After two days en route from her office in Denver, stopping for meetings in Durango and Grand Junction, Lauren Van Horn emerged from her subcompact car on the main street of San Rafael, Utah. Main Street, in this case, meant the only street, barring a few side lanes that led to houses and cattle gates. Lauren glanced around, surveying the half dozen pickups and a single battered Jeep parked on either side of the blacktop road.
A spring wind carried the scent of sage, along with a whiff of manure. Dust particles strayed under her eyelids and grated between her teeth. Since San Rafael was her hometown, her roots, she’d always felt that she should love this place. She didn’t connect, though. Not since she’d left, or even before then.
"That you, Lauren?" called a gruff, muffled voice. She looked up to see the sheriff catching his usual afternoon siesta on the bench in front of the stone edifice that housed his desk and the community jail.
Sheriff LaDell Purdy knew how to nurture a sliver of shade and a horizontal position. She hadn’t seen him lift his straw hat from where it was parked over his face, but he must have peeked as she drove up. The months since her last visit didn’t seem to phase him; San Rafael’s lazy pace tended to distort time.
"I’m just stopping by my sister’s office for a moment, Sheriff. Maybe I’ll see you at the Mad House later." The Mad House was her mother’s restaurant, located just up the street.
LaDell’s reply was half snort, half snore. A lawman’s visibility, she’d heard him allege more than once, was crime’s primary deterrent. He was visible. Sometimes he was even awake.
She hoped he’d have his eyes open, should she need him. Since nearby Red Rock Canyon had become a wilderness study area the previous summer, largely due to conservationist lobbying, San Rafael wasn’t the healthiest location for an environmental attorney such as herself to spend a May weekend. But Becca, her sister, had asked her to come help out with a personal problem -- a fresh squabble with the ex-husband, apparently. So Lauren was here, for better or worse.
Her goal was to avoid controversy on this trip. It would help if she kept her mouth shut, and she was going to try. Never again would she share her passion for wilderness in this town, not after the uproar she’d caused when she’d unofficially stated her beliefs at a town meeting last November.
San Rafael’s citizens were accustomed to making their living off of surrounding federal lands through grazing, logging, oil and gas, and the occasional mining venture. Those lands were gradually being closed to commercial activities through the creation of a new national monument and additional wilderness areas.
Lauren believed threatened fauna, flora, and landscape in magnificent areas like Red Rock had to be protected. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that. She had tried to tell the San Rafaelites that preserving the land’s wild character would eventually lead to increased tourism, their best hope for prosperity. But would they listen? No. Custom and culture ruled their lives. Outsiders and new ideas were anathema.
Which was why she intended to avoid comment on the Bureau of Land Management’s soon-to-be-released resource management plan. Neither her mother nor her sister would be happy if Lauren stoked up conflict, as she often tended to do.
She stretched stiff, travel-weary arms above her head, feeling a breeze on her bare midriff. While retucking her blouse into her fawn skirt, she considered wearing the matching jacket and decided against it. Since the hometown folks already thought of her as an overeducated priggish snob, dressing down was for the best.
After locking her car, lest someone nab her laptop or the purse she’d tucked under the seat, she hastened toward the detached white brick building next to the sheriff’s office, where she hoped to find Becca. She pushed open the glass door of the BLM’s one-woman field office and scurried inside to escape another gust of spring wind.
Someone was leaning over the single desk, trying to catch papers whirling in the draft, and it wasn’t Becca. The someone was male. When he raised his head, Lauren’s whole body froze. The door sucked itself closed at her back, leaving her in what seemed like a vacuum from the past.
His face was leaner, his shoulders broader; his curly hair had sun-bleached to a burnished red-gold. His blue eyes hadn’t changed, except now the corners showed tiny tracks that told her he’d kept on laughing since they had last met. She, on the other hand, had almost forgotten how.
"Can I help you?" Gabe Randolph showed no sign of recognizing her, but then he wouldn’t expect her to be in town any more than she’d expected him. It had, after all, been fourteen years since he’d graduated from high school and left San Rafael.
