Page 125 of Devil in Disguise
“Uncle Owen’s bed?” Matt asked. “That’s what Dad said to Mom yesterday.”
Amy said,“Matt.”Matt said, “What?” Joan said, “Oh, boy.” Dyma said, “Nope. My saddle. And Pete. And Grizzly. Where are they?”
“In the corral, of course,” Ethan said. “Except the saddle. The saddle’s in the horse barn.”
“Oh,” Dyma said. “Where’s that?”
“I’ll show you,” Matt said, and took her hand.
Owen said, “Hang on, now. Dyma needs some lunch, and to change her clothes. I bought you a few things,” he told her. “Cowboy boots, and not the kind you dance in, and work pants and a coat you can get dirty, because jeans are no good the second you get ’em wet. Come on.” He grabbed their bags out of the truck. “I’ll show you the house.”
“And then you can see Uncle Owen’s bed!” Matt said. “Like you wanted!”
53
Blowup
Five days later,it was Friday night, and they were all going to be having dinner at Owen’s. The third dinner they’d eaten together, and the first one at his house. Most of the time, Owen explained, the households ate separately, “because everybody needs a little space. They’re figuring that tomorrow, we’ll want to be alone, since it’ll be our last night. That’s why we’re doing this now.”
Dyma’s hands faltered as she pulled plates down from the cupboard. “Oh,” she said. “Yeah.” Then she got busy setting the table. It was barely after six, but Owen had told her ranchers tended to eat early, because they got up early, too.
“Easier for you to have that discipline during the season, then,” she’d said.
“Yep,” he’d answered. “Not so different at all, really.”
Different fromherlife. Not from his.
Right now, the sky was beginning to glow a little bit, because Wyoming sunsets were the prettiest. “Which is why this part of the porch faces west,” Owen had told her the first night, when they’d wrapped up with blankets and sat out there in wooden chairs to watch the sky change. Fluffy pink clouds in a deep blue sky touched with purple, with gold fringing the edges of the hills, shining brighter and brighter before it all began to fade. A glorious moment, and then it was gone.
Owen’s house was logs. All logs. A completely modern kitchen, with deep drawers instead of lower cabinets, which made so much more sense, and stainless-steel appliances, but you could look out the windows while you cooked, and the great room was the most comfortable place she’d ever been, with an enormous rectangular dining table that could seat a whole big family, a wood-burning fireplace that was crackling now, a river-rock surround and chimney, built-in racks for an entire wall of split logs, and squashy leather armchairs and couches around a coffee table that begged you to put your feet on it.
The chimney went all the way down to the game room below, because there was a fireplace there, too, plus a big-screen TV and a pool table that, yes, they’d tried out more than once. And if she’d also had sex on that pool table again, she wasn’t telling. Losing to Owen, she’d discovered, was as good as winning. Also down there? The elaborate gym hedidn’thave in Portland, with an array of equipment that would’ve done credit to a commercial establishment and the biggest weights she’d ever seen. Watching Owen lift those things made her knees weak, and she watched him every day.
While she was workingout.She didn’t just stand around and look. Obviously.
“Seriously, though?” she’d asked him this morning, after they’d headed down there at seven o’clock. “Every day? Even with all the riding and … and steer-wrestling or whatever you do? Even in the offseason?”
“Riding’s one thing,” he’d said, shoving a set of fifty-pound weights onto a barbell.Afterhe’d rowed about halfway to France on the rowing machine to warm up. “Football’s another. And there’s no offseason, not if you want to start. Not if you want to win.”
Ridingwasone thing, though. Boy, was it ever. That first day, Owen had introduced her to Pete, and it had been love at first sight. His eyes were just so dark and liquid, his breath so warm on her palm when she fed him his carrot. He stood patiently while Owen helped boost her up into the saddle, and he walked around the corral with her again and again while Owen held his lead rope. And when she got good enough to rideoutof the corral? He carried her along like she was in a rocking chair, but he was warm and strong and alive, his muscles shifting beneath her in the most pleasing way possible. He seemed to feel what she wanted before she even asked him, like her thoughts were coming straight through the reins and into his mouth. That was how responsive he was.
They’d gone up into the hills today. “Let’s play hooky for a few hours,” Owen had said, coming to find her in the horse barn. “I want to show you this, and it’s too pretty out here to stay inside.”
She’d been in the horse barn because she’d quickly discovered that she’d better have a job, as busy as Owen was all day, and she loved it in there. The smell of it, horses and hay. The rhythmic movements as you shoveled dirty straw out of the stalls and into a wheelbarrow, and the satisfaction of putting clean bedding down for the horses. She loved everything about riding, from the exhilarating pleasure that was kicking Pete into a gallop for the first time and letting herself go with him, hanging on with her knees in the way Owen had taught her, to brushing him down afterwards, her forehead against his warm flank, then cleaning out his hooves and cleaning and storing her tack. She loved petting Grizzly’s black forelock, too, as the huge gelding blew out through his nose at her and made her laugh. Watching the enormous animal trot over the second he saw Owen approach the corral, as if all he wanted was to be with him again, did something to her heart. Maybe because it was how she felt, too.
So, yeah. The hills. Owen took her across pasture land and up a winding dirt trail through the tumbled rocks, up where the wind blew, and around a corner to a sheltered, pristine little lake with more of the huge limestone boulders surrounding it. Still edged with ice, the water ruffled by the breeze. He said, “This is real pretty in the summer. Nice swimming, too. We keep it stocked with trout, and it’s fenced off from the cattle. This is one reason I bought the ranch.” He urged Grizzly into a turn, the movement of man and horse a pleasure to watch, and looked down the valley. “This right here, and this view. But I love it all.”
“When you’re in Portland,” she asked, “do you want to be here?”
“Nope. I love football. Always have. I don’t know how you’d do it if you don’t love it. It’s too hard. Like ranching. No way you’d do either of them unless they were in your blood. When I’m there, I’m there. And when I’m here, I’m here. Works for me.”
But,she couldn’t help but think,you’re never going to be anyplace but there or here. Football and ranching, and that’s it.
How could it be that the deeper in love you fell with somebody and the more you wanted to spend the moments of your life with him, the more clearly you saw your actual future, and the bleaker that future looked?
For now, though? She set the table.
* * *
