“Come on,” Cal said, ignoring her question. He slipped an arm around her waist as he drew her away from Cliff. “Let’s talk, since that’s why you’re here.”
“I don’t want you to go,” she blurted out. “I know you feel you’re doing something noble and good but is it really necessary? And doesn’t this seem like a bad time?” She was afraid he hadn’t considered all the consequences of leaving. “You’re doing so well with your speech therapy…and…and you said yourself that there are mares ready to deliver. Surely Cliff needs you.” Desperately she looked in the other man’s direction, but Cliff had already mounted the brown horse and galloped off, giving her and Cal privacy. “And what about me?” she added.
“Cliff’s encouraging me to go,” he said patiently. “My speech therapist thinks it’s fine.” He shrugged. “I need to do this.”
“But—”
“This is my life, L-Linnette,” he said and for the first time his voice faltered slightly. “I make my own decisions.”
“Of course you do.” She was astounded—and frightened—by the intensity of his declaration.
“P-perhaps I sh-should’ve told you earlier. Actually, it’s been in the works for some t-time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He removed his hat and wiped his forearm across his brow. “Because I knew you were going to object, so I k-kept putting it off. You’re right—I should’ve said something sooner, but I’m telling you now. L-like I said, this is important to me, and I’m going with or without your approval.”
“All right,” she murmured, backing down with a sigh of resignation. Nothing she said was going to make any difference at this point.
“Good. Then we’re clear on that.” His voice was devoid of expression.
“Perhaps you could explain why this is so important to you,” she suggested.
Together, but not touching, they walked over to the fence. Leaning against it, Cal braced his boot on the bottom rung. “Mustangs are being trapped by the Bureau of Land Management and because of a t-t-technicality in the law, once they’re sold, too many of them are being slaughtered.”
He’d mentioned some of this when he’d visited on Easter Sunday. She hadn’t paid much attention to the details, though.
“Why?” she asked. “How can they do this?”
“United States law allows mustangs over the age of ten to be sold ‘without limitations,’” he explained.
“In other words,” she said, “they’re being caught and sold and whoever buys them can do what they want with these horses.”
“Th-that’s what’s happening, yes.”
“But it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re being killed,” Linnette argued.
“I wish you were right. Unfortunately that’s not the case. These beautiful beasts are being used for dog food here in the States or sold for human consumption in Europe.”
That couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. Although she knew little about horses, she was reluctant to accept that the government would allow this kind of senseless slaughter.
Several minutes passed in silence before Cal turned to look at her. “Can you understand why this is so important to me?” he asked.
Linnette did understand. What she didn’t grasp was why Cal had to go. He was only one person and there wasn’t much he could do by himself.
She pressed a finger to Cal’s lips. Her eyes filled with tears and she couldn’t see him clearly. “How long?” she asked, speaking around the knot in her throat. “How long will you be gone?” She wanted him to hold her, reassure her, but he didn’t.
“A month, six weeks at the most.”
“What do you intend to do with the mustangs?” She wiped away her tears with the sleeve of her sweater.
“There are various agencies that adopt them out. Like I told your family at Easter, I’ll be volunteering with the BLM and working with one of the agencies. Once the horses are captured and checked for health problems, they’re available for adoption or auctioned off. I’ll buy a few for Cliff and me, and I’ll help the wild horse rescue group in whatever way they need.” A smile slowly emerged. “I’ll do everything I can to prevent even a few of them from being sold for slaughter.”
Unwilling to wait for him to make the first move, Linnette threw her arms around his neck and rested her head against his shoulder. “What about us?” she asked. She could hear a distant truck, growing louder as it approached.
Cal stroked her hair with tenderness. Although his touch was gentle, an uneasy feeling refused to leave her. Something had changed between them, and she didn’t know what. Or why.
Just then, the truck she’d heard rolled into the yard. Cal dropped his arms and stepped away from her.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“The vet.”
Vicki Newman climbed out of the pickup and headed toward them, striding like a movie cowboy. Linnette had never met the other woman, although her name routinely came into conversations. She often stopped by the ranch for one reason or another. These horses seemed to require constant medical attention, Linnette thought, unable to curb her cynicism.
Placing his hand lightly on her shoulder, Cal made the introductions.
Vicki Newman nodded and held her gaze. She wasn’t attractive or even very feminine looking, Linnette noted critically. Her light brown hair was long and severely tied back, which sharpened her features. She wore jeans and a faded shirt.
“Nice to finally meet you,” Vicki said.
“You, too,” Linnette told her. After an awkward moment, she realized she was in the way. Whatever business they had to conduct, she clearly wasn’t needed. “I, ah, guess I’d better get home.”
Cal walked her to her car and kissed her cheek. As she drove away, Linnette glanced back and saw Cal and Vicki with their heads together, talking. It intensified the anxiety that roiled in her stomach.
Eighteen
“Come on, Olivia,” Jack shouted over his shoulder as he jogged several paces ahead of her on Lighthouse Road. Fortunately traffic was light for a Saturday afternoon.
