Winona turned to him, saw the pain and confusion in his eyes, and her heart ached for him. He was no match for Vivi Ann, who treated love as if it were made of stone and hearts as if they were spun glass. She reached over and took his hand. Suddenly it felt as if there was an opening, a crack in the connection between Luke and Vivi Ann. “I love my sister. It’s impossible not to. She’s like sunshine, but . . . she’s selfish, too. Headstrong. Settling down isn’t really in her. Maybe she’s afraid. Or not ready.”
“Sometimes I have trouble believing she really loves me,” he said.
“Vivi Ann’s emotions are transparent. If she loves you, you’ll know it to your bones.”
He didn’t hear the warning in her words. “I should have said ‘what the hell’ the other night and dragged her over to the grass and made love to her.”
Winona didn’t understand. “She wanted to have sex outside?”
“Right in front of the farmhouse. But she wouldn’t look me in the eyes. She seemed . . . frantic. I shouldn’t have worried about all of that, though, right? I love her and I should have showed her how much.”
Winona felt the dying of opportunity; it shriveled up inside, left her feeling small and dry. He wasn’t looking to her for comfort. Nothing had changed. Vivi Ann could treat him like crap, and still he loved her. “Yeah. Sure.”
“I mean, who cares who might be watching? We’re in love.”
“Sure,” Winona said dully, wishing he hadn’t called after all. “Who could be watching anyway?”
As she said it, her gaze fell on Dallas.
At dawn on Saturday, while Dallas and Dad were gathering the steers from the back field, people began pouring in to Water’s Edge. By the time the jackpot officially began at eleven o’clock, almost three hundred teams had entered. Vivi Ann began her day long before the sun came up and didn’t stop until the event was over.
Finally, when the last go-round had been run and the prizes had been handed out, she got a glass of lemonade from the fridge and leaned against the warm side of the barn.
The parking lot was a blur of people. Cowboys and their families were busy loading up their horses, putting away their tack, folding up their chairs. The snake of traffic had begun; trucks and trailers moved in a steady stream up the gravel driveway toward town.
Today’s jackpot had been more than simply a success. That word was too small and ordinary. This had been a bonanza. A triumph. At last count, they’d earned well over two thousand dollars. And that didn’t even count the profits they’d made selling food at the snack shack.
Winona came up beside her, leaned against the barn. Sipping Diet Coke from a plastic cup, she said, “You’re avoiding me.”
“Why shouldn’t I? You’ve been a real bitch lately. Would it kill you to just say congratulations, Vivi? Way to go? The jackpot kicked ass today.”
“I would have said all of that earlier . . . if you hadn’t been avoiding me.”
“I’m not avoiding you. I just don’t want to hear it.”
“Hear what?”
“You know.”
“He loves you,” Winona said quietly, “and he might not see that something’s wrong, but I do.”
Exactly the words Vivi Ann had been avoiding. “I’m marrying him, aren’t I?”
“Yeah. And why is that?”
“Are you asking as his friend or my sister?”
“What difference does it make?”
“Plenty.”
Winona seemed to consider that, and then said, “Okay. Let me be your sister for a minute. About Dallas. I’m worried—”
“You’re always worried.” Vivi Ann pulled away from the barn. “I’ve got to go, Win. All this craziness is upsetting the animals.” She practically rushed for the barn door and ducked inside. At Clem’s stall, she opened the door and went inside, resting her forehead on the mare’s soft neck. “She’s right, Clem, something is wrong and I don’t know what to do about it.”
Her horse nickered and gently nudged her thigh. Vivi Ann scratched her ears and whispered, “I know, girl. I’ll do the right thing.”
Then she left the stall, bolting it behind her, and went out the barn’s back door and into the falling twilight.