Luke’s Ride

“And help Lucy at the Queen,” Luke said. “You treat her way better than she deserves. You want me to smack some sense into her?”

“No way! It’ll all even out someday—I gotta keep believing that. Here’s my problem. The gal who helps me with the preliminary prep is having a rough pregnancy. Her doc says she has to stay flat on her back till she delivers or she’ll lose the baby. One big job she does for me is sorting through expense receipts for allowable deductions. You think you could handle that?”

“I could screw things up royally,” Luke said. “I don’t know squat about tax deductions.”

“Sure you do. You’ve been sending me your receipts for five years—you know what’s legit and what’s not. Just a few clients, all bull riders—kids who’ve never earned more than gas money mowing lawns or bagging groceries. Now they’re getting big checks and have to keep track of all their deductible expenses.”

Luke shook his head. “I don’t know—I could try, I guess. If you really think I could help.”

“Just take a look, okay?” Mike stood. “I’ve got the files in my rig.” He left the kitchen without waiting for an answer and returned carrying a cardboard fruit box containing a dozen or so fat manila envelopes.

Luke pulled one from the box and spilled its contents on the table, a whole year’s worth of hotel statements, airline tickets, car rentals and receipts from gas stations, restaurants and convenience stores.

“Just do your best—help me save these guys some money. Tag anything that doesn’t look kosher and make notes if you think important stuff is missing. Riders’ expenses only, not wives and kids.”

Mike’s plea stirred Luke’s interest. He could probably figure this out—he could be of use to someone.

“I’ll give it my best shot,” he said.

CHAPTER SIX (#ue79c903c-b6ca-5deb-8908-9871437f3ec4)

KATHRYN MOVED THROUGH the last day of her old life like a perfectly programmed robot. She had gone to sleep with a list of must-dos firm in her mind and wrote down the sequence over her morning coffee. First she visited the bank and raided a money market account, withdrawing no more than she figured she deserved for fifteen years of faithful service. Next she stopped at her mother’s bank where she deposited it in a new checking account with a debit card.

At the mall she bought a new cell phone with a prepaid plan and new number before going to the AAA office to pick up maps. She would have GPS, of course, but she had no address to enter other than Hesperus, Colorado. Paper maps would help her choose what route she might decide to follow.

At times the memory of Brad’s laughter and Britt’s answering giggle pushed into her consciousness, but she silenced it with ruthless determination. Time enough for tears when she had accomplished all she needed to do.

In the office of Robert Foster, her mother’s lawyer, she signed numerous documents.

“You’re sure you want to do this, Kathryn?” His kind old face furrowed with distress. “After one incident?”

“Once that I caught him,” she said. “This was too slick to be the first time. All those evenings working late, and the last-minute overnight business trips... I was too dumb to catch on before, but I’m a quick study.” She shoved the papers across his desk. “Hold on to these—I’ll be in touch.”

Brad handed her an unexpected gift midway through the day, a text saying he needed to stay overnight in Springfield. She texted back with appropriate concern, grateful he hadn’t called—she couldn’t have borne the sound of his voice.

On impulse, she called his office. Disguising her voice—she hoped—with a handkerchief over the phone, she asked for Britt.

“Sorry,” the receptionist said with no hint of recognition, “she’s out of the office today.”

Kathryn’s mouth twisted—imagine that.

She steeled herself for her last stop and drove to her own home, reasonably sure she wouldn’t be disturbed. Just in case, she backed up the driveway and opened the trunk before entering the house.

First she went to the small wall safe in Brad’s study, removing the title to her car and a jewelry box. She didn’t care for the showy dinner rings, the diamond earrings and tennis bracelet Brad had given her, but she’d be damned if she would leave them for another woman to enjoy. They were hers, she’d earned them and they were good pieces she’d have no trouble turning into cash.

She started up the stairs and then turned back to the kitchen, looking in the fridge without finding what she sought. The recycling bin held an empty Chablis bottle with a few drops left in the bottom. She grasped it like a trophy and collected a pair of shears from a drawer before continuing upstairs.

Not looking at the bed, she stripped her closet and drawers of all the clothes she cared to take, filling her own luggage and plus a storage bin. The tennis clothes and cocktail dresses she wore for country club functions she left behind—she’d never have to wear them again.

She carried the first load down to her car, peering down the street for any sign of Brad’s Mercedes, and then ran back to the bedroom. Finally, she turned to the bed she had shared with Brad, where she had known such delight in his arms.

She took the silky green robe from the closet, the robe she had worn in innocence to welcome him home when he’d gone to his mistress after her mother’s funeral. With great deliberation, she slashed it to shreds and dropped her cell phone on the mutilated garment along with the wine bottle. Last she poured a nearly full flask of her special cologne on the heap like a sacrificial libation.

Gathering the rest of her possessions, including her laptop, she descended the stairs with her head high, dumped the last load into the trunk and drove away without a backward glance.

After a fast-food supper, she checked into a small motel a few miles from her mother’s house, not sure when Brad might return and find her parting display. Propped against the faux-Colonial headboard in her room, she called her favorite aunt who had taken her mother’s dog.

“Aunt Joan,” she said without preamble, “I’m leaving Brad. I wanted to let you know because he might call looking for me.”

“Good riddance,” her aunt said. “I’ve always thought he’s too pretty to be wholesome. Would you like to come here? You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”

“Thanks, but I’ll be traveling. I won’t tell you where so you don’t have to lie for me, but I’ll check in with you. Give Blondie a hug for me.”

