She wanted to believe that Vivi Ann would laugh at him, blow off his ridiculous proposal. God knew her baby sister wasn’t ready to settle down, but Luke Connelly was a hell of a catch in this town, and Vivi Ann always got the best of everything.
By Tuesday afternoon, she was a wreck. This envy of hers was expanding, taking up too much space in her chest. Sometimes when she thought about everything Vivi Ann had stolen from her, she couldn’t breathe.
Just when she thought her life couldn’t get any worse, Lisa came on the intercom and said, “Hey, Winona. Your dad is on line one.”
Dad?
She tried to remember the last time he’d called her at work and couldn’t. “Thanks, Lisa.” She picked up the phone and answered.
“That idiot Travis is gone,” he said halfway through her greeting. “He left without sayin’ a damn word and the cabin looks like a bomb went off in there.”
“Isn’t that Vivi Ann’s problem? I don’t do housecleaning.”
“Don’t get smart with me. Didn’t you say you’d hire us someone?”
“I’m working on it. I’ve interviewed—”
“Interviewed? What are we, Boeing? All we need is someone who knows horses and ain’t afraid of hard work.”
“No, you need all that and someone who’ll promise to stay for the summer. That’s not easy to find.” She’d learned that the hard way. Summer was rodeo season and all the men who’d answered their ads refused to commit to long-term employment. They were out of work, most of them, but cowboys were romantic in their way, seduced by the lifestyle, and they just had to follow the circuit. They all thought they’d hit it big at the next city.
“Are you sayin’ you can’t do it? ‘Cause, by God, you should have told us that before—”
“I’ll do it,” she said sharply.
“Good.”
He hung up so fast she found herself listening to nothing. “Nice talking to you, Dad,” she muttered, hanging up. “Lisa,” she said into the intercom, “I want you to take the rest of today and tomorrow off. I need those help-wanted ads posted at all the feed stores in Shelton, Belfair, Port Orchard, Fife, and Tacoma. And let’s double the number of Little Nickel ads. From Olympia to Longview. Can you do that?”
“That’s not exactly my idea of taking the day off,” Lisa said, laughing. “But yeah, I can do it. Tom is working swing this week.”
Winona realized how she’d sounded. “I’m sorry if I was snippy.”
She folded her arms on her desk and laid down her head. She could already feel a tension headache starting behind her right eye.
She was hardly aware of the passing of time as she sat there, her face buried in the crook of her arms, imagining her life changing course.
She dumped me, Win . . .
Of course she did, Luke, come here. I’ll take care of you . . .
Deep in the familiar fantasy, it took her a moment to realize that someone was speaking to her. She lifted her head slowly and opened her eyes.
Aurora stood there, eyeing her. “Quit dreaming about Luke. You’re coming with me.”
“He’s going to propose to Vivi,” she said, unable to turn up the volume on her voice.
Aurora’s face pleated with pity. “Oh.”
“Don’t you have some play-nice advice for me?”
“I’m not going to say anything. Except that you have to tell Vivi Ann now. Before something bad happens.”
“What’s the point? She always gets what she wants.” Winona felt that bitterness move again, uncoil from its resting place.
“That’s poison, thinking like that. We’re sisters.”
Winona tried to imagine following Aurora’s good advice, even chose the words she could use and turned them around in her head. All she could come up with was a perfect picture of herself as pathetic. “No, thanks.”
Aurora sighed. “Well. She obviously hasn’t said yes yet or we would have heard. Maybe Vivi Ann knows she isn’t ready. You know how romantic she is. She wants to be swept away. When it comes to love, she’ll either be in it from the start or out of it, and Luke hasn’t rocked her world.”
Winona let herself hope. It was a tiny flare of light, that hope, but it was better than the dark that preceded it. “I pray you’re right.”
“I’m always right. Now get up. Travis bailed in the middle of the night. We’re going to help Vivi Ann clean the cabin.”
“What if she shows off her ring?”
