Having Jonathon King and Michael Kaloff place a call to me from the same office was akin to two jackals deciding to share a carcass without a fight.
“Brice, I’ve got Jonathon King with me,” Kaloff boomed.
“Hi there, Brice!” King hailed me in a vocal tone I thought should be reserved for having just struck oil.
“Need your help as we move into the next phase of our company’s unscrambling of bad leadership.” They both chortled, then did a bit of jocular sparring back and forth about who liked who and what wasn’t true. It seemed that neither of them was claiming Anselm or Puckett at this point. They were aligned now for the sole purpose of ousting Robert Baron.
I pondered that possibility. When Puckett got caught in the hooker deal, King no longer had a man, which gave Kaloff and Anselm added power. So obviously, King had to balance things out by finding himself a new knight. I was still unclear who that might be and why Kaloff would agree to King’s choice.
“He’s gone. Out. Finished,” Kaloff said, as if he’d personally thrown Robert Baron out the door. “That little safety-in-the-workplace deal showed what a shallow guy we had on our hands. Didn’t think we’d heard about the safety speech, did you?” he said, seeming quite pleased with himself and letting me know there were spies in our midst.
“Last time I checked, you can’t be fired for safety reasons,” I said.
“Hey, that’s why we pay two floors of attorneys,” Kaloff said. “To look for the hook, the deal breaker. Busted his contract for health reasons—at his request, of course.”
“It was brilliant,” Jonathon King said. “Not safe to be unhealthy!” The two of them burst into laughter again.
“So who’s the new guy?” I asked, knowing they were leading up to something.
“Well, we had to do some horse-trading to get some of these board members to stomach the breakup and potentially bad press…it’s Carlton Daniels. You know, Chester Daniels’s son?” Kaloff said, taking the lead and not waiting for my response. “I know he’s young, but you can help him get through the waters down there when he shows up. It would be a personal favor if you’d kind of take him under your wing.”
“What experience does he have running large corporations?” I asked calmly, knowing the answer.
“I don’t think that’s the question.” Kaloff’s jovial tone chilled. “I think the question is does this company need a rejuvenation. A youthfulness. A born-again-ness. That’s the question.”
I took a deep breath. “I’ve always supported the board’s decisions, but for my money this is a big mistake.”
“Well, the board doesn’t think so,” Kaloff said. “You wait until you meet him, and you’ll change your mind.”
When I hung up I knew two things: I didn’t need to meet Carlton Daniels in person to know his appointment was a colossal mistake, and my unwillingness to embrace Carlton Daniels’s rising star could very well put mine in decline.
Contemplating Kaloff and King’s ousting of Robert Baron, I realized that planning for the future was a waste of time if the future was in anyone’s hands but my own. After all, Robert Baron had done nothing more than be the man they’d hired, yet his personal stock had skyrocketed, then plummeted virtually overnight.
His demise made me want more security in my own life—a place for my horses, something more than a rent receipt; I wasn’t waiting any longer. I picked up the phone and called the realtor I’d known for years and told her I was finally ready to make a move.
*
It had been forty-eight hours since I’d talked to Liz or seen her, having e-mailed and called but gotten no response. I was beginning to think that maybe she and construction girl had gone away for a few days, a thought that ate away at me.
I went out to the barn after work to train Rune in the round pen, a circular metal corral in which the horse learns to work by hand signal and to stop when asked, a way of helping the horse hook up with the rider. We worked for about fifteen minutes and Rune was perfection, keeping one eye on me as she ran, turning abruptly when I extended my arm and backed away from her. When I lowered my voice to a soft whoa, she slowed, then turned in to face me, licking her lips to let me know she acknowledged my being in charge. I approached her and patted her and thanked her.
As I led Rune back to the barn, I spotted Liz down the aisle putting Hlatur in his stall, and my heart leapt. She smiled as I approached and pulled something out of her pocket.
“The money for Hlatur,” she said, handing over a certified check. “I told you I’d pay you back. And thank you.”
