Lauren giggled. "That's, like, an old movie term. Real hors.e.m.e.n just call it a rope or a lariat rope."

I pulled an imaginary pencil from behind my ear and made a note. "Thanks for the tip."

"What else is in that script?" Lauren pressed.

"You probably don't want to know."

"Can I see it?"

"The script?" I said, even though I knew what she was asking. Showing her the script probably wasn't the best idea. As soon as she saw it, she'd realize what folly all of this was. Then she would look at me, the guy who didn't know a la.s.so from a lariat rope, and she'd see there was no way I'd be any good at reinventing some touchy-feely lonely-cowboy-meets-down-and-out-horse-owning-chick screenplay.

Maybe it'd be best if she figured it out now. Maybe it would be good to have full disclosure and be done with it.

The truth was on the tip of my tongue, but I looked at Lauren and didn't speak it. I fell into her eyes, and the answer bounced across my mind like a flat rock skittering over the water's surface.

"Mm-hmm." Her voice seemed breathy and intimate ... or was that my imagination? "If I saw it, maybe I could ... " She blinked hard, her cheeks flushing a most becoming shade of crimson.

"Maybe I could help you ... with it. The horse ... ummm ... related details, I mean."

I felt her leaning closer, or maybe I was leaning closer. Her shoulder touched mine and I was acutely aware of the contact point. If I'd been writing it in a scene, the male lead would have experienced a jolt of undeniable attraction.

"I just thought ... it might ... be good." I watched her lips form words, heard them just barely.

"It might be good." My mind went haywire, concocting a dozen different ways things might play out from here. That's the trouble with a writer's head-you can imagine possibilities that are a long way from reality.

"Maybe we could talk about it during lunch," I offered.

The suggestion seemed to fall over her like a bucket of cold water. "I'm skipping." She cleared her throat, then added, "Lunch.

I'm skipping lunch."

"Guess you'll be hungry by supper then." That was smooth.

Man, are you out of practice at this. Loser. "If you'd like to join me."

"Guess we ... " I couldn't tell whether she was about to say yes or no, but I was surprisingly invested in the answer.

"Hey, are y'all hu-u-un-gry?" Donetta Bradford's voice burst into the gap between yes and no like the squeal of brakes, and I heard the pitter-patter of shiny silver cowboy boots tapping rapidly across the driveway.

Chapter 13.

Lauren Eldridge It took a minute for Aunt Donetta's voice to penetrate the fluffy, floaty fog in my head, which is saying something, because Aunt Netta's voice is a force of nature, like Superman's X-ray vision. It can breech the six-inch stone walls of the Daily Hotel and still be as clear as a bell. Folks next door in the cafe always know when someone comes into the beauty shop, because they can hear, How-deee! Be there in just a little ol' minute. There's coffee in the pot. ...

For some odd reason that I couldn't explain, her greeting bounced off the misty observation that Nate was taller than I'd thought. There was a little cleft in his chin that was ... was ...

"Yoo-hoo ... y'all two are missin' lu-unch." The words were like the annoying buzz of a horsefly, circling incessantly, determined to land. I wanted to swat away the noise, think about the dinner invitation. What if I said yes?

Was it more than a dinner invitation?

Did I want it to be?

What was I thinking?

"Y'all come on over to the tent and-" Aunt Netta's aborted sentence was more disturbing than whatever she'd been about to say. She'd stumbled onto something worthy of a short silence, which was unusual. Now she would cogitate about what might have been going on before she entered the barnyard.

Oh shoot, was the only thought I had time to form before Aunt Netta went to work. "Well, goodness, y'all two are busy talkin' out here." She pretended not to notice that she'd just caught Nate and me in a moment of ... whatever just happened. "I didn't mean to bother ye-ew te-ew," she stretched out the words, coated them with honey b.u.t.ter so they'd slide down all sticky-sweet.

Nate broke the invisible link between us, glancing at Aunt Donetta. "I was just trying to talk the horse whisperer here into taking a look at the script with me this evening."

Having no experience with Aunt Donetta and her legendary penchant for matchmaking, Nate was unaware that he'd just dropped a big wad of stinkbait into the catfish pond. Mama fish would be all over it quicker than I could say, There's nothing going on here, Aunt Netta. The guy in the flip-flops and I were just talking ... about horses and scripts. You know I'd never be interested in a guy who wears flip-flops.

I wouldn't.

Ever.

