The Salt Maiden by Colleen Thompson Page B

herself by imagining how appalled her mother would be to see her on the edge of tears with this near stranger, her mother, who had leaned toward her, arms outstretched, only to pull back at the last instant.
    “Well, at least you have your career,” she’d said. “And you could always rescue another little dog or something.” Though Isabel had immediately afterward surprised her with the convertible, the memory didn’t stand out as any kind of hall-of-fame highlight from the annals of empathy.
    Back under control, Dana said, “You’re a good guy to worry about me. And if I weren’t in such a bad place in my life, I’d be—”
    “Anywhere but six hundred miles from home, in the armpit of West Texas,” he finished for her.
    She smiled at him. “True.”
    “Maybe I’d better go now. It’s about time to meet my crew,” he said.
    “Your crew?”
    He nodded and explained how, in the absence of emergency services, Rimrock County residents helped one another get back on their feet whenever disaster struck. The fire that had taken his uncle’s life had badly damaged the interior of the ranch house he’d left to his nephew, so his neighbors had been helping to restore it. “They started on it as soon as I agreed to take the job. Didn’t even wait for me to get here.”
    “That’s amazing,” she said. “No insurance, no contractors, just mutual assistance. Sounds almost like the Amish, with their barn raisings.”
    He grinned. “I can guarantee the Amish never have to make so many beer runs. But we’re getting there. I’ll be moving in a couple of weeks from now, after we install the cabinets and clean up the debris. And not a moment too soon. I’m more than ready to get out of that old motor home I’ve been using.”
    He pulled a small pad of paper and a pen from his shirt pocket and started jotting. “Place isn’t all that far from here. Only about twenty minutes.”
    She saw him sketching out a map.
    “There’s one of those big, wrought-iron gates with a Texas Lone Star on it across the driveway,” he explained. “Visitors have to get out to unchain it, but I never keep it locked. Long drive back to the house. You have to follow it up a little rise and to the right to reach the house.
    “If anyone bothers you out here, you call me,” he said. “Doesn’t matter what time. You still have your satellite phone and my numbers?”
    Dana nodded.
    “But if you can’t get hold of me for any reason, or you’re feeling nervous, you come right on over. Nobody’s going to think less of you, not after what you’ve been through lately.”
    “Thanks,” she said. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
    Rather than leaving, he lingered until she thought—and began to hope—that he might try to kiss her again.
    Instead he said, “Why don’t I leave Max here with you? I’d feel better if you had him. I doubt he’d bite anybody, but his bark’s pretty convincing. And like I told you, he’s good company.”
    She meant to turn him down, but animals had been the one consistent comfort in her life. Though she’d stubbornly resisted Regina Lawler’s persistent offers to join her, Danafelt queasy at the thought of spending the night completely on her own here, with no locks on the doors and no neighbor for miles around.
    “That would be great,” she said, “but the food I brought won’t do for him.”
    “He’s already had his dinner, so he’ll be all right until tomorrow morning. I’ll drop off some feed for him on my way to work.”
    She looked down at Max. “So how about it, boy? You want to bed down with me?”
    When the docked tail wagged in answer, Jay headed toward his Suburban. But under his breath Dana heard him mutter, “That makes two of us, buddy.”
    It had cooled down to the eighties by ten-thirty, when Dennis stormed out to his pickup and threw open the door. Jay had waited to tell him until Bill Navarro, Henry Schlitz, and Weevil Jenkins all left. Even though the FBI special agent