Heart Of A Cowboy: Creed's Honor / Unforgiven. B.J. Daniels

car was parked out front, in a pool of light from a streetlamp, and her keys made a jingling sound as she took them from her pocket. “Thanks for inviting me over tonight,” she told Tricia, who was gently restraining Valentino. He wanted to head off down the sidewalk, make the most of his final walk of the day.

      “I enjoyed having you here,” Tricia said truthfully. “So did Sasha and Natty.”

      Carolyn flashed her warm, wide smile. “I was too tired to stay and eat with the other volunteers after the sale closed for the day, but the prospect of dining alone wasn’t doing much for me, either.”

      Valentino began to tug harder at the leash. He needed a little training, Tricia thought. Maybe, when she found a permanent home for him, he could learn to heel instead of crisscrossing in front of her, nearly making her trip.

      Tricia chuckled ruefully and shook her head, and Carolyn gave a little laugh, too. “I’ll see you at the community center tomorrow?” Carolyn asked, stepping off the sidewalk and going around to open the driver’s-side door of her car.

      “Yes,” Tricia said, as Valentino yanked her into motion. “See you there.”

      “And you’ll be going on the trail ride, too?” Carolyn persisted. “The one at the Creeds’?”

      Looking back over a shoulder, Tricia nodded. Carolyn had seemed uncomfortable around Brody Creed earlier, but evidently she was over that now. Possibly, she didn’t expect to see him on the ranch the next day.

      “I’m afraid I can’t get out of that,” Tricia responded. “Sasha’s counting on some time in the saddle.”

      Carolyn’s face, like her hair, was lit with moonlight. She had, Tricia noticed, the bone structure of a model; she was one of those women who, like Natty, remained beautiful as they aged.

      “It’ll be fun,” Carolyn insisted. “You’ll see.”

      With that, she got into her car, shut the door and started the engine. The headlights were bright enough to make Tricia blink as the rig drew up alongside her and Valentino. Carolyn gave the horn a little toot and drove away.

      It’ll be fun. You’ll see.

      Tricia still wasn’t entirely convinced of that. Horses were foreign creatures to her, huge and disturbingly unpredictable, and not only did they shed, they’d been known to bite. Plus, it was a very long fall from their backs to the hard ground and what if she—or worse, Sasha—was not only thrown, but stepped on? Or what if something spooked the horses, and they ran away? She’d seen it happen a hundred times in the vintage Western movies her dad had loved.

      Conner Creed’s face rose in her mind in that moment and, somehow, Tricia knew—just knew—that he wouldn’t let anything happen to Sasha, or to her, or to anyone else who might be joining them on the trail ride the next day. She knew less than nothing about horses, it was true, but Conner was an expert. For that matter, so was Sasha, though, of course, she wasn’t as experienced as he was, being only a child.

      It didn’t take long to traverse Lonesome Bend from one end to the other, even on foot, and Tricia and Valentino got all the way to the old drive-in theater before Tricia decided they’d walked far enough. Farther on, the road curved dark along the edge of the river, and there was only the glow of the moon to light the way.

      While Valentino was occupied in the high grass alongside the collapsing fence, Tricia looked up at the big, ghostly remnant of the outdoor movie screen. It was faced with corrugated metal, the white paint chipping and peeling, and time had bent one rusted corner inward, like a page marked in a book.

      The projection house/concession stand was dark, naturally, and the rows of steel poles supporting the individual speakers tilted this way and that, resembling pickets in a broken fence. Or tombstones in a forgotten graveyard.

      A shiver went up Tricia’s back, then tripped back down. A graveyard? That, she decided, was an unfair analogy—the Bluebird Drive-in Movie-o-rama had been a happening place in its heyday. The sad old screen had been lit up with light and color and pure Hollywood glamour five nights a week in summer. Her dad must have told her a dozen stories about how thrilling it was to sprawl on the roof or the hood of somebody’s car, or in the bed of a truck, the sky a dark canopy overhead, liberally dappled with stars, while John Wayne headed up a cattle drive, or the Empire struck back, or Rock Hudson and Doris Day fell in love, or James Dean rebelled without a cause—

      A lump formed in Tricia’s throat. Her own memories of the drive-in were scented with buttery popcorn from the big machine on the concession counter; she recalled the scratchy sounds of music and dialogue crackling from the cumbersome speakers, designed to hook onto the car windows, and the delicious frustration of waiting for darkness to fall, so the movie could be shown to advantage.

      Still, business had already dropped off dramatically by the time Tricia began tagging along to the theater with her dad on those sultry, star-spattered summer nights, and the films were the sort that go straight to DVD or cable now, without ever hitting the big screen in the first place.

      “It’s the end of an era,” she remembered Joe McCall saying sadly, one late-August night, when the credits were rolling on the last offering of what would turn out to be the Bluebird’s final season, though Tricia hadn’t known that then. She’d been twelve at the time, not even a teenager, and scheduled to board a flight from Denver to Seattle first thing the next morning.

      “The end of an era,” Tricia repeated softly.

      Now Valentino was on the move again, making for the bright lights of town, and he pulled her right along with him.

      Tricia’s eyes burned, and she had to wipe her cheek once, with the back of one hand. Later, when she was older, and she had her dog, Rusty, and the drive-in was starting to look downright decrepit, she’d been a little ashamed of the place. “Why don’t you sell it?” she’d asked her dad once, when they’d spent a hot afternoon picking up litter, the drive-in being a popular spot for illicit parties, and mowing the grass.

      He’d laughed and said times were hard because the Republicans—or had it been the Democrats?—were in office, so nobody was spending much money, particularly when it came to commercial real estate. Then, more seriously, that sadness back in his eyes, Joe had said, “Someday, it’ll be yours—the drive-in, the campground and the rest of it. This is all riverfront property, Tricia—that’s Creed ranch land over on the other side—and when the time is right, you’ll sell it for a good price, and you’ll be glad I held on to it for you.”

      Hauled along by Valentino, now determined to go home, it would seem, Tricia glanced back over one shoulder, took in the shadowy form of the big For Sale sign nailed to the front gate next to the rickety ticket booth—the whole scene awash in the orangish shimmer of a harvest moon, partially obscured by clouds now—and sighed. Her dad had been so certain that he was leaving her something of value. If Joe had lived, though, he’d have been very disappointed in the state of his legacy, and maybe in her, too.

      Another tug from Valentino’s end of the leash alerted Tricia to the fact that she’d stopped walking again—it was as though the past had somehow reached out, with invisible hands, and held her in place.

      “Sorry,” she told the dog, getting into step.

      When they got back to the house, the downstairs lights were off, except for the one on the porch, and, Valentino at her side, Tricia climbed the front steps instead of taking the outside stairway, as she would normally have done. She wasn’t sure the door was properly locked; Natty had been overtired and she’d most likely forgotten, and Tricia and Carolyn had left the house by the back way.

      Sure enough, the knob turned easily.

      Suppressing a sigh, Tricia stepped over the threshold, as did Valentino. She took off his leash, wound it into a loose coil and stuffed it back into her jacket pocket. Valentino looked up at her questioningly and she smiled, turning to engage the lock on the front door.

      She flipped a nearby switch and the chandelier came on, spilling crystalline light