n the night of the barrel-racing awards banquet, Vivi Ann studied her work with a critical eye.

The main room of the Eagles Hall had been decorated from floor to ceiling. She’d hung streamers from the ceiling and draped all the tables in rented red-and-white-checked tablecloths. A table had been set up at the front of the room, with a podium and microphone at its center. Pretty spring flower arrangements—donated by a local florist—gave each table a festive look. On the walls were dozens of posters studded with eight-by-ten photographs of the barrel-racing series participants. In the back of the room, big speakers had been set up. They were silent now, but soon they’d be pumping dance music into the place.

“What do you think?” she asked Aurora, who had spent most of the day working with her to set up the event. Outside, the weather had cooperated, giving them a bright, sunny late April day with not a rain cloud in sight.

“It’s as good as this old place can look,” she said.

Vivi Ann thought so, too. “Mae will be bringing the food over from the diner in about an hour.”

Aurora put down her hammer and came over to Vivi Ann, hooking an arm around her. “You’ve done a great job, Vivi. The series was a success, and this banquet will really get everyone talking.”

“I hope the girls bring their dads. The first team roping is only two weeks away. I want to get as many guys signed up as early as I can.”

“You can’t go anywhere in town without seeing a flyer. The ropers will come.”

“They better. The barrel racing was a good beginning—it didn’t cost much to do—but if the roping doesn’t work, I’m screwed.”

“Speaking of screwed, how is Luke?”

Vivi Ann laughed. “I never said I was screwing him.”

“You never said you weren’t. But really, Vivi, I saw you guys at the Outlaw last night. You looked pretty lovey-dovey.”

“Everyone is lovey-dovey at the Outlaw. It’s the tequila.”

Aurora sat down on the table beside her and looked up. “Are you in love with him?”

Vivi Ann knew that she and Luke were a constant topic of conversation in town. Everyone accepted that he was in love with her. On their regular weekend night at the Outlaw Tavern, he told everyone who would listen that she’d stolen his heart over a bowl of ice cream. “One look and I just knew,” he always said.

She had no idea what to say to that, how it was supposed to make her feel. She really liked Luke. They had a lot of fun together and lots in common.

But love?

How would she know? All she knew for sure was that they’d been together for nearly three months and he still acted nervous around her, still touched her cautiously, as if he were afraid that passion would break her. Last night, when he’d kissed her goodnight, she’d found herself wanting more, needing more. But how could you tell a good man that you needed him to be a little bad?

“You’re not answering me,” Aurora said.

“I don’t know how.”

Aurora gave her a look. “You just did.”

Vivi Ann changed the subject before it plunged into murkier waters. “Where’s Winona? She’s been sort of distant the past few weeks. Have you noticed?”

Aurora got up and began rearranging the floral centerpiece. “What do you mean?”

“Is something going wrong at work? She told me she had better things to do than decorate the Eagles Hall.”

“I think she’s got some big case coming up.”

“Luke said she’s giving him the cold shoulder, too.”

“You know Win. When she’s wrapped up in something...”

“Yeah. I miss her around the house, though.”

“You’ll have to get used to that. You’re with Luke now.”

“What does that have to do with anything? You’re married and I see you all the time. We still go to the Outlaw on Fridays together. Sisters trump men, remember? We made that pact a long time ago. Just because I’m dating someone doesn’t mean I’ll blow you and Win off. I’d never let a man do that to us.”

She heard Aurora sigh. “I know. I told her that.”

“You talked about this? What did she say? What’s wrong?”

Aurora finally quit messing with the flowers and looked up. “I told her she needed to stop working all the time.”

“Good. When she comes tonight I’ll tell her the same thing.”

“Uh. She’s not coming.”

“What?”

“This is your night.” Aurora paused. “And you’ve had a lot of them. Just cut her some slack, okay? Let her figure things out. She’s a little fragile right now.”

“Winnie? She’s as fragile as a jackhammer.”

“Come on,” Aurora said finally. “Enough talk about Win. Everything is ready here. Let’s go get dressed.”