“You made this bed of lies; I guess you’ll either crawl under the sheets or get the hell out of it.”
“I’ll go change.”
“I’d change more than your clothes, Win.”
Ignoring the jibe—or was it advice?—Winona went up to her bedroom and put on an old pair of jeans and a baggy gray UW sweatshirt.
In no time at all they were in the car, driving to the ranch.
Inside the cabin, they found an absolute shambles, with weeks’ worth of dirty dishes on every surface and a pile of them in the sink. Vivi Ann was on her knees, scrubbing a stain from the hardwood floor. Even in her oldest clothes, with her long hair tied in a haphazard ponytail, and no makeup on, she managed to look gorgeous.
“You’re here,” she said, giving them both that megawatt smile of hers.
“Of course we came. We’re family,” Aurora said, putting the slightest emphasis on that last word. She elbowed Winona, who stumbled forward.
“I’m sorry I missed the banquet, Vivi Ann. I heard it was a great night.”
Vivi Ann stood up, peeling off her yellow rubber gloves and dropping them beside the bucket. “I really missed you. It was fun.”
Winona could see the vulnerability in her sister’s eyes and knew that she’d hurt Vivi Ann. Sometimes all that beauty got in the way and Winona forgot that Vivi Ann could easily be wounded. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.
Vivi Ann accepted the apology with another bright smile.
“Did anything happen after I left?” Aurora asked.
Vivi Ann’s smile faded. “Funny you should ask. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you guys. Luke asked me to marry him.”
“He told me he was going to,” Winona said. Her sentence seemed to fall off a ledge of some kind, landing in an awkward silence.
“Oh.” Vivi Ann frowned. “A little warning might have been nice.”
“It’s not the kind of thing a woman usually needs a warning about,” Aurora said gently.
Vivi Ann looked around the cabin. “He’s so perfect for me,” she said finally. “I should be over the moon.”
“Should be?” Winona said.
Vivi Ann smiled. It was forced, though. “I don’t know if I’m ready to get married yet. But Luke says he loves me enough to wait.”
“If you don’t think you’re ready, you’re not,” Aurora said.
That awkward silence fell again.
“Right,” Vivi Ann said. “That’s what I thought. So let’s get started cleaning this place up.”
Winona felt her breath release in a quiet sigh. Maybe there was hope after all.
And she thanked God for that. Lately, she’d begun to wonder what terrible thing she might do if Vivi Ann married Luke.
A week and a half later, Winona sat in her father’s study, at the big, scarred wooden desk that looked out over the flat blue waters of the Canal. On this crystalline day the trees on the opposite shore looked close enough to touch; it seemed impossible to believe that they were more than a mile away. She had just reached for the nearest bill—from the lumber store—when she heard a car drive up. A few moments later, footsteps thudded on the springy porch steps and someone knocked.
She pushed the bills aside and went to answer it.
A man stood on the porch, staring down at her. At least she thought he was staring down; it was hard to tell. A dusty white cowboy hat shielded the upper half of his face. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in torn, dirty jeans and a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt that had seen better days. “I’m her
She detected a hint of an accent—Texas or Oklahoma, maybe. He took his hat off and immediately pushed back the long, straight black hair that hung to his shoulders. Skin the color of well-tanned leather made his gray eyes appear almost freakishly light in comparison. His face was sharp and chiseled, not quite handsome, with a bladelike nose that made him look vaguely mean, a little wild. He was lean, too; wiry as a strip of rawhide. Black tattooed Native American symbols encircled his left bicep, but they weren’t from local tribes. These images were unfamiliar to her.
“The job?” he said again, reminding her that she’d taken too long to respond. “Are you still looking for a hand?”
“You know your way around horses? We don’t want to train anyone.”
“I worked at the Poe Ranch in Texas. It’s the biggest operation in the Hill Country. And I team-roped for about ten years.”
“You good with a hammer?”
“I can fix what’s wrong around here, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m half white, too. If that helps you make up your mind.”