Finding him here now caught her completely unprepared. She hesitated, thinking he’d figure out who she was any second. When he didn’t, she decided to see how long it took. She moistened her chapped lips and tried for poise. "I’m looking for Rebecca Hewitt."
"She’s not around, but if you ask the right questions, maybe I can answer them." He settled back in the desk’s swivel chair. His slow, patronizing smile made Lauren steam. She didn’t know which bothered her more, the blatant sexism or his failure to identify her.
He was bound to notice something familiar sooner or later. Pushing up her sunglasses, she stuck them on top of her head. "Would you care to explain what you’re doing here?"
"Same as you, ma’am," he drawled with what seemed to be purposeful insolence. "Hoping to find Miz Hewitt."
"Really? I could have sworn I saw you flipping through that stack of papers in front of you."
"Nope. Not me." He propped his feet on the desk while his lazy gaze completed a tour down her ivory silk blouse to the conservative hem of her skirt. He made a quick trip up again and did a double take at her face. His cowboy boots hit the floor. "Laurie!"
"Laur-en, if you don’t mind." She enjoyed his shock in discovering that little Laurie was fully grown. Though she was only three years younger than he, the age gap had been significant during their teenage years. He had barely noticed she was female then, much less a budding woman. Come to think of it, she still resented that. "How are you, Gabe?"
"Good. Real good." Half rising, slanting forward over the desk, he offered his hand, which she gripped briefly. He must have sensed her reluctance, because he didn’t push it. He motioned to a chair and sat down in his. Leaning back, he reestablished his filthy boots on the paper-strewn desk surface, his fingers interlocked behind his head. "How’ve you been?"
She perched on the edge of the chair he’d indicated. "Not bad. I just stopped in to–- I live in Denver." She was rattled and wary, unwilling to share more until he did. After so long, she wasn’t sure how to begin.
"I heard you cleared out of San Rafael as soon as you could get away," he said. "For Colorado State and then law school at Stanford. Now, I hear, you’re with the Colorado Plateau Wilderness Association."
She’d had no idea he’d kept tabs on her; they’d quit corresponding after his first year at a Texas college. After Becca married, to be more precise. "I do love my work," she said, still cautious. "I amuse myself by jumping headfirst into environmental conflicts in Colorado, Arizona, sometimes Utah."
"You’re good at it, I bet. You’d pour heart and soul into something like that. Which must make you real popular in this town."
"Only an IRS auditor could be more loved. What are you doing back in San Rafael?" she asked.
He met her gaze and held it. "I bought out Great Basin Petroleum."
She’d known that much, just as he must know, as her onetime friend, that his ownership of a company with the worst pollution record of the nineties wouldn’t sit well with her. She glanced down at his blue workshirt and saw a confirming red-and-white Great Basin emblem on his left chest pocket. The buyout had happened some thirteen months ago, as she recalled. After last summer passed without his making a personal appearance, the townspeople gave up hoping that he’d come back to run the business himself.
"I thought you’d be in . . . Dallas? . . . tending your Texas drilling company," she said. "Don Ray and some of your other old friends have been bragging for years about your making it big down there."
"Randolph Drilling is based in Austin," Gabe supplied.
Lauren knew that, too, but hadn’t wanted to admit she’d paid attention. "Is Mayor Hewitt planning a town party to wreathe you in laurels? Not just anybody would take on a regional company like Great Basin when it was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Just like the old state basketball championship days, you’re San Rafael’s gilded hero once again."
"I’m nobody’s hero, at least not by choice." He dropped his feet to the floor and sat forward, hands gripping the desk edge. "You see, I--"
"You don’t really plan to send oil rigs into Red Rock, do you?" Great Basin held leases there, acquired before the canyon’s change in status. Whether oil exploration and development would be allowed to go forward was still in question.
"That depends," he said, cautious now. "First we’ll have to see if the venture looks profitable, and then it’ll be up to the BLM. Naturally I’m hoping they’ll go my way."
"So you’re not on the environmental, save-the-canyon side of this?" she asked, pouring on the sarcasm.
"I’m on the make-a-buck side, if I can manage to get there."
