When I got back to Kansas, I would turn over a new leaf, be more open to the people around me, be thankful for the things I'd been taking for granted, and stop wallowing in my own misery.

When I got home, things would be different.

You are home, a voice whispered in my ear. This is home. Why wait? Start now. Start here.

I stepped out of the car with the idea circling my head like a b.u.t.terfly determined to find a sweet place to land. Looking around at the old Barlinger ranch, I took in, really took in for the first time, the scope of its resurrection. This place, which had lain fallow for so long, which had been useless and empty and broken, was being lifted up, given a new purpose. If such a thing were possible with old buildings, certainly it was possible with my life. This trip to Daily, this movie project, was an opportunity, and I should have been looking at it that way. I could have been back in my condo, where stuff was piled everywhere and there was nothing on the walls, because I didn't want to admit I'd be staying there. Instead, I was back home in Daily, taking on a challenge-creating a partnership between Justin Shay and Lucky Strike was definitely a challenge-but both Aunt Donetta and Imagene had always been confident that great things can come from humble beginnings. They'd painted that motto, along with others, over the tops of the beauty shop mirrors. G.o.d uses small things for great purposes. I'd pa.s.sed that mirror a thousand times and never stopped to think about what the words really meant.

Nate was already unloading his new friend from the trailer by the time I rounded the truck. "You might wait until ... " There was no point adding, I can back the trailer up to the gate. The nanny stepped out, looked around, then lowered her head and scratched her ears on Nate's leg.

"Guess we'd better put it in the stall, or someplace," Nate said, patting the goat's shoulder blades as if it were a big dog. He started toward the barn with the goat nibbling on the hem of his shorts.

Nate pushed it away and quickened his pace. "Ouch, hey, there's skin under there. All right, this is getting a little weird." He moved into a jog. The goat bleated and trotted after him.

I laughed as the two of them disappeared into the barn, the goat crying out and Nate calling back, "Lauren? Hey! Lauren?

Uhhh ... Puggy, hurry up, all right? This goat's getting a little ... uhhh ... I think it likes me ... Ouch! Cut that ... "

When I entered the barn, Nate and the goat were playing tag around a pallet of feed sacks, while one of the barn dogs yipped and frolicked just out of reach.

"Open the door!" Nate had lost a flip-flop and was half running, half limping on the rough stone aisleway. In one graceful bound, the goat jumped atop the feed sacks, and Nate had nowhere left to go. He stopped, standing frozen with his hands palm out. "All right, open the door." He was focusing on the goat like an animal tamer keeping a lion on a pedestal.

"What's it worth to you?" I teased, and he cut a warning glance my way.

"Not funny."

"I wasn't kidding." I was, really, but the nervous, edgy side of Nate was something I hadn't seen before. He was always flawlessly laid back, at least on the outside.

"Puggy ... " He pointed a finger at me while still giving the goat the one-handed stop sign.

"There's no one here by that name." Moving to Lucky Strike's stall, I pinched the gate latch between two fingers. The horse moved to the far end of the stall and continued pacing.

"Lauren. Open the gate."

"Ask me nicely."

"Lauren, darling. Pookie, open the gate now, and we'll let the little lonely goat go make a new friend. Won't that be nice?"

The muscles in the goat's haunches coiled as I slid the door latch and swung open the door. Nate bolted through the opening, closely followed by the goat, then performed a side pa.s.s worthy of a professional toreador. He slipped past Lucky Strike and vaulted over the rear gate and into the barnyard in one impressive acrobatic leap. I closed the door, flipped the latch, and only then considered the fact that if Lucky Strike didn't like the goat, things might get dicey.

Lucky Strike didn't seem to notice his new companion. He continued pacing along the far wall as the goat investigated the stall, then stood on her hind legs by the back door, searching for her flip-flop wearing new best friend.

Nate came around the barn, and we hovered at the front of the stall, watching for signs of goat-horse bonding. I was conscious of Nate's body close to mine, his arm warm and solid where it touched me.

The goat turned our way, stretched out her neck, and let out a long, bleating complaint.

Lucky Strike halted at the sound and stood frozen beside the wall. He slowly swiveled toward the goat, lowered his head and took a sniff, then snorted, eyes wide and white-rimmed.

