Chapter Four
Kada checked on the kitchen, settled a dispute between Randi and the new server, Stephanie, and confirmed the reservation system’s guest count. With twenty people staying overnight, and one handsome farmer lounging in the cantina, she had her hands full.
After Pops’ death, she knowingly and lovingly embraced managing the motel, but sometimes, she wondered what in the world she had gotten herself into. None of the anecdotes and shiny pictures on the walls prepared her for life behind the check-in counter.
Guests threw fits, broke lamps, and made impossible demands.
She had to manage the quarrelsome toddler-like miscreants, focus on their redeeming qualities, and remind herself every profession came with difficulties. On the other hand, her paintbrushes never talked back, and she sorely missed the feel of their balanced weight.
“Um, Ka-a-da,” Stephanie said.
She looked up.
The server twisted her hands in front of her. “Um, one of the guests said there’s a horse in the pool.”
“What?” She widened her gaze, peered through the windows, and spotted a large equine silhouette drinking pool water beneath glowing patio lights. Thank goodness, darkness had fallen, and none of the motel guests had used the pool for an early evening dip. Rubbing her face, she nodded. “Thanks, Stephanie. I’ll take care of it.”
Hoping she could lure Smoky back to the garden before Dane noticed his gelding’s escape, she snuck out the side door and walked up to the animal. The horse wasn’t precisely in the pool, but he looked like he was about to make a cameo as a trick pony. “I’m sorry, handsome,” she said. “I forgot your water.”
Smoky plunged his face into the water and raised his head. Water ran over his lips and dripped to the pool decking.
Holding out her hand, she let Smoky sniff it and hoped she could lure him back to the gated casita without too much fuss. Gripping the horse’s halter, she tugged.
The animal backed up, shook her off, and lowered his head for another drink.
Stubborn male.
Smoky’s horseshoes clipped and clopped on the pool decking. Over the years, a few patches needed replacing, but the original 1950s cement had withstood the desert sun. Beneath the artificial lighting, the material glowed a soft white and surrounded the rippling turquoise water like a wind-softened mesa. But after hosting Smoky, the decking might need more than a power washer to regain its shine.
“Right.” Water ran down her arm and stained her shirt. Well, she hoped the moisture was water. Based on Smoky’s drool, the wetness could be a combination of pool water and rose-flecked spit. “I guess I’ll go find that handsome cowboy you brought me.”
“So, you think I’m handsome,” Dane said.
Turning, she ran straight into the man’s chest. Based on her limited experience, he had an exquisite chest, and she had no business inhaling his deep, masculine scent. He smelled like lime, warm spices, and a hint of honey. Backing up, she lost her balance and stumbled toward the pool.
He stepped forward and caught her elbow. “Hey now.”
His slow entreaty reminded her of the way he soothed Smoky. Embarrassment and frustration stole the easy camaraderie she found with most people, but she couldn’t blame him for her near miss. He brought her dates and a belated Christmas loaf. So far, she brought him trouble and a chlorine-tinged horse. Pulling free, she made two fists at her sides and chose her words. “I forgot to bring Smoky a bucket of water.”
“That’s my job.” He reached for the horse’s halter and tugged. “Come on, old man.”
Smoky blew out his lips and shook off Dane’s grip.
Watching horse spit spray Dane’s chest, she felt a little better about the situation. The patio lights glowed above the oasis, the stars twinkled in the darkening night sky, and the stubborn horse would soon go home. She could handle a little amusement before the motel’s New Year’s Eve shenanigans. Also, I’ll add more chlorine to the pool.
He gripped each side of the horse’s halter. “I’ll let Mariah braid your mane.”
Smoky laid back his ears.
“And put a bow in it.” Dane released the halter and raised his eyebrows.
Shaking his great head, Smoky backed away from the pool. Water dripped from his mouth. Actually, it was more than water. Long, drooly strands hung from his pink lips.
Dane frowned. He shifted forward, pried open the horse’s mouth, and looked at his back teeth. “What have you gotten into?” He ran a hand over the animal’s side, stopped to feel his heartbeat, and checked his eyes. “Did you find a bad batch of clover?” He turned. “What plants are you growing in your little garden? Please don’t tell me you have a fondness for butterflies and a three-gallon tub of milkweed.”
“No, I have…” She recalled what she planted. Most of the time, she picked up whatever haggard plants the nursery put on discount. With a little tender loving care and a lot of water, the plants regained their strength, and she enjoyed their beauty. “…some roses, marigolds, a jade plant, and a little grass.”