It felt to me like the final payoff, the last piece she’d been waiting to deliver to be free and clear of me. I tried not to take the check, but she wouldn’t hear of it. “He’s my horse and I want to pay for him.”
“Guess we’re both into big purchases, then. Want to see the ranch land I’m about to close on?”
“You’re buying land? Why didn’t you tell me, not that it’s any of my business?”
I enjoyed seeing the surprised look on her face and said, as I put Rune into her stall and gave her a horse cookie, “I’ve wanted to own this particular land for years, but I’d given up on the dream. Come on.” I indicated I would drive her there. We left the barn and approached my vehicle.
“Climb in,” I said, thinking the last time I’d asked her to climb in was when I was putting her in bed with me.
“What’s this?” she asked with a slight smile.
“I sold my Jag.”
“And bought a truck?”
“Girls can drive trucks. What kind of chauvinist are you?” I asked and Liz chuckled. “What?” I dared her to say something.
“Nothing. I was just thinking I could get you a gun rack for Christmas.”
“And it might surprise you to know that I’d like that.” I smiled just looking at her beautiful face.
“You’re full of surprises,” she said.
And I thought that she had no idea how full.
*
Liz and I drove out of Dallas heading east for forty minutes until rolling hills suddenly came into view and wrapped their warm bulges around the one hundred and sixty acres of flat fields and ponds and woods that seemed to stretch forever. No car horns, no people, no city sounds of any kind—just cows lowing in the nearby fields and coyotes howling.
“Oh, Brice, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she sighed.
“Prettiest piece of land in the county, little lady.” I pulled the truck off the road, and the tires bounced over the uneven pasture until I came to a stop in the field. I climbed out and lay down on my back, arms outstretched in a hugging of the earth, staring up at the clouds and the stars, oblivious to whatever varmints might be crawling around me, and marveling that this piece of earth would be mine for a while. This was as close as a person could get to heaven: a place away from people and noises and lights, just the sounds of animals and the wind and the smell of the clean, clear air.
“Come lie down on the grass,” I said dreamily.
“I want to see everything from here,” she said, sitting on the tailgate of the truck.
“You’re just afraid of lying on a red-ant hill.” I grinned.
“It doesn’t matter. I even love your red ants.” She held her hands out and I pulled her down onto the ground. “I can’t believe you did it.” A long pause. “So does Clare approve?”
“There is no Clare. I sent her away. Didn’t even kiss her, unlike Miss T&A, who was lip-locked on you—”
“There is no one, I promise you,” and we were silent for a long while just listening to the cicadas and the wind.
“This is the first real homesite I’ve ever bought, and it’s because of you,” I said as she lay so close her body seemed to make the sky twirl like a Tilt-A-Whirl spinning and revolving around me in a dizzying effect.
“You make me so emotionally nervous that I can’t concentrate—”
“Oh, Brice, do you hear yourself? Don’t you realize…look, I don’t know how to get through to you, so I’m just going to say it. When I’m around you, I am so wet for you,” she whispered. “Make love to me.”
I was so surprised by her words that I snapped my head back, nearly knocking myself out on the hard-packed earth.
“Let go, Brice.” Liz rolled over on her side to face me and her lips roamed across my lips in a hauntingly beautiful moment that held so many memories my mind was flooded with them.
I pulled her to me with the strength from another dimension and crushed her mouth beneath mine. Realizing I could be hurting her, I loosened my grip and was more careful, my tongue moving inside her molten mouth with care and longing.
She pulled away completely undone, I could see it in her eyes. She was on fire and I was a pool of desire.
“I want you,” she whispered. “I’ve wanted you for so long. I only know that we’re soul mates.” She slipped her fingers through my hair and pulled my head down to kiss me again with a passion born of eons.
Swirling around in my head was the black Viking horse, but then Hlatur and Rune; a small ranch house, but then castle walls and musky stone rooms; a fire pit on the ground where we lay, but a large fireplace and the earth of this ranch beneath us as we rolled on animal skins on the floor and made love by the fire in the brutally cold winter.
I unbuttoned her blouse, loosening one of her breasts from its resting place, putting my mouth on her.
