“It’s about time. Have fun.” He ends the call.
10
I answerthe incoming call from my brother. “Hey, Rhett.”
“Hey, Dally.” It’s a very old nickname only my brothers use. I can hear the low whistle of the wind through the phone, and the slow clop of hoofbeats, which means my brother is already on a horse at six a.m., because Rhett has rearranged his entire life so hecanride a horse at six a.m. whenever the mood strikes him. “What’s this about you taking a week off?”
“News travels fast. How’s Montana?”
“Montana’s fine. How’s New Orleans and who is she?”
It’s a good question, and one I’m not sure how to answer. My silence lasts one beat too long, which is basically a full confession when it comes to my brother.
“There’s only one reason Mr. Wall Street Workaholic would take a week off.” In the background of the call, the low moo of a cow and a far-off birdcall kick up a wave of childhood nostalgia. They’re the sounds of the Paradise Valley doing what it alwaysdoes, which is to exist in a peacefulness so complete it comes through a phone speaker like a reproach to everywhere else. “What’s her name?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie. It’s too new. Too out of control and too fucking raw. I’m already half in love with a total stranger and I’m still not convinced there’s not a bloody hole in the middle of my chest.
Besides, there’s nothingtotalk about yet.There will be, and soon if I get my way, which I always do.But not yet. The whole story involves me sitting at a bar for four hours inventing reasons to order things—a second beer, a bowl of gumbo, a cup of coffee I didn’t want—just to bask in her sublime glow and listen to her off-hand replies to the questions I was able to ask in the rare occasion she had a lull between customers.
Yes, she’s from New Orleans. Yes, the piano player is good. His name’s Lenny. She knows him. He’s been playing here every Friday night for years. Yes, that buttoned-up woman who goes against the grain of the place is the manager. Yes, she guesses itisironic she’s a bartender but never touches the stuff herself.
In an unguarded moment—once—she gave me an actual clue into what makes the angel tick.The devil’s poisonhas cost me too much.But then the forcefield was immediately back in place.Sorry, I’m busy tomorrow. And the day after that.
You work on Sunday? I pressed.
We don’t have days of rest when there are rowdy tourists in need of an overpriced stiff one.
I smiled without meaning to, and she looked at me differently for a few seconds after that, something shifting slightly inher outrageously light-filled eyes. But then another group of customers arrived and she was gone.
I’ve closed deals worth nine figures. I’ve negotiated with sharks whose entire professional identities are built around refusing to budge. And I can say with certainty that the proudest I’ve ever felt was when sweet, saucy Amelie from New Orleans stopped everything else she was doing to meet my eyes with an expression that could have almost been described as beguiled for approximately four seconds.
Rhett isn’t about to let me off so easily. “Why so cagey? Did she turn you down?”
She fucking turned me down. How could she have done that?“It was nothing like that.”
Unfortunately, my brother knows me very well. He easily reads my bluff. “The famous heartbreaker Dallas Wilder actually got turneddown? Holy shit.”
My brother has a knack for getting things out of me. “She didn’t turn me down. She was just distracted. She was working.”
He laughs. “Let me guess, now you’re fixated on getting her to say yes because no one’s ever said no to you before.”
My reply is surly. “I’m not fixated.” Okay, I’m insanely fixated. But not because she turned me down. It’s because I’ve never seen anyonelooklike that before. I didn’t know a person couldbethat fucking beautiful. “I’m just mildly … intrigued.”
“Shit,” he hoots. “This is worse than I thought.”
“I’m glad my misery can entertain you, bro.”
“Trust me, Ineed some entertaining. My days are overrun by cattle inventory and a ranch manager who insists onrearranging my systems—and then she looks at me likeI’mthe unreasonable one, so yes, I need some light relief.”
I smile despite myself. “Which systems is she rearranging?”
“All of them.” Dryly. Rhett has mentioned the new ranch manager with statistical frequency over the last two months, relentlessly complaining about her.
“So you still haven’t managed to win her over. I give it until Friday before she succumbs to your so-called charms.”
“Don’t think I haven’t thought about herthoroughlysuccumbing to my so-called charms day and night for the past month. But that would definitely be a mistake. We still have to work together. Then again, it might be worth it.”
Our father bought the Paradise Valley Ranch around twenty years ago with the determined optimism of a man who believed that eight thousand acres of Montana sky could fix a person. He paid ten million dollars for it and presented it to our mother like a cure-all for her many problems. She lasted a week. The mountains made her feel like the walls were closing in, she told us—which the rest of us found philosophically interesting given that the appeal was its total absence of walls.
