A Feather in the Rain (20 page)

I
t was ten at night when they parked Olie May. He'd arranged to get the last flight. It seemed minutes ago that she stood there with the pinwheel in her hand wearing the summer smile. Now they were saying goodbye.

“Flight twelve thirty-nine to San Antonio is now boarding all passengers,” said the speaker.

She opened her arms to release him. He felt as if he were being ripped from a Siamese twin. He touched her face. Then he kissed her lips and backed away slowly to the jetway entrance. She came forward as if tethered to him twenty feet away. He eased into the current of the boarding and just before the bend, looked back. She stood as close as she could with her hand raised and a pensive look of untold dramas on her beautiful face. He raised his hand and smiled, backing, till the bridge wall took her place.

He rolled up his jacket and stuffed it under his head against the window. He closed his eyes, his brain riveted on Holly Marie
driving Olie May at seventy-five back to Kiowa in the dark, and a good chunk of it on crooked roads. First, he thanked God for the blessing of meeting her and then he asked Him to please keep her safe. He asked for His guidance in what to do about this impossible thing that had grown and deepened, giving him a reason to want to be alive.

T
he Bluebonnet Stakes at Brenham had a cutting event for every level of skill. Jesse and Abbie hauled six horses two hundred miles. Soot was along for the seasoning. Chauncy, the tranquilizer, rode in the trailer at the colt's feet and kept him as calm as a meditating Buddhist. Walter Nalls, Kevin Bradley and Carley, Daryl Ann Henley painted and perfumed, and the lawyer, Derrick Le Fevre, owner of Concho, the paint, were waiting nervously.

At the end of two days, all was festive. Kevin had won the novice class and was threatening to levitate. Carley fell in love with a flaxen-maned sorrel mare called Swinging Lena, owned and trained by the legendary Leon Harrel. Kevin asked Jesse what he thought of the horse. “She's won a bunch. She was trained by the best. I think Carley would get along with her. Thing is, I expect Leon is kinda partial to that mare.”

They slipped away from the revelers. Kevin relentlessly wielded his powers of persuasion on Leon, got the mare bought, and
arranged to have her waiting for them at Jesse's place when they got back.

They had purchased champagne and invited everyone to the Lazy JB to celebrate their victories and witness Carley being presented with Swinging Lena.

A fire swayed in the big stone pit beside the barn. Patsy Cline's plaintive lament, “I Fall To Pieces” wafted in the soft spring night. Kevin asked them all to gather in the barn. He disappeared for a minute and returned leading the gleaming copper mare with the platinum mane and tail. He locked his eyes on his wife and led the mare straight to her and held out his hand with the rope and said, “She's yours.”

Carley's eyes filled with tears as she bit her lower lip and smiled while the barn echoed with applause as she put her arm around Kevin and kissed him murmuring “thank you” in his ear. She wiped her eyes and began to move her hands slowly over the sleek shining hide. “She's gorgeous.” She looked at Jesse and said, “Now I've got to learn to ride her.”

While they washed down pizza with hundred-dollar champagne, Jesse eased away to the house. He called Colorado to tell her he missed her, that he couldn't wait to see her again, that he thought about her all the time, that they needed to make a plan. Suddenly, everything in his life seemed incomplete without her, the urge to go to her almost impossible to resist. The instant he hung up, he resented having called and wished he could unsay what he'd said. He suddenly had a sense of what it must be like to be addicted to a drug you know will destroy you.

He fixed a smile and went out to join the party. Daryl Ann swooped like a peregrine at a field mouse and handed him a glass of champagne, “Where have you been hiding, you villain?” she asked, her breath warm and sweet with wine. She stepped on his foot and pressed down to hold him there. He smiled, a little embarrassed, though the group was closer to the fire and they were in the shadows and enough wine had flowed to soften sensibilities. “I have it on
excellent authority that you've been entertaining a creature from Colorado. And that she has actually shared your roof and heaven knows what else. And that she's quite beautiful. And I have been deprived of the pleasure of meeting her.” She reached up and slipped her fingers along his neck, into his hair and crawled around to his ear until she had his lobe in a pinch. “And that she's practically a bubble-gummer. You are an outlaw son of a bitch.” She pulled his ear, fingering his neck. “So take me to your tack room and show me your tack. If you don't tell, I won't.”

He wore an inscrutable face as he whispered, “Daryl Ann, you are a truly enchanting woman. I know I should leap at the opportunity to show you my tack, but I have taken a vow of celibacy for an indefinite period of time. And I'm keeping it.”

Painted lips parted and she flung her head back shaking her hair as she laughed. “And I am joining a Muslim convent in Istanbul.” She slowly drew her fingertips down his arm.

“That's my story and I'm sticking to it.”

“Well,” she smiled with wicked eyes and licked her lips, “as long as you're having fun, I'm on your side.” She linked his arm and led him toward the fire. “If she ever gets kept after school and you want someone to play with, call me.”

A
broiling Texas summer could challenge the fortitude of a Zulu. Holly was in Colorado where it was cool. There were cuttings in Colorado. He could haul the horses and the clients could fly in and out. He called her. She said, “Yes, I could do that. It's about a five-hour drive from here.” He had a big smile when he hung up and lightness in his heart.

He needed to have Abbie stay at the ranch with Ricardo. He called Billy Diggs to see if his son Mason wanted to go to Colorado. For Mason, it was a dream come true. If his dad had said no, he probably would have run away.