She moaned and pulled away. “You’re not making love to me here. I’m not going to have bug bites all over my private parts. No.” She pushed me away, smiling at my insistence.
I was panting when she let me go and literally staggered to my feet as she giggled over my sexual state of imbalance.
As we started to get back in the truck, I spotted a person fishing on the bank of the pond in the dark. I told Liz we’d need to post signs once we moved out here, aware I had just assumed we’d move together.
The pronoun wasn’t lost on Liz, who looked up and smiled, taking my hand as we strolled over to the person on the embankment. She looked to be an old Indian woman, but as she tilted her head to acknowledge me, her light blue eyes caught the moonlight.
“Hello,” she greeted us happily, as if we were on her property rather than her on mine. “So you are here now.”
“Yes, I just bought this land—I own it.”
“Buying and owning,” she said. “Using and repairing—those are better words. The land outlives us, so who owns who? The land is the teacher. The user is the student.”
“That’s a beautiful thought,” Liz said. “What is your name?”
“I am the woman who knows if you love the land, the land will love you. You bring horses to the land. Your horse shares your spirit.” She smiled knowingly at Liz before packing up her fishing pole and waddling off down the dirt road.
“That sounded wonderful about the horse sharing my spirit.”
“How did she know we have horses?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but she had the most beautiful blue eyes, like reflections off the pond. Do you suppose she’s one of the neighbors?”
Before I could answer, Liz suddenly backed me up against a giant oak tree near the pond’s bank, pulling me in to her and kissing me.
“Hey, what about the neighbors,” I protested, looking to see who might be watching.
“Sorry, I don’t do the neighbors,” she murmured and ran her hand down the waistband of my pants, sliding her fingers between my legs. “I think you want me.” She smiled and I almost blacked out, two bodies of water flowing side by side.
I had to force myself to pull away and drag her back into my truck and head for town, Liz leaning way over onto my side, her hand lying in my lap. I was nearly too weak to drive.
“We rode these Viking horses centuries ago, you and I. That’s why we became obsessed with them the minute we saw them,” she said.
“Well, if we rode Viking horses eons ago, we’re not doing such a good job now. I in particular have lost my touch.”
I pulled up in front of her house and she tried to drag me inside with her, but I refused, saying I was catching a flight in only three hours. This wasn’t the time. But I promised I would pick up where we left off—promised. I have to pull myself together, I thought. I have to get my bearings.
*
I was glad to be leaving on a flight the next morning. It was a quick overnight to Chicago for a client meeting, but it got me out of town before I could get myself into any more trouble. Despite only two fitful hours of sleep, I felt exhilarated. The limo driver pulled up to my door, loaded my luggage, and held the car door for me. This trip I was determined to be more tolerant of any idle conversation, but ironically the driver didn’t say a word as we drove. My head was a Cuisinart of last night’s events. My cell phone rang, startling me.
“You’re involved with her,” Madge accused me.
“A car is taking me to the airport,” I said, trying to sound like a buttoned-up executive.
“Did you kiss her?” When I didn’t immediately respond, she said, “You did! Did you sleep with her?”
“For someone who claims to be totally disinterested in this topic in general, you have a rather salacious appetite for detail.”
“Call me when you dump the goon in the cap!” she demanded, insulting all uniformed employees, and hung up.
I leaned back in the seat and looked out at the scenery. I knew I was on the precipice. Could I actually make the leap? And if I leapt would I be sorry in four years?
I text-messaged Hugh about my arrival time and told him to meet me at the Royal Bar & Grill not too far from the hotel where we were staying. I’d traveled enough by now that I had my haunts in almost every city.
“How was your flight?” I asked as I approached Hugh’s table.
“You wouldn’t have liked it. The seat belt sign was on the entire time. What do you want to drink? You look pretty—hot.” He scanned my slimmer frame and dreamy eyes. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing,” I smiled, embarrassed that lust and love were apparently running across my face like a giant billboard. “Wine spritzer. I’m about drunk out. My plane ride was so damned scary I tried to borrow a lady’s rosary. When she wouldn’t give it up, I counted olives instead.”
