“Who was that?” Raney asked, nodding toward the blue pickup as she joined her mother.
“Dalton Cardwell.”
Raney looked at her in surprise. “Are you sure? The Dalton Cardwell I remember was a lot skinnier. They called him Beanpole.”
Mama chuckled. “He’s certainly no beanpole now. You might consider—”
“Don’t start.” The last thing Raney needed was her mother pimping her out. The man was a criminal, for heaven’s sake.
Laughing, her mother turned and walked toward the house.
Raney fell in beside her. “You know he’s the guy who killed Jim Bob.”
“He told me all about it.” Mama made a dismissive gesture. “It was an accident. And probably as much Jim Bob’s fault as his. I heard the Adkins boy had been drinking and might have been speeding.”
“Says who?”
“Marlene.”
“The hairdresser? That’s your source?”
“She’s great with hair. You said so yourself.”
“Good Lord.”
Raney remembered how shocked she had been when she’d read about the wreck. Even though they went to different high schools, she’d heard Dalton Cardwell was a quiet guy, smarter than most, never causing trouble or drawing attention to himself, except on the football field. She had never talked to him, but she remembered a lot of girls thought he was cute. Which he’d been, in a skinny, awkward sort of way.
He was also a natural athlete and made a name for himself as a wide receiver, despite being such a “tall drink of water,” as Daddy had called him after watching him play. Dalton might have earned a college football scholarship if he hadn’t enlisted in the army. It was two years after 9/11 when he graduated, and like so many boys his age, he’d been gung ho to get the guys who had brought down the towers. She heard that after the army, he’d ridden in some of the nearby cutting shows before using his VA benefits to go to Texas Tech. Then just before his third year, he’d had the wreck that had killed Jim Bob and a month later had been sent to Huntsville state prison.
A sorry waste of two lives. She never would have thought quiet Dalton Cardwell would be so careless as to cause another person’s death. But then, he had been in the army and had probably seen a lot of death in Iraq. Things like that could change a person. She’d seen it happen.
“What did he want?” Raney asked, following her mother up the veranda steps.
“A job.”
“Doing what?”
“Trainer. Maria, is there any tea left?” Mama called as they sank down into two overstuffed chairs in front of the fireplace. Propping her booted feet next to Raney’s on the ottoman, her mother lifted her shoulder-length hair off the back of her neck. “Lordy, if it’s this hot already, summer will be scorching. I’ll be glad to escape the heat.”
Mama had already planned her escape. A June cruise up to Alaska, a tour of Denali, whale watching in Glacier Bay, watching grizzlies fishing for salmon at Brooks Falls, then down to Puget Sound for an extended visit with friends, followed by a horse-pack trip up and around Mount Rainier. Come September, after Joss’s baby came, she’d be off to Hawaii, then Tahiti, then God knows where. It was a little shocking how eager Mama was to get away from her family. But considering that Joss would be moving back next month, Raney didn’t blame her.
Maria brought tea and sliced avocados and the little cucumber sandwiches Mama loved. They ate in companionable silence. Once she’d cleared her plate and returned it to the tray, Mama sat back with a contented sigh. “I’ll miss those sandwiches.”
“They have cucumbers in Alaska.”
“But nobody can make them into sandwiches the way Maria can. Thank you, Maria,” she added when their cook came to clear the plates away. “Delicious, as always.”
Mama always spoke English with their Hispanic employees. She felt it was to everyone’s advantage if they all used the language of the country where they lived. Not very PC, but it made sense to Mama. And the workers didn’t seem to mind.
“I wonder why he decided to come here,” Raney said after Maria left with the tray.
“Who? Dalton?”
First names already. That wasn’t good. “There must be other jobs available.”
“He heard we were branching out into cutting horses. He seemed quite knowledgeable.”
“About our plans to expand?”
“About cutting horses. I think he’ll make a good trainer.”
Raney felt the stirrings of alarm. Surely her mother hadn’t hired him without talking to her? “You’re serious.”
“He knew right off that Rosco was the best of the colts. And he knew exactly what to do when he put the colt through his paces in the big pen.”
“No. Oh, hell no.” Raney’s boots hit the slate floor with a resounding thud. “He’s not training any of my horses.”
“Why not?”
“He’s a convict!”
“Ex-convict. And that doesn’t make him a poor trainer. Have some grace, Raney. Everybody deserves a second chance.”
“He killed a man!”
“Actually, it was Jim Bob who ran into Dalton’s tractor, so in a way, Jim Bob killed himself.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re defending him?”
Her mother frowned at her. “It’s not like you to overact this way. Is there something I don’t know?”
Raney had the insane urge to leap over the ridiculous giant ottoman and strangle her mother.
Oblivious, Mama continued. “He seems like a nice young man. And he has a low opinion of Roy Kilmer, which says a lot about his character. Besides, I know his parents. The Cardwells are good, churchgoing people.”
“I can’t believe this. You would actually go off and
