LITMIR.BIZ

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Sebastian might be worse than the feds. He might be worse than the occasional stray bullet through her dining room window.

      So why had she dragged herself and her two children out to Wyoming?

      The road was winding, dry, hot and dusty. The scenery was spectacular. Wide-open country, mountains rising up from the valley floor, a snaking river, horses and cattle and wildflowers. Despite its other uses, this was still a working ranch.

      J.T. loved it. Madison endured. “I’m pretending I’m Meryl Streep in Out of Africa,” she said. “That might keep me awake.”

      “The high altitude is probably making you sleepy,” Lucy said.

      “I’m not sleepy, I’m bored.”

      “Madison.”

      She checked herself. “Sorry.”

      The road narrowed even more, their car kicking up so much dust Lucy made a mental note to run it through a car wash before taking it back to the rental agency. Finally, they came to a tiny, ramshackle log cabin and small outbuilding tucked into the shade of a cluster of aspens and firs. The road ended.

      Lucy pulled in behind a dusty red truck. “Well,” she said, “I guess this is it.”

      “Oh, yuck.” Madison surveyed the pathetic buildings. “This is like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven.”

      From Out of Africa to Unforgiven. Lucy smiled. Madison kept the local video store in an uproar trying to track down movies for her. It was an interest one of her teachers, in the school she so loathed, encouraged.

      Three scroungy, big mutts bounded out from the shade and surrounded their car, barking and growling as if they’d never seen a stranger. J.T., his seat belt off, nervously stuck his head up front. “Do you think they bite?”

      “I bet they have fleas,” Madison said.

      Lucy judiciously decided to roll down her window and see how the dogs reacted. They didn’t jump. Possibly a good sign. “Hello,” she called out the window. “Anyone around?”

      She checked for any venomous, antisocial bumper stickers on the truck, like Vermonters Go Home. Nothing. Just rust.

      The dogs suddenly went silent. The yellow Lab mix yawned and stretched. The German shepherd mix plopped down and scratched himself. The smallest of the three—an unidentifiable mix that had resulted in a white coat with black and brown splotches—paced and panted.

      “You kids hear anyone call them off?” Lucy asked.

      J.T. shook his head, his eyes wide. This was more adventure than he’d bargained for, out in the wilds of Wyoming with three grouchy dogs and no friendly humans in sight. “No, did you?”

      Madison huffed. “Plato should have sent us with an armed guard.”

      Lucy sighed. “Madison, that doesn’t help.”

      “You’re scaring me,” J.T. said.

      “You two stay here while I go see if we have the right place.” Lucy unfastened her seat belt and climbed out of the car. The air seemed hotter, even drier. The dogs paid no attention to her. She smiled at her nervous son. “See, J.T.? It’s okay.”

      He nodded dubiously.

      “Relax, Lucy.” The male voice seemed to come from nowhere. “You’ve got the right place.”

      J.T. swooped across the back seat and pointed at the cabin. “There! Someone’s on the porch!”

      Lucy shot her children a warning look. “Stay here.”

      She mounted two flat, creaky, dusty steps onto the unprepossessing porch. An ancient, ratty rope hammock hung from rusted hooks. In it lay a dust-covered man with a once-white cowboy hat pulled down over his face. He wore jeans, a chambray shirt with its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, cowboy boots. All of it was scuffed, worn.

      Lucy noted the long legs, the flat stomach, the muscled, tanned forearms and the callused, tanned hands. Sebastian Redwing, she remembered, had always been a very physical man.

      The yellow Lab lumbered onto the porch and collapsed under the hammock in a kalumph that seemed to shake the entire cabin.

      “Sebastian?”

      The man pushed the hat off his face. It, too, was dusty and tanned, and more lined and angular than she remembered. His eyes settled on her. Like everything else, they seemed the color of dust. She remembered they were gray, an unusual, surprisingly soft gray. “Hello, Lucy.”

      Her mouth and lips were dry from the long drive, the low western humidity. “Plato sent me.”

      “I figured.”

      “I’m in Wyoming on business. I have the kids with me. Madison and J.T.”

      He said nothing. He didn’t look as if he planned to move from the hammock.

      “Mom! J.T.’s bleeding!”

      Madison, panicked, leaped out of the car and dragged her brother from the back seat. He cupped his hands under his nose, blood dripping through his fingers.

      “Oh, gross,” his sister said, standing back as she thrust a paper napkin at him.

      Lucy ran toward them. “Tilt your head back.”

      The German shepherd barked at J.T. Sebastian gave a low, barely audible command from his hammock, and the dog backed off.

      J.T., struggling not to cry, stumbled up onto the porch. “I bled all over the car.”

      Madison was right behind him. “He did, Mom.”

      Sebastian materialized at Lucy’s side. She’d forgotten how tall and lean he was, how uneasy she’d always felt around him. Not afraid. Just uneasy. He glanced at J.T. “Kid’s fine. It’s the dry air and the dust.”

      Madison gaped at him. Lucy concentrated on her bleeding son. “May we use your sink?”

      “Don’t have one. You can get water from the pump out back.” He eyed Madison. “You know how to use an outdoor pump?”

      She shook her head.

      “Time you learned.” He was calm, his voice quiet if not soothing. “Lucy, you can bring J.T. inside. Madison and I will meet you.”

      She shrank back, her eyes widening.

      Lucy said, “It’s okay, Madison.”

      Sebastian frowned, as if he couldn’t fathom what about him would be a cause for concern—a dusty man in an isolated cabin with three dogs and no running water. He started down the steps. Madison took a breath and followed, glancing back at Lucy and mouthing, “Unabomber.”

      Lucy got J.T. inside. The prosaic exterior did not deceive. In addition to no running water, there was no electricity. It was like being catapulted back a century to the frontier.

      “It’s just a nosebleed,” J.T. said, stuffing the paper napkin up his nose. “I’m fine.”

      Lucy grabbed a ragged dish towel from a hook above a wooden counter. The kitchen. There was oatmeal, cornmeal, coffee, cans of beans, jars of salsa and, incongruously, a jug of pure Vermont maple syrup.

      In a few minutes, Madison came through the back door with a pitted aluminum pitcher of water. Lucy dipped in the towel. “I think you’ve stopped bleeding, J.T. Let’s just get you cleaned up, okay?” She glanced at her daughter. “Where’s Sebastian?”

      “Out taming wild horses or hunting buffalo, I don’t know. Mom. He doesn’t even have a bathroom.”

      “This place is pretty rustic.”

      Madison groaned. “Clint Eastwood, Unforgiven. I told you.”

      Sebastian walked in from the front porch. “What’s she doing watching R-rated movies? She’s not seventeen.”

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