My father made fun of guys who wore what he called them beach shoes. His contempt harkened back to the infamous years of the hippies. He said men should wear a man shoe-cowboy boots in general, slippers after hours, tennis shoes only after major surgery, or for the church softball game and occasionally donkey basketball.

When my father took us to Corpus Christi as kids, his idea of beach attire was rolled up Wrangler jeans and tube socks, which was just as well, because my father's legs hadn't seen the sun since he quit the 1959 Daily High track team to spend more time rodeoing.

He had thoroughly warned me against hippies and all manner of men who didn't dress to make an honest living. He liked the fact that Danny wouldn't have been caught in anything but proper cowboy attire, but in the long run, he didn't like Danny.

Aunt Donetta wasn't bothered by Nate's choice of footwear. "Well, isn't that ni-ice?" She laid on the charm. "Way-ul, like I said earlier, there's not anyone that could tell you more about the way a horse thinks than our Puggy. Why, back when she was little, it was all we could do to get her to put on clothes before she headed out to the horse pen in the mornin'. When she was four, her mama told her to stall up her little pony and come take a bath for her birthday party. Next thang they knew, there was Puggy, all stripped down, sittin' in the horse trough. Figured she'd found a way to get a bath and be with the pony. Her mama got the Mane and Tail shampoo from the tack room, just dumped it right in the horse trough, and washed her and the pony both. Puggy's mama was a kind-hearted woman that way, rest her soul." Laying a hand over her chest, Aunt Donetta laughed. "I still got a picture somewhere of that mop-headed pony drinkin' out of one end of the trough, and little Puggy, naked as a pink piglet on the other, bless her heart. She was just the cutest little ... "

"Aunt Donetta." I stopped her before she could describe in detail little Puggy in the birthday suit, sharing bathwater with Tootsie, the mop-headed pony. Somewhere in the back of my mind, though, I was fascinated with the story. I'd never heard it before, but now I thought I had a vague recollection of it. I thought I could remember my mother laughing as Toots lowered his mouth to the water's surface, snorted and blew spray in my face, then raised his head and curled his lip because the water tasted like soap.

"Look, Mama, him laughin'! Tootsie laughin'!" On the fence, Kemp squealed, reaching toward the water. My father held him as his chubby two-year-old legs bounced up and down on the railing.

"Oh, let him come in," Mom said. "Might as well wash the whole family at once." She took Kemp as my father lifted him over. My father smiled at her adoringly, kissed her across the top rail. ...

"She put Kemp in there, too," I muttered. I had the sudden sense of missing my mother. Even though I'd been without her most of my life, the loss still hit me at the strangest times. If she was still alive she would never have let my father risk the ranch and the shop building in some insane scheme to make a movie.

"She probably did, knowin' your mama," Aunt Netta agreed. "You'd have to ask your daddy for sure about that. The picture I have's just you and the pony. I'll have to look around and see if I can find that picture. That'd be cute on next year's Hair and Body Christmas card." Aunt Netta poked a long red fingernail carefully through the translucent web of hair and scratched her head, concocting a plan to make me next year's Christmas star. Last December's picture was of Kemp and me in a boat with my father. Kemp was about three, crying and pitching a fit because I'd caught three fish and he hadn't caught any.

"You should put Kemp on there again," I cleverly suggested.

"He was a cute baby."

"You were cute." Aunt Netta never let me suffer criticism, even the self-inflicted kind. "After you outgrew the little puggy nose ... well, when we could clean you up enough. Half the time, you looked like one a them poor little orphan kids on the Feed the Children commercial-gra.s.s matted in your hair and all covered with dirt."

Aunt Netta addressed the next comment to Nate so he wouldn't feel left out. "Puggy was such a little tomboy. She played baseball on the boys' team till she was twelve. She woulda took up football, too, but her daddy wouldn't let her." Fanning a hand against her chest, Aunt Netta laughed. "Puggy, remember when you sneaked off and entered the kids' steer ridin' over at San Saba rodeo? You were gonna show your daddy that just because you were a girl didn't mean you couldn't become a bull rider instead of a barrel racer."

Something between a groan and a laugh pressed my throat and Nate raised a brow in curiosity, or admiration, or both.

"I remember," I admitted. My steer riding career lasted about two and a half seconds. They had to drag my contorted body out of the way to close the chute gate. After that, I listened to my father and began resigning myself to the fact that I probably wasn't bull riding material, like it or not.

