can keep your butt in biscuits ’til you figure out your next step.”
Merry gulped. “Uh, Dolly, you do know I’m not exactly…” She made crocheting motions with her hands.
“I know you aren’t. Not yet anyhow. But you’ll learn. That is, if you think you’re up for it—and you aren’t too proud for such homely stuff.”
“Dolly, I’d do just about anything for you. I hope you know that.” Merry’s throat tightened. “It’s only, I don’t want to let you down…”
“So don’t.”
Just like that, eh? Merry smiled wryly. A sense of relief washed over her at the thought of staying awhile longer. Relief, and something stronger. “Okay, but what about Sam?” she asked. “Last night he didn’t seem any too keen to have me sticking around.”
“You let me worry about Sam. Anyhow, he’s gone off on one of his legendary sulks as of this morning, and it may be a while before we see hide or hair of him again. Now, we finished jawing? I got about a truckful of yarn needs sorting, labeling, and packing up, a half-dozen prize alpacas waiting on a good grooming before we can show ’em at the festival, not to mention about ten hundred amigurumi need boxing and price tagging. So shake a tail feather, child, and let’s get a move on.”
Merry got to her feet, took Dolly’s hands in her own, and, with tears in her eyes, gently kissed the older woman’s weathered cheek. “Yes, ma’am!”
* * *
Once, they called me the redheaded renegade. (That might have had something to do with the way my skis went out from under me from time to time, but shush, we’re not talking about that.) Anyhow, now I’m going rogue once more, dear readers, and this time I invite you to join me. Aguas Milagros has been too damn much fun to leave behind. So I’m not going to leave it behind. I may be parting ways with Pulse, but I think I’ll stay with Dolly and her llamas awhile longer. I invite you to stick around too, and see what transpires. Find me at OnMyMerryWay.com.
The theme from The Exorcist poured out of Merry’s back pocket. She arched her butt up to retrieve her phone, looked at the screen, and winced. There were six missed calls from her mother, not including this last one. “Take a hint, woman!” she told the device.
“What’s that, hon?” Dolly looked over at Merry. She had one hand on the steering wheel of her battered old pickup, the other arm out the open window, and an inquisitive expression on her face as the wind teased her gingery hair. She was taking the winding road to Taos with the ease of someone intimately familiar with it.
“Oh, just my mother.” Merry stuck the phone back into her jeans pocket and unconsciously smoothed her unruly brows. “She’ll call about twenty-five times more, until I pick up. It’s never anything urgent, unless you consider the shameful state of my wardrobe or my skin-care regimen an emergency.”
Dolly cracked a smile. “You two not too keen on one another?”
“Oh, she’s keen on me,” Merry said. “Keen to change everything about me, that is.”
Dolly laughed. “Had me a mother like that. Wanted me to be a beauty queen, if you can believe it. Took me traipsing all over New Mexico trying to enter me in two-bit kiddie pageants. Me! I was practically born in a pair of shitkickers.”
Merry knew the feeling. If she had her way, they’d bury her in sweatpants. “So what did you do?”
“Got so bad, I started faking I was sick the morning before we’d set out on one of those stupid auditions. But it wasn’t ’til I hit upon the idea of drawing spots on my face that she finally took the hint. I only meant to dab on some chicken pox, but I used a Sharpie marker ’cause I didn’t know any better. Wouldn’t come off for about two weeks, and the whole time I was looking like Raggedy Ann.” She chuckled. “That was the end of that.”
“I wish it were that simple for me.” Merry sighed. “At least back when I skied I could get Mother off my case a little.”
“Is that why you did it?” Dolly wanted to know.
“Skied, you mean?”
Dolly nodded.
Merry looked out the window, letting the question settle in as the dramatic scenery sped by in tones of rust and sage and sand. She wanted to say yes. Her mother had pushed and pushed, and had as much as come out and said that Merry was only satisfactory as long as she could bring home gold. But she couldn’t honestly claim her whole career had been about making her mother proud. She’d made herself proud too
. There’d been nothing like the rush…the feeling of her body obeying every command, of being powerful, graceful, even fierce…instead of just a freak. Since she’d first picked up poles when she was three years old, nothing had ever made Merry feel so at home, so herself, as skiing.
No. She hadn’t done it for her mother. She’d done it for her own satisfaction, and if it got Gwendolyn off her back in the process, so much the better. “Let’s just say it was a point of commonality,” Merry said, “and once it was gone…well, these days we have fewer and fewer safe subjects to discuss.”
