close by—if you’re looking for close.”
“Close would be great.”
“You can call from here, make sure they’ve got a room for you.” In his office, he scribbled names on a pad. “The top one? Good beds, good service, and twenty-four-hour room service if you need it. They charge for Wi-Fi though, which burns my ass.”
“Thanks.”
“Go ahead, use the room.”
Red walked out, waited for Michaela, and considered he probably had the energy for that cold beer before bed. And a hot shower. Christ, he wanted the shower more than the beer.
Rozwell walked out.
“All set?”
“Yeah, thanks. I’ll be here at nine. I left my cell phone number on your pad if you need to reach me.” He started for the door, turned, looked Red in the eye. “I have a daughter. She’s only four. I have a little girl of my own.”
And when he walked out, Red knew they’d deal.
Michaela walked back—still spit and polish, he thought. And had to admire it.
“You settle him in?”
“He tried tears on me. Slow, soulful ones. He’s good.”
“We’re better. Rozwell wants to meet with the prosecutor in the morning. I’m going to contact him on my way home. You can take tomorrow off.”
“I’d like to see it through.”
“Be here by nine then. I’ll walk you out.”
“We’ll walk each other out.”
“Works for me.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dillon liked mucking out the stalls. He loved the romantic smell of horses—even mixed with horse-shit bedding. Every clear memory of his life involved the ranch, and his favorite ones included horses.
His favorite of favorites was the night he, his mom, and Gram watched Diva deliver her first foal. Some of it had been kind of yuck, but mostly just cool. They’d even let him name the foal, a pretty bay with four white socks and a crooked white blaze.
He’d called her Comet, because the blaze looked like a comet trail. Sort of.
And even though he’d only been six, they’d let him groom her and work with her on the lead line when she got old enough. He’d been the first to stretch his body over her back to get her used to weight. The first to ease a saddle on her, the first to ride her.
He’d helped train others since—and thought he was pretty good at it. But Comet was his.
And he’d been by her side when she’d had her first foal the previous spring.
He just liked being a rancher—an agricultural rancher, because they planted and grew and harvested and sold vegetables, had an orchard of fruit trees, even Gram’s vineyard, though she mostly made wine for herself and friends.
He didn’t mind all the chores (in fact, he liked chores a lot better than school). The planting and hoeing, feeding and watering stock, even making hay when the sun beat down, or helping run their stall at the farmer’s market.
He liked living up high on the cliff, seeing the ocean every day, or walking the fields—even better, riding over the fields, into the woods.
Winter Saturdays meant a lot of chores he handled by himself, or with his mom giving him a hand where she could. Inside the house, Gram and his mom would be baking—bread and pies and cakes for the cooperative. From Friday morning into Saturday the house smelled really, really good.
Sometimes Gram made candles, too, from soy and put smelly stuff in them. She was teaching him how, just like they were teaching him how to bake bread and all that.
He’d rather feed the pigs and chickens, watch them scramble around, haul the feed to the troughs for the beef cattle, milk the nanny goats. And muck out stalls.
He’d finished most of the morning routine before eleven—real ranchers, Dillon knew, started early—and hauled the last wheelbarrow from the stalls to the dung pile.
He heard the car coming up the ranch road, looked up at the sky to gauge the time. His good pals Leo and Dave were coming over to hang, but not until the afternoon.
So too early for them.
He rolled the empty wheelbarrow back to the barn, stowed it, and, slapping his work gloves on his pants to clean them, wandered over to see who was coming.
In the way of boys, he recognized the shining silver vehicle as a BMW—a fanCEE SUV. He just didn’t know anybody who drove one.
Seeing as he was the man of the house, he waited—legs spread, thumbs hooked in his front pockets.
And when he saw Hugh Sullivan get out, he walked the rest of the way over to say hello.
“Hi, Mr. Sullivan.”
“Dillon.”
In a way that made