"She always was stubborn." Aunt Donetta was talking to Nate again. She slid a shrewd look back and forth between Nate and me. "Say, Nate, you make sure to come on over to the house and have dinner with the rest of us this evenin', y'hear? Got a bunch gonna be there-the more the merrier, we always say. Willie 'n Mimi, and Frank, a'course. Ye-ew bring Justin and that Fred-a-rica fella, too. You boys could probably use some real home-cooked food after livin' out there in Hollywood. Our whole family's horse folk, and any of them'd be happy to answer questions for the script."

As much as I loved my family, I blanched at the idea of Nate and Justin Shay among them. They probably would find fodder for their next movie-a western version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. "Aunt Donetta, I don't think-"

"That sounds great," Nate answered. "I'm working on getting an ear for the local dialect."

"Oh, hon we got all kinds'a that, and good pie, too." Aunt Netta swatted a hand enthusiastically. "Ye-ew can have all you want. Puggy can tell ya how to git there, right Puggy? Why don't y'all two just walk over from the hotel together? It's a nice little stroll."

The insinuation of an arranged date was so thick, I could have cut it with a b.u.t.ter knife. I said the first thing that came to mind.

"Aunt Donetta, I need to go get a ... goat this evening."

She c.o.c.ked her head and blinked at me like I was the crazy one.

"For the goat ... I mean horse. A goat for the horse," I stammered. "To settle him down. I thought I'd go by Uncle Top's place.

He's probably got something we could use for a few days."

"Uncle Top's gone to the stock show." Aunt Netta mused momentarily on the goat issue. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind if y'all went by and borrowed a goat, though. He's got so many. Why don't you get Nate to help you, then y'all two can come on over for dinner ... say about six-thirty?"

"Sounds good," Nate agreed amiably. He was either unaware that he was being railroaded toward date with Puggy or he didn't care.

Aunt Donetta patted him on the shoulder, then squeezed his arm as if she were testing a side of meat. "Wonderful! It'll be good for Puggy to have a strong young man along. In case there's any trouble with the goat." She pretended not to notice Nate's shorts and flip-flops. Hardly goat-wrestling attire.

I gave up my end of the debate. There was no point. Aunt Donetta could talk the warts off a toad. Unless a tornado swept through town before six-thirty, Justin, Nate, Willie, Mimi, Fred-erico, and I were going to eat at Aunt Netta's house, along with whomever else she could gather up. Entertainment reporters and paparazzi all over the country would probably pay millions to crash this little shindig. It would be one of those cases in which truth was stranger than fiction-Tinsel Town's favorite party boy settled in on Aunt Netta's old harvest-gold sofa with a ham dinner in his lap and professional bull riding on TV. The newspapers would have to provide pictures in order to get the public to believe it.

"Well ... good!" Aunt Donetta turned an ear toward the driveway, where Imagene was headed in our direction.

"Land's sake, Donetta!" Imagene called across the empty s.p.a.ce. "Get over here. We got pies to cut!" One thing about Imagene Doll-she didn't believe in standing around talking when there was work to be done. For Aunt Netta, talking took priority over everything else. She always said, "The dishes wait, but the folks move on." You had to visit when you got the opportunity.

"On my way!" Aunt Netta called, happy to head out now that dinner plans had been sealed. Turning back to Nate and me, she flashed a self-satisfied grin. "Now, you te-ew just go on with what ye-ew were doin' before I got here. I didn't mean to git in the way." Her words stretched around us like taffy, pulling us together. "Y'all just go ahead and chat. I'll bring ye-ew some lunch plates over in a bit." With a little finger wave, she trundled off looking well pleased, having successfully arranged the evening and all.

When she was gone, I turned to Nate to apologize. A smile was cracking the sides of his mouth, and I couldn't help it, I started to laugh.

"I think we've just been shanghaied there, Puggy," he said in a deliberate and fairly good imitation of Aunt Netta's tw.a.n.gy Texas drawl.

"You think?" I had to give Nate credit for being, perhaps, the most tolerant guy I'd ever met. Every time Aunt Donetta had tried to railroad Danny like that, he'd gotten irritable. "You really don't have to show up for supper with my family. I can just tell her you all had other things going on."

Nate quirked a brow, and I felt a surprising sting of disappointment at the idea that he would take the out. He probably only said yes to avoid hurting Aunt Netta's feelings. That in itself was sweet. Nate, while possessed of questionable fashion sense, was an extremely nice guy. In the pairing of him and Justin Shay, he seemed to be the responsible one, the nurturer who patiently tried to steer around the pitfalls and clean up the messes.

