Gabe grinned, touching the rim of the white straw Stetson I talked him into wearing. “Ma’am.”

  She giggled and blew him a kiss.

  I rode up next to him, took off my Ramsey Ranch cap and smacked his Levi’s-clad thigh. “I’ll ma’am you, Chief Ortiz.”

  He laughed and adjusted his seat in his saddle. “Hope she doesn’t fall off her pony. She might experience road rash in some mighty delicate places.”

  “Hope she has her plastic surgeon on speed dial.”

  Of course Miss Daisy joined the other inexperienced riders at the front of the herd completely ignoring the shouted suggestions of the real cowboys that if you didn’t have much experience herding cattle to please stay at the side or back of the herd. Oh, no, these dudes and dudettes wanted to be at the front so their friends and family could snap pictures and take movies of them leading a “real” cattle drive. The fact that half of them were sneaking sips of beer at nine in the morning made me wonder why the city’s insurance gurus allowed this event to continue every year.

  Still, despite my complaints, I’d be as disappointed as anyone else if they ever stopped it. As big a pain as these crazy, half-drunk wannabes were, they also gave us something to laugh about up in the Bull Pen. I saw Daddy on the other side of the herd and I waved, then circled my temple with my finger. He saluted me and shook his head. This cattle drive wasn’t exactly a reenactment of the Old West, but more like a scene from the editing floor of the movie City Slickers.

  At the start, the inexperienced riders always became overly excited, like a bunch of sugar-high toddlers, and did way too much yeehawing, making the already skittish cattle a bit wild-eyed. But once the cowboys yelled at the riders to shut up and slow down, they usually relaxed and went with the flow. We were moving along nicely with no incidents, slowly maneuvering the cattle down Confederate Road, the longest stretch of the drive. The connecting street’s intersections were blocked off by Paso Robles police cars and the closer we moved to the fairgrounds, the larger our audience. People lined the street with their lawn chairs and coolers, snapping photographs and taking home movies of something most of them had only seen in television Westerns.

  Crossing two bridges—one over the river and one over the 101 freeway—was the next challenge. By this time the cattle were relatively quiet considering all the new sights and sounds they were experiencing. But some of the horses, as well trained as they were in ranch work, were getting spooky. The echoing sound of their hooves on the concrete bridges and the rumbling sound of trucks roaring underneath them as we crossed over Interstate 101 was enough to make all the sensible riders keep a close rein on their mounts. Halfway across the bridge over the Interstate, I felt Rooster tuck his tail underneath him, his front end coming up off the ground a little while he danced a nervous two-step.

  Once we made it over the bridges, I let out a sigh of relief and felt Rooster start to relax under me. Only a few more blocks to go. Once we turned right on Creekside Avenue, we were within spitting distance of the fair. I could see the top of the midway’s giant Ferris wheel. So far, things were going okay. The city slickers had listened to the cowboys and were riding nose to tail, keeping the cattle in line, resisting their urge to shout “yee-haw.” My phone rang twice during the ride and finally I’d turned it off. I’d pay big-time for that later.

  I was riding along just fine, keeping an eye out for any recalcitrant cattle when Rooster tensed beneath me, started tip-tapping. I tightened his reins, murmuring, “Ho, boy, ho.”

  “Heads up!” a woman yelled behind me. Hoofbeats clattered on the pavement. “Loose horse!”

  A riderless horse dashed past me in a flat-out gallop, reins dragging.

  My heart tumbled like a bucket of rocks. The call “loose horse” reverberated down the line of riders like an electric current. A steer bolted in front of me, swerved a sharp right trying to break from the herd.

  “Hup!” Gabe yelled, touching his heel to Badlands, who immediately did what he’d been trained to do. Badlands cut off the steer, expertly pushing it back into the forward-moving herd.

  “Yeah!” Gabe lifted a fist in triumph.

  I laughed at his excitement. Gabe had grown up in Kansas working his grandpa Smith’s wheat farm, but everything he knew about cattle he’d learned from Dove, Daddy or me. He’d been a good student, easy to teach, because was he was a natural on a horse, one of those riders who just relaxed and trusted the experienced animal underneath him.

  “Good job, cowboy,” I said, riding up next to him. His lean, long-legged body looked sexy on horseback. Then again, to me, almost any man looked sexier on the back of a horse.

