Free Sylvie's Cowboy by Iris Chacon Page B

limped to the front door.
    Clarice stopped him at the door and handed
him a bottle of pills. “Here. These’ll take away the pain some, so
you can get some sleep. I take ‘em, for my headaches ... can’t seem
to get a good neck rub around here any more. You could call me
sometime, y’know?”
    “I’m sorry. Really. I been yanked six ways
from Sunday, lately. My life’s gone to ... manure. You know how it
is.”
    “Honey, I know
who
it is. Worst part
of it is, I like her. Makes it hard for me to stay mad at you.”
    Walt opened the door and started out, but he
had an afterthought. “It’s crazy, ain’t it, Clarice? I mean, how
people’s tastes can run so different. You don’t like slick talking
city fellas like Dan Stern, and Sylvie don’t like cowboys like
me.”
    “Who told you that?” Clarice pushed him out
and closed the door.
    …
     
    The rutted dirt road to the ranch house was
sheer agony, and Walt wondered how much worse if would have been if
Clarice hadn’t taped his ribs. Between the pain and exhaustion, he
could barely see straight as he limped from the truck barn to the
house.
    Sylvie was reading in bed with Maude nestled
among the covers and Butch on the floor beside them. At the sound
of the front door opening, Butch and Maude perked up and rushed
from the room.
    Sylvie dropped her book, shrugged into her
thick terry robe, fluffed her hair, and went to stand in her
bedroom door. Walt came into view, trying not to limp, accompanied
by the happy dogs. He stopped when he looked up and saw Sylvie in
the doorway. “Oh. Hi. Sorry I woke ya.”
    “Where have you been?” she asked, trying very
hard to sound as if it didn’t actually matter.
    “Ah, visiting. Visiting a friend.”
    “Uh-huh? Well, how is she?”
    “Who?”
    “Your friend.”
    “Oh. Ah, fine. She’s fine. She’s okay.
You?”
    Sylvie looked down at her toes and back up at
Walt. “I wanted to sell a horse today, McGurk. I’m just sorry it
was to you. I mean, I’m sorry about the way it happened.”
    “Hmmph,” he nodded, and continued limping
toward his room.
    “I was hoping you’d say, ‘That’s all right,
Sylvie. It wasn’t your fault.’”
    Outside his room, he put his hand on the
doorknob and turned back toward her. “Was only one finger on the
trigger, Sylvie girl.”
    He limped into his room and closed the door.
A second later he opened the door and shooed out the two dogs. He
shut the door again.
    “G’night,” Sylvie said to the closed door.
She returned to her room, admitted Maude, and shut the door.
    Maude whined.
    Sylvie reopened the bedroom door to admit the
waiting Butch. Maude welcomed the big mongrel with slurps and
wiggles. Sylvie sighed. “Maude, didn’t anybody ever tell you it’s
just as easy to fall in love with a rich man?”

CHAPTER TWELVE - THE RECOVERY
    The following morning Sylvie was on the
telephone at the front desk in Clarice’s Beauty World when an obese
woman entered from the street. The woman wore a flowery pink house
dress and her hair was covered with a red kerchief. She carried a
purse and a Walt Disney World shopping bag. Sylvie thought the
woman looked familiar.
    The beauty salon vibrated with the hum of
conversation, whir of hair dryers, and twang of country music.
Nearly every chair was occupied by ladies in various stages of
trim, wash, rinse, comb-out, roll-up, or blow-dry. The corner table
in the reception area was mounded with house-and-garden, celebrity
gossip, and style magazines.
    Sylvie looked like a beautician instead of
like an investment banker, because today she was wearing a uniform
and shoes borrowed from Clarice. Sylvie greeted the
familiar-looking obese visitor with a smile and a raised finger
while listening to the party on the other end of the phone. When
she turned from the customer to her calendar on the opposite side
of the desk, Sylvie’s eyes passed across the photo of her puppy,
Maude, in a silver frame standing beside the phone.
    Sylvie did a