The goat was intrigued. Sticking out her tongue, she bleated at Lucky Strike, then moved in the horse's direction. The horse retreated, snorting and backing to the other side of the stall, then coming forward, then backing off again.

"I ... dunno," Nate muttered.

"Give it a minute," I whispered. "At least the horse is reacting to stimulus. He's focused. That's good."

We watched as Lucky Strike and the goat circled the stall once, twice, again, again, again.

"Come on, come on," I muttered. If we were ever going to make a success of Lucky Strike in The Horseman, stopping the pathological weaving was a necessary first step. "Please ... "

We waited as the moments ticked by, and then finally a minor miracle began to take place. Lucky Strike lowered his head to sniff in the nanny goat's direction, and the goat extended her nose toward Lucky Strike. The gap closed slowly, until finally only inches separated them. Lucky Strike nickered low in his throat, the nanny goat bleated softly, and then they greeted one another with a warm, wet nose rub. The bond of friendship progressed rapidly from there, horse sniffing goat and goat sniffing horse, until finally the nanny grew tired after her long evening adventure and moved to the corner of the stall, where she folded her knees and lay down in the soft pine shavings. Lucky Strike moved back to his pacing spot, and I held my breath, leaning closer to the stall door.

I felt Nate beside me, his body tense with expectation. "Come on, big guy," he whispered. Lucky Strike c.o.c.ked an ear to the sound. In the corner of the stall, the goat gave a soft, beckoning call, and Lucky Strike looked back and forth between the goat and the wall, between a new possibility and an old habit.

Watching him, I recognized myself, stuck in one painful place, unable to take a leap of faith. Please, please, please. The prayer in my head was about more than the horse and the goat. Stop.

As quickly as the words went through me, the prayer was answered. Leaving the pacing wall, Lucky Strike crossed the enclosure, lowered his head to nibble gently on the ear of his new companion, then sniffed the ground, turned in a circle, and lay down like the lion beside the lamb.

Nate and I backed away from the stall, quietly triumphant. The barn was wonderfully silent, save for the muted strains of guitar music drifting from the stablehand's apartment upstairs and one of the dogs yipping at something outside.

"We did it!" I whisper-cheered, giddy with success.

"We did." Nate opened his arms, and suddenly, we were locked in a triumphant hug. He picked me up and twirled me down the aisle into the yard, and the next thing I knew, exuberance had turned into something else. Electricity crackled through my body like a lightning shower riding an oncoming thunderhead.

When he set me down, I was slightly dizzy and off balance. We stood in a pose that felt decidedly romantic.

"Sorry, I ... " I tried to find my feet, or my head, or both.

He smiled slightly, his eyes a warm, rich shade of chocolate, and I felt myself tumble head over heels, until everything seemed unreal. You're dreaming this, some part of me said. It's a nice dream. Just enjoy the moment. My gosh, he's gorgeous. ...

"Don't be," he said, and I couldn't even form a conscious thought. Somewhere in the distance, I heard the rising crescendo of music that could only lead to the long, pa.s.sionate kiss that both the hero and the heroine had been trying to resist, yet both were waiting for, waiting for ...

Yearning for ...

A board or a ladder fell somewhere near the house, and I came to reality with a jolt. "Guess the ... ummm ... goat worked," was the only thing I could think of to say as we ended the romantic clutch.

Nate seemed temporarily tongue-tied. "Looks like it," he said finally.

"You lost your date." I motioned over my shoulder toward the stall, where things remained wonderfully quiet.

Inclining his head to one side, Nate gave me a slow, crooked smile. "Maybe not."

My mind once again began to spin possibilities, like a spider forming a web in which I'd soon be trapped, if I wasn't careful.

Somewhere in my thoughts, a voice whispered, Just leave this alone.

You're not ready, and even if you were, he wouldn't be a safe choice. ...

"Guess we should let sleeping goats lie."

"Guess we should," Nate agreed.

Despite the voice of conscience reminding me that I wasn't looking for any entanglements, I found myself a.n.a.lyzing the tone of his words, hoping he sounded a little reluctant to leave. As we closed the trailer doors and prepared to go, I felt his nearness, thought again about the fact that there was no one around for miles. Just the two of us. Except for Joe upstairs.