Merry’s phone played Tubular Bells again. She ground her tush into the car seat as if that might shut her mother up.
“You gonna keep ducking your ma forever?”
Maybe I can claim to be out of range for a little while longer. Or fake like I fell off a cliff. They were, after all, driving along the rim of the very steep Rio Grande gorge at the moment. But as much as she might fantasize doing a Thelma and Louise to escape reality, that would probably fly about as well as a ’66 Ford Thunderbird. “I’ll have to deal with her sooner or later,” Merry acknowledged. “There’s some family business that needs deciding, and they want to see me for Thanksgiving.”
“You should invite them out to the ranch,” Dolly surprised her by saying. “Might be nice, getting to meet your folks, and we always make enough food for an army.”
Merry choked on a laugh. The image of Gwendolyn Hollingsworth Manning at the Last Chance, surrounded by Dolly’s menagerie, was beyond absurd. And her father…Pierce would be gracious, of course, but she couldn’t really see him sitting down at Dolly’s kitchen table and tucking in to one of her homely meals.
Marcus might like it though. Merry smiled at the thought of her suave supermodel brother kicking back with a bunch of farm animals…and Sam Cassidy.
“That’s kind of you, Dolly. But I wouldn’t dream of imposing”—inflicting was more like it—“on you or Sam that way. You’ve already been so hospitable, and I’m sure I’ll have found my next gig by then.” She changed the subject before Dolly could insist. “Oh, hey, looks like we’re coming up to Taos!”
Aguas Milagros might be Merry’s new favorite hangout, but Taos was a pretty magical place too. With the bigger ski destinations of Aspen, Vail, and Telluride not far away, she’d never had cause (or time) to visit the funky little town, though she’d heard good things about the skiing here. Turned out Taos had a lot more going for it than just slopes.
Especially during the annual Wool Festival.
The town was painted in a palette of soft browns and faded greens, all beneath a sky so blue and wide the clouds that hung suspended from it seemed designed to reassure you that you weren’t just going to float away into forever. The city center was a surprisingly sophisticated mix of chichi shops, hotels, and restaurants, Merry saw. Tourists strolled the narrow sidewalks, popping in and out of coffeehouses or window-shopping at the many galleries showcasing both modern and traditional Native American arts. While the architecture was similar—all quaint one-story adobe construction—the vibe in Taos couldn’t be less like sleepy Aguas Milagros, Merry thought. It was a town for the well-off, the tourist, and the aspiring artist.
In the distance, she could see the ski valley and Kachina Peak looming over the little city, promising steep runs the likes of which she’d once thought nothing of tackling. Now, she’d rather not think of them at all. Merry turned her gaze back to the road as Dolly wound their way toward Kit Carson Park, where the festival was already under way. Dolly’s pickup rumbled and groaned, towing behind it a horse trailer full of slightly queasy but extremely well-groomed alpacas and one unamused llama. Merry had managed to load up Snape and his smaller cousins this morning without so much as a drop of saliva being slung her way, and she was quite proud of that fact. Now she was all eyes, straining to see everything around her from the adobe-fronted shops and galleries to the snowcapped mountains visible through the funnel of the little city’s streets. “Is that the park?” she asked, pointing. Duh, she thought. The enormous “Taos Wool Festival!” banner spanning the entrance and the people streaming in and out of the green space were a bit of a giveaway.
“They better not have given away my slot,” Dolly grumbled. “Paid extra for a good one by the entrance too.”
“We’re not late, are we?”
“Nah. I just ain’t willing to get my ass in gear as early as some of these fanatics. I mean, it’s great to see everyone, and I sure appreciate the chance to show off my handiwork, but some of the MAVWAs are plain gaga for this shindig.”
“Mav-wha’s?”
“Mountain and Valley Wool Association people,” Dolly explained. “Mostly it’s the same vendors every year. It’s not like there’s an unlimited pool of idiots ready to beggar ourselves raising hay burners. You gotta love it pretty fierce to keep doing it year after year.”
“Don’t you?” Merry asked, surprised.
“’Course I do. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t jump at the chance to take a hiatus…say about five years long. I think I could pretty much see all I want to of the world in that kinda time. But Sam can’t run the ranch all by himself, and I can’t afford to go gallivanting all over God’s creation anyhow. I barely scrape by as it is. The festival’s a good opportunity to get the word out about the Last Chance, sell some wool and whatnots, and even get my babies the recognition they deserve in the competitions, which doesn’t hurt when I sell off a cria or two. Always helps the price when you can say they’re sired by a blue-ribbon winner.” She jerked her thumb toward the trailer they were towing. “That’s why we got the fluffies all floofed up. Hope this year Greta and her coven of witches play fair and give us first prize like she ought to’ve the last five years running. She’s been favoring her cousin Beth’s sorry beasts too damn long.”
