Free The Wilder Sisters by Jo-Ann Mapson Page B

the deerskin shafts. If she was going back to the homeland, arriv- ing dressed like a native made sense.

    Buddy would flip out if she left him alone in the Lexus. Since the Dairy Queen incident in Flagstaff, they’d already had a long talk about car etiquette. Buddy had felt certain the college kid handing Lily her Reese’s Peanut-Butter Cup Breeze was out to carjack her. The poor kid, his face a battleground of acne scars, was only doing his job, handing her the concoction upside down, which was DQ’s shtick, proof that their ice cream was so thick and creamy it defied gravity. Like a wild dingo high on crack, Buddy lunged, and the kid dropped her money between the drive-through window and her car, where the wind blew it swiftly across the parking lot. He’d nearly cried, and Lily’d had to beat Buddy into submission with her Los Angeles-to-Orange County Thomas Guide , which—later on, when she’d thought he was quietly napping—he’d shredded into packing strips.
    “Even for you that was an all-time low, Buddy Guy,” she reminded the blue heeler she had named after her favorite blues guitarist, an enthusiastic man who’d never become famous on his own but had played with all the greats—Jimi, Stevie, Robert Cray. “Because of what you did, that boy probably had to quit his job and go for pet counseling. He’s destined for a career in the lawn furniture depart- ment at Wal-Mart, all because of you, you evil, twisted, fang-boy love-puppy cutie-pie. Give Mama a kiss.”
    Buddy’s pink tongue hung amicably out of his square jaws, giving every appearance of a satisfied smile. Lily rubbed his head, which was shaped like a diamondback rattler’s. The hair on the very top of his noggin was stiff from leftover Breeze. Lily had only wanted a few bites. Buddy was more than happy to take care of the rest. His approach to Dairy Queen dining was methodical. After he scarfed the larger quantities, it became necessary to tilt the milkshake cup up on his muzzle, thereby furthering his ability to ream the waxy crevices with his tongue. Sure, there was some loss with drippage down the sides of his neck, but sacrifice was inevitable. Also, it was necessary to take the cup past the wax all the way down to the paper; the job simply wasn’t finished until Lily yelled at him for making disgusting noises and threw

    the empty into the backseat, the graveyard of her past meals. He looked up at his mistress with his crazily mottled face. Lovingly, taking her eyes off the road for only a second, she delivered him a smooch. “Buddy,” she whispered, “even though your marble sack’s empty, you just might be the only male on the planet I can handle who’s got one.”
    Out of all that gibberish, Buddy understood only his name, but that was enough.
    Lily decided to stick to I-40, cross the Continental Divide in a routine manner. The yellow cliffs of Gallup were pretty wonderful all on their own. She could always buy jewelry in Floralee. Plus if that hippie dude John was still working the Floralee Post, all she had to do was wear her tightest Calvins and her lacy black DKNY T-shirt with nothing underneath, and John would bury her in afford- able dead pawn up to her stiff brown nipples.
    When her car phone rang a second time she regarded it suspi- ciously. Continued fallout from Dr. Help-Me? Eric, eager to go an- other round on her still-unapproved leave? She’d promised to be back in six weeks. The time was more than due her. She had accrued vacation up the yin-yang. If Eric forced her to return to the OR any sooner, she knew she would lose it. She hadn’t slept well the last several nights for thinking about that poor dead gallbladder patient. Ty can pick up whatever calls come in , she told her boss. I left instructions even a chimp could follow .
    The nice thing about car phones was that if the conversation took a bad turn, one could always claim poor reception and hang up. Into the mouthpiece she said, “Lily