“That hardly matters to me.”
“You’re above most folks, are you?”
She got the sense he was laughing at her, but nothing about him changed.
“You follow the rodeo circuit?”
“Not anymore.”
She knew that her father wouldn’t hire this man—a Native American—wouldn’t approve of him at all, and yet their ads had been posted for more than a month now and the first roping jackpot was on Saturday. They needed to hire someone, and they needed to do it fast.
Taking off her expensive blue pumps, she stepped into Vivi Ann’s oversized rubber boots, which were always stationed at the door. “Follow me.”
She heard him behind her, moving slowly, his worn, scuffed cowboy boots crunching on the gravel. She refused to acknowledge her nervousness. It was an unfortunate by-product of the environment in which she’d been raised and she would not succumb. She was above judging people by the color of their skin. “Here’s the barn,” she said rather stupidly, as they were standing inside of it now.
He came up beside her, saying nothing.
The stall to their immediate left sported a big white poster board decorated with drawings and photographs and ribbons. In ornate, curlicue lettering it read: Hi! I’m Lizzie Michaelian’s horse, Magic. We’re a great team. We competed at last year’s Pee Wee Days and won a red ribbon for Fitting and Showing and a special mention for cleanest stall. We can’t wait for this year’s county fair.
“Well, now,” the man beside her said, “that’s some homey shit.”
Winona couldn’t help smiling at that. Moving on, she showed him the tack room, wash stall, and hay storage. When they’d seen all that the barn and arena had to offer, she led him back out into the sunlight.
There, she faced him. “What’s your name?”
“Dallas. Like the city. Dallas Raintree.”
“Are you prepared to stay for at least a year?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Winona made her decision. That was the point, after all. This decision was hers to make. If Daddy didn’t like him because of his skin color, it was time he changed. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like her civic duty to hire him. And besides, men weren’t exactly lining up for the job. If he’d stay for a while, why not? “Wait here.” She turned and clomped back to the house, took off her boots, went to the study for a copy of the employment contract she’d written up, and then returned to him. “This job is for room, board, and five hundred dollars a month. You want it?”
He nodded.
Winona waited for more—something besides that stare, that stance—and then started up the hill toward the old cabin. “This way.”
Up on the rise, she cut through the ankle-deep grass and went to the front door. “The porch needs work, as you can see. My sisters and I cleaned the inside, though.” She flipped on the light and saw the old place, not as she usually saw it, through the sentimental prism of her family’s history, but rather, the way it would appear to him.
Wide-plank cedar floors, scuffed and scarred by decades of use; a small living room with newly washed knotty pine walls and mismatched furniture—a faded red sofa, a pair of old wing chairs, Grandma’s ancient coffee table—gathered around a river-rock fireplace, stained black from use; an alcove kitchen with 1940s appliances, wooden counters, and a blue-painted table with oak chairs. Through the door in the living room, she could see the bedroom, with its white iron bed piled with quilts. The only room she couldn’t see from here was the bathroom, and the best she could say about it was that everything worked. The astringent scent of recently applied bleach couldn’t quite camouflage the deeper smell of wet, decaying wood.
“Will this be okay?” she asked.
“It’ll do.”
She couldn’t help staring at his harsh profile. His face was like broken glass, all sharp angles and hard planes.
“Here’s our employment contract. You can get your lawyer to read it if you’d like.”
“My lawyer, huh?” He glanced down at the paper, then at her. “It says you promise to hire me and I promise to stay, right?”
“Exactly. The term of the contract is one year.” She handed him the contract and a pen.
He walked over to the table and bent down to write his name. “What do you want me to do first?”
“Well, I don’t actually work here. My sister and dad run the place and they’re both gone right now. Just get settled in and show up at the farmhouse tomorrow morning at six for breakfast. They’ll tell you what to do.”
He gave her the signed contract back.
