IAN
I pace the lobby, waiting for Reese. She didn’t reply to my text last night or voice mail this morning. Hopefully she’ll make an appearance.
I glance at my watch. It’s after eight. We’re getting a later start than planned, but I’m not complaining, too much. Aimee and I stayed awake late into the night because . . .
I missed her. Simple as that.
I missed my wife and that connection we have. So I took the time to show her just how much I missed her.
Carrying a brown paper bag, Aimee meets me in the lobby. “Any luck with Reese’s Pieces?”
I snort a laugh and shake my head. “Whatcha got in there?” Pulling at the lip of Aimee’s bag, I look inside.
“Paulo made us lunch.”
“Who’s Paulo?”
“The chef. I got the pulpo recipe from him. He’s making us some tonight.”
My stomach goes for a spin. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Of course I am.” She nudges my shoulder. “Let’s go find some horses.”
We make our way to the rental and settle into the car. As I sync my phone with the car’s Bluetooth, a message pings from Reese. I glance at the notification. It’s short and not sweet. She has other plans today.
In an effort to not think the article is a lost cause, I launch my Nathaniel Rateliff station on Pandora. “It’s just you and me today.” I kiss Aimee’s cheek and reverse out of the parking lot.
“Sounds like a perfect day to me.”
We drive to Sabucedo and hike the same trail Reese and I took yesterday. The hillside is muddy, but the weather is perfect. Wisps of clouds blotch the expanse of blue like the brown-and-white piebald coat of a horse. I don’t point out the deceased foal when we pass the tree that sheltered Reese and me in yesterday’s rainstorm. Instead, we pass the time talking about my last trip to Spain, my weeks traveling through the country, and the long weekend in Sabucedo and at the Rapa. We’ve been hiking for almost ninety minutes when we crest the hill and Aimee gasps.
“Look!”
Below us lies the rustic village of Sabucedo with its beige stucco walls and red tile roofs. On the hillside, about a hundred yards down from where we stand, is a small herd. I quickly count twenty-eight heads, a stallion, his mares, and several foals.
Slipping off my pack, I pull out my Nikon and the 70-300 mm lens. It’s light and compact with a sharp autofocus. Perfect for moving around with as the animals graze and wander. It’s also the ideal lens to capture them in action should they decide to gallop away. I also unpack my stand and the camera’s remote so I can capture some stills of the countryside.
“They’re right there,” Aimee exclaims. “So beautiful.”
I glance from the herd to my wife. “This is what I came to see.” I grin, grateful we found them. Reese should be seeing this.
Turning on the camera, I check the battery and add a backup battery and chip to one of the gazillion pockets lining my pant legs. Maybe we can catch up with Reese this evening and show her the pictures.
“I count about thirty of them,” Aimee says. “Is this all?”
“It’s only one herd. Over two thousand were recorded roaming the hills throughout northern Spain back in the 1970s. There are just under five hundred today.”
“That’s tragic. What happened to them?”
“Poachers, predators, poor economic conditions.” I zip up my pack. “The villagers do manage overpopulation because there’s a lot of competition for grazing land with farmers. But right now, all they want is what’s left of the population to thrive.”
Aimee shields her eyes from the sun’s glare. “They look different from regular horses.”
“They’ve adapted to their environment.” I take in the herd, their hardy frames and shaggy chestnut coats. Through my lens, I see that some of the mares have longer, thicker hair around their muzzles, telling me they’re older than the others. I point at a thick hedge. “See those gorse bushes over there? They love to eat them. The hair on their faces protects them from the bushes and their thick coats insulate them from the weather. We’re less than fifty kilometers from the coast. It gets cold and misty up here.”
“Are we a safe distance from them?”
I do a visual estimate and guess we’re about fifty meters from the herd.
“We’ll be fine. Just don’t get any closer.” I glance around. “Let’s set up here.”
Aimee shrugs off her pack and takes out a blanket. She lays it on the ground.
“I’m going to walk around, take some photos.”
Aimee makes an OK sign with her thumb and index finger. “I’ll have lunch ready when you’re done.”