“Jack,” she panted, struggling to keep up. “Slow down.” She’d never thought she’d see the day that Jack Griffin could outrun her. But now that he was down thirty pounds and working out regularly, he’d become an exercise convert. His heart attack had been the motivation—and the warning—that he needed.
Trying to catch up, Olivia trotted along, breathing hard by the time she reached his side. “How much farther?” she panted.
“Around the next corner is three full miles.”
As soon as they rounded the curve in the road, Olivia stopped, slumping against the speed limit sign, exhausted. She leaned forward to catch her breath. “I can’t keep up with you anymore,” she said, gulping air into her lungs.
Jogging in place, Jack looked exceptionally proud of himself. “You might want to lose a few pounds.”
“Jack!” She straightened and glared at him, hands on her hips.
“Just kidding,” he said, chuckling.
“No, you weren’t.” The thing was, she probably could afford to lose five pounds. Except that at her age, it wasn’t as easy as it had once been. Despite all her hard work, those few stubborn pounds refused to budge. It would be easier to melt them off with a blowtorch, as she’d recently told Grace.
Grace and Olivia were back to meeting every Wednesday for their aerobics class. Afterward they went for pie and coffee at the Pancake Palace. However, Olivia had forsaken dessert in the last few weeks. But she might as well have indulged in that coconut cream delight for all the good it’d done her to go without.
“I was thinking we should take a nice, hot shower when we get home,” Jack suggested, jogging circles around her. He jiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Jack Griffin, you’re outrageous.”
“Yeah, but you love it.”
He was right; she loved everything about this man.
After being single for nearly twenty years, she’d
had to make a real adjustment to return to married life. Jack had been divorced for almost as long, and he’d had to make his own compromises.
It had taken Jack’s heart attack to show her—remind her—what really mattered in life and in marriage. She loved her husband. That fact was immutable; everything else was negotiable.
She only hoped that her daughter’s marriage was equally strong, equally capable of surviving a crisis.
They started the three-mile walk back to the house, their pace more leisurely than before.
“Oh, oh,” Jack said after a moment. “You’ve got that look. Better tell me what you’re thinking about.”
Olivia sighed and supposed she should get straight to the point. “Justine mentioned that Warren Saget’s been coming by the bank a lot.”
“Doesn’t surprise me,” Jack muttered. He shared her distaste for the other man.
Her daughter’s relationship with Warren had always made Olivia uncomfortable, and her disapproval had driven a wedge between them for a long time. Good grief! Warren was Olivia’s age, old enough to be Justine’s father. In fact, Olivia had worried that her daughter was seeking a father figure in him. Stan had been a good husband and father until their son’s death. Afterward, it was as if her ex had abdicated those roles. In retrospect, Olivia believed this was how Stan had dealt with Jordan’s loss. Stan had remarried almost immediately after the divorce, and while he’d continued with child support payments, he’d had practically no emotional involvement with either Justine or her brother, James.
“Did she tell you what Saget wants?” Jack asked, frowning.
“Not really. She just said he’s making a lot of unnecessary visits to the bank. I don’t think she’s told Seth about it.”
“Maybe she should—to avoid any misunderstandings.”
Olivia agreed with him, but it wasn’t her decision.
“Warren knows Justine isn’t interested in him, right?” Jack asked.
Justine had assured Olivia she’d made that abundantly clear. “She loves her husband and family.”
“I wouldn’t trust Warren Saget,” Jack said, walking faster now. Olivia picked up her pace, too. “Justine would be well advised to stay away from him,” he said.
“I agree.”
“Do you figure he’s trying to get on her good side? Because he wants the contract to rebuild the restaurant?”
“Perhaps,” Olivia said, but she doubted it. Warren’s company was successful, despite a number of complaints and even lawsuits through the years. Olivia had never understood how he stayed in business and yet he did. Warren had lost some of those lawsuits, and won others, and still he thrived.
What bothered Olivia most was the way he kept turning up in her daughter’s life, like the proverbial bad penny. Olivia knew it’d been hard on Warren’s ego when Justine left him and married Seth. Five years had passed. Surely he was over her daughter by now.
“Did you hear about Sandy Davis?” Jack asked suddenly.
Olivia shook her head. Sandy was the sheriff’s wife; she and Troy Davis had been married nearly thirty years. Sandy had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis as a young adult. She’d spent the last two years in a nursing home.
“She died yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry,” Olivia murmured. She’d always admired Troy and the way he loved and cared for his wife. He rarely talked about Sandy or her condition, seldom disclosing his own troubles.
“The funeral’s going to be low-key,” Jack said. “That’s what Troy and his daughter told me when he brought in the obituary. Pastor Flemming is doing the service.”
“Poor Troy,” she said, wishing she could think of some way to help. “We’ll definitely go to the funeral.”
“I let your mother know,” Jack told her. “Charlotte and the ladies at the Senior Center are organizing the wake. Most of them knew Sandy.”
An involuntary smile came to Olivia. “My mother’s so funny about these wakes. She claims that’s where she finds her best recipes. The whole event becomes a recipe exchange.”
