“I figured that’s pretty standard, isn’t it?”
“It doesn’t have to be. It can be whatever you want it to be.”
“Well, maybe I’ll have you sketch that out for me, too.”
“Can I meet the horses?” She looked bright and happy at the idea.
“Sure,” he said. “You like to ride?”
“I never did as much of it as my brothers. I did a little bit when I was away at school, but I didn’t spend as much time doing the farm-life thing as they did. I know how to ride, obviously. We always had a couple horses. It’s just been a while. That was actually one of my brothers’ priorities when we moved back here.” She blinked. “You know, to get a ranching operation up and running.”
He frowned. “Where do you live?”
She laughed. He realized that although the woman designed houses for a living, they had never discussed her own living situation. “Okay. You know how they say contractors are notorious for never finishing the work in their own houses? Or how mechanics always have jacked-up cars? I am an architect who lives above a coffeehouse.”
“No shit.”
“None at all. It’s too much pressure. Think of designing a place for myself. I haven’t done it. I was living in this great, modern, all-glass space up in Seattle. And I loved it. But I knew that I wasn’t going to stay there, so I didn’t do anything else. When we moved back to Copper Ridge... I didn’t really know what I wanted to do here, either. So I haven’t designed a house. And the vacancy came up above The Grind in town and I figured an old building like that, all redbrick and right there in the center of things, was the perfect place for me to get inspiration. I was right. I love it. It works for me.”
“That’s disappointing. I thought you lived in some architectural marvel. Like something made entirely out of cement shaped like the inside of a conch shell.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“Okay, it’s not that insane. I’ve definitely seen weirder. How did you learn to ride?”
This was skating close to sharing. Close to subjects he didn’t want to go into. He hesitated.
“I got a job on a ranch. I was a kid. Twelve. Thirteen. But it’s what I did until I went away to school. Until I got into manufacturing. Until I made my fortune, I guess. There was an older guy, by the name of Bud. He owned a big ranching spread on the edge of Copper Ridge. He passed on a couple years ago now. He took me on and let me work his land. He was getting old, he was downsizing, but he didn’t have the heart to get rid of everything. So... I got to escape my house and spend my days outdoors. Earn a little money doing it. My grades suffered. But I was damn happy.
“Ranch work will always be that for me. Freedom. It’s one of the things I hated most about being in prison. Being inside. Four walls around you all the time. And... Nothing smells like a ranch does. Like horses. Hay, wood chips. Even horse piss. It’s its own thing. That stuff gets in your blood. Not being around it at all was like sensory deprivation. My assets were liquefied when I went to prison. Not frozen, though, which was convenient for Alicia. Though, in the end less convenient.”
“Of course,” she said testily.
“So, my horses were taken and sold, and the money was put into an account. I was able to get two of them back. They’re coming today.”
“Levi... That’s... I mean... I can’t believe you lost your ranch? Your animals?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. She took... She took everything from you.” Faith blinked. “Do you think she did it on purpose?”
“I think she did,” he said, his voice rough.
“Why? Look, I don’t think that you did anything to her. But I...”
“The life I gave her wasn’t the life she wanted,” he said.
“Well, what life did she think she would be getting?”
“She—she was just like me. Poor and hating every minute of it. I was twenty-one. She was eighteen. She thought I might be on my way to something, and I swore to her I was. I thought she had hearts in her eyes, but they were just dollar signs. I loved her. We forged a path together, I thought. Were working toward a future where we could both look down on everyone who’d ever looked down on us.”
“From a house on a hill?” Faith asked, softly.
“Yeah. From a house on a hill. But Alicia wanted more than that. She wanted to be something other than country, and I was never going to be that. Galas and all that crap. Designer clothes and eating tiny portions of food standing up and pretending to care about what strangers have to say about anything—it wasn’t me. But I thought we were weathering those differences, I really did.”
He shook his head. “When she went missing, it was the worst night of my life. She didn’t take anything with her, not that I could see. I thought for sure something had happened to her. She had her purse, but that was it. It looked like she’d been snatched walking between a grocery store and her car. I lost sleep wondering what was happening to her. Dammit, I was picturing her being tortured. Violated. Terrified. I’ve never been so afraid, so sick to my stomach, in my whole life. We might not have been in the best space right then, but I didn’t want anything to happen to my wife, Faith. Hell, I didn’t even think it was so bad that we would get divorced. I figured we needed to work on some things, but we could get around to it.”