Merry had seen the extreme cuteness of Dolly’s little herd, whom she’d helped wash, brush, and blow-dry over the last few days. If they weren’t the epitome of alpaca-dom, she wasn’t sure what would be. Even Severus was looking dapper, flicking his banana-like ears and stepping high as if to show off his extra-petable pelt. “I’m sure they’ll kick ass, Dolly.”
“If they don’t, I’ll kick her ass. And I don’t mean any damn donkey either.”
* * *
The Wool Festival at Taos is a three-ring circus, where the rings are full to bursting with woolly goodness. On one side of the wide, grassy Kit Carson Park (apparently, ol’ Kit was a resident of these parts), there are pens for the show animals waiting on the judges’ decisions, a petting zoo, and even a bit of horse—er, sheep, goat, and alpaca—trading. Then you’ve got your booths full of fantastically talented folks selling hand-knit ponchos, cowls, mittens, booties, hats, sweaters, scarves, and just about anything warm and fuzzy you can wear on your bod. There are play areas for kiddos, and tents selling treats from fry bread and Frito pie to sandwiches of shaved goat meat (a bit disconcerting considering the goat’s cousins are bleating not far away) and cheeses that can be traced back to the very sheep from whence they sprang.
A terrier in a sweater trots by. Not unusual, perhaps, except that he’s trailing the loose end of the yarn used to make it, and behind him is a woman frantically trying to stop him from unraveling. A toddler feeds a lamb, and squeals as he gets slobbered on. There are hand-spinning demonstrations using fibers from vicuna to dog hair (ew). Weavers work their looms. Dyers dip and knitters purl. And fiber fanatics of every stripe find themselves in seventh heaven.
And I? Well, your newly freelance heroine spent the day manning the Last Chance’s little booth, selling balls of yarn and adorable amigurumi to connoisseurs of the craft.
To sum up…it’s loud, it’s zany, and it’s where Dolly Cassidy truly shines.
* * *
Dolly had her fingers six inches deep in Fred Astaire’s beautiful beige pelt and was extolling the virtues of the alpaca’s “well-organized fleece” to the panel of three judges who were visiting their booth when a voice br
ought her up short.
“Finally bred yourself a show-worthy herd sire, did you? Didn’t think you’d manage it, Dolly-my-girl.”
Merry saw Dolly’s spine stiffen, and her expression grow almost…horrified? Yes, there was no “almost” about it. She was really, truly horrified. Merry turned to see what could possibly have the fearless ranch owner blanching. And came face-to-face with Sam Elliott’s doppelgänger.
Lush, lip-obscuring white mustache? Check. Craggy, lean-and-handsome face? Check. Twinkling blue eyes? Yup. He even had on a dashing cowboy hat with an eagle feather trailing jauntily from it, a denim shirt tucked into form-fitting Wranglers, and alligator-skin cowboy boots that only needed spurs to complete the look.
The man was a total silver fox.
Dolly could not have looked more repulsed had she been popping llama beans in place of chewing gum.
“Why, John Dixon, what in blazes are you doing here?”
This did not come from Dolly. It came from one of the judges, a middle-aged lady named Greta wearing an enormous pair of spectacles that did nothing to obscure the prurient interest in her eyes. “Dolly, you never said your husband was back in town!”
“That’s because he ain’t my husband. And as far as I’m concerned, he’s on his way out of town as soon as can be arranged—on a rail if I have anything to say about it!”
“Now, is that any way to greet your long-lost love, Dolly dear?” The tall, handsome cowboy looked indulgently down at Dolly, whose face was apoplectic—much like Sam’s gets when he’s pissed at me, Merry thought. She took a step closer to Dolly to back the older woman up, but Dolly was holding her own just fine.
“A thing ain’t lost if you never go looking for it!”
The man chuckled as if she’d said something terribly quaint. Merry bristled on Dolly’s behalf. “Dolly, is this man bothering you?”
“Only for the last eighteen years,” Dolly said drily. “That’s my no-account ex,” she told Merry. To the no-account, she growled, “What are you doing here, and what the hell do you want?”
Last Chance Llama Ranch Page 28
