Something Wilder

Lily knew all about mirages in the desert, when light bent and refracted and moved through warmer air, causing the eye to see something that wasn’t there. She’d seen this particular mirage before, so it took her a moment to get her bearings and realize that this time was different. This time, it wasn’t a trick of the light or the air, or even wishful thinking.

This time, Lovesick City Boy was walking right toward her.

Chapter Five

SO, SHE BOLTED.

Without a word of explanation, Lily threw the wooden spoon onto the table and sprinted back over to where Bonnie lazily grazed. Ducking behind the horse, Lily hid from view, resting her forearm on her mare’s soft flank and working to get her pulse under control.

What in the hell?

Leo Grady was here.

Leo—the man who’d made her believe in happily ever after and then vanished without a word—was here?

Needing confirmation, she peeked over Bonnie’s back, and her heart vaulted into her windpipe. It was him, without a doubt.

Tall, lean, smooth honeyed neck visible above the collar of his North Face fleece. She’d know that neck anywhere; she’d recognize that posture and that long stride from half a mile away. The rest of him autofilled in her memory, and Lily squeezed her eyes closed, pushing away another deluge of images. It had taken her years to shove them out and here they were, roaring back like a flash flood, uninvited.

She would pray to a god if she believed in one. She’d take off in her truck if she didn’t mind leaving Nicole on her own. A glance down at her jeans revealed how worn and dusty they were; her shirt was faded blue chambray, with a big bleach stain on one sleeve. Immediately, Lily felt shabby. Her hair was braided for practicality, not style, and she was wearing more sunblock than makeup. She looked young for her age, but not really in the way most people meant when they said that. If her quick glimpse told her anything, it was that Leo had grown into a full-on man. Meanwhile, here she was, looking poor and unpolished and exactly like the girl he’d left behind all those years ago.

That is, if he even remembered her. Five months together had been wiped out in a single morning. One minute he was over her, cocooned in a blanket next to the river—eyes locked on her mouth, his bottom lip trapped tightly between his teeth—and the next they were inside, staring down at the ranch’s old answering machine with a red 29 flashing in insistent, mechanical panic.

The rest of that day unfurled in a blur: His mother had been in an accident. She would be fine, the messages said, but was in the hospital, and Leo needed to come home. Leo’d bolted to the bedroom, throwing things in a suitcase. He only managed to pack half of his things before it was time to go, before he sealed his mouth tightly to hers, promising he’d come back.

His last words to her that morning had been “I’ll call you when I land.”

He hadn’t.

With his mom in the hospital, things had undoubtedly been busy, she’d assumed. His sister, Cora—ten years his junior—had been only twelve; his mother had an important career and many responsibilities to juggle. But when Lily called Leo three days later, there was no trace of the soft-spoken, adoring man she’d come to know. Instead, he’d been abrupt with her for the very first time. “I can’t do this right now, Lily. I’ll call you in a few days.”

That had been the last time she’d heard his voice.

A pathetic late-night Google search a few years back told her Leo Grady had graduated from NYU a year later. That he’d been quickly hired at a small tech company in Queens, then at a bigger firm in Manhattan. He didn’t have Facebook. Didn’t have Instagram. Didn’t even have a head shot in his company profile. She didn’t know if he’d married or had kids. Lily both loved and hated how impossible Leo had been to stalk online.

Now, when the ghost from her past disappeared inside the small wooden outhouse, she jogged back over to where Nicole was tending the sizzling pan of potatoes.

“What was that about?” Nic asked. “You get bit?”

“Yeah. Big… bitey thing,” Lily answered vaguely. “Hey, do you want to do orientation this morning?”

Wearing a bewildered frown, Nicole looked at Lily from under the brim of her hat. Nic always did pickup. Lily always did orientation. Not once had they ever traded these roles.

Nicole scooped a big pile of crisp potatoes and onions into an aluminum tray, saying, “Dub, you know the only thing I’d like less than doing orientation is putting my face directly onto this hot pan.”

With a sigh, Lily reached for the clipboard. One of Nicole’s other responsibilities was to pair guests with horses based on the information they provided about height, weight, and riding experience. Unfortunately, the two of them had been doing this so long that Lily rarely looked at the guests’ names and assignments until she was gathering them around the breakfast table to begin orientation. Now she glanced down at the assignment sheet.