Great Basin’s plans weren’t any secret, but somehow, seeing Gabe in the flesh, Lauren had difficulty accepting that he would willingly despoil an otherwise national park-quality landscape.
"The CPWA will fight you on the canyon leases, even if the BLM bureaucrats give the go-ahead," she said.
"I figured that. I already have an attorney looking into ways to argue our case."
Her temper rose, less because of the issue than because of the man. "Extraction can’t be allowed in a proposed wilderness area, or it will lose the pristine quality that qualifies it for wilderness in the first place."
"I know the reasoning, Laurie. I just don’t agree."
This skunk was an impostor, not the Gabe she’d once known, she decided. Not the Gabe with whom she’d mulled over Carson’s Silent Spring and Abbey’s Desert Solitaire on summer evenings, all those years ago. Finding him alone in Becca’s office worried her. He was up to something.
"You wouldn’t be in here searching for an advance copy of the Environmental Assessment, would you?" she demanded. "Does Becca know you’re here?"
"She, uh . . . not exactly. But don’t kick up your temperature gauge. No way I’d steal anything from Becca. Not even if I thought it would help." He grinned, making it hard to tell whether he meant the disclaimer.
"Seeing you again, knowing who you used to be and what you plan to do now, just makes me sick. Drilling where you propose is tantamount to raping public land, and I--"
"Hold on a minute," he drawled. His slow, Texas-tinged cadence suited the way he moved, the way he smiled. "I like my sex consensual. Who’s calling me a rapist?"
He’d often teased a young Lauren out of her seriousness, but it didn’t work this time.
"I think you get my point," she said. "All things considered, you have no business sitting at that desk. What’s your excuse?"
He leaned halfway across the surface, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, big hands rumpling stacks of paper and almost knocking over an open box of chocolates. "I don’t need an excuse. Walk with me to the Mad House, and I’ll explain everything on the way."
She’d forgotten how deep and seductive his voice could be, but she didn’t let the intonation get to her. "I’d rather hear your fast talking at the scene of the crime."
"What crime?"
"Rooting through government documents is strictly prohibited in most social circles. Watch out, or someone might start naming statutes."
He lifted a paper from a disordered pile and invited her to take a look. She did, before glancing up to see his raised eyebrow.
"Camping permits aren’t exactly top secret," he said. "And I wasn’t rooting."
"Objection sustained on camping permits." She squinted to read an upside down document and tapped a bronze-painted fingernail on it. "What about this county commissioner’s report on the two-tracks leading into the canyon? The county claims those are real roads that ought to be maintained – which would be bad for Red Rock’s preservation as wilderness."
"But good for my oil leases," Gabe added. "That’s old news. Try again."
Irritated with his nonchalance, Lauren glanced around the small room, wondering what he might find here that would aid his cause. Large, framed maps of the area’s federal lands filled two walls. A third was decorated with a canyon watercolor and one of Becca’s Native American-style sand paintings that always struck Lauren as simplistic, and yet very Becca. She looked back at Gabe, gauging his guilt. "Are you sure you didn’t tie up my sister and lock her in a storage closet?"
He tsked. "If I wanted to get rid of someone, a storage closet wouldn’t be my first choice. Get a grip, Laurie. Why wouldn’t I get along with Becca? We might have some differences of opinion, but she’s not a hothead like you."
"I’m not--"
He laughed.
"Okay, so I’m defensive when it comes to my sister. She’s been known to trust people more than she should."
The amusement faded from his mouth and eyes. "Becca never should have married Joe Hewitt. The good news is, since I’ve moved back to town, we--"
"You’re living in San Rafael? Since when?"
"January."
Five months. He must have arrived right after her sister’s divorce went through, not long after Lauren’s last visit. He and Becca were the same age, graduated from high school the same year. At one time everyone had assumed they’d get married.
Her eyes narrowed. "I’m surprised Becca didn’t tell me." Maybe she shouldn’t be surprised. Becca’s lack of enthusiasm for keeping Red Rock Canyon untouched-- which contradicted, in Lauren’s opinion, a BLM employee’s duty to protect the land -- had strained family communications over the past few months. Knowing how Lauren felt about the canyon leases, Becca would have hesitated to mention Gabe’s return.