“So why are we rendezvousing away from the public pond?” Hugh liked to drink in the hotel bar wherever we stayed so everyone would spot him and ask if they could join the table. That’s how he got his information, and that’s why I didn’t want to tell him this news at the hotel.
“Robert Baron, CEO of safety, is gone. We have a new leader,” I said. He cocked an eyebrow in doubt. “I have my board sources.”
“Baron just got here. We don’t have a new leader.” Hugh blew me off with such disdain I knew I would have a grand time walking him through this update.
“Deal fell through,” I said nonchalantly, knowing that would get a rise out of him because he was a corporate attorney and should know about all deals wrapping up or falling through.
“Why don’t I know that?”
“Because they don’t want you to know…or any other attorney inside legal. They’re going to spin it that he has health problems and had to back out.”
“What kind of health problems?” Hugh asked, behaving like an attorney.
“The kind that occur when the board wants your ass out and you don’t want to go.”
“So there’s a new guy? Who is it?” He demanded.
“It’s a man—of course a man. Good news is he has media experience: talent agency, publishing, and music, but not much experience because he’s twenty-six years old.”
“Twenty-six!” Hugh was forty-nine, so this struck a chord.
“Yes, our networks were on air many years prior to his birth. In fact, they were on air before anyone even considered that birthing him might be a good and pleasant experience.”
“Twenty-six!” Hugh uttered again. “Who is he?”
“Son of one of our most influential board members…” I dragged it out for him to guess.
“You’re not telling me it’s Chester Daniels’s son?”
“That would be the kid.”
“You’re putting me on. Carlton Daniels? Carlton Daniels is a complete idiot, a buffoon. His own father thinks he’s an idiot! Why would they name him head of anything, much less this whole freaking company?”
“Well, if you’re the board, it’s hard to top yourself after hiring a womanizing ex-basketball star and a gravel guy, unless, of course, it’s a twenty-six-year-old buffoon.”
“I think you’re wrong. I think someone’s pulling your chain.”
“You’re taking this pretty hard. You don’t even know Carlton. Maybe you’ll grow to like him, even love him.”
“I fired him at the last place I worked—he was eighteen.” Hugh looked like a deer in the proverbial headlights.
“You fired the kid who’s going to be our new leader?”
“He was an incompetent, arrogant little jackass.”
We looked at each other for a beat and both burst out laughing,
“You’re so fucked,” I said.
*
I arrived home twenty-four hours later, threw my luggage into the hallway, grabbed my car keys, and headed for the barn, where Liz had promised to meet me. Not seeing her immediately, I hugged the horses, greeting them with kisses. Rune’s soft golden muzzle nestled into my neck, and she let out a deep, breathless nicker that sounded sensual in its welcome. “I think you missed me,” I said to the mare, but my eyes caressed Liz, who had suddenly appeared in front of me. Seeing her made me think about kissing her, and for a moment I stepped back against the stall door and just stared at her.
“Welcome home,” she said. I thought I saw her catch her breath. “Check out the goats,” Liz said in a sultry voice that made me let my breath out laughing. Only Liz could couple an erotic moment with the presence of goats. “Paula says goats have a calming effect.”
“Then I should have packed one in my luggage, because I’ve been anything but calm,” I said, staring into her eyes.
“Really?” she said, smiling and obviously pleased with herself.
I watched as the larger-than-average goats roamed through the barn chomping on everything in sight; they didn’t look like much of a sedative to me.
Paula, the barn owner, rounded a corner, forcing Liz and me to focus on Hlatur and Rune rather than each other. We took the horses out of their stalls and groomed them while Paula asked about my trip.
One goat walked right up to Hlatur and casually took several large bites of chest hair out of the poor horse. The goat had apparently been at this all day because so much chest hair was missing from Hlatur’s front that he looked like a moth-eaten raccoon coat.
“Goat, stop that!” I said sternly.
“Hlatur likes it,” Paula said placidly before Liz could speak.