I spend the rest of the morning walking the perimeter of the herd, framing shots and snapping photos. I play with angles, the composition, and the light. The horses let me get within thirty-five meters of them before they flick their manes and tails, fidgeting at my nearness. Backing off, I wait for them to settle so I can take more pictures. I then set up some panoramic shots, using my stand and remote to minimize any vibration that would blur the pictures.
After a while, feeling light-headed, I return to Aimee, sinking beside her on the blanket. She gives me a sandwich of marinated vegetables and cut meat. I bite off a mouthful, and flavor explodes. “This is incredible.” I chew and swallow. “The horses are amazing. You’re amazing.”
Aimee tosses her head back with a laugh. “Hungry?”
“Starving.” I take another bite. Dressing leaks from the corner of my mouth. I thumb it off.
“You’re just happy because I fed you.”
I chuckle. “Good call on the sandwiches. My stomach thanks you.” Had it just been me up here, I would have survived the afternoon on RXBARs and nut packs. Boring squirrel food compared with the gourmet lunch Aimee brought along. “You can travel with me anytime if you bring food like this.”
She nibbles her sandwich. “Do you realize I’ve never watched you work?”
“You’ve seen me work.” Plenty of times. She’s witnessed me spend countless hours tweaking photos in my home office, or work the floor at my showings as I schmooze clients and upsell new buyers.
“I mean, I’ve never been on-site with you,” she clarifies. “Your focus is intense.”
“So is yours when you’re baking.”
She props her chin on her knees, hugging her shins, and smiles. I’m downhill from her on the blanket so I lean back on my elbow and rub her calf. Flies buzz past. The air smells of damp dirt and pine.
“Do you remember what you told me in Mexico?” she asks.
“I told you a lot of things in Mexico.”
Her eyes sparkle and I know what she’s thinking, how I told her that I loved her. But the next move had been hers, and she’d left me.
I could have gone with her, but I’d decided to stay an extra day. Yes, I was curious about Lacy and her connection with Imelda and the possibility of finding my mom through her. But Aimee’s quick departure from the country confused me. I didn’t know what happened between her and James the previous night, and I wasn’t entirely sure Aimee felt the same for me. Asking her to stay meant risking her rejection, and I’d been burned once too often.
“Do you remember comparing my baking to an artistic craft? You said I was an artist because ‘true artists elicit an emotional response.’”
“I did say that.” I nod slowly. “I still think that.”
“Me, too, about you and your work.”
“Thank you.” I sit up and kiss her leisurely; then I lie back down and sigh. Folding my hands behind my head, I close my eyes, letting the sun warm my face. This is what life is about, these slivers of time when my mind is a blank slate and I don’t think or worry. But there’s too much traffic in my head today. I wonder if Reese and I can meet halfway and make the feature happen and I wonder about Lacy. Dread falls over me, a blanket that covers me from head to foot. I feel as though we’ve been in Spain one day too long.
I sit upright and look at the space on my memory chip. “I should take some more photos.”
“Do you think your pictures will change Reese’s mind about her feelings toward the Rapa?”
“I certainly hope so.” I switch out chips and put aside the camera. “She asked me yesterday why I was so taken by these horses. She pointed out that they’re more semiferal than wild. I told her that I see the relationship between the villagers and the herds as symbiotic. It fascinates me. But that’s only part of the reason.”
Aimee wraps the remains of her sandwich and returns it to the paper bag. “What’s the other part?”
“My favorite book as a kid was The Black Stallion. Don’t laugh,” I say when Aimee’s mouth twitches.
“I’m not. I guess I imagined something different.”
“I’ve read my share of Christopher Pike novels and Superman comic books. But that’s beside the point. My mom loved The Black Stallion as a kid, too. She used to read a chapter a night to me until we finished the book and I’d beg her to start over. I swear we read that book over a hundred times. She would get into character and the story came alive. She could have read that book to me forever.”
“Why’d you stop?”
“I stopped asking.” I tug up a clump of weeds and chuck them. Beyond us, the horses nicker. A foal ambles to its mother. “After Sarah was imprisoned, I spent more time at Marshall’s. I could tend to his horses and forget how shitty life was back home. I guess, in a weird way, I feel closer to my mother around horses.”
