The Wish. Diane Pershing

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СКАЧАТЬ morning was magic. Ruffy was in fine, frisky shape today as they cantered toward the hills where the sun was just making an appearance, casting all kinds of lovely colors over the distant Sierra Nevadas and the plains below. Gerri was full of hope this morning, having slept well—no pain from bruises that weren’t there, no ankle twinges, no aspirin or ice necessary. Last week she hadn’t been able to ride, but today she could. She was wondering if Des would be joining her, as he often did in the morning, when the sound of horse’s hooves behind her told her that the man himself was making an appearance. She slowed Ruffy down to a slow trot and waited for him to catch up with her.

      “Hi,” she said as he joined her.

      He nodded his greeting. A man of few words, was her friend Des. The laconic, solitary rancher who never said more than what was absolutely necessary. She liked that about him, especially as he never seemed to mind her chatter.

      He trotted easily beside her. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?” she said, inhaling a deep lungful of cool morning air.

      “Uh-huh.”

      “Race you to the tree!” She took off before he answered, knowing that her mount didn’t have a chance against his sleek black gelding, but going for it nevertheless. Within moments, he’d caught up to her and passed her, but kept just ahead of her instead of racing off into the distance, as he most certainly was capable of doing.

      They ran the horses for fifteen minutes or so, until Des pulled up at a grove of cottonwood trees, the tallest of which leaned over the edge of a babbling creek. She’d come to think of it as their tree and had since the day months before when she’d dismounted here to adjust her stirrups and he’d ridden by, stopped and asked if he could help. She’d accepted gratefully because, back then, this whole horse thing had been new to her.

      Born and raised in New York City into a family of academics and intellectuals, Gerri’s only previous experience with equines had been to watch mounted police during parades and to observe the aging, overworked animals that pulled carriages around Central Park. But she’d always been fascinated by the beasts—their sturdy musculature, the grace of their necks—and had vowed to have her own one day. And to learn to be a good rider.

      After eighteen months in the Reno area, Gerri had bought Ruffy and boarded her at Des’s place, which had been recommended to her by the horse’s previous owner. She’d taken a few lessons and was now, if she said so herself, not bad, and getting better.

      Thanks to Des. In his quiet way, he’d helped her learn how to saddle her own horse, how to watch out for tree roots and the occasional snake as she rode, how to water and brush her mount at the end of the ride. He hadn’t had to do all that, she knew it, and thought he must be a very kind person to have taken the awkward city slicker under his wing.

      “Whoa!” she said now, pulling up next to him. She was as out of breath as Ruffy must be, but happy. “That was fabulous!”

      “You’re doing fine,” he said, “getting better and better,” he added, just the hint of smile on his usually stoic face. Beneath his well-worn cowboy hat, she observed, not for the first time, his startling blue eyes and the lines radiating out from them, formed by years in the sun. Black hair and blue eyes. Black Irish coloring, he’d told her once, in a rare moment of talking about himself. His people had come to America during the potato famine and had led a hardscrabble life. He’d bought his ranch about five years earlier. It was small, but he worked hard, and she had a sense that he, too, was fulfilling a lifelong dream of having a place—even an identity—of his own.

      She was naturally curious about his personal life. He wasn’t married, she knew, and lived alone. But there was an air of privacy about him that didn’t invite personal questions, so she hung back from prying. Once in a while, like when he stared at the mountain range to the east, she got a sense of loneliness, even a shadow of sadness, in the man. But mostly he seemed comfortable in his solitary existence. Except he seemed to enjoy her company when they rode together, which was once or twice a week in the mornings.

      For the first time in her adult life, Gerri felt comfortable with a man. Consequently, when she was with him, her behavior was relaxed, not forced. He had the gift of making her feel good about herself, accepted her for what and who she was. All her life, Gerri had tended to say whatever was on her mind; as she had a really busy mind, poor Des had received an earful of opinions on books, ideas she’d read about and been mulling over, politics, new scientific breakthroughs, an interesting new word, the little miracles of daily life. She spoke to him sometimes of her past unhappiness, of not fitting in, of being too tall, too clumsy.

      She’d never gone so far as to tell him about Tommy, her one unhappy love affair, but it still amazed her how she felt free to share just about everything else with him. Occasionally, she would stop and ask if she was talking too much, and always he said not at all, that he enjoyed listening to her. Once he’d even called her “a breath of fresh air.”

      Bless him, she thought now, bless Des for opening a new world to her, one where men and women could be friends. She’d always had female friendships, but his was the first with the opposite sex, and she valued this relationship.

      “One of these days,” she said with a grin, “you’re not going to be able to beat me so easily.”

      Again, that small hint of smile. “I believe you.”

      Together they sat on their horses while the animals grazed a bit on the nearby grass, Gerri gazing at the creek’s rushing waters and the way the rising sun glinted on it. Her heart felt so full this morning—the wish had made all kinds of new things possible. Suddenly she wanted to tell Des about that wish. She had to share the miracle with someone, for heaven’s sake. It was too good to keep to herself.

      “Des, do you believe in magic?”

      He squinted his eyes. “Magic?”

      “Yes. You know, the kind where you say an incantation and all of a sudden you get this thing you’ve always wanted? Or you go to bed one way and wake up the next morning, different?”

      He gazed at her for a few moments, considering her question. Then he shrugged. “I believe in what I can see and touch, Gerri.”

      “So, you’re not into, you know, a parallel universe or communing with dead souls or the power of the unknown?”

      “Afraid not,” he said, one side of his mouth curving upward slightly. “Why?”

      No, she thought, not Des, the ultimate pragmatist. Maybe Didi, her friend who owned the antique shop next door to hers. Didi might be the one to tell about the miracle. “Just wondering. I’m always wondering about something, I guess.”

      “I like that about you,” he said simply. “Ready to head back?”

      Des, too, was wondering, but it was about what was going on in that furiously busy brain of Gerri’s. She seemed different this morning, exhilarated, somehow. Not that she wasn’t always pretty upbeat, but there was something about her, some…inner light.

      A thought struck him then that made him scowl. Rance, he bet. He knew about her crush on him, even though she’d never actually said anything about it. When she talked about the good-for-nothing playboy, even casually, she usually blushed and got a stupid grin on her face. She thought she was in love with him. Des had never heard her say it, but some women, despite having good brains and common sense in most areas, fell for that kind of pretty boy who flirted and never stayed put, who promised and never followed through.

      His ex-wife СКАЧАТЬ