“You’re growing grass in the desert?” he asked.
She put her hands on her hips. “You’re growing dates!”
“Look who’s talking.” He pointed. “You have a pool.”
“And your horse is drinking from it!”
Smoky shoved his mouth back in the pool and took great gulps.
“Stop that. You’ll make yourself sick off the pool chemicals.” Shaking his head, Dane tugged on Smoky’s halter until the horse relented and followed him back to the casita . “Good call, old man.”
Kada fell into step with the man and his steed. “The grass is a putting green.”
Her admission felt less like a betrayal and more like a glimpse into Pops’ depths. He worked so hard to care for the motel and the guests who visited. He deserved a few feet of green grass and putting practice.
Then again, she hadn’t taken care of the patch or weeded out whatever sickened Smoky, so maybe she had betrayed her grandfather, after all. “I’m sorry if the grass sickened your horse.”
“Slaframine is a fungus that afflicts clovers. It produces a toxin that stimulates a horse’s salivary glands and causes the horse to drool,” he said. “Horses grazing on red and white clover can get the slobbers from the mold. In these temps, I’m surprised it’s still active.”
Judging by Smoky’s wet grin, the horse had the slobbers all right. She hoped the condition wasn’t permanent. An ooey-gooey horse was the last thing she needed to augment the motel’s online description. “What’s the cure?”
“Water.”
“Well, take him back to the pool!” Stopping beside a palm, she clasped a hand over her mouth. The demand came out so loud she wondered if the cantina guests heard her outburst. “I don’t want him to suffer on my behalf.”
“He’ll be okay. I’ll find a hose and give him fresh water.”
Exhaling, she wondered whether she could nab a five-gallon pot from the kitchen. If worse came to worse, she would open her casita’s bathroom windows, fill the tub, and let Smoky have his fill. “Are you sure you don’t want to call a vet?”
“Trust me. He’ll be fine.” Dane shifted his hat to his left hand, led the horse back to the casita , filled a bucket, and shut the gate hard.
At the clang, she wondered if it would ever open.
Smoky plunged his head into the bucket.
Wrinkling her nose, she considered Dane’s mix of easy charm and steady control. His mother, Mariah, came to the motel like a breath of cinnamon-scented fresh air, coached her grant-writing skills, and reminded her to give the desert time to sink into her skin.
The day Kada received the announcement email confirming she won the grant, she called Mariah, but walking away from the Starlight Motel would be harder than she thought.
Mariah said what felt difficult on one day could turn into joy the next day. Most of her challenging stories revolved around Dane and his brother’s childhoods, but the stories always had a happy ending. Now, a handsome cowboy stood on her property, and he was too ruggedly handsome to ride a stick pony.
Walter liked his boss, and Pops had mentioned Dane once or twice. If three people could get along with Dane Palmer, she could, too.
“How long are you staying out here?” Dane asked.
She checked the time on her phone. “The dinner rush usually ends around nine.”
“That’s not what I meant.” He cleared his throat and shifted his stance.
Looking past his shoulder, she considered her response. Before Pops died, she came to the motel frustrated and confused. She had finished an artist-in-residence gig at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, but her next steps hadn’t gone as planned.
When she started the residency, the position enabled her to organize a multipart community mural project at the Technical Vocational High School, and it allowed her to feel like she made a difference in the world. Working with the kids, she designed the mural, sketched it on the school’s exterior, and brought the work to life. Every day, she bounded out of bed and felt like she had a noble calling. Deflecting praise back to the students, she was a woman who could empower the next generation.
At night in her tiny, rented apartment, she replayed her exchanges with the students. They influenced her in ways she would never have expected. They broadened her understanding of nature’s power in urban environments. She grew up with Wyoming’s charms. They grew up with equal parts concrete, glass, and grass, but they made it work.
Teaching her about local creeks flowing through underground culverts, the students showed her the places where the creeks pooled at the surface, pointed out hidden pockets of nature, and offered her produce from a community garden.
She felt humbled.
When bolder students spoke about freeing the water, they bubbled with the same excitement she expected from a spring downpour. The rush of feelings inspired the final mural’s conception and execution. Titled “Life Finds A Way,” the mural showed water falling from one side of the wall to the other side. Along the way, neighborhood symbols rose to the surface in punchy, rainbow-hued graphics, and local silhouettes bathed in the downfall. When she and the students finished the project, she thought the work represented nature’s undiluted power and the students’ vibrancy.