Aimee studies me with cool fascination. I pull my legs in, resting my elbows on my knees, hands hanging loose between. She smiles sweetly.
“What?” I ask, cracking my own smile.
“You’re her Galician knight and her aloitador. In a way, she was wild and you tried to manage that wildness the best you knew how for your age. And when she wasn’t the most willing or cooperative subject, you watched over her. You took care of her. And then she left you and you didn’t know what to do. You probably felt like you didn’t have a purpose. It’s probably how these villagers would feel should they lose these herds.”
“Huh. Interesting. I never thought to look at it that way.” I yank off a blade of grass and chew on the end.
Aimee makes a face. “Eww. Horses walked on that.”
“Yeah, probably.” I toss the mangled blade and grin. “That was deep, Aimee. What should we talk about now? Politics, clean energy, babies?”
Aimee lifts a brow and I sigh.
“I know,” I acknowledge. “I said I wanted to table our discussion, but . . . you want another one? For real?”
“I do.”
“This isn’t a residual feeling from seeing the burrito-wrapped bundles at the hospital?”
“Those bundles reminded me that I’ve been feeling this way for months. I wanted to talk about it with you last summer when you got back from Spain, but . . .” Her voice tapers off. She picks off burrs clinging to her shoelaces.
“But what?” I give her calf a squeeze.
“Things happened.”
My chest feels heavy. “You mean James happened.”
Aimee nods.
I breathe deeply. “Tell you what. How about we get back to focusing on us rather than what’s happening around us?”
We watch each other for a long moment. My heart beats for her and I reach for her hand. Our fingers entwine. She watches my thumb caress hers.
“I’d like that, very much,” she agrees.
I give her arm a gentle tug. “Come here.”
Aimee scoots down the blanket. I lie back, pulling her down with me so that her chest is on mine. Her hair spills over her shoulders, framing her face. I trace her cheekbone. “I just remembered something.”
“What?” She dips her head and kisses my jaw.
“We forgot to Skype Caty last night.”
Aimee trails her lips along my jawline. I feel the press of her breasts with each breath, the gentle rush of air from her parted lips through my whiskers. It makes my blood thrum.
She kisses my chin, then lets her lips hover above mine. “We were a little busy last night.”
“Yeah, we were.” I laugh the words. My body heats at the memory.
“We’ll call her when we get back to the inn.”
“Good idea. Now kiss me,” I demand, memories of last night lingering in my brain.
Her mouth crushes mine and my arms loop around her back. We spend the afternoon like this, kissing and embracing, relaxed and sun warmed. The horses graze nearby, their nickers and whinnies background music. It’s late, the sun sinking lower on the horizon, when the herd starts to wander toward the next hillside. Deciding to trail the horses for a bit, I slip my arm from Aimee and grab my camera. I’ve wandered off a bit when I turn back to her. I point at my watch and flash five fingers two times, asking her to give me ten minutes.
She waves and packs up the picnic.
A short while later, my memory chip loaded with images, I join Aimee. I show her some of the photos on my camera display, unable to contain my excitement at capturing them.
“It was a good day,” Aimee says when we start walking downhill. “I’m glad you found what you were looking for.”
Not everything, not yet. But maybe that’ll happen on Tuesday.
I wrap an arm around Aimee’s waist, ready to embark on the next leg of our adventure.
Early the next morning, I check out of the inn while Aimee chats with Catherine on the phone, updating her on our plans. We’re driving to the coast for breakfast and will catch our flight this afternoon, landing in Boise late the same day. We’ll spend the night there before venturing to my dad’s place. Lacy didn’t give us a time to meet, just said that she’ll be there on Tuesday. So we’ll be there. Early. This will be my first visit home since before I graduated from college. It’ll also be the first time I’ve seen my dad since Las Vegas.
Aimee ends her call and pulls up the handle on her roller. “Ready?”
“Yes.” I pick up my bags and, leading us to the front door, catch Reese sitting alone in the dining room. She waves for us to wait.