He held up the box of candy. "Have a truffle, Little Bit. Your tongue could use some sweetening."
Why did she have the feeling he was trying to change the subject? And she didn’t like what was sliding off his tongue. Laurie. Little Bit. She should protest, but there was something in the way Gabe said those old nicknames that she wasn’t quite ready to quash.
She glanced down at the gold box in his hand. A much younger Lauren would have taken anything he offered, done anything he asked, but she’d traveled a long road since then. So had he. The owner of Great Basin could never measure up to the Gabe of old –- Becca’s first flame, Lauren’s . . . friend.
"Where is my sister?" She let her impatience show while carefully concealing a less acceptable weakness.
"She oversees a lot of territory in this county, and that means hours of driving." He set down the candy within Lauren’s reach. "Which leads us back to why I’m here, if you’re still interested."
She’d lost sight of the original question, but she homed in on it again. "Please proceed."
"Missy has a piano lesson in half an hour with Mrs. Throckmorton. Remember Boom-Boom Throckmorton?"
"I remember." Lauren was bemused by the way time went into reverse whenever she came back to this town. Becca’s daughter Melissa Louise –- known as Missy -- had existed for only seven years, but Mrs. Throckmorton would be just the same. Three hundred pounds of bosom and lungs, thundering out the count. One-and, two-and . . .
"Old lady Throckmorton gets real unhappy if a student arrives unprepared. I was about to walk Missy over for her lesson when she realized that her sheet music was locked in her house, and she didn’t have a key."
"My mother must keep an extra one in the restaurant," Lauren suggested.
"She probably does, somewhere, but it’s Friday afternoon. You know how busy the Mad House gets on Fridays. So while Missy was stuffing herself with cookies and milk in the restaurant kitchen, I ran over here to fetch Becca’s extra." He held up a brass key, his proof of innocence. "For Missy."
"Don’t call her that," Lauren said. "It’s demeaning and sexist."
"Missy doesn’t complain."
"She’s too young to know better. One more question, while I’m thinking about it. How did you get into this building?"
"Found the door unlocked," Gabe said. "Becca’s never had a knack for details. She usually doesn’t lock her house, either. Not that it’s all that necessary around here."
The ins and outs of small-town negligence were beyond Lauren, and always had been. Gabe’s easy access to the BLM desk was just another example of San Rafael’s laid-back ways.
She checked her digital Timex. "Becca said she’d meet me at four. I’m a few minutes early, but I would have thought . . ."
Gabe shrugged. "She’ll show up eventually. The last couple of weeks have been hard on her. She’s had a pile of rush paperwork to do, and you know Becca’s allergic to deadlines." He scraped back his chair and stood. He was taller than she remembered, well over six feet.
To avoid being dwarfed, she stood too, but her five-foot-eight still seemed short.
Putting a man in his place with words usually worked for her. She’d developed the technique a long time ago, often practicing her gibes on Gabe himself. She couldn’t resist sparring with him now. "I need to have a talk with Becca. She really ought to keep her house key away from rednecks in lizard-skin boots."
Gabe had always had a comeback, and he hadn’t changed there. He glanced down at his feet. "Lizard skin? Can’t see what’s under the scuffs and dust just now, but I’d guess my boots are still plain cowhide, same as last time I checked." He smiled a slow, lazy smile and eased around the desk toward Lauren.
When he draped an arm over her shoulders, she was too surprised to evade him. "I wish you wouldn’t--"
"Good to see you too, Laurie. Tell me, are you as successful as you look?"
She knew teasing when she heard it. A glance at her reflection in the glass door showed the hopelessly windblown condition of her dark, shoulder-length hair. Smudged mascara rimmed her gray eyes.
"I’ve had better days." She ducked free of his loose embrace and headed for the exit. Daydreaming about Gabe used to be a consuming passion for her, but she’d outgrown his jock charm a long time ago. She felt--maybe--the smallest vestige of a gut reaction, the tiniest bit of elemental lust. Whatever it was, she ignored it.
"Wait a minute." He moved faster than she did, effectively blocking the door. He turned her toward him and tipped her chin, gently brushing his thumb over the corner of her eye. "There’s a speck of grit right . . . here."
