17. Mandy
Mandy
The truck smelled new.
New leather. New carpet. Nothing worn in. Nothing shaped by a person.
The heat came on without rattling, and the seat held her exactly where a seat was supposed to hold a body.
Andrew’s boots were on her feet.
She looked down at them.
The toes were scuffed white at the seams. Snowmelt had dried in a dark crescent along the left heel. His leather. Her feet inside it.
Preston got in beside her and shut his door.
The larger man climbed into the back without being introduced. He had the quiet bulk of somebody accustomed to being treated as part of the vehicle.
Preston started the engine.
“You’re freezing,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
She was.
The truck backed and turned.
The house filled the windshield for one moment. One kitchen window burned gold. Andrew stood bareheaded in the yard, the barn behind him and Junebug tied at the rail.
Mandy looked at him.
She waited.
She did not know what she was waiting for. Her name, perhaps. One step. The sight of him crossing the frozen ground.
He remained where he was.
The truck turned onto the home road.
The house slid out of sight.
Preston rested one hand on her knee.
Mandy removed it.
He put it back.
She took his wrist and set his hand on his own leg.
“Do not touch me.”
His face changed by a degree.
“All right,” he said. “You’re upset.”
She looked through the passenger window.
The road moved beneath the headlights. Pasture. Fence. Dark timber.
The repaired section came up on the right and disappeared before she could prepare for it.
The last time she passed that fence, she had been riding beside Andrew.
She had told him the money did not matter.
He had heard her.
Her chest tightened until drawing breath required attention.
Preston spoke after several miles.
“Well,” he said. “That was educational.”
Mandy kept her face toward the window.
“I expected something else.”
She said nothing.
“A younger man, perhaps. Better house.”
“Do not speak about him.”
“I’m not criticizing him.” Preston glanced at her. “The presentation is effective. The truck. The hat. The silence.”
Her fingers tightened together.
“What did he pay you?”
“No.”
Preston looked at her.
Mandy kept her face toward the glass.
“Of course,” he said.
He returned his attention to the road.
The two words settled between them.
After a while, he asked, “Did he tell you he loved you?”
The answer struck somewhere below her ribs.
Andrew had not.
He had said stay.
He had placed her hand against his heart.
He had driven into a storm for cattle and stood still when she needed him to move.
“No,” she said.
Preston nodded once.
That was all. He had what he wanted.
Mandy put both hands between her knees.
The right thumb had healed crooked. Work had thickened the skin at the base of her fingers. Dirt remained in the half-moons no matter how hard she scrubbed.
Those hands were hers.
The truck could carry her south. Preston could tell himself he had recovered something. Her father could write any story he pleased.
The hands were still hers.
She held them tightly together.
After another mile, Preston said, “You made your point.”
Mandy did not answer.
“You ran. Everyone saw it. I imagine the rustic interlude was very cleansing.”
Her jaw tightened.
“But it changes nothing.”
She turned her head. “It changed me.”
Preston smiled faintly, the smile he used when somebody at dinner had said something charming and incorrect.
“You have calluses.”
“Yes.”
“You slept in a ranch house.”
“Yes.”
“You fed a calf.”
“Yes.”
“And now you are going home.”
Mandy looked at him.
He believed the sentence was proof.
“You did not come because you were worried.”
“I came because you belong at home.”
“I do not belong to you.”
His fingers tightened on the wheel.
“A few calluses and suddenly you speak like you've been kidnapped.”
“A house.”
“With a man twice your age.”
“Not twice.”
The correction escaped before she could stop it.
Preston looked at her.
Mandy turned back to the window.
“So that part is real,” he said.
She said nothing.
“What did he tell you?”
“Nothing you would understand.”
“Try me.”
“No.”
Preston let the silence sit.
Then, very mildly, he said, “I thought not.”
Mandy looked at him.
He kept his eyes on the road.
Preston did not need an answer. He preferred the space where she supplied one herself.
She refused.
The highway bent south. Snow remained in the ditches, blue under the headlights. Beyond the glass, the country was already changing, ranch giving way to road, Stillwater becoming a place behind her.
Her throat closed.
She looked down at the boots.
Andrew had watched her leave in them.
Perhaps he had noticed. He noticed everything.
The thought hurt too much, so she moved away from it.
“Where is the car?” she asked.
“Tom’s?”
“The one I drove.”
“Recovered. Badly damaged. Tom is being generous about it.”
“Where are we going?”
“Denver.”
“Then?”
“The plane.”
“Whose?”
“My father’s.”
“Of course.”
Preston looked satisfied by her return to practical questions.
“Your father is waiting. He has handled the public side. There will be a quiet dinner in a few days. No announcements until you are rested.”
“I am not agreeing to anything.”
“We will discuss it when you are home.”
“We are discussing it now.”
“You have been through a great deal.”
She laughed once.
The sound startled the man in the back enough that his eyes lifted to the mirror.
Preston’s mouth hardened.
“I am serious, Amanda.”
“So am I.”
He drove faster.
They reached Denver after midnight.
The private terminal was warm and nearly empty. A woman behind the desk greeted Preston by name and did not look at Mandy’s boots.
The larger man followed them through without being asked for identification.
A plane waited beyond the glass, white under the floodlights.
Mandy stopped.
“I am not getting on that.”
Preston turned.
“You are tired.”
“I said I am not getting on it.”
“You have no phone, no money, and no coat suitable for the weather. You are twelve hundred miles from anyone you know.”
“Tessa.”
His eyes sharpened.
“She has been very worried.”
“You spoke to her?”
“Your father did.”
Mandy looked toward the terminal doors.
Beyond them lay locked gates, dark tarmac, airport roads, and a city she did not know well enough to disappear inside before dawn.
This was not a choice.
Not yet.
“I will get on the plane,” she said. “Do not mistake that for consent to anything after it lands.”
Preston’s shoulders eased.
“There you are.”
She hated the phrase.
They boarded.
The cabin held cream leather, polished wood, and flowers arranged in a vase for no reason except that somebody had been paid to arrange them.
Mandy sat by the window.
Preston took the seat across from her.
The larger man disappeared behind a partition.
A flight attendant offered champagne.
“No,” Mandy said.
Preston accepted one.
The engines rose.
The plane began to move.
Mandy looked down at Andrew’s boots.
She had left the ranch wearing them because there had been no time to choose what she carried.
Or perhaps there had been a choice and she had made it without knowing.
The plane lifted.
Runway lights fell away beneath them. Denver spread flat and bright, then disappeared beneath cloud.
Mandy kept her feet planted on the floor until Colorado was gone.