“Hold on a second,” I tell Aimee as Reese makes her way over. I left her three text messages and two voice mails last night. I apologized for threatening to pull the photos to sabotage her article. I told her we’d found one of the herds and that I wanted to show her the pictures. She should have been there. She would have loved them. She never replied, which told me her heart isn’t in this feature, not like mine is. I worry the article won’t capture the essence of the relationship between the village and the herd, and that it may cast a negative light on the ancient festival.
“Hi,” Reese says in greeting. Her gaze slides from me to Aimee and back. She hitches her hands in her back pockets. “I was hoping to catch you.”
Aimee crosses her arms and inches closer to me.
“What’s up?” I don’t bother to put down my bags or ask whether we should sit.
“You found the horses.”
“We did.” I take the car keys from my pocket and jiggle them.
“When’s your flight?”
“Late afternoon. Why?”
“Would you take me there? If you don’t mind.” She glances at Aimee.
“Can’t. We have plans today,” I reply.
“No, we don’t.” Aimee uprights her roller.
I look at her. “We don’t?”
“He’ll take you,” she says to Reese, then rests her arm on my elbow. “Go work on your assignment. Get the story you want.” She looks at me and I catch her meaning. I have three hours to pitch Reese my perspective. Three hours to win her over. Aimee pats my arm. “I’ll wait here.”
I make a show of looking at my watch. “If we’re doing this, we do it fast.”
Reese nods. “Thanks.” She looks at Aimee. “Thank you.”
“You better make it worth his while.” She kisses me. “See you in a few hours.”
Reese and I hike hard. I have my camera out, telephoto lens, stand, and remote attached. I’m ready to go. The herd wandered off yesterday so I’m anticipating we’ll capture them at a distance.
We quickly reach the crest of the hill where Aimee and I spotted the herd yesterday. They aren’t nearby or where they ventured off toward yesterday evening. It’s cool and misty. Sunlight pierces the white veil, and given any other day, it would make for some cool photographs. But, no horses.
I shove back my sleeve and glance at my watch. I’ve got two hours before I need to be back at the inn. “Sorry, Reese. I have no idea which direction they’ve gone; otherwise, I’d walk you that way.”
“You don’t owe me an apology. I’m the one who’s sorry. That wasn’t the most brilliant introduction I made with your wife.”
I press my mouth into a flat line. “It wasn’t one of your better moments.” I turn around to head back downhill.
“Hey.” She reaches out to stop me. “Let me make it up to you. What can I do?”
I can only think of one thing. The article. I want it unbiased and for the pictures to speak for themselves. I’m about to tell her when her eyes go wider and brighter than the sun. She points west. “Over there.”
On the next ridge is a herd of Galician horses at full gallop. Filtered sunlight highlights their chestnut flanks. Dust raised by their pounding hooves cloud the ground, lending the herd the appearance of running on air. It’s the perfect cover shot. The perfect two-page spread.
Scrambling, I extend the stand’s legs and position my camera. I adjust the settings to stabilize the camera’s vertical movement and look through the lens, bringing the horses into focus. With any luck, the herd will be in sharp focus and the background blurred. I can see them galloping off the pages in the magazine. Taking a deep breath, I press the button on the camera’s remote. The shutter fires in rapid succession as I pan in the direction the herd flies across the hilltop.
“Look at them go.” Reese’s voice is filled with wonder.
My lens follows the herd. “They belong here.”
“I never said they didn’t.”
I glance over at Reese. Her aviators shield her eyes but she’s smiling. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. But she’s transfixed on the horses. They disappear over the rise.
“There they go.”
“I guess I had the impression you didn’t like the horses,” I say as I check the view screen, making sure I got the shots.
She looks at me oddly. “What gave you that idea?”
“You said you didn’t like the Rapa.”
“No, I didn’t. I just didn’t like watching. And I didn’t understand why they had to put so many horses in such a confined space. Just because I get squeamish over a dead foal and have a hard time with animals penned up doesn’t mean I’m going to work my opinion into the feature. I’m here to tell the village’s story.”
I cap my lens and start to pack my gear. “Which is what?”
“The village and the herds need one another.”
I stop what I’m doing and look at her curiously. “What changed your mind?”
“Talking with the villagers. I spent the entire day with them yesterday. Look, um.” She checks the time on her phone. “Do you still write?”