I struck up a conversation about The Horseman, because it seemed like a safe subject. Nate talked about various scenes in the screenplay, and which ones he thought might be good choices to present to M. Harrison Dane next Monday.

"I still can't believe M. Harrison Dane is coming here in a little over a week," I said.

"Me, either," Nate admitted. "I haven't had the chance to ask The Shay how he managed to swing that. It's a serious long shot to think Dane would attach himself to a project like this, but I have to give The Shay credit for smart thinking. With Dane committed, this project would be a whole lot closer to actually happening."

That uncomfortable feeling slithered up my spine again, creepy, like a deer tick under my clothes, looking for a place to burrow in. "You know, Willie and my father are under the impression that it's a done deal. So far, I haven't heard Justin Shay mention this thing in the maybe sense, even once."

Nate seemed to think carefully about what to say. I wanted to reach across the s.p.a.ce between us, grab his arm, and shake him until the whole truth fell out. "Justin doesn't deal so much in practicalities." Nate's eyes met mine, and I knew he was finally going to level with me completely.

"The truth is that the numbers for his last film weren't good- over budget, poor performance at the box office, and onto DVD way too soon. His studio deal is in serious jeopardy, and with Justin's recent history, it's not likely the production company can put together independent money for something just because he wants it. The fact is that the studio deal is the only thing keeping his production company alive, and Justin's got to come through big this time. He's got to keep the studio happy, and they're going to want to do something close to home, where there's less budget and Justin's not so hard to insure. They'll want something they know they can sell-a typical Justin Shay flick. When he comes to the table with a tender cowboy story, they're going to laugh him out of the room. If Dane attaches himself to it, though, that's a huge push. Barring that ... " Nate rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head. "Without Dane, there's no way. It won't matter how cooperative the horse is or how well Justin learns to play cowboy. I'm sorry, Lauren, but if you want my honest opinion, I think Justin's fooling himself. It wouldn't be the first time."

I took a step away, studying him in a light that seemed too harsh for the late-day quiet. The hope I'd started to foster drained away, leaving an empty chill in its wake. "If you feel that way, then why are you here?" Maybe Nate wasn't the person I'd begun to allow myself to imagine. Maybe he was exactly what I'd thought he was to begin with-a celebrity hanger-on basking in the ambient light of fame while telling his benefactor what he wanted to hear. "Why are you letting Justin Shay mislead everyone into thinking you're going to write some Academy Awardwinning screenplay that will make Daily famous? Don't you realize people are investing their lives in this-my father, Amber, everyone who's out here working on this place?"

Bracing his hands on his hips, Nate looked at the ground and let out a long sigh. A worry line-a first-creased the s.p.a.ce between his brows, and I saw the truth even if he didn't want to speak it.

He was afraid of this project. He was afraid to tell the truth. He was afraid not to. "Justin and I go back a long way. ... "

"That's no excuse." The latent glow of pa.s.sion whiplashed into anger. I focused it on him, even though I knew it should have been aimed in a dozen different directions-my father living by the code, Willie Wardlaw for taking advantage of it, Justin Shay for filling everyone full of lies, myself for beginning to hope. I should have been smarter than that. "My father invested in this thing. He has a right to the truth."

"You don't understand how the business works."

My spine went rigid, the old, familiar heat of indignation creeping through me. I hadn't argued like this with anyone since Danny. Danny was always so sure he was right about everything. He wanted it all his way. His plans were always the ones that would work out, if not today, then tomorrow, the next day. The rest of us were just supposed to keep hoping and believing until we were so far down a hole we couldn't climb out. I looked at Nate, and I saw Danny. Same operator, different clothes. "I may not be from Hollywood, but I'm not an idiot. I recognize a scam when I see one."

Nate's chin jerked up as if I'd slugged him. His jaw tightened and twitched. "It's not a scam."

"People deserve the truth. Even if it's not what they want to hear."

"There is no truth, it's ... " He twisted away, took his frustrations out on a rock and watched it skitter across the gravel. "There's no way to know anything for sure until Dane comes. Strange things happen in Hollywood all the time." He blew into his fingers, his shoulders sagging as the air went out. "I'm not the one with the power to make or break this deal."