She’d been about to snap at him for getting too close, but since what he’d done was so innocent, she said, "Thanks," instead.
Gabe tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, reverting to big-brother mode. "I almost didn’t recognize you without your Miss Professor spectacles." He gazed at her with a concentrated intensity, as if he were trying to connect the old Lauren to the new.
"I only wore them for reading," she said.
"No wonder I remember you wearing them all the time. You were always reading. Environmental essays. Theories about evolution, stars, the universe. And," He grinned. "Science fiction, wasn’t it?"
He’d always teased her about the science fiction. She was glad he didn’t know she was still a bit of a Trekkie.
She smothered a smile. "I should have read your favorites, the legal thrillers, considering what I ended up doing for a living."
"It really is good to see you, Laurie. I just wish Becca’s troubles weren’t the reason." His eyebrows converged, as if another possibility occurred to him. "You are here for her, aren’t you? Because of Joe’s threats?"
Threats? Becca hadn’t mentioned threats from the infamous ex. Had Lauren been so critical of the way her sister handled her life that Becca had hesitated to share the worst?
"Of course that’s why I’m here," she said, working around her ignorance. "Joe is an idiot with latent violent tendencies, if you ask me. Becca should have moved out of his range years ago."
"I don’t trust him either. Especially not with Missy."
"So that’s what this is about!" Lauren blurted. "If he’s demanding more visitation, it’s only to hassle Becca. In the divorce settlement, he asked for Saturdays and an overnight once a month. He got that. Why would . . ." She could guess, though. If Becca was involved with Gabe . . .
"Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything." He frowned. "I thought you already knew."
Her lack of insider information made her feel foolish, so she rushed to fill the void. "I suppose Becca wanted to break the news to me in person. When we talked, all she said was that Joe was giving her fits. I assumed he’d started drinking and calling her at odd hours again."
"That, too." Gabe hesitated before adding, "Joe wants more than visitation, Laurie. He wants full custody."
"What? That’s absurd! With his irresponsible history, no judge would rule in favor of--"
"Think again. There’s some choice gossip going the rounds. I’m afraid Becca’s lost the sympathy card."
"It’s you, isn’t it?" Lauren accused. "You could have shown a little class and let the ink dry on the divorce papers before you showed up in town."
Gabe winced. "Yeah, I know how it looks. That’s what Joe thinks, too, but he’s all wrong. The district drilling supervisor here quit suddenly, putting the whole operation in a bind. That’s why I came when I did. When I got here, I found--"
"Do me a favor and don’t try to explain," she said. Gabe had set Joe off. That figured.
He shrugged. "I did offer to hire Becca a family law expert. She wouldn’t accept."
"I’ll hire her one, if need be," Lauren said. "Having you throwing your money around won’t do her any good."
"Becca’s worried Joe might lean on his relatives in the court system." Gabe looked grim, angrier than Lauren had ever seen him. "If I had my way, one more underhanded move out of Joe and he’d be singing soprano in the church choir for the rest of his sorry life."
"I’m not in favor of violence, but in Joe’s case I might make an exception." Lauren glanced out through the open window blinds. "Maybe I misunderstood where Becca and I were supposed to meet. I’ll stop by the restaurant and check with Mom." She wanted out of the cramped office. Gabe was infringing on her personal space, and he had an effect on her that she didn’t care to analyze.
Since he still stood in her path, she shouldered past him to push at the door, which didn’t give. He nudged her aside.
"What do you think you’re--" She ended her protest when his pull on the door handle did the trick. Ignoring his smile at her expense, she hurried outside. Her stomach felt queasy, probably because she hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
She stopped on the sidewalk to breathe and take stock without Gabe in her way. Heat waves rising off the blacktop made it seem as if she’d walked into an oven. Bright afternoon light burned her eyes until she remembered the sunglasses on top of her head and pulled them on. In the distance she could see the cool blue of the Henry Mountains. The foreground blazed in the high-altitude desert sun.
A poster in the window of the Top Chop Grocery across the street read Environmentalists make great dog food, which didn’t do much to settle her stomach.