Other than an article here or there to accompany my photos, my writing amounted to nothing more than a picture caption of a few sentences. “Infrequently, why?”
“We’re short on time, but I want your perspective. You’re the only one I know who was on the floor who wasn’t a villager. I want to know what that felt like. And I want to know why you’re enamored of these horses. What’s your connection? Let me try to write the story you envisioned when you submitted your pictures.”
The corner of my mouth pulls up. “You’re insightful.”
“I’m a journalist. I study people. Not much gets past me. Do you think you can have something for me by late Tuesday?”
“Tuesday?” I meet with Lacy on Tuesday, and hope to be on my way in locating my mom.
Reese nods. “I got an e-mail from my editor. The magazine’s moving our article up an issue. She needs my draft by Wednesday.”
I feel my eyes bug. “Wednesday.” I swear under my breath.
“Al didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head. There are more than ten thousand photos on my memory chips. With the shortened deadline that means I have to whittle those down to several thousand and edit my top ones, the images I think they should print, by Thursday, whereas I thought I’d have a week. How am I going to accomplish that when I’m also writing an essay and meeting with Lacy on Tuesday?
Change happens on Tuesday.
“Is that too soon? I might be able to push back my deadline a day or two, but no promises.”
I shake my head and shoulder my pack. “Nope, I’ll manage.” Because I’m determined to have it all. Find my mom and nab the National Geographic cover. To get that cover, I have to stick to the deadline.
“One more thing,” she adds when I start walking. I turn around. “I have a confession.”
I quirk a brow. She looks at the ground, then off into the distance. She absently pats her leg, then slides her fingers into her back pocket as though she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I do. You’re a good man and entitled to the truth.” She takes a reassuring deep breath. “I did still love you.”
“I got scared. You were trying to fix me—”
“Fix you?” I interrupt, flabbergasted. “What the hell does that mean?”
“—and I didn’t want to be fixed,” she says at the same time.
“What are you talking about?”
“Me and my animal issues. That cat you adopted for me? It wasn’t the first time you tried to give me a pet. Remember the stray dog we picked up in the rainstorm on the roadside? You wanted us to take it home and adopt it. You were convinced if I had a pet to love that I’d get over my aversion to having one. We argued big-time until you finally agreed to take him to the animal shelter.”
I grind my teeth. That night had been one of our biggest arguments. It was the first night since we’d started dating that she’d insisted on sleeping alone. I spent a long night on the lumpy couch.
“Rather than talking to me about it, you ran?” I ask.
“I did try talking to you. You wouldn’t listen. You were too fixated on trying to solve my animal issues.”
“I wasn’t trying to solve your problems,” I say, hating how defensive I sound. But she’s hammering a nail that’s hitting a sensitive mark.
“Braden saw that picture of your mom you kept on the mantel and pointed out the similarities between me and your mom’s coloring and facial structure. Funny, but I never saw that until he mentioned it and then I couldn’t get it out of my head. The idea that I looked so much like her and that you’d date someone who physically resembled her creeped me out. It hit me that you would keep pursuing me on the pet issue the same way you kept taking photos of your mom even after both she and your dad insisted you stop. I feared your obsessive mission to resolve my animal issues was just the beginning. What would you try to fix next about me? My issues with animals are mine alone, and I’ve learned to cope with them. I manage just fine.”
“Did you take on this assignment just to tell me this?” My face is hard, my voice tight.
Reese tosses up her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe?”
“And it’s been sitting on your chest for over ten years. You just had to get it off.” Aimee’s right. Reese is a bitch. I shake my head at her and start walking downhill again.
“Ian, wait.” She rushes to my side, keeps pace alongside me. “You’re a good guy. I did love you. And I loved you when I left you.”
I stop suddenly and turn to face her. “Love isn’t running out on someone. It’s working through your issues, fixing them together.”
“That’s not the way it always works. Sometimes, the only way a person can be fixed is for them to do it themselves. And other times, a person can’t be fixed. But they can learn to cope with their issues the best way they know how, even if that means leaving the one person they loved most at the time.”
She looks at me pointedly and I sense that what she’s talking about goes beyond us.