A
Rocky Mountain summer storm had blackened the sky and salted the ground with hailstones steaming now in the bright sun. At the walk approaching the herd, his level of intensity
matched the horse perfectly—relaxed and keenly focused. While the cow tested the horse, Jesse seemed weightless, in a trance, without effort, an element of the fierce encounter taking place. When it was done, he leaned forward to whisper something private to the horse and rode out with a smooth single stroke along the horse's neck as the crowd applauded. With Holly Marie watching, he had won the class. He muttered the words, “Thank you, Lord,” even though in his heart he figured the Lord didn't have time to be concerned about a cutting in Colorado.

He slid the security latch and crushed her against his chest, his mouth at her neck, the taste, the smell, the golden silky feel of her moving beneath his hands, his mind lost all thought. She played the macho aggressor, tearing at his clothes and shoving him toward the bed as he laughed and surrendered to the startling yoga-power behind the push and fell back on the bed. She flung his clothes to the walls, knelt above him and then became still, looking down. In the slow, graceful arc of a swan, she lowered her head, her hair whispered over his chest. He reached for the buttons on her blouse. She whispered, “You're not supposed to do that. It's not very nice.” She wiggled her shoulders and freed her arms from the sleeves. Her pale skin was almost blue in contrast to the black lace bra. He freed the rosy buds and draped the bra across his eyes like flyers goggles, then reached up to hold her in his palms. “When I'm not with you,” he whispered hoarsely, “I think I've only dreamt you.”

“My body's been dead for years. You make me feel alive again.”

Each time they made love, each time he saw her face, it was as if it were the first. In the leaping light of candle flame, she stretched beneath him, alabaster white and rose pink, arching her back, reaching her arms above her head like a goddess emerging from the sea. He moved from where he knelt to lie beside her and take her head to his shoulder. He whispered, “I love you. My God.”

Her voice came from another world. “I love you, Jesse.”

He turned and looked into her face as if to verify what he knew he'd heard. She was smiling, though in her eyes a distant sadness
smoldered in the gray. The words he'd waited to hear seemed to have come on an ominous wind.

A small childhood scar under her left eye, an infinitely poignant imperfection in her flawless face, caused a heat to rise at the sight of it, and the tiny blemish twisted his heart.

He awoke in the morning with his head beside hers on the pillow, sunlight shining through the golden down on her cheek. She blinked and said, “Good morning.”

They started the day with waffles and omelets. Daryl Ann Henley had been scarce the day before but plentiful at the moment. There was language in her hips as she swiveled between tables, a handsome buffed cowboy in tow. She stopped, flashing Vegas neon, and greeted Jesse, who stood up and introduced Holly. She introduced the cowboy and leaned slightly toward Holly. “I've heard a lot about you. You've been the buzz of the hill country. It's so nice to meet you.” A diabetic might have been in peril with the sugar content, but she made it sound sincere. “I guess we'll see you all later. Bye.” Smiling, she touched Jesse's shoulder and led the cowboy away.

I
t turned out to be a really good idea, coming to Colorado. The Texans were smoking them and loving it.

Kevin insisted everyone join him and Carley for dinner. Beyond Holly's charm and manners, Jesse became aware of a distance, a silent distraction, that only he could see. He leaned to whisper in her ear, “Are you all right?”

Though she said she was, he knew she was not. He'd seen the slightest tremble in her chin, in spite of her effort to control it. All he could think about was getting her out of there and sorting it out.

When they finally got to their room, she walked to the window and leaned back against the sill as if she might collapse. Her face was white and tense. He walked to her. “Holly, what is it? What's wrong?” She had fallen into a well of silence. “Tell me, what is it?” She seemed incapable of speech. Her eyes had grown dark in the shadows. She bit her lip and shook her head from side to side as if to free herself. Her chin began to quiver, followed by a torrent of tears
spilling from her eyes and a woeful, wrenching sobbing as he wrapped her in his arms to prevent her from crumbling into fragments of herself.

What began with reddening eyes, a trembling chin, and the most heartrending effort to contain her pain, had become a fullblown storm of tears and, choking sobs—the unmistakable sounds of the most profound grief. This was a raging beast of pain. She had become a little girl with a dead puppy in her lap. So loudly did she wail, he was sure there'd be a knocking at their door.

He brought her to the bed, loosened her clothes, and held her head next to his heart, stroking her hair as she breathed easier. At last she whispered, “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay…” He continued stroking her hair.

“I haven't had a chance…to cry…for my brother. I took care of so many things, all the details…the organ donations…his ashes, I carried them in a taxi…my parents. I took care of everybody, everything…except me. I haven't had a chance to cry. I've kept it inside for so long. We were like one person. He was funny, he was kind, he always put other people before himself…it's just not fair. I don't know why now…what it was about today that triggered this…” She wiped her eyes and sniffled through a wet laugh. “Maybe because I'm enjoying everything so much. We always shared our good times, maybe that's why I miss him so much today. Our house is so small. I don't want to make my parents sad…so I keep it all to myself.” She turned and looked up at him with swollen eyes. “Thank you for letting it be okay.”

Her tender complexion was blurred and inflamed, more beautiful than ever. He wanted to make love to her. The raw lips, the wet, matted eyelashes, the pink nose drew him to her and she opened her arms to take him in. “I love you, Jesse.”