* *
GLORIA GOT IN her car, started up and drove away. God, what was wrong with her? Why was she acting like such a jerk?
Dillon. That’s what was wrong with her. There was something about that man that drove her insane, something about him that got under her skin and made her completely crazy. She took a deep breath and blew it out very slowly.
Well, at the very least, this time he didn’t bring on a panic attack. That was a good sign. Why she’d had one the last time, she still didn’t understand because there’d been no reason for it that made any sense. It had been years—four at least—since her last one. What had that one been about?
Oh, yeah.
She’d gotten trapped in an attic when moving furniture up there for one of her jobs. The small constricted space, full to the rafters with junk, one second she was fine, the next she was on all fours, barely able to breathe. Thank God Faith had been there.
While this one hadn’t been a full-blown attack, Gloria knew how these things worked: the fear of an attack would linger at the back of her mind, festering, reminding her that she was powerless and she’d be living with low-grade fear that an attack could come on at any time, any place, undermining her tenuous sense of security.
Making her feel weak.
Out of control.
It was the worst feeling in the world.
She glanced up into the rearview mirror, watching the buildings of the ranch grow smaller in the dust from the gravel road and she increased the pressure on the gas pedal.
So the contract hadn’t worked out. At least it gave her some time away from Chicago to gather her thoughts. With this contract off the table, what she needed to do was put her head down and get to work. But she couldn’t go home. Her dad was there, and while she loved him fiercely, his manic energy would not be conducive to her well-being. It never had been.
Maybe she should see if she could stay with Daisy for a while. No. Daisy was still a newlywed, she didn’t need to be crashing that party, as if crashing their wedding night wasn’t bad enough. Sighing, Gloria racked her brain, going through her list of friends, ticking off who she could possibly stay with. But there was always something: new baby, marriage trouble, new job, no room...
She’d ask Faith, except living together and working together was never a good idea.
What she needed was a holiday.
She couldn’t afford a holiday.
Unless she stayed in Montana...which wasn’t exactly a holiday.
Gloria’s foot weighed heavily on the accelerator and the rental car flew across a single lane bridge over a meandering creek and then back to the road. Fields, pastures, hills and sky painted watercolor portraits in her peripheral vision.
For a fleeting second, Gloria felt wild and free.
Until she hit a patch of gravel and the car started to slide, almost as if it was winter and she was driving on ice.
“Shit!”
Gloria tugged the wheel and the back end fishtailed as she overcorrected one way and then the next. Time slowed and things became clear: the sound of spraying gravel, the thudding of her pulse through her body, the impossibly blue sky and stark peaks flashing past the window.
Was this the moment of clarity that came before death?
If so, there was a peacefulness to it that seemed out of sync with the utter chaos of what was happening around her.
“I CAN LIST it as is,” Max Ozark said, already snapping shots of the yard and barn with his camera phone.
Dillon barely heard him. He was eyeing the progress of the line of dust traveling away from the ranch.
“Dillon?”
“Huh?” He turned his attention back to the real estate agent.
“Do you want me to list it?”
Rubbing his jaw, Dillon surveyed the property. “Yeah, I guess I do.”
“I can take a bunch more outdoor pictures while I’m here.”
“Sounds good.” Dillon pointed to the place where he’d ridden earlier in the day. “You can get a nice panoramic shot up on the bluff over there. Take one of the quads or a horse if you like.”
“I’ll take a quad. You know me—I like my animals four-wheeled.”
“City slicker.”
Max laughed. “Speaking of, what’d you do to piss off the redhead?”
“No idea.”
“Women.”
Max was speaking from experience. Father of five girls, three of whom were married with kids. All girls. Dillon had gone to school with the eldest of them.
“Look, you finish up here.” Dillon handed Max the extra key he’d had cut. “I’m heading back to town. Got some things to take care of.”
“You’re not staying out here till it sells?”
“Nah.”
Focusing on the image on his phone screen, Max said, “Thought you might—you were always staying on when Kenny needed help.”
“Yeah, well.” Dillon adjusted his hat so it sat more firmly on his head. “I helped when I was around. Kenny didn’t have much in the way of family.”
Max looked as if he wanted to say more, but kept his mouth closed, for once. He was a good guy, but loved his gossip, and the fact that Kenny Wells had left the ranch to Dillon was fodder for a town that was always looking for something new to talk about.
He climbed into his F-350 4x4, supposing the latest speculation was that he and Kenny were gay. He chuckled and rubbed his chin at the utter ridiculousness of that thought. Not that he cared what other people did or who they loved—live and let live, and all that shit—but the thought of him and Kenny?
He quickly replaced the thought with one of Gloria. He could still see her as clear as anything, the way she looked lying underneath him: her fiery hair spread out all over the pillow, her pretty lips parted, her eyes closed as flashes of pleasure radiated across her face. Now, that was a fine image to have emblazoned in one’s memory. There were others, too. Gloria’s face turned up to him, smiling wide, throwing her head back and laughing as he led her across the dance floor. That image might be even clearer because that was the moment when he’d decided he needed to take her to bed. A woman who had the ability to let go, to dance with such abandon and laugh with such freedom was a woman he wanted to make love to.
The thing he couldn’t quite figure was what happened to that woman. Where did she go? It was as if he made her up because the woman he woke up to—scratch that, she’d left before he’d woken up—was different.