The next morning, Kathryn drove her year-old Volvo sedan to a high school classmate’s used car dealership and transferred her possessions to a low-mileage Ford SUV with tinted windows. Cloaked with her new anonymity, she left house keys for her cousin with her mother’s neighbor. She gave her childhood home, sitting quiet and a little aloof in the spring sunshine, one last glance, then steered her new car toward I-84, heading west.

* * *

TEN DAYS LATER she took the exit from I-25 onto Route 160 in southern Colorado. She had zigzagged southwest through New York and Pennsylvania in easy stages, dropping into West Virginia to turn west through the Kentucky Bluegrass, as idyllic as she’d always pictured it. She’d paused in Louisville for a couple days, relishing her first taste of the South and selling her jewelry at an elegant, old-fashioned store with mahogany-framed display cases. Then she drove west to St. Louis and beyond, leaving the shelter of shade trees for the daunting vistas of the Great Plains, where the vault of the sky made her feel insignificant as a bug crawling across a windowpane.

She’d never been on an extended road trip; vacations with her parents had been one-day drives to a family resort in the Adirondacks or visits to relatives in New Jersey. Twice she had gone to the West Coast with Brad and once to Florida for conferences, but his idea of travel was airport to airport. She’d seen no more of strange cities than the taxi rides to and from their hotel.

She reveled in her flight from her past, even with the threat of snow crossing the Alleghenies and a horrendous thunderstorm in southern Illinois that left her driving blind. She didn’t think about her destination except for the box of Annie Cameron’s letters riding beside her like a benevolent familiar and managed to stay one jump ahead of her emotions by focusing on regional accents and changing landscapes, stopping at local inns and dining at small-town cafés.

Brad didn’t have her new cell phone number, but he did email her. At first he expressed remorse and concern, then impatience—“How long before you get over your snit?”—and finally anger. She read the first few messages with detachment, almost with amusement, as if her pain nerves had been severed. When the repetition grew boring, she blocked his emails.

One day short of her goal, Kathryn began to feel a little silly. What a fool’s errand, to drive more than two thousand miles to deliver a box of old letters. Maybe the Camerons wouldn’t even be interested, but remembering Annie’s tales of family closeness, Kathryn was sure the letters and their bearer would be welcome.

At first driving the state highway west from the interstate was a relief. All the way from Connecticut, big trucks had been her nemesis. Giant tractor-trailers just plain scared her, muscling their way along the highways as if lesser vehicles were invisible. She would have left the interstates to escape their bullying but didn’t trust her navigation skills enough to abandon the well-marked routes.

Now on the two-lane road, she found herself stuck behind a hay truck, unable to see around its towering load to pass. The road began to climb between steep canyon walls, and the truck slowed even more. Its right turn signal flickered just as Kathryn resigned herself to following the behemoth all the way to Durango, the nearest town of any size to the Camerons’ ranch. The big rig lurched onto a narrow side road with groaning gears and black exhaust dirtying the mountain air.

Kathryn had been so absorbed in fuming at the delay she hadn’t noticed the morning’s bright sunshine had dimmed. The sky overhead, what she could see between towering cliffs, had turned gray, and inky clouds hid the peaks ahead.

She glanced at her watch. The drive from Walsenburg, where she had spent the night, should have taken only four hours or so, but following the hay truck had delayed her considerably. Still, she should be able to reach Durango by early afternoon.

She passed a sign welcoming her to the San Juan National Forest and then a couple of campgrounds with chains across the entrances. A few desultory snowflakes drifted down.

She slowed as she rounded a steep climbing curve and drove with no warning into a complete whiteout. Mountains, canyon, the road itself disappeared. She hit the brakes reflexively and her car skidded for endless sickening seconds before rocking to a halt against a snowbank. She sat clinging to the wheel, numb with fear, enveloped in a snowy shroud.

Turning back would be impossible; going forward was too terrifying to contemplate.

Gradually she became aware of a grunting sound, a grumble that grew into a roar. An avalanche? She’d passed a sign saying Slide Area. Before she could panic even more, flashing red lights appeared in her rearview mirror. A huge dump truck ground past her, spewing sand behind it, its wide wing plow missing her vehicle by inches. Acting purely on instinct, she gunned her car into its wake and crept through the storm behind the fan-shaped spray of grit covering the icy road.

Twenty minutes later the snow lightened, the mountainsides reappeared, and the roadway turned from packed snow to wet blacktop. The plow truck pulled aside into a wide parking area to turn and head back up the mountain. Below, a broad valley lay in bright sunshine, untouched by the snowstorm still raging over the peaks.

Kathryn made the rest of the descent as if still on ice. The pavement was dry, but the road clung to the mountainside in tortuous curves above a deep canyon. Her hands ached from clutching the steering wheel and sweat soaked the back of her shirt by the time she reached the valley floor. Stopping for lunch in Pagosa Springs just ahead was tempting, but she knew once she got out of her car she wouldn’t want to drive any farther. Durango lay only another hour to the west—better to keep going and then settle in at that night’s destination.

When Kathryn reached the outskirts of Durango, she had recovered enough composure to be awed by the grandeur of the snowy peaks rearing their heads north of the town. Driving down the main street, she passed the Silver Queen Saloon and Dance Emporium, its Victorian storefront like a set from a classic Western movie. She had checked her Colorado guidebook this morning at breakfast; the Silver Queen was rated four stars for classic regional fare. She glanced at her watch—a few minutes before three o’clock. With luck, they would still be serving lunch.