Vivi Ann followed her sister to the Eagles’ restroom, where they’d left their evening clothes hanging on one of the stall doors. In the hustle and bustle of getting ready, she forgot all about Winona’s hissy fit and concentrated on looking her best. She curled her long blond hair on big electric rollers and sprayed it all to stay in place. It only took a little makeup—mascara, blush, and lip gloss—to accentuate her features. Then she dressed in a flowy sleeveless polka-dot dress with a wide crystal-encrusted belt and her good boots.

For the next two hours, she was on top of the world. The banquet was a complete success. Twice the number of people she’d expected had shown up and everyone had had a great time. By the time she’d given away all of the prizes and thanked people for participating, she was already fielding requests for a fall series.

“Next time I’ll give away a saddle,” she told Luke as he swept her onto the dance floor. “We need really great prizes. And lots of cash. That’ll keep them coming back. We could do two jackpots a month instead of one.” She laughed at her own enthusiasm. It was like drinking too much champagne, this feeling she had right now, and she didn’t want it to stop.

When the banquet was finally over, and the place had been cleaned up and everyone had gone home, she still wasn’t ready to leave.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Luke said, bringing her heavy woolen coat.

“That’s a great idea.” She snagged a half-empty bottle of champagne and carried it with her. Hand in hand, they walked through town. She kept up a steady stream of conversation. Caught up in the magic of her success, she was a little surprised to find that they were at the Waves Restaurant. It was closed down for the night, but Luke led her out to the deck, where they found an empty cast-iron table with two chairs. Sitting there, in the glow from a single outdoor light, with the Canal waves moving restlessly on the beach below, she said, “Did you see my dad smiling tonight?” She’d been thinking of it for hours, replaying it in her head so she would never forget it. “I know it meant a lot to him. He’d never say anything, but I know he’s always felt that he didn’t live up to his father’s legend. If we make Water’s Edge a viable business, it will be his way of leaving his mark on this land, of being another Grey that people remember.”

“I think I know another reason your dad was smiling.”

“Really?”

“I talked to him last night.”

“And that’s smile-worthy?” she teased, pouring champagne into the glasses she’d brought with them.

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small box. “Marry me, Vivi Ann,” he said, opening the box to reveal a diamond ring.

It was like getting popped in the head by a fastball; you knew instantly you should have seen it coming and ducked. She tried to think of how to answer, what to say, knowing that only a yes and tears would make him happy.

“It made your dad smile,” he said.

Vivi Ann felt tears sting her eyes, but they were all wrong, not the kind he deserved at all. “It’s so early, Luke. We’ve only just started dating. We haven’t even—”

“The sex will be great. We both know that, and I respect you for wanting to wait until you’re ready.”

“Ready for sex is easy. This is...” She couldn’t even finish her thought. It was impossible for her to do what he wanted, to put on that ring and seal her fate. She looked up at him, feeling sadness well. She’d thought—foolishly—that not sleeping with him would slow down their relationship, but it hadn’t worked. He’d fallen in love with her anyway. “We hardly know each other.”

“Of course we do.”

“What’s my favorite ice cream?”

He drew back, frowning. She could tell that it was sinking in, that he knew this was going wrong. “Chocolate cherry. Dark and sweet.”

It was a question she asked every man who claimed to love her, a litmus test for how well they knew her. They always picked some sweet exotic flavor because that was how they saw her, but it wasn’t who she really was. Most of the men she dated—Luke included—stared endlessly at her face, declared their love in the first few months, and never thought they needed more. “Vanilla,” she said. “Inside, I’m plain old vanilla.”

“There’s nothing plain about you,” he said softly, touching her cheek with a tenderness that only made her feel worse.

“I’m not ready, Luke,” she said at last.

He looked at her for a long moment, studying her face as if it were a map he’d only just been handed, the terrain foreign. Then he leaned forward and kissed her.

“I’ll wait,” he promised.

“But what if—”

“I’ll wait,” he said again, cutting her off. “I trust you. You’ll get there.”

She wanted to say, No. I don’t think I ever will, but the words wouldn’t come.