"But you don't think we can get Dane?" I felt my anger begin to go stale. This problem was so complex, it was hard to know who to be angry at.

Nate considered the answer for a long time, as if he were tormented by it, as if there were no good solutions. "I have no idea." He opened his mouth to say something more, but then thought better of it.

"What would it take to get Dane to commit ... attach, or whatever you call it?"

Combing strands of caramel brown hair through his fingers, he squinted at the horizon, where the shadows of evening fell over the hills, slowly muting the colors, painting a watercolor wash of forest green, pale gray, and in the distance a soft, dark violet that blended almost seamlessly into the sky. "A good script that hasn't already been laughed at by everyone in the business, a lead with a name that brings in big box office. This is a character flick. The cast has to sell it."

"Justin Shay is a big name," I said.

"Not in this genre." Nate's brows knotted again, forming a long wrinkle in his forehead. "I don't know if he can do it. I don't even think he knows if he can do it."

I stood torn between hope and hopelessness. If the project remained a possibility, then everything might still be all right. If Nate was a sycophant merely hedging to protect his meal ticket, then all was lost. The options swayed like a tree in the wind. It was difficult to know which way to fall. "He seems confident."

"Justin's like that." Nate shrugged off the argument like a coat that was too heavy. He glanced toward my SUV, indicating that heart-to-heart time was over. "I guess we should get going, huh?"

"I guess," I agreed. The realities of The Horseman were best taken in small bites. Lumped all together, it was enough to choke a horse. One thing at a time, I told myself. Get through the family dinner first, then let's have a look at this script, see how bad it really is.

There must be a way to make all of this work out. There has to be.

As we climbed into the SUV and left the ranch behind, I tried to leave off the a.n.a.lysis. There was no way of knowing where Nate Heath's loyalties really lay, and no reason for him to reveal them. Whether this project lived or died, his existence would go on as usual. He could afford to wait and see which way the ball bounced, but for Daily, for my father, this project was everything, which meant I couldn't just stand back and wait. If Justin Shay wasn't going to buy my father and Willie out of this project, I had no choice but to get behind The Horseman and start pushing. I'd been standing on the sidelines, letting life happen to me for too long now. I didn't want to be that woman anymore. I wanted to be the bright-eyed optimist, like Amber Anderson.

I used to be that girl, I thought. I used to be the bold one.

Somewhere in the chilling floodwaters of Caney Creek, that boldness had been washed away. Perhaps the part of me that died that night was still lodged in the rocks along the sh.o.r.eline somewhere, like a long-lost artifact waiting to be rediscovered, rescued, and polished, if only I would come searching. ...

Without consciously thinking about it, I pulled onto the county road and turned toward Caney Creek. When I realized what I'd done, a lump rose in my throat and my hands tightened on the wheel. I considered going on, driving past Amber's house, past Pastor Harve's church, continuing over the hill and into the next valley, slowing just a little as the truck splashed through the harmless trickle at the low-water crossing on the county road.

And then, despite all the bl.u.s.ter in my head, I couldn't do it. If wishes were horses, Aunt Netta always said, and I was only wishing. I didn't have what it took to go back to that place again, to face the pain and search for what was lost.

Stopping the truck in the middle of the road, I shifted into reverse, backed the trailer over a culvert by a gate, and headed around the long way. "Sorry about that," I said. "We'd better go around the other way. We'll drop the trailer back at Uncle Top's as we pa.s.s."

Nate nodded amiably, perhaps just glad to have the Horseman discussion over. If our conversation had offended him in any way, he didn't show it. Settling into the pa.s.senger seat and taking in the scenery, he probed the silence by asking harmless questions about local landmarks, jackrabbits, and a roadrunner that dashed by after we left the trailer at Uncle Top's house. The conversation slipped into a rhythm that was easy and nonthreatening. We talked about Daily and my years growing up here. As we drove into town and turned onto Main Street, I warned him about Aunt Donetta's gatherings and the fact that my relatives would probably force-feed him everything from grilled wild game to UFOs (unidentified fried objects) and a dozen varieties of pie. No shindig at the yellow clapboard house on B Street was ever complete without wild game and multiple desserts.

A low cloud of mesquite smoke hung over B Street when we reached it, and two blocks down, past an unstructured jumble of cars parked on the street, in lawns, and over ditches, actual flames were visible. A full-scale Donetta Bradford barbecue was underway.