Olivia expected Jack to be as amused as she was and glanced over at him to see that he wasn’t smiling.
“That’s the way she handles losing her friends,” her husband said. “If she can concentrate on something other than the fact that she’s lost another friend, then she doesn’t feel as bereft.”
Jack’s insight didn’t surprise her. He was skilled at recognizing the motivations beneath people’s actions. “When did you get so smart?” she teased.
Jack chuckled. “About the time I married you.”
“Good answer.”
“You still interested in that shower?” Olivia asked in a sultry voice as they neared the house.
“You bet I am.” Her question added an extra bounce to his step.
Olivia broke into an unhurried trot. “Wanna race?”
Jack declined. “I think I’d better conserve my strength—for later.”
“Excellent idea. Otherwise I might wear you out completely and I wouldn’t want to do that.”
Jack cast her a teasing, sexy look. “Oh, but I was hoping you’d at least try.”
Olivia couldn’t keep from giggling like a school-girl. One of the great gifts of her marriage was laughter. Jack tended to see the humor in situations, even serious ones, and he could be a very clever mimic. “I don’t know what I ever did without you, Jack Griffin.”
“I don’t, either.”
“We don’t have anything planned for this evening, do we?” he asked.
“Well…” Olivia hated to break this to him. “Actually, we do.”
“We do?” Jack whined.
“Grace and Cliff invited us to dinner to give Cal a nice send-off to Wyoming.”
“He needs us to send him off?”
Olivia would rather stay home, too, but she’d promised her friend. “I told Grace we’d be there.”
Jack gave a deep, resigned sigh. “What’s Grace cooking?”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I’m going to need lots of incentives. Like her rib roast and those mashed potatoes she does.”
They reached the house and Olivia jogged up the steps only to find Jack surging ahead of her. “Jack,” she cried when he entered the house. He hadn’t bothered to wait for her, either. “Where are you going?”
He looked back, raising his eyebrows. “To turn on the shower, of course.”
“Of course,” Olivia echoed. “I’m right behind you.”
Nineteen
Ever since the phone call from Anson, Allison had been waiting, waiting for him to contact her again. It’d been almost three weeks, and she was afraid she wouldn’t hear from him a second time. As graduation grew closer, she hoped and prayed that the investigators would uncover something, anything, to prove his innocence.
“Dinner,” her mother shouted from the kitchen. Allison reluctantly left her bedroom. After her parents had remarried, they’d insisted on eating as a family every night. Sometimes, like this evening, Allison considered it a major pain, but mostly she enjoyed it. Silly though it sounded, eating together had brought them all closer. With everyone’s hectic schedule, the habit had fallen by the wayside, and Allison hadn’t thought she’d really missed it. But if sitting down with her family at dinnertime helped keep her parents’ marriage intact, she’d do it.
Her mother had cooked Eddie’s favorite meal tonight, spaghetti and meatballs. That should make her little brother happy, since food, computer games and basketball were his three passions. She remembered how much Anson liked Eddie and had even played basketball with him a few times.
Without being asked, Allison set the salad on the table and brought out two bottles of dressing from the refrigerator door. Her mother thanked her with a smile.
Her father sliced the French bread while Eddie sat at the table waiting. Typical boy attitude. Like it was his right to have everyone wait on him.
After saying grace, they passed everything around and Allison served herse
lf some salad and just enough spaghetti to deter any comments or questions. Her appetite hadn’t been good since Anson’s disappearance and she’d lost several pounds. Again and again she’d reviewed their brief phone conversation. He’d told her so little, for fear of putting himself at risk. The less she knew, the better. Allison understood that. Still, she couldn’t help worrying about him.
“How was school?” her mother asked.
Eddie shrugged, digging into his meal with unrestrained gusto. He was already taller than Allison and still growing. “Bor-ing.”
“Allison?” Her mother turned to her.
“Okay, I guess. I got accepted into the University of Washington.” The letter had come that afternoon.
Her father set his fork down and stared at her. “You’re only thinking to mention that now?”
She nodded carelessly. “I knew I’d get in.”
“Such confidence,” her mother said, looking at Zach with a smile.
“Congratulations, Allison.” Her father raised his water glass, and the others joined in the toast.
Really, Allison couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Both of her parents had attended UW and it was expected that she would, too. She’d encouraged Anson to apply for a scholarship there, and if he’d stayed in school, if he’d pursued it, she was positive he would’ve been accepted.
No one seemed to realize how intelligent Anson was. He picked up languages easily, as she’d mentioned to his mother; he’d also helped Allison get through her chemistry class. Without him she would barely have passed. All that stuff came to him with very little effort.
“What about you, honey?” her mother asked, directing the question to Zach.
“I attended the Rotary meeting this afternoon and sat with Seth Gunderson.”
Allison’s ears perked up. She kept a file with whatever she could find out about the Gundersons, the restaurant and the fire. Obviously, she didn’t possess the resources or the finesse of the authorities, but she collected every bit of information she could.
“How are Seth and his family doing now?” her mother asked.
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