Much later, when she stepped into the comforting quiet of the farmhouse, she looked longingly at her father’s closed bedroom door, wishing that she had a mother to talk to about this. Moving tiredly, she went upstairs and got ready for bed, but before pulling back her comforter, she walked over to her window. The ranch lay in darkness before her, lit here and there by a moon that seemed as worn-out as she. She knew that just beyond a row of evergreens lay Luke’s land, and she found herself wondering if that mattered. Not in the way her father cared, of course; in a deeper, more meaningful way of connection, of what it meant when two people grew up in the same place, knowing the same people, wanting the same things. Surely a property’s border could be a boundary, but was it also a line of common ground?

She turned away from her window and climbed into bed, unable to stop her thoughts from spinning back to his proposal.

If only she could talk to someone about how she felt. Her sisters were the obvious choice, but she was afraid of what they would say. Would they listen patiently and shake their heads and say, “Grow up, Vivi. He’s a good man.”

Should that be enough for her? Was she wrong to want passion? To dream of something—someone—more? She’d always imagined love to be turbulent and volatile, an emotion that would sweep her up and break her to pieces and reshape her into someone she couldn’t otherwise have become.

Was she a fool to believe in all that?

It felt as if something inside of Winona were slowly going bad, like a tomato left on the vine too long. In the past few days, she’d snapped at Lisa, lost a client, and gained five pounds. She couldn’t help herself, couldn’t control her emotions. She kept waiting for Vivi Ann to call her with the big news that she was engaged.

She wanted to believe that Vivi Ann would laugh at him, blow off his ridiculous proposal. God knew her baby sister wasn’t ready to settle down, but Luke Connelly was a hell of a catch in this town, and Vivi Ann always got the best of everything.

By Tuesday afternoon, she was a wreck. This envy of hers was expanding, taking up too much space in her chest. Sometimes when she thought about everything Vivi Ann had stolen from her, she couldn’t breathe.

Just when she thought her life couldn’t get any worse, Lisa came on the intercom and said, “Hey, Winona. Your dad is on line one.”

Dad?

She tried to remember the last time he’d called her at work and couldn’t. “Thanks, Lisa.” She picked up the phone and answered.

“That idiot Travis is gone,” he said halfway through her greeting. “He left without sayin’ a damn word and the cabin looks like a bomb went off in there.”

“Isn’t that Vivi Ann’s problem? I don’t do housecleaning.”

“Don’t get smart with me. Didn’t you say you’d hire us someone?”

“I’m working on it. I’ve interviewed—”

“Interviewed? What are we, Boeing? All we need is someone who knows horses and ain’t afraid of hard work.”

“No, you need all that and someone who’ll promise to stay for the summer. That’s not easy to find.” She’d learned that the hard way. Summer was rodeo season and all the men who’d answered their ads refused to commit to long-term employment. They were out of work, most of them, but cowboys were romantic in their way, seduced by the lifestyle, and they just had to follow the circuit. They all thought they’d hit it big at the next city.

“Are you sayin’ you can’t do it? ‘Cause, by God, you should have told us that before—”

“I’ll do it,” she said sharply.

“Good.”

He hung up so fast she found herself listening to nothing. “Nice talking to you, Dad,” she muttered, hanging up. “Lisa,” she said into the intercom, “I want you to take the rest of today and tomorrow off. I need those help-wanted ads posted at all the feed stores in Shelton, Belfair, Port Orchard, Fife, and Tacoma. And let’s double the number of Little Nickel ads. From Olympia to Longview. Can you do that?”

“That’s not exactly my idea of taking the day off,” Lisa said, laughing. “But yeah, I can do it. Tom is working swing this week.”

Winona realized how she’d sounded. “I’m sorry if I was snippy.”

She folded her arms on her desk and laid down her head. She could already feel a tension headache starting behind her right eye.

She was hardly aware of the passing of time as she sat there, her face buried in the crook of her arms, imagining her life changing course.

She dumped me, Win...

Of course she did, Luke, come here. I’ll take care of you...

Deep in the familiar fantasy, it took her a moment to realize that someone was speaking to her. She lifted her head slowly and opened her eyes.