  “Thanks, but you trained this old guy,” Gabe said, patting Badland’s glistening neck. “So most the credit goes to him . . . and you.”

  That was another thing I found sexy. He wasn’t afraid to let me be the smarter one sometimes. “To be fair, I started the training. Daddy finished it. Despite his name, Badlands is a darn good cowpony.”

  After our little excitement, we stayed even more vigilant. No one could really relax until the cattle were inside the fairgrounds, in the pens. This group of cattle was better than last year’s wild bunch. This year they were spicy enough to make it fun, but not too dangerous. Good thing, since it seemed we had twice as many weekend riders. Word came up the line that the thrown rider was okay and someone had caught the horse.

  “What are your plans after this?” I asked my husband, our shins occasionally bumping as we rode next to each other.

  He readjusted his Stetson. “Thought I’d catch some of the animal judging. Maybe watch the cutting horse competition this afternoon, then head over to the wine pavilion.”

  We drove the cattle into their final pen near the beef barn where they’d stay until the country rodeo the second to the last night of the fair. While waiting for Sam to bring the horse trailer from the GMC dealer, we let tourists take photos of the horses.

  “Want to meet for lunch?” Gabe asked, loosening Badland’s cinch, then tying up the saddle’s rigging for the trip back to the ranch.

  “How about Mustang Sallie’s at noon?”

  “I’ll meet you there, but I refuse to eat that crap.”

  “How about the Kiwanis stand?”

  “Deal. Their cheeseburgers are worth risking my arteries for.”

  After we loaded the horses back into the trailer, Daddy and Sam headed back to the ranch.

  On my way to the museum’s booth, I cut through one of the commercial buildings to cool off. I’d gotten caught in a human traffic jam between the spiel of a waterless cookware salesman and a slice-and-dice demonstration, when, over the din of voices, I heard someone yell my name. The voice carried a distinctively familiar timbre that instinctively made me want to bolt in the opposite direction.

  “Young lady, you freeze right there!”

  Dove’s voice and personal charisma were powerful enough to make the crowd part like Moses did the Red Sea. She marched up to me waving her shiny blue cell phone. “What, pray tell, is the use for this contraption if you never answer your phone?”

  “Hey, Gramma,” I said in my most conciliatory voice. “I was on the cattle drive and you know how nervous those cattle can get at the least little noise . . .”

  She grabbed my upper arm like I was six years old and maneuvered me through a side door to the concrete walkway between buildings.

  “You have to do something,” she said, once we could hear ourselves talk. “Seriously, honeybun, I think I may kill her. I caught her snooping through my books this morning. I’m sure she set her alarm to get up early. She is dying to sink her claws into my corn bread recipe. Bet she thinks it’ll get her a blue ribbon at the Arkansas State Fair.”

  I held back the urge to laugh at the mental picture of my great-aunt Garnet tiptoeing down the hallway carrying her house slippers so she wouldn’t wake up Dove. Since Dove habitually rose at 5 a.m. that meant Aunt Garnet had to get up pretty darn early. Dove’s cheesy corn bread was good, but it wasn’t that good.

  “Isn’t there a two- or three-hour difference in Arkansas and California time? Maybe she got up early because it felt later to her. Isn’t five o’clock here like seven or eight o’clock there?”

  Dove was silent a moment and I realized that hadn’t occurred to her.

  “Nevertheless, I caught her going through my cookbooks.”

  I lifted up my hair, trying to catch a breeze and cool my sweating neck. “Aren’t your cookbooks in with all your other books?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “Maybe she was just looking for something to read.”

  “Something to read like notes that would give away my corn bread recipe.”

  “I think you’re being . . .”

  Dove narrowed her eyes, placing her hands on her plump hips.

  I was going to say paranoid, but my gramma didn’t raise no dummy.

  “Where is Aunt Garnet anyway?” Changing the subject sometimes worked.

  Dove pointed her thumb in the direction of the home arts building. “Watching the cake-decorating demonstration. Probably telling them how they’re doing it all wrong.”

  “So, she’s out of your hair for a little while. Why don’t you go watch the 4-H kids show their lambs? You know how you love that.”

  Dove was a sucker for a cute kid in a green-and-white 4-H uniform. She’d spent a good part of my youth hauling around a “bag of whites” to supplement the uniforