True Colors (13 page)

She couldn’t help smiling at that, but her smile only lasted until he said, “I don’t think you’re empty-headed.”

She glanced at him in surprise and then forced her gaze away. “Thanks,” she said, turning onto the hill and shifting gears. The old truck and trailer shuddered and groaned before gathering speed again.

“How many horses have you rescued?”

“Ten or eleven, I think. I took in the first one when I was twelve.”

“Why?”

Again, Vivi Ann was surprised. No one ever asked her why. “It was the year my mom died.”

“It help?”

“Some.” She eased onto a rutted, potholed road that snaked through a thicket of giant evergreens. Slowing, she maneuvered around the biggest of the holes, until they came to a clearing with a pretty little log house, a four-stall barn, and a small fenced pasture. There, she parked. “The Humane Society found this gelding in a really bad way and brought him here. Hopefully the people who did this to him are in jail. Whitney Williams—she owns this place—is at work, but she knows we’ll be here.” She grabbed a lead rope from the back of the truck and headed for the barn. “Wait here.”

Inside, the barn was dusty and dark. At the last stall door, she paused. The black gelding melted into the shadows; all she could really make out were the bared, yellowed teeth and the whites of his eyes. His ears lay flat back and he snorted, blowing snot and air.

“Whoa, boy.” Vivi Ann opened the stall door and took a cautious step forward. The horse reared and lunged at her, striking out with his front hooves.

She sidestepped easily and snapped the lead rope onto his halter as his hoof banged into the wooden door.

It took her another quarter hour to get the terrified horse out of the dank, smelly stall and into the sunlight; then, finally, she saw the scars.

Wherever he’d been whipped or cut deeply enough, the hair had grown back in white.

“Son of a bitch,” Dallas muttered beside her.

Vivi Ann felt the start of tears and dashed them away before Dallas could see her weakness. No matter how many times she did this, she never quite got used to seeing wounded horses. She thought of Clementine, and how the horse had saved her when she’d needed saving, and it broke her heart to think how cruel people could be. She tried to stroke the horse’s velvety muzzle, but he yanked back from her touch, his eyes rolling wildly. “Let’s get him loaded and out of here.”

“If it upsets you so much, why do you do it?” Dallas asked later, when they were on the road again.

“I should just let them suffer because it’s painful to help?”

“You wouldn’t be the first to do that.”

“This particular horse—his name is Renegade—was the state Western Pleasure equitation winner just four years ago. I saw him win that day. He was magnificent. And now they say he can’t be ridden. They were going to put him down before he hurt someone. As if it’s his fault he’s violent.”

“Pain can turn an animal mean.”

“You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”

His voice lowered. “He could hurt you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Can you?”

Suddenly, strangely, Vivi Ann didn’t think they were talking about Renegade anymore.

She focused on the road, saying nothing until they were home again, parked in the gravel lot, and unloading Renegade. “Dinner will be a little late,” she said, letting the horse loose in the grassy paddock behind the barn. She knew from experience that horses like Renegade needed to be alone. Sometimes they were so broken they could never run with a herd again.

Dallas came closer. “Don’t worry about me. I’m taking Cat Morgan to dinner.”

“Oh. Well.” She took a step back, telling herself she wasn’t disappointed. “I guess I’d better get to the house.” But she didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure why until he closed the distance between them.

For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her, and in spite of everything, she wanted him to, but then he whispered against her ear, “We both know Cat isn’t the one I want.”

After dinner at the Waves Restaurant, Vivi Ann and Luke drove back to the farmhouse. The noises of an early June night were all around them, floating through the truck’s open windows—motorboats chugging onto their trailers after a day spent on the flat waters of the Canal, kids laughing in the park along the shore, dogs barking. There was so much going on in town it should have been easy to overlook the silence in the truck, but Vivi Ann noticed every pause, every breath. In the weeks since she and Dallas had rescued Renegade, she felt as if her life had been suspended somehow, as if danger were nearby and she had to be careful, be on her guard against it always. There was a pressure building inside her, heating up.

She looked at Luke, and the smile he gave her was everything a man’s smile should be: clear and bright and honest. It should have made her want to smile back, to say something romantic, but the longer she looked into his eyes, the more trapped she felt. The whole of her life with him was suddenly here with her, sitting in his truck, and it was small and unassuming. Not what she wanted for her life at all. She wanted passion and fire and magic. Maybe her mistake had been in not sleeping with Luke. In the beginning, she’d held back because he was serious and she wasn’t and she hadn’t wanted sex to trap her into a false love, but now she was trapped anyway, and the irony was that he believed their lack of intimacy was a signal of love, a proof of it in some way. Maybe if sex was great with Luke, she’d be swept away and tumble into love . . .

And stop thinking about Dallas.

As soon as they parked in front of the farmhouse and got out of the truck, she went to him, reaching out. “I want to want you, Luke. Right now.” She’d meant to say simply
I want you,
but it was too late now to take it back.

She pressed her body against him, rubbing wantonly, and pulled her shirt off, tossed it aside. “Come on, Luke . . .” she pleaded. “Make me crazy . . .”

He kissed her deeply and then drew back, looking down at her. “This isn’t how our first time should be. Let’s go back to my place.”

Vivi Ann felt a wash of disappointment. All that kissing, and nothing. It was as she’d thought: this good, handsome, loving man would never start a fire inside of her. She made herself smile. “You’re right. Our first time should be special. Rose petals and candlelight.” She bent down for her shirt and put it back on. “And not on a night when I’ve had one too many glasses of wine.”

He put an arm around her and led her toward the house. “I guess I’ll have to keep a closer eye on you, remind you that two’s your limit.”