Aurora stood there, eyeing her. “Quit dreaming about Luke. You’re coming with me.”

“He’s going to propose to Vivi,” she said, unable to turn up the volume on her voice.

Aurora’s face pleated with pity. “Oh.”

“Don’t you have some play-nice advice for me?”

“I’m not going to say anything. Except that you have to tell Vivi Ann now. Before something bad happens.”

“What’s the point? She always gets what she wants.” Winona felt that bitterness move again, uncoil from its resting place.

“That’s poison, thinking like that. We’re sisters.”

Winona tried to imagine following Aurora’s good advice, even chose the words she could use and turned them around in her head. All she could come up with was a perfect picture of herself as pathetic. “No, thanks.”

Aurora sighed. “Well. She obviously hasn’t said yes yet or we would have heard. Maybe Vivi Ann knows she isn’t ready. You know how romantic she is. She wants to be swept away. When it comes to love, she’ll either be in it from the start or out of it, and Luke hasn’t rocked her world.”

Winona let herself hope. It was a tiny flare of light, that hope, but it was better than the dark that preceded it. “I pray you’re right.”

“I’m always right. Now get up. Travis bailed in the middle of the night. We’re going to help Vivi Ann clean the cabin.”

“What if she shows off her ring?”

“You made this bed of lies; I guess you’ll either crawl under the sheets or get the hell out of it.”

“I’ll go change.”

“I’d change more than your clothes, Win.”

Ignoring the jibe—or was it advice?—Winona went up to her bedroom and put on an old pair of jeans and a baggy gray UW sweatshirt.

In no time at all they were in the car, driving to the ranch.

Inside the cabin, they found an absolute shambles, with weeks’ worth of dirty dishes on every surface and a pile of them in the sink. Vivi Ann was on her knees, scrubbing a stain from the hardwood floor. Even in her oldest clothes, with her long hair tied in a haphazard ponytail, and no makeup on, she managed to look gorgeous.

“You’re here,” she said, giving them both that megawatt smile of hers.

“Of course we came. We’re family,” Aurora said, putting the slightest emphasis on that last word. She elbowed Winona, who stumbled forward.

“I’m sorry I missed the banquet, Vivi Ann. I heard it was a great night.”

Vivi Ann stood up, peeling off her yellow rubber gloves and dropping them beside the bucket. “I really missed you. It was fun.”

Winona could see the vulnerability in her sister’s eyes and knew that she’d hurt Vivi Ann. Sometimes all that beauty got in the way and Winona forgot that Vivi Ann could easily be wounded. “I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it.

Vivi Ann accepted the apology with another bright smile.

“Did anything happen after I left?” Aurora asked.

Vivi Ann’s smile faded. “Funny you should ask. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you guys. Luke asked me to marry him.”

“He told me he was going to,” Winona said. Her sentence seemed to fall off a ledge of some kind, landing in an awkward silence.

“Oh.” Vivi Ann frowned. “A little warning might have been nice.”

“It’s not the kind of thing a woman usually needs a warning about,” Aurora said gently.

Vivi Ann looked around the cabin. “He’s so perfect for me,” she said finally. “I should be over the moon.”

“Should be?” Winona said.

Vivi Ann smiled. It was forced, though. “I don’t know if I’m ready to get married yet. But Luke says he loves me enough to wait.”

“If you don’t think you’re ready, you’re not,” Aurora said.

That awkward silence fell again.

“Right,” Vivi Ann said. “That’s what I thought. So let’s get started cleaning this place up.”

Winona felt her breath release in a quiet sigh. Maybe there was hope after all.

And she thanked God for that. Lately, she’d begun to wonder what terrible thing she might do if Vivi Ann married Luke.

A week and a half later, Winona sat in her father’s study, at the big, scarred wooden desk that looked out over the flat blue waters of the Canal. On this crystalline day the trees on the opposite shore looked close enough to touch; it seemed impossible to believe that they were more than a mile away. She had just reached for the nearest bill—from the lumber store—when she heard a car drive up. A few moments later, footsteps thudded on the springy porch steps and someone knocked.

She pushed the bills aside and went to answer it.