Wanting to repeat the experience, she used a crowd-funding platform to fundraise for a follow-up project and give another artist the experience she had. Reporters covered the project and wrote nice pieces in local papers. On the day the campaign ended, she had a quarter of what she needed, the students left dejected, and she felt like a one-hit-wonder. So much for good press.
Before she could spend the afternoon drowning her sorrows, Kada received a call from Mom asking her to check Pops. Kada fled her disappointment, took a commercial bus to Palm Springs, and hired a car to take her to the Starlight Motel. A week later, Pops passed, and she remained. He left her everything she needed, but she struggled to find her balance. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.”
“Who is?”
She laughed and met his gaze. In the floodlit botanical gardens, he looked as relaxed as a tawny mountain lion, but she didn’t want to start something she couldn’t finish. If she had the man’s measure, then he knew exactly what he wanted to do each day, and the crates of produce from Palmer Farms proved his efficiency. “Pops had a way about him.”
“Well, that’s true. Once or twice, I took Smoky for a walk, and he shooed me off his lands. I offered to buy them, but he didn’t take me seriously. It must be a family trait.”
Smiling, she looked away and scanned the mountains. Whenever she felt like she had big problems, she looked up and let the looming ranges put her life into perspective.
After Pops’ funeral, her parents came to the valley, but Mom spent half the visit in tears. Every day, Kada picked up more and more responsibility. By the time she watched her parents depart, she had assumed management of the motel and convinced the staff to humor her presence in honor of Pops.
The transition still hurt. While she struggled to paint and complete daily tasks, she lost weight and spend several nights wide-eyed and overwhelmed. Her feelings paled in comparison to her mom’s tearful phone calls. Once a week, Kada worked up the nerve to call and ask for help. Mom’s tear-soaked memories overshadowed her daily struggles. As Kada listened, the remembrances made her grateful for her family’s love, but Mom’s grief stole her thunder. In comparison to losing a parent, what kind of problems did Kada have?
A light flashed halfway up the mountain.
She frowned. The Starlight Motel occupied five acres of land off the highway. Past the motel, the acreage rose toward the mountains. Half the remaining landscape belonged to Dane’s family, and the Bureau of Land Management administered the rest. If she had her bearings, the flash came from the Bureau’s land, and she doubted rangers were out patrolling this late at night. “I just saw a flash in the foothills.”
Dane turned and cocked his head. “Probably more lightning.”
“No.” She craned her neck for another glimpse. “More like headlights coming around a curve. Do roads run up there?”
“Maybe a few off-road tracks.”
She frowned. The local monuments offered a diverse range of landscapes, plants, and wildlife. She explored the area, but most of the time, she followed the gravel paths winding among the casitas .
Along most of its length, the valley stretched fifteen miles wide. To the northeast, the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino Mountains capped the valley, and to the southwest, the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains formed a towering horizon. Wind turbines captured down currents, solar panels absorbed the sunlight, and the valley’s population rolled with the punches, but she couldn’t depend on urban neighbors to investigate everything that went bump in the night.
The lights flashed again.
“I’ll, uh, get you some water for Smoky.” She started toward the main building, but she kept her gaze fixed on the mountains.
“Oh, no you won’t.” He moved alongside her. “He’s fine.”
Startled, she turned. “Excuse me?”
“You look like a jackrabbit ready to bolt.”
“Do we even have jackrabbits?” she asked.
He ran a hand through his hair. “If you’re running up the mountain on a whim, then I’ll go with you, or I’ll never hear the end of it from my mother.”
She chewed her bottom lip, glanced at the shadowed range, and considered her options. “Your horse is…uh…sick.”
Smiling, he slapped his palm against the fence.
Smoky raised his cocked his head and drooled.
“He’ll be fine.” Dane raised an eyebrow. “Unless you want to go for a ride?”
“As if.” She wanted to investigate the flashes, but she couldn’t ride double with Dane Palmer. Pursing her lips, she debated how to escape his helpful presence.
“And how were you planning to scale the mountain?” he asked.
She crossed her arms. “Pops’ truck.”
He donned his hat. “Well, I’ll bet that trusty old truck has room for two.”
Opening her mouth to argue, she pulled back and considered her options. Whatever light flashed halfway up the mountain signaled a need. Maybe the flash came from a pair of teenagers setting off fireworks who needed a chat about wildfires. She obtained a permit from the local fire authority for the New Year’s Eve show, but she doubted the kids did the same. Maybe a backcountry driver broke down and needed a tow. If she found out someone spent the night in distress when she could help them, she would never forgive herself for ignoring their signal. “Fine.”
