Heart Of A Cowboy. Linda Lael Miller
gravel in the parking lot, raising an acrid scent of dust, as Tricia and Valentino hurried toward the Pathfinder. She opened the rear hatch and was about to hoist the dog inside when he leaped up there on his own, nimble as could be.
“You are pretty handsome,” Tricia told him, once she’d gotten behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. She’d just buckled her seat belt when the drizzle suddenly turned into a downpour so intense that the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up, even on their fastest setting.
Thunder boomed, directly over their heads, it seemed, and Valentino gave a frightened yelp.
“We’re safe, buddy,” Tricia said gently, looking back over one shoulder.
The dog stood with his muzzle resting on the top of the backseat, looking bravely pathetic.
“Now, now,” she murmured, in her most soothing voice, “you’re going to be fine, I promise. We’re just going to sit right here in the parking lot until the storm lets up a little, and then we’ll go back to the office and you can eat and drink out of your new bowls and sleep on your new bed and play with your new blue chicken—”
Tricia McCall, said the voice of reason, you are definitely losing it.
Another crash of thunder seemed to roll down out of the foothills like a giant ball, and that was it for Valentino. He sprang over the backseat, squirmed over the console and landed squarely in Tricia’s lap, whining and trembling and trying to lick her face again.
That was the bad news. The good news was that even though there was more thunder, and a few flashes of lightning to add a touch of Old Testament drama, the rain stopped coming down so hard.
After gently shifting Valentino off her thighs and onto the passenger seat, Tricia put the SUV in gear and went slowly, carefully on her way.
Valentino, panicked before, sat stalwartly now, probably glad to be up front with Tricia instead of all alone in the back.
“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” she asked the dog, as they crept along the rainy streets with the other traffic.
Valentino made that whining sound again, low in his throat.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Tricia said.
They got back to River’s Bend in about twice the time it would normally have taken to make the drive, and by then, the rain was pounding down again. Tricia parked as close to the office door as she could, but she and Valentino both got wet before they made it inside.
Shivering and shedding her jacket as she went, Tricia headed straight for the stove and added wood to the dwindling fire inside.
Valentino sniffed his kibble bowl and drank some water, then went back to the kibble again. There was more thunder, loud enough to raise the roof this time, and flashes of lightning illuminated the angry river out past the safety ropes that were supposed to keep swimmers within bounds.
Tricia wondered how Winston was faring, back at the house; he didn’t like loud noises any more than Valentino did, and the poor cat was all alone at home, probably terrified and hiding under a bed. He’d want his supper pretty soon, too, she thought, biting her lip as she stood looking out at the storm. Winston liked his routine.
She turned from the window and smiled as Valentino gulped the last of his kibble ration, washing it down with the rest of the water. Then he inspected the bed, sniffed the blue chicken, and turned three circles before giving a big yawn and curling up for a snooze.
Tricia refilled his water dish at the restroom sink and put it back in place, then checked the office voice mail, hoping for a few reservations for the last weekend of the month, but there had been no calls.
Resigned, she fired up the outdated computer she used at work, and waited impatiently while it booted up. The black Bakelite office phone with a rotary dial rang while she was waiting.
Over by the fire, Valentino began to snore.
Smiling a little, Tricia checked the screen on her phone, saw Diana’s number and answered with a happy “Hello!”
“You’ll never guess,” said Diana. A smashing redhead, Diana had been the most popular girl in high school and probably college, too. She was smart and outgoing, then as now, and she was the best friend Tricia had ever had.
“What?” Tricia asked, leaning on the back of the counter and grinning. “You won the lottery? Paul’s been elected president by secret ballot? Sasha is bored with fifth grade and signing up for law school?” Paul was Diana’s husband; the two had been happily married since they were nineteen.
“Better,” Diana replied, laughing. “Paul got that promotion, Tricia. We’ll be moving to Paris for at least two years—Sasha will love it, and we’ve already found the perfect private school for her.” Diana, a teacher, homeschooled Sasha, not to keep her out of the mainstream but because the child had a positively ravenous capacity for absorbing information. “The French school is famously progressive. Of course, we have to go over there as soon as possible, to look for an apartment...”
It was a dream come true, and Tricia was happy for her friend, and happy for Paul and Sasha—she truly was. But Paris was so far away. She could hardly get to Seattle these days. How was she supposed to visit France?
“That’s...great....” she managed.
“You’ll come over often,” Diana said quickly. She was perceptive; that was one of the countless reasons she and Tricia were so close.
“Right,” Tricia said doubtfully.
Valentino’s snores reached an epic crescendo and then started to ebb.
Diana went on. “Paul and I were hoping—well—that Sasha could stay with you while we’re away, checking out real estate. Paul’s folks would look after her, but they’re traveling in Australia, and mine—well, you know about my parents.”
Diana’s mother had a drinking problem, and her dad went through life on autopilot. Letting them babysit Sasha was out of the question.
Tricia closed her eyes. She loved Sasha but, frankly, the responsibility scared her to death. What if the adventurous ten-year-old got hurt or sick or, God forbid, disappeared? It happened; you couldn’t turn on the TV or the radio without hearing an Amber alert. “Okay,” she said. “Sure.”
“Don’t be too quick to agree,” Diana said, with a smile in her voice. “We’ll be gone for two weeks.”
Tricia swallowed. “Two weeks?” The words came out sounding squeaky. “What about her schoolwork? Won’t she get behind?”
“Sasha is way ahead on her lessons,” Diana assured her. “Two weeks will be a nice break for her, actually.”
“You don’t want to take her to Paris?”
Diana chuckled. “It’s a long flight, especially from the West Coast. We’d rather she didn’t have to make that round-trip twice. Besides, we don’t get that many opportunities for a romantic, just-the-two-of-us getaway.”
“Two weeks,” Tricia mused aloud, then blushed because she’d only meant to think the words, not say them.
This time Diana laughed. “Feel free to say no,” she said sincerely. “I know you’re busy with whatever it is you do down there in Colorado. Paul can go to Paris alone—he’s perfectly capable of choosing an apartment that will suit us—and I’ll stay here in Seattle with Sasha.”
Affection for her friend, and for Sasha, warmed Tricia from the inside. Made her forget about the driving rainstorm she had to drive through to get home, for the moment at least. “Nonsense,” she said. “Paul is real-estate challenged and you know it. Remember the time he almost bought that mansion with the rotting floors and only half a roof? I’ll be glad to have my goddaughter visit for two weeks.” She paused. “Unless you’d rather I came over there.”
“Sasha’s never been to Colorado,”