A man stood on the porch, staring down at her. At least she thought he was staring down; it was hard to tell. A dusty white cowboy hat shielded the upper half of his face. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in torn, dirty jeans and a Bruce Springsteen T-shirt that had seen better days. “I’m here about the job.”

She detected a hint of an accent—Texas or Oklahoma, maybe. He took his hat off and immediately pushed back the long, straight black hair that hung to his shoulders. Skin the color of well-tanned leather made his gray eyes appear almost freakishly light in comparison. His face was sharp and chiseled, not quite handsome, with a bladelike nose that made him look vaguely mean, a little wild. He was lean, too; wiry as a strip of rawhide. Black tattooed Native American symbols encircled his left bicep, but they weren’t from local tribes. These images were unfamiliar to her.

“The job?” he said again, reminding her that she’d taken too long to respond. “Are you still looking for a hand?”

“You know your way around horses? We don’t want to train anyone.”

“I worked at the Poe Ranch in Texas. It’s the biggest operation in the Hill Country. And I team-roped for about ten years.”

“You good with a hammer?”

“I can fix what’s wrong around here, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m half white, too. If that helps you make up your mind.”

“That hardly matters to me.”

“You’re above most folks, are you?”

She got the sense he was laughing at her, but nothing about him changed.

“You follow the rodeo circuit?”

“Not anymore.”

She knew that her father wouldn’t hire this man—a Native American—wouldn’t approve of him at all, and yet their ads had been posted for more than a month now and the first roping jackpot was on Saturday. They needed to hire someone, and they needed to do it fast.

Taking off her expensive blue pumps, she stepped into Vivi Ann’s oversized rubber boots, which were always stationed at the door. “Follow me.”

She heard him behind her, moving slowly, his worn, scuffed cowboy boots crunching on the gravel. She refused to acknowledge her nervousness. It was an unfortunate by-product of the environment in which she’d been raised and she would not succumb. She was above judging people by the color of their skin. “Here’s the barn,” she said rather stupidly, as they were standing inside of it now.

He came up beside her, saying nothing.

The stall to their immediate left sported a big white poster board decorated with drawings and photographs and ribbons. In ornate, curlicue lettering it read: Hi! I’m Lizzie Michaelian’s horse, Magic. We’re a great team. We competed at last year’s Pee Wee Days and won a red ribbon for Fitting and Showing and a special mention for cleanest stall. We can’t wait for this year’s county fair.

“Well, now,” the man beside her said, “that’s some homey shit.”

Winona couldn’t help smiling at that. Moving on, she showed him the tack room, wash stall, and hay storage. When they’d seen all that the barn and arena had to offer, she led him back out into the sunlight.

There, she faced him. “What’s your name?”

“Dallas. Like the city. Dallas Raintree.”

“Are you prepared to stay for at least a year?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Winona made her decision. That was the point, after all. This decision was hers to make. If Daddy didn’t like him because of his skin color, it was time he changed. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like her civic duty to hire him. And besides, men weren’t exactly lining up for the job. If he’d stay for a while, why not? “Wait here.” She turned and clomped back to the house, took off her boots, went to the study for a copy of the employment contract she’d written up, and then returned to him. “This job is for room, board, and five hundred dollars a month. You want it?”

He nodded.

Winona waited for more—something besides that stare, that stance—and then started up the hill toward the old cabin. “This way.”

Up on the rise, she cut through the ankle-deep grass and went to the front door. “The porch needs work, as you can see. My sisters and I cleaned the inside, though.” She flipped on the light and saw the old place, not as she usually saw it, through the sentimental prism of her family’s history, but rather, the way it would appear to him.

Wide-plank cedar floors, scuffed and scarred by decades of use; a small living room with newly washed knotty pine walls and mismatched furniture—a faded red sofa, a pair of old wing chairs, Grandma’s ancient coffee table—gathered around a river-rock fireplace, stained black from use; an alcove kitchen with 1940s appliances, wooden counters, and a blue-painted table with oak chairs. Through the door in the living room, she could see the bedroom, with its white iron bed piled with quilts. The only room she couldn’t see from here was the bathroom, and the best she could say about it was that everything worked. The astringent scent of recently applied bleach couldn’t quite camouflage the deeper smell of wet, decaying wood.