She waited for something more, maybe a thank-you or a promise to do a good job, but when it was clear he had nothing more to say, she left the cabin. As she went down the porch steps and walked through the tall grass toward the gravel road, she heard him come out onto the porch.
She wouldn’t turn around to check, but she was sure just the same: he was watching her.
The Grey sisters had spent Friday nights together forever, and tonight was no different. As usual, they met at the Blue Plate Diner for a quick meal and then walked down Shore Drive to the Outlaw Tavern. Men could come and go in their lives—and meet them at the bar—but dinner with the three of them was set in stone.
Tonight, they were surrounded by the familiar late spring crowd. A few tourists were here, recognizable by the brightly colored designer clothing and their shiny SUVs parked out front. The locals, on the other hand, sipped lemonade, talked quietly while reading the newspaper, and didn’t bother even looking at the laminated menus. Most of them ordered Gracie’s famous meatloaf, which hadn’t actually been on the menu since the early eighties.
Winona reached over for one of Vivi Ann’s french fries. “I hired a ranch hand today,” she said, wondering what Vivi Ann would think of Dallas Raintree.
Vivi Ann looked up. “You’re kidding. Who is he?”
“A guy from Texas. Says he knows his way around horses.”
“What was he like?”
Winona considered how best to answer that, then said only, “I don’t know. He didn’t say much.”
“Cowboys,” Aurora muttered.
Vivi Ann looked disappointed. “Like meals with Dad aren’t quiet enough. I don’t think he and Travis said more than twenty words to each other in all the meals we had together.”
“Believe me, you’re lucky,” Winona said. “To me, Dad is—”
“We’re not going there tonight,” Aurora said firmly. “This is our night to remember we’re sisters.” She gave Winona a pointed look.
They paid the bill and left the restaurant.
In the warm, lavender evening, they strolled down Main Street.
“It’s too bad Luke couldn’t come with us,” Winona said, trying to sound casual. Lately she spent a lot of time doing just that: trying to act normally around Vivi Ann.
“He had an emergency out in Gorst. Colicky mare.”
They turned on to Shore Drive and walked along the waterfront. Streetlamps came on all at once, creating a yellowy carnival atmosphere on the street.
Gradually the pavement ended, turned into gravel. Here, there were no well-swept sidewalks, no pots filled with flowers hanging from streetlamps, no merchants looking to sell souvenirs. There was just a rocky bit of road that led to a big parking lot. On the water side was Ted’s Boatyard and the alley that led to Cat Morgan’s ramshackle waterfront house. To their right, stuck back in a weedy lot, was the Outlaw Tavern. Multicolored neon beer signs decorated the windows. Moss furred the flat roof and grew in clumps on the windowsills. Beat-up trucks filled the parking lot.
Inside the tavern, they wound through the familiar crowd and around the stuffed grizzly bear that had become the tavern’s mascot. Someone had hung a bra from his outstretched paw. Smoke blurred everything, softened the tawdry edges. Behind them the band pounded out a barely recognizable version of “Desperado.”
When they reached the bar, the bartender poured three straight shots and set them in front of three empty stools.
“How’s that for service, girls?” Bud said.
Aurora laughed and sat down first. “It’s why we never miss a Friday night.”
Chapter Five
The Outlaw Tavern was filled with the regular Friday night crowd. While the band played a watery, slowed-down version of “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys,” couples line-danced across the parquet floor. Vivi Ann sat at her usual barstool, swaying to the music. She had a nice buzz going. Swiveling on her seat, she looked for someone to dance with, but couldn’t find anyone who wasn’t already paired up. Aurora and Richard were back at the pool tables playing a game with some friends, and Winona was deep in conversation with Mayor Trumbull.
Vivi Ann was about to turn back around to the bar when she noticed the Indian standing by the cash register. Anyone unknown would have stood out in this crowd of locals, but she was certain that this guy would be noticeable in any crowd. With his long hair and dark skin and hawkish features, he looked a little like Daniel Day-Lewis in that upcoming movie, The Last of the Mohicans.
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