She had to help her sister, but she didn’t want to stay in San Rafael any longer than necessary-- specially not with Gabe as a testament to disappointing outcomes. Great Basin Petroleum. It didn’t get any more disappointing than that.
Gabe had followed her out and now stood beside her, studying her face. "You okay?"
"I seem to have . . . underestimated what I was walking into here." She felt like more of a worm than Joe Hewitt, her ex-brother-in-law. If she’d kept in better touch with Becca, she would have known about this trouble sooner and might have counseled her. Not that Becca always listened, but Lauren felt it was her duty to offer advice. Preferably before a crisis, not after.
Coarse mortar snagged her blouse as she leaned her back against the building’s brick wall. She pressed hard enough for the sharp edges to bite into her spine.
Gabe braced a shoulder against the bricks beside her. "Don’t worry. We’ll help Becca work things out. You and I might be light-years apart on everything else, but we both care about your sister and Missy."
Lauren did care. In the future she intended to do a better job of showing it. How much Gabe cared, how involved he and Becca really were, remained to be seen.
As Lauren gazed across the sun-gold dusty pavement, she could almost imagine that nothing had changed. Time was deceptive in San Rafael.
The ambience was as dull as ever: a smattering of potted geraniums, sleepy storefronts, and a lone traffic light covered with canvas. The covering would be removed during the summer, optimistically referred to by the townspeople as the "busy" season.
A familiar snore resonated from the bench in front of the sheriff’s office. Across the street and down a block, she saw the Mad House sign’s shaky, crooked letters painted in multicolored hues, faded and cracked, as they had always been in Lauren’s memory.
Old Ezra sat in the shade of the restaurant’s wooden porch, in one of the weathered, slatted chairs that had been there since forever, as had Ezra. In her mind she could smell his pipe smoke and imagine the shine of brass buttons on his denim vest.
"Main Street looks the same," she said. "Quiet. Peaceful."
"The peace won’t last," Gabe predicted. "The shit’s about to hit the proverbial fan over exactly what restrictions the BLM’s going to place on land use in Red Rock Canyon."
"Thanks for the warning. I’m well aware that no one wants to hear what I think on that subject."
He laughed. "Now, that’s got to be the understatement of the century. You were always battling something, Laurie. I remember when you were in ninth grade and editor of the school paper. The article you wrote on Mayor Hewitt night-hunting deer out of season, using the high-beam spotlights he borrowed from Sheriff Purdy, sure got everyone’s attention."
She allowed herself a small smile. "San Rafael politics needed a cleanup. If I’d been wiser, I would have sued for first amendment violation when the school board shut down my press."
"Maybe if you’d aimed at something less contentious to start with, you might have stayed editor for more than one issue."
"I like tilting at windmills, Gabe."
"So I’ve noticed." He gazed at her thoughtfully. "Little Laurie, San Rafael’s own Miz Quixote. Now I guess you’ll be tilting at Joe. And at oil rigs, if you get the chance. My oil rigs. Believe it or not, I admire your moxie."
"Compliments will get you nowhere." She couldn’t say the same for his eyes and smile. Those might persuade her to warm up to him considerably if she didn’t watch out.
She was glad she wouldn’t have to represent the CPWA in any actions against Great Basin, which she knew had the town’s wholehearted support. Dealing with Gabe Randolph would be even tougher. Long term, she had a feeling his smile could melt polar ice caps.
"Walk with me, Laurie." Again the low, seductive voice.
She tried to think of an excuse, but nothing came to mind. "Um . . . sure. We’re going the same way, I suppose." She peeled herself off the wall and fell right into San Rafael’s time warp, forgetting she didn’t want to be there, forgetting she really didn’t want to walk with Gabe.
A banshee-like wail broke her trance. She turned her head to see a huge black-and-gray dog in the back of an open Jeep parked directly across the street. It pointed its nose toward the sky and emitted another wail, a hound’s hunting bay.
She wasn’t a canine fan. That big, noisy animal had better be tied to . . .
The sign about dog food flashed through her mind as the drooling beast leaped out of the Jeep and charged straight for her.
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