“Will this be okay?” she asked.

“It’ll do.”

She couldn’t help staring at his harsh profile. His face was like broken glass, all sharp angles and hard planes.

“Here’s our employment contract. You can get your lawyer to read it if you’d like.”

“My lawyer, huh?” He glanced down at the paper, then at her. “It says you promise to hire me and I promise to stay, right?”

“Exactly. The term of the contract is one year.” She handed him the contract and a pen.

He walked over to the table and bent down to write his name. “What do you want me to do first?”

“Well, I don’t actually work here. My sister and dad run the place and they’re both gone right now. Just get settled in and show up at the farmhouse tomorrow morning at six for breakfast. They’ll tell you what to do.”

He gave her the signed contract back.

She waited for something more, maybe a thank-you or a promise to do a good job, but when it was clear he had nothing more to say, she left the cabin. As she went down the porch steps and walked through the tall grass toward the gravel road, she heard him come out onto the porch.

She wouldn’t turn around to check, but she was sure just the same: he was watching her.

The Grey sisters had spent Friday nights together forever, and tonight was no different. As usual, they met at the Blue Plate Diner for a quick meal and then walked down Shore Drive to the Outlaw Tavern. Men could come and go in their lives—and meet them at the bar—but dinner with the three of them was set in stone.

Tonight, they were surrounded by the familiar late spring crowd. A few tourists were here, recognizable by the brightly colored designer clothing and their shiny SUVs parked out front. The locals, on the other hand, sipped lemonade, talked quietly while reading the newspaper, and didn’t bother even looking at the laminated menus. Most of them ordered Gracie’s famous meatloaf, which hadn’t actually been on the menu since the early eighties.

Winona reached over for one of Vivi Ann’s french fries. “I hired a ranch hand today,” she said, wondering what Vivi Ann would think of Dallas Raintree.

Vivi Ann looked up. “You’re kidding. Who is he?”

“A guy from Texas. Says he knows his way around horses.”

“What was he like?”

Winona considered how best to answer that, then said only, “I don’t know. He didn’t say much.”

“Cowboys,” Aurora muttered.

Vivi Ann looked disappointed. “Like meals with Dad aren’t quiet enough. I don’t think he and Travis said more than twenty words to each other in all the meals we had together.”

“Believe me, you’re lucky,” Winona said. “To me, Dad is—”

“We’re not going there tonight,” Aurora said firmly. “This is our night to remember we’re sisters.” She gave Winona a pointed look.

They paid the bill and left the restaurant.

In the warm, lavender evening, they strolled down Main Street.

“It’s too bad Luke couldn’t come with us,” Winona said, trying to sound casual. Lately she spent a lot of time doing just that: trying to act normally around Vivi Ann.

“He had an emergency out in Gorst. Colicky mare.”

They turned on to Shore Drive and walked along the waterfront. Streetlamps came on all at once, creating a yellowy carnival atmosphere on the street.

Gradually the pavement ended, turned into gravel. Here, there were no well-swept sidewalks, no pots filled with flowers hanging from streetlamps, no merchants looking to sell souvenirs. There was just a rocky bit of road that led to a big parking lot. On the water side was Ted’s Boatyard and the alley that led to Cat Morgan’s ramshackle waterfront house. To their right, stuck back in a weedy lot, was the Outlaw Tavern. Multicolored neon beer signs decorated the windows. Moss furred the flat roof and grew in clumps on the windowsills. Beat-up trucks filled the parking lot.

Inside the tavern, they wound through the familiar crowd and around the stuffed grizzly bear that had become the tavern’s mascot. Someone had hung a bra from his outstretched paw. Smoke blurred everything, softened the tawdry edges. Behind them the band pounded out a barely recognizable version of “Desperado.”

When they reached the bar, the bartender poured three straight shots and set them in front of three empty stools.

“How’s that for service, girls?” Bud said.

Aurora laughed and sat down first. “It’s why we never miss a Friday night.”