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anything up,” she said, her tone too antagonistic. “I’m—”
    â€œJust let me off here.” He nodded toward the cottonwood near the intersection. “No need to go any farther.”
    â€œI’m not giving anything up,” she repeated. “I’m gaining something.”
    â€œSure,” he said, and pumping the handle twice, managed to wrench the door open with his left hand. “Hey, thanks for the ride, Case. Just let me know if you need any help. I’ll be home for a while.”
    â€œYeah.” She pursed her lips and lied, not thinking about warm summer nights and strawberry wine poached by lanky teenagers. Once upon a time she’d been far too young to know that opposites might attract, but they would always make each other miserable. “Yeah. I’ll do that.”

C HAPTER 3
    A half mile later the Chevy’s single headlight made a wide sweep as Casie turned onto the Lazy Windmill’s bumpy lane. A piebald border collie slunk out from beneath the porch. An untilled garden, weathered outbuildings, and a house that listed noticeably southward appeared briefly before they were lost again in the anonymous darkness. A half dozen Hereford heifers could be seen peering at her from the cattle yards. After saving them from the neighbor’s bloat-inducing alfalfa for the second time since Clayton’s funeral, she’d confined them there to prevent further trouble. But they were running low on hay now and would need their fences mended before they could be turned out on fresh grass. Their eyes shone as red as the deer’s in Puke’s single headlamp. Their breath appeared as frosted quotation bubbles as she stepped out of the truck.
    Jack reared up, bumping Casie’s hand with his wet nose, reminding her again that the dog missed Clayton. She wondered vaguely if, despite the chasm of unspoken discomfort that had always existed between them, she did, too.
    By the time she opened the trailer door, the mare had pivoted to face backward but made no move to disembark. Finding the abandoned twine on the floor, Casie placed it back around the animal’s scrawny throatlatch and tugged.
    The old gray stepped stiffly down, glanced around the darkened yard, then shuffled quietly in her person’s wake toward the barn.
    Feeling along the post to the right of the wide-flung, listing doors, Cassandra found the switch and turned on the lights. Only half a dozen bulbs had survived the dearth of attention since her father’s decline, but that was enough to illuminate the rubbish stowed in every nook and cranny. The flotsam of the past several years had been discarded in heaps: a decrepit washing machine, two broken hoes, five lethal rolls of rusty barbed wire, and a host of old farm equipment.
    The building was divided in two by a tall wooden fence. On the far side a couple dozen cows licked their newborns or ruminated quietly about life. One or two pushed their rumps in the air, then rose to their feet, glancing nervously at the horse before rumbling low warnings to their snoozing offspring. As for the mare, she took it all in without flinching, although the goat’s welcoming bleat gave her pause.
    Five molting chickens and one snooty goose flapped from the warmth of the Nubian’s hairless back as he bobbled to his little split hooves. Grinning, he gazed at Casie from his tiny enclosure, hoping for an early breakfast, late supper, or any snack in between. Casie had learned four months earlier that the folklore regarding goats’ appetites could not be completely dismissed. They would eat almost anything, tin cans not entirely out of the question.
    â€œThat’s Al,” she said and urged the mare past the goat and his irritated entourage. “He’s just here until that alopecia problem clears up.” Of course, he’d been there for nearly half a year with no improvement in the condition of his follicles thus far.
    But that