It looked like she'd invited half of the town, which was typical.

Aunt Netta's plans always started small and grew larger, like the biblical ball of dough. Pour Aunt Netta into a situation, and it'd be leavened beyond manageable size before you could say, Hold on a minute, maybe we should think this through.

Nate poked his head out the window with a look of concern.

"Smells like something's on fire."

"That's just my family cooking," I a.s.sured him, and he gave me a look of disbelief mingled with what was probably a healthy dose of fear. "Seriously," I said. "They've probably caught the fryer on fire again. Aunt Donetta usually feeds the volunteer Fire Department right along with the guests."

Nate rubbed his chin, which actually needed a shave. I noted, a bit reluctantly, that he looked good that way. For some reason, it was hard to think of Nate as potentially untrustworthy, potentially the enemy. I wanted to like him, even though I knew it might not be a good idea.

"Looks like The Shay made it here," he said, spotting Justin's ridiculous monster truck backed up to the carport, half on the lawn and half on the driveway. "I'll get the keys from him and move that thing out of there." Nate looked slightly embarra.s.sed, as if he realized that parking on your host's lawn wasn't proper guest behavior.

"Oh, hey, don't worry about it," I said, wiggling my Durango into a spot behind a truck with a post auger dangling off the back. No doubt, Aunt Donetta had spotted Pearly Parsons working on fences at the Anderson-Shay ranch and invited him to dinner. "Everyone parks on the lawn here. We don't bother to mow the gra.s.s. We just drive over it until it dies."

Nate chuckled like he thought that was a joke, which it really wasn't. It occurred to me that compared to the manicured lawns and gardens of multimillion dollar Hollywood estates, Daily must seem incredibly redneck. Aunt Netta's house was anything but manicured. Around the porch, holly bushes and climbing roses had grown wild, so that the guests coming and going were forced to slip through a narrow opening in the foliage to reach the house. It wasn't much of an inconvenience normally, because everyone came and went through the carport door anyway.

At the moment, the carport was filled with coolers, two barbecue grills, a propane fish fryer, a smattering of mixed-breed dogs, lawn chairs of all types and the men who love them. It wasn't actually the fryer that was on fire, but a large barbecue grill, and trying to shut down the fire was, of all people, Justin Shay. Willie Wardlaw stood beside him, scratching his head and looking at an instruction book, and my father was dragging a garden hose across the lawn, shouting, "Ya want me to douse it?" Meanwhile, uncles, neighbors, and members of the local Sheriff's Department were looking on with interest, trying to decide whether to vacate their lawn chairs before the propane tank blew up.

The entire scene was a Norman Rockwell freeze frame. Next year's Christmas card in the making. Happy Holidays from Daily, Texas!

Despite the rising flames, which finally convinced several dogs and a few guests to leave the carport, Nate waded into the fray and quickly involved himself in figuring out how to turn off the ma.s.sive barbecue grill-a quandary, since the plastic control b.u.t.tons had been melted by the flames shooting out. Justin held up one of the b.u.t.tons to show Nate the problem, while Willie pointed out that in the picture, the grill had an emergency shutoff, but he couldn't find it. My father again offered to spray water on the grill, but there was a plate of freshly fried fish nearby, and the crowd was more concerned about the fish than our lives.

Finally Nate grabbed an oven mitt, took the perilous step of squatting down behind the grill and sticking his hand inside it, then closed the valve on the propane bottle. He came out shaking his hand wildly, then slung off the smoking oven mitt and checked to make sure he still had all his fingers. The mitt flew across the carport and landed on a sleeping dog, which jumped up, yelping, tucked its tail, and ran for daylight. My father went after the dog with the garden hose, just in case.

Uncle Beans, who'd been a latent observer until then, hurried to one of the coolers and pulled out a cold can of Dr. Pepper, which he shoved into Nate's hand. "Here, young fella. Hold that."

Beans peered up from beneath the time-worn cowboy hat he'd had for as long as I could remember. His theory had always been that a man only needed one good hat in a lifetime, if he took care of it right.

Justin stepped toward the barbecue grill, and Nate slung an arm out like a mom protecting a toddler during a sudden stop.