Billie smiled. “He’s not allowed in, but DT said it was okay as long as no one complains.”
She nodded at a couple of wranglers with handlebar mustaches and sunburned hands wrapped around platters of huevos rancheros and glasses of icy horchata. Beneath the wranglers’ table lay a couple of blue heelers. And at the other side of the room, a half dozen bikers with fat tattooed arms sticking out of leather vests, their white hair in ponytails, fed bits of bacon to a fluffy Pomeranian the size of a soap bar.
“I guess you’re safe for now,” Richard said with a sigh.
They ordered burgers and curly fries, side salads, and sodas. As they sat talking she found herself imagining a life with him. Breakfasts, dinners. Maybe not for long, but for a while. He had money, kids, and calluses on his palms from his life with horses. It might not work out with him, but for a while it might be good. He did have a wife, Billie knew, but he had said she was on her way out of the picture, living in Tennessee. The kids divided their time between their parents. It was a work in progress, he had said.
“I was married once.” She enjoyed Richard’s small flinch when she said it. “My ex is in Tucson now on business. We met to discuss an article I’ll be writing for his magazine.”
“He works for a magazine?”
“It’s his magazine. Frankly. He’s Frank.”
“Wow, really? I see that magazine everywhere. You still work for him?”
“No. I quit writing when I left him. But I hired back on last night.”
When their food arrived, Richard ordered another Coke, ate some salad, then asked, “What’s your article about?”
“Walking horses.”
“I don’t think I knew you were a writer.”
“Like I said, I took a break from it for a few years. Now I’m back on this new assignment.” She waited, watching him look out the window. When he looked back at her, she said, “I’m hoping you can help me.”
“Always have a native host,” Frank had said when she first worked for him. The weird phrase stuck in her mind. That was what she needed now, someone who lived, literally or figuratively, where she was going. Someone who knew everything she needed to know. Someone who could bail her out or who knew someone who could.
“I want to describe how the breed evolved, who owns these horses, and how they’re trained.”
Richard shifted in his seat, cocked himself away from her, and crossed his legs. Billie sensed that he was a door about to slam shut. “You want me to help you how?”
“Just with some background,” she said. “And maybe some contacts. People I could talk to who would explain things to me.”
“I don’t know…”
Billie reached across the table and touched him, her fingers on his forearm, the same touch she would use to ask a horse to settle. She left her fingers on his arm until he covered them with his other hand, pressed briefly, and let go.
“Let’s go to my house,” he said.
“Let’s.”
CHAPTER 19
THEY SAT OUTSIDE Richard’s log house in the starry dark on deck chairs, a bowl of popcorn on the ground between them, a goblet of Zapara Viognier in Billie’s hand, and a bottle of Dragoon IPA in his. They watched the first of the monsoon storms gathering in the southwest. Lightning played across the sky, each bolt separated from its thunder by several seconds. Gulliver, curled up on Billie’s stomach, trembled with each crash. Richard stood up from his chair and disappeared into the house. She felt herself relax, a small easing of the muscles at the corner of her mouth, as if she’d been holding onto a little smile she could now release. She closed her eyes.
Whatever he’d done in the past, at least he was easy to be with. He didn’t constantly try to impress her, didn’t talk too much or make goofy jokes like most of the men she’d dated since leaving Frank. In spite of the tension that had nearly swamped them earlier in the day, he had invited her to dinner, then to stay on after they had eaten, stretched out on the chairs, watching the first big storm of the summer play out a few miles to the west.
Lightning flared behind her eyelids. Her hand tightened on Gulliver’s back, holding him closer before the bang. Still, he yelped and shivered.
Richard touched her shoulder. She opened her eyes.
“Try this.” He handed her something folded inside a plastic baggie. She unzipped the bag and pulled it out.
“What is it?”
“It’s a ThunderShirt,” he said. “We used to have a cat who was terrified of storms. He died a couple of years ago. It might help Gully.”
She pulled it on him, and he stopped shaking almost instantly. She settled back with her now dozing dog on her belly, her wine in her hand. Richard sat back down beside her.
“How would you describe Eudora?” Billie asked.
“Well, I’m not sure. You know, she raised me.”
Billie turned her head to look at him.
“My mother was away a lot, and when she was home, well, let’s say parenting wasn’t her greatest skill. I practically lived at Eudora and Dale’s barn in Bell Buckle, hanging out with their kids, training the horses, playing with their dogs. I ate and often slept at their house. Their son was my best friend, even though he was a few years younger. We fished the cricks and played ball together. We went to the same school in different grades and took the same bus. So Eudora was pretty much my mom.”
He lapsed into a long silence watching the sky, stretched and crossed his legs at the ankle.
The time between the next flash—two bolts that flew at right angles from each other, one into the ground, the other across the sky—and its thunder was noticeably less. “It’s getting closer,” Richard said. “Did Gully react to it?”
“Nothing,” Billie said. “I’ll get him one of these shirts in