“Fine?” He rubbed his jaw.
“You can come.” She could summon courage, but well-muscled reinforcement would soothe her nerves. “You’d probably just follow me, anyway.”
“Well, aren’t you generous?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Let’s get Smoky an all-you-can-drink water bowl and find out who’s sending smoke signals from the backcountry.”
“Smoke signals?” She peered up the mountains. Night left thick shadows, and she struggled to identify the outcrop where she saw the last flash. Without Dane’s help and familiarity with the landscape, she might never figure out what she saw.
“It’s a figure of speech,” he said.
“Right.” She walked past Smoky, opened her front door, and rooted through her casita closet until she found a tarp and an old, galvanized tin beverage bucket. On hot days, Pops set the bucket by the registration desk and filled it with glass-bottle sodas. Fresh out of sodas fit for a horse, she threw the tarp over the clover-infested grass, dropped the bucket in the middle of the lawn, and filled it with clear, cold water.
Turning, she found Chris and Dane in deep conversation. Chris stood ramrod straight in the middle of the path. He could give lessons in posture. Dane leaned against a palm. If he shifted to the left, he would come face-to-face with one of the hot-pink wreaths she made. Maybe a neon halo would do him good.
“Nah, he’s been a workhorse all his life, but I’m glad you think he’s handsome. Chestnut horses have red bodies, manes, and tails. Sometimes, you’ll hear a chestnut horse called a ‘sorrel’ out west, but Smoky doesn’t qualify. The black gives away his pedigree. That old man’s soot-stained and handsome.”
Smoky swished his regal, black tail and pawed the ground.
She swallowed. Given a chance, she would have called the gelding a chestnut, too. So much for my familiarity with the local fauna.
“Smoky’s a bay horse. They also have reddish coats, but they have a black mane, tail, and other true black points.” Dane scratched his jaw. “You can pet him if you like, but you might get a bit wet.”
Chris shook Dane’s grip with a nod, walked through the white gate, and with slow steps, he approached the horse. “I don’t care what they call you. You’re the most handsome thing I’ve seen all day.”
She swallowed a laugh. Why should she advertise handsome cowboys when she had charming old men on-site?
Chris extended a hand. “My riding days might be behind me, but we could have had great adventures. The New Year will be here soon. I should have known I’d see something inspiring.”
Raising his slobbery mouth from the galvanized tin bucket of water, Smoky peeled back his lips and grinned. Dropping his head, he nosed Chris’s hand, offered his neck, and sidestepped for more attention.
“Well, I can see I’ve been replaced,” Dane said.
Chris leaned against the horse and stroked his muscled neck. “Aren’t you the best?”
Kada tilted her head and watched the pair. For all his mobility and strength, Chris approached the beautiful old horse with the respect of a man who knew how to stop, smell the flowers, and savor life’s memories.
Unfortunately, Smoky ate most of the flowers, but if the pair wanted to pass the evening on her casita’s front porch, she couldn’t think of a lovelier sight. “Why don’t you take the rocking chair? I’ll see if I can find some apples and carrots for Smoky.” She looked toward Dane and raised her eyebrows.
He nodded. “We’ll wait for you to return.”
Looking over her shoulder, she imagined painting the three males in a moment of intimacy. Dane, with his capable, handsome strength, Chris, with his jolly, stooped nostalgia, and Smoky with his proud, workhouse drama made quite a trio.
Doubt tugged at her, and she wondered if her art would ever make an impact.
In a famous mural, The School of Athens, a muralist showed philosophers, inventors, and polymaths with different belief systems and different histories, but the brilliant minds stood in a pillared school.No longer framed in isolated portraits or posed in static busts, the historical figures clustered in groups and debated life.
The first time she saw the mural on paper in a textbook, she thought the figures were smart, cultured, and elite. Maybe she would mature into an artist who could do them justice. The first time she saw the mural in person at the Vatican, she had a decade of art experience under her belt, a taste for inequality’s impact, and looming life decisions.
The figures in the painting wanted to solve problems and answer questions. She didn’t care if she painted the next work of art, but she wanted more people to see themselves in the painting and know they could contribute to improving the world.
Smoky and his two admirers might not revolutionize the world, but they could shape the Coachella Valley, and she wanted to capture the moment. First, she had to figure out what in the world had flashed on the mountainside, and if Dane volunteered to accompany her, she would feel a lot better about her investigation.