I knew Hlatur didn’t like it, but that was the problem with being a renter: anyone could be evicted at a moment’s notice, which created tension in me about how to respond. As this thought ran through my head, the goat again gnawed away nonstop on Hlatur’s chest hair. The sight was distracting, to say the least.
“I don’t want Hlatur to hurt the goat,” Liz said. “And look what the goat is doing to Hlatur’s hair.”
“I think they’re okay,” Paula said nonchalantly, which was her way of letting us know that as far as she was concerned the goat could do whatever it wanted.
At that moment, a loud crunch was followed by several slow crunches. Right before our eyes, Hlatur had casually leaned over the hair-hungry goat and bitten off the end of his horn. Now Hlatur was chewing it up as if it were a giant waffle cone. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
I was frozen. Paula looked utterly shocked. Liz was silent.
“I think they grow back,” I said deadpan.
Paula whirled and left the barn. Liz and I giggled uncontrollably.
“Your horse has the funniest sense of humor!” I said, and then just as suddenly I added, “I missed you. I missed laughing with you.”
“Me too,” she said. I pulled her out of the main aisle into a side aisle and pushed her up against the exterior stall walls, kissing her madly. She wrapped her leg around mine and clung to me like Velcro. We were both breathing so heavily I didn’t know where we were going to take this on the cement in a horse barn, when I heard heels clacking along the floor and caught sight of the tip of Floie’s head coming toward us. She had obviously seen two people in very close contact. I pushed on Liz’s shoulder and she slid down the stall wall to the floor, giggling.
“Something wrong?” Floie kept approaching, and I wondered how disheveled I was and how much of Liz’s lipstick I had on my face.
“Could you stop right there!” I said with firm authority. Floie stopped. “To your left, back a little, right there, could you duck into that feed room for me and hand me Rune’s new halter. You’ll see it on the cabinet or the wall. I forget where I put it.”
“Why would it be in the feed room?” Floie looked confused.
“Because that’s where I left it.”
When Floie ducked into the feed room, I gave Liz her signal to make a dash for her car. She disappeared out of the barn as Floie came back with the news that there was no halter in the feed room.
Pointing to the stall door, I said, “You’re right, sorry. Forgot I put it back where it belongs.”
I stepped into Rune’s stall and gave her a big hug, wiping my face and lips on her mane, and Rune cut her eyes at me as if to say she knew what I was doing and didn’t appreciate being used as a napkin. “You owe me,” I told her and kissed her genuinely on her big jaw.
*
When Floie went back to her apartment I rang Liz, who was safely driving home in her car.
“I’ve saved a TV personality from scandal.”
“Come to my house tonight,” she said, her voice sensual.
“Now that would be scandalous. Can’t.”
“Won’t,” she said. “You can’t hold out forever. I will have you, Brice Chandler.”
“You have a problem—you have a construction worker.”
“I told you, I don’t.”
“Could you elaborate?”
“I had a lot of dinners, she kissed me…we never slept together.”
“I don’t believe that. She looked like a woman who had been slept with.”
“Not by me.”
“I have a proposition for you. The next time I see you, we’ll discuss it.”
“I hope it’s a sexual proposition.”
“Actually—it is.” I broke out in a large smile.
*
“You kissed her?” Madge asked, lighting a cigarette, which she only did when things were making her so nervous it was that or bite her nails off up to the elbow.
“I did,” I said in the same tone someone would use in admitting they’d run a red light.
“And…?” The question hung in the air like the anticipation of Christmas.
“It was fucking phenomenal!” I squealed and fell backward onto her couch, hugging the couch pillow to me.
“I warned you. I warned you, I war—”
“It was a kiss, that’s all.”
“If you sleep with that woman, you’d better plan to stay for life because you’ll never get away from her.” Madge lifted a finger towards the heavens.
“And what if I don’t want to get away?”
“Ring me in four years when she’s throwing shoes at you—you know, right now you’re still getting pelted with Donald Pliners. You’re getting to the age when it’ll soon be orthopedic oxfords. You want to stop before that happens.”
“You think she’s a four-year deal?” I sighed.
“I think she’s a deal—make it experimental. Break the fever, for God’s sake. You’re wearing me out.”