I bet he treats you like some kind of pretty little treasure
.

She couldn’t answer, but when they were on the porch, standing in front of the door, and Luke kissed her goodnight, it was all she could do not to cry.

“What’s wrong, Vivi?” he asked, pulling back. “You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

“I’m just tired, that’s all. Everything will be better tomorrow.”

He accepted that and kissed her goodnight again. With a sigh, she watched him walk back to his truck and drive away. Then she went into the house and climbed the stairs to her bedroom.

There, she stared out across the darkened ranch, saw moonlight on the barn roof. She was just about to turn away when a flash of bone-white color caught her eyes. A cowboy hat.

Dallas was out there right now, standing by Renegade’s paddock, watching her. He’d seen her take off her shirt . . .

She turned away from the window and went to bed, but it was a long time before she fell asleep.

On a sunny afternoon in mid-June, Winona got the call she’d been waiting for: “Winona?” he said. “I need to talk to you about Vivi Ann. Can you meet me at Water’s Edge tonight? I’ll be in the barn after seven.”

She managed somehow to get through the remainder of her workday, writing deposition questions, reading through real estate contracts, seeing clients, but her mind kept going off-road, thinking about that phone call.

He’s going to end it. Finally
.

Then he’d turn to her for comfort.

When her last client left and Lisa closed up the office, Winona went upstairs to her shambles of a living space. Up here, away from the public eye, her floors needed refinishing, her wallpaper had peeled away, revealing water-stained Sheetrock, and rust coated too many of the fixtures. Ignoring all that, she chose her clothes carefully and dressed in a long velour tunic and jeans. Curling her hair, she sprayed it away from her face and let it tumble down her back. When she looked as good as possible, she left the house and drove out to the ranch, surprised to find the parking lot full of truck-and-trailer combinations.

Finding a parking spot up near her granddad’s cabin—beside Dallas’s beat-up old Ford truck—she walked down the long grassy driveway to the barn.

Inside, she found a hive of activity: men on bulkily muscled quarter-horses, galloping along the rail, throwing well-aimed ropes at running steers; boys, practicing their throws on fake steers; women in the bleachers, clustered together, talking and smoking and drinking beer. And at the center of it all, clearly running the show, was Dallas Raintree. He was helping a man right now, telling him to keep his elbow up to flatten his loop, showing him how.

She found Luke sitting in the stands. “What’s all this?”

He took a sip of his beer. “Dallas is giving a roping clinic. It’s been going on for hours. Thirty-five bucks apiece.”

Winona studied the arena, counted the men on horseback and the boys practicing with the roping dummy, and did the math. “Wow.”

“Everyone here has already signed up for the jackpot tomorrow,” he added. “And the women want a barrel race next Saturday.”

She sat down by Luke, scooted as close as she dared. It wasn’t much, just sitting by him, but it was all she had these days. “I was surprised when you called. You’ve been too busy with Vivi Ann lately to get in touch with me.” She hoped she didn’t sound bitter.

“I’m sorry about that. Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Vivi Ann. I hope that’s okay. I’ll understand if you say no. There’s that sisters’ code.”

“It’s okay. Vivi Ann knows we were friends before you two fell in love.” She stumbled only briefly over the difficult sentence. “So tell me what’s wrong.”

“Vivi Ann is acting strange lately.”

Of course she is. She doesn’t love you
.

Winona turned to him, saw the pain and confusion in his eyes, and her heart ached for him. He was no match for Vivi Ann, who treated love as if it were made of stone and hearts as if they were spun glass. She reached over and took his hand. Suddenly it felt as if there was an opening, a crack in the connection between Luke and Vivi Ann. “I love my sister. It’s impossible not to. She’s like sunshine, but . . . she’s selfish, too. Headstrong. Settling down isn’t really in her. Maybe she’s afraid. Or not ready.”

“Sometimes I have trouble believing she really loves me,” he said.

“Vivi Ann’s emotions are transparent. If she loves you, you’ll know it to your bones.”

He didn’t hear the warning in her words. “I should have said ‘what the hell’ the other night and dragged her over to the grass and made love to her.”

Winona didn’t understand. “She wanted to have sex outside?”

“Right in front of the farmhouse. But she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. She seemed . . . frantic. I shouldn’t have worried about all of that, though, right? I love her and I should have showed her how much.”

Winona felt the dying of opportunity; it shriveled up inside, left her feeling small and dry. He wasn’t looking to her for comfort. Nothing had changed. Vivi Ann could treat him like crap, and still he loved her. “Yeah. Sure.”

“I mean, who cares who might be watching? We’re in love.”

“Sure,” Winona said dully, wishing he hadn’t called after all. “Who could be watching anyway?”

As she said it, her gaze fell on Dallas.

At dawn on Saturday, while Dallas and Dad were gathering the steers from the back field, people began pouring in to Water’s Edge. By the time the jackpot officially began at eleven o’clock, almost three hundred teams had entered. Vivi Ann began her day long before the sun came up and didn’t stop until the event was over.

Finally, when the last go-round had been run and the prizes had been handed out, she got a glass of lemonade from the fridge and leaned against the warm side of the barn.

The parking lot was a blur of people. Cowboys and their families were busy loading up their horses, putting away their tack, folding up their chairs. The snake of traffic had begun; trucks and trailers moved in a steady stream up the gravel driveway toward town.

Today’s jackpot had been more than simply a success. That word was too small and ordinary. This had been a bonanza. A triumph. At last count, they’d earned well over two thousand dollars. And that didn’t even count the profits they’d made selling food at the snack shack.

Winona came up beside her, leaned against the barn. Sipping Diet Coke from a plastic cup, she said, “You’re avoiding me.”