Nicholas Evans - The Horse Whisperer

Then Robert called the airline. They had a problem. There was only one other seat on the return flight he'd booked himself on from Salt Lake City to New York. He asked them to hold it.

'I'll get a later flight,' Annie said.

'Why?' Robert said. 'You may as well stay here.'

'She can't fly back here on her own.'

Grace said, 'Why not? Come on, Mom, I flew to England on my own when I was ten!'

'No. It's a connection. I'm not having you wandering around an airport on your own.'

'Annie,' Robert said. 'It's Salt Lake City. There are more Christians per square yard than in the Vatican.'

'Mom, I'm not a kid.'

'You are a kid.'

'The airline'll take care of her,' Robert said. 'Look, if it comes to it, Elsa can fly out with her.'

There was a silence, he and Grace both watching Annie, waiting on her decision. There was something new, some indefinable change in her that he'd noticed first on the way back from Butte the previous day. At the airport he'd put it down simply to the way she looked, this new healthy radiance she had. On the journey she'd listened to the banter between him and Grace with a kind of amused serenity. But later, beneath it, he'd thought he glimpsed something more wistful. In bed, what she'd done for him was blissful, yet also somehow shocking. It had seemed to have its source not in desire but in some deeper, more sorrowful intent.

Robert told himself that whatever change there was doubtless stemmed from the trauma and release of losing her job. But now, while he watched her making up her mind, he acknowledged to himself that he found his wife unfathomable.

Annie was looking out of the window at the perfect late spring afternoon. She turned back to them and pulled a comic sad face.

'I'll be here all on my own.'

They laughed. Grace put an arm around her.

'Oh, poor little Mommy.'

Robert smiled at her. 'Hey. Give yourself a break.

Enjoy it. After a year of Crawford Gates, if anyone deserves some time it's you.'

He called the airline to confirm Grace's reservation.

They built the fire for the barbecue in a sheltered bend of the creek below the ford, where two rough-hewn wooden tables with fixed benches stood the year round, their tops warped and runneled and bleached the palest gray by the elements. Annie had come across them on her morning run from whose tyrannical routine she seemed, with no apparent ill effect, to have all but escaped. Since the cattle drive, she had only run once and even then was shocked to hear herself tell Grace she'd been out jogging. If she was now a jogger, she might as well quit.

The men had gone up earlier to get the fire going. It was too far for Grace to walk with her taped-up leg and resurrected cane, so she went with Joe in the Chevy, ferrying the food and drink. Annie and Diane trailed after on foot with the twins. They walked at a leisurely pace, enjoying the evening sun. The trip to L.A. had just ceased to be a secret and the boys babbled with excitement.

Diane was friendlier than ever. She seemed genuinely pleased that they'd sorted Grace's problem out and wasn't at all spiky, as Annie had feared, about her staying on.

'Tell you the truth, Annie, I'm glad you're going to be around. That young Smoky's okay, but he's only a kid and I'm not too sure how much goes on in that head of his.'

They walked on while the twins ran ahead. Only once did their conversation pause, when a pair of swans flew over their heads. They watched the sun on their earnest white necks craning up the valley and listened to the moan of their wings fading on the still of the evening.

As they drew nearer, Annie heard the crackle of firewood and saw a curl of white smoke above the cottonwoods.

The men had built the fire on a close-cropped spit of grass that jutted into the creek. To one side of it, Frank was showing off to the children how he could skim stones and earning only derision. Robert, beer in hand, had been put in charge of the steaks. He was taking the job as seriously as Annie would have predicted, chatting to Tom with one side of his brain while the other monitored the meat. He nagged away at it constantly, readjusting it piece by piece with a long-handled fork. In his plaid shirt and loafers, standing alongside Tom, Annie thought with affection how out of place he looked.

Tom saw the women first. He waved and came over to get them a drink from the cooler. Diane had a beer and Annie a glass of the white wine she'd supplied. She found it hard to look Tom in the eyes as he handed it to her. Their fingers touched briefly on the glass and the sensation made her heart skip.

'Thanks,' she said.

'So, you're running the ranch for us next week.'

'Oh, absolutely.'

'At least there'll be someone here smart enough to use a telephone if something comes up,' Diane said.

Tom smiled and looked confidingly at Annie. He wasn't wearing a hat and he pushed back a fall of blond hair from his brow as he spoke.

'Diane reckons poor old Smoke can't count to ten.'

Annie smiled. 'It's very kind of you. We've way outstayed our welcome.'

He didn't answer, just smiled again and this time Annie managed to hold his gaze. She felt that if she let herself she could dive into the blue of his eyes. At that moment, Craig came running up to say Joe had pushed him into the creek. His pants were soaked up to the knees. Diane yelled for Joe and went off to investigate. Left alone with Tom, Annie felt panic rise within her. There was so much she wanted to say but not a word of it trivial enough for the occasion. She couldn't tell if he shared or even sensed her awkwardness.

'I'm real sorry about Grace,' he said.

'Yes, well. We sorted it out. I mean, if it's okay with you, she can ride Pilgrim when you get back from Wyoming.'

'Sure.'

'Thank you. Robert won't get to see it but, you know, to have got this far and then not—'

'No problem.' He paused. 'Grace told me about you quitting your job.'

'That's one way of putting it.'

'She said you weren't too cut up about it.'

'No. I feel good about it.'

'That's good.'

Annie smiled and swallowed some more wine, hoping to diffuse the silence that now fell between them. She glanced toward the fire and Tom followed her look. Left to himself, Robert was giving the meat his undivided attention. It would be done, Annie knew, to perfection.

'He's a top hand with a steak, that husband of yours.'

'Oh yes. Yes. He enjoys it.'

'He's a great guy.'

'Yes. He is.'

'I was trying to work out who was the luckier.' Annie looked at him. He was still looking at Robert. The sun was full on Tom's face. He looked at her and smiled. 'You for having him, or him for having you.'

They sat and ate, the children at one table and the adults at the other. The sound of their laughter filled the space among the cotton-woods. The sun went down and between the silhouetted trees Annie watched the molten surface of the creek take on the pinks and reds and golds of the dimming sky. When it was dark enough, they lit candles in tall glass sleeves to shield them from a breeze that never came and watched the perilous fluttering of moths above them.

Grace seemed happy again, now that her hopes of riding Pilgrim were restored. After everyone had finished eating, she told Joe to show Robert the match trick and the children gathered around the adults' table to watch.

When the match jumped the first time, everyone roared. Robert was intrigued. He got Joe to do it again, and then again more slowly. He was sitting across the table from Annie, between Diane and Tom. She watched the candlelight dance on his face while he concentrated, scrutinizing every move of Joe's fingers, searching as he always did for the rational solution. Annie found herself hoping, almost praying, that he wouldn't find it or that if he did, he wouldn't let on.