I was once again curious about the relationship between the two of them. "I could meet you after supper to look at the script."

Taking the hat from the fence and attempting to straighten the mangled brim, Nate laughed. "Are you kidding? I'm gathering dialect and y'all have all kinds of it ... and pie, too, remember? Besides, I'm looking forward to seeing the picture of you and Tootsie in the bathtub, and then there's goat wrestling. ... " Grinning, he fanned an eyebrow. "You'll need a big strong man for that."

I felt that grin somewhere in the pit of my stomach. "You're not dressed for goat wrestling."

He took in his bare feet, then held one up and studied it. "Maybe I can borrow them-there fancy steel-toed boots from The Shay."

"Please don't," I said, and both of us laughed. I had the odd sense that I could have stood there with him all day, talking about nothing in particular and enjoying it. "So, have you ever lived in Texas? You do the accent pretty well."

The personal inquiry surprised him. "No telling. We moved around a lot. I wasn't always sure where we were."

"No, seriously." As soon as I said it, I realized he wasn't joking. Was it possible to move around so much you didn't know where you were?

"Seriously," he confirmed, dismissing the answer with a shrug.

"That must've been strange." I wondered if that was why Nate seemed comfortable, quietly confident, in a situation that should have been foreign to him. "Were your parents in the army?"

"Gypsies," he answered with a straight face. For a millisecond I was fascinated. I'd never met a real live gypsy before. "We traveled around selling homemade soap and fresh honey. We had a big red-wheeled wagon pulled by a pair of goats."

I felt myself smiling, saw him grin in return. "It must have been hard to get the bees to follow along ... to make the honey, I mean."

"We tied little strings to their feet." Pinching his fingers together, he mimicked the motion of tying a tiny bow.

"I bet they didn't like that very much."

His warm brown eyes sparked with a hint of appreciation for the fact that I was playing along. "The trick is to roll them over and scratch their little abdomens. They enjoy that."

"No doubt. I guess you'd have to turn them loose to go collect nectar, though."

"Only a few at a time. The rest have to hang around and fan the soap trays and pat out the bubbles with their tiny feet."

"Wow." I could understand now why he was a writer. He almost had me picturing the gypsy wagon with the soap molds in the back. "Sounds like a business I need to look into. The bees do all the work."

Nate nodded. "My mother was always in favor of someone else doing the work." Even though he tried to make it sound like a joke, a part of the story, there was a flash of emotion that told me that bit was real. I wasn't sure how to respond. I wanted to know more, but something told me I shouldn't ask.

We stood suspended in awkward silence for a moment before he motioned toward the serving tent. "Looks like lunch is on its way."

Imagene was headed our direction. Carrying a shallow box, she chatted with Miss Beedie, who was ferrying two drinks with a pie pan balanced on top.

At the sight of Miss Beedie, something painful slammed my ribs, then constricted. I couldn't breathe. My mind raced ahead, imagining what I might say when, for the first time in two years, I was face-to-face with the mother of the man who was dead because of Danny and me. When Pastor Harve and Miss Beedie buried their son, Harvard Jr., I was in the hospital in Austin, in a quiet, medically induced sleep. I should have gone to them when I was finally back on my feet. I should have told them Danny didn't drive into the water accidentally. He did it because we were arguing, and I told him to go around the long way, and he wanted to prove he didn't have to.

When I woke up in the hospital, my father said no one blamed us for what had happened. It was dark. It was raining. The water over the road was hard to see. It was an accident. Some sad, guilty part of me felt relief. It seemed like it would be easier for everyone not to know that Harvard had died because of a stupid, careless mistake, an immature, childish argument that was one of a long string of arguments.

I couldn't make myself call Harvard's family and tell the truth, but I couldn't call them and lie, so I just didn't call. I sent a card, a tree to be planted at Caney Creek Church, and a plaque. I let time go by.

I'd created a chasm for which there seemed to be no easy bridge. Miss Beedie was crossing it in her slow bowlegged shuffle with two gla.s.ses of iced tea and a pie pan, her mocha-colored skin warm in the midday light. She and Imagene were busy talking, seemingly unaware that they were closing a gap I'd worked hard to maintain.

"I ... left something," I muttered to Nate, then turned and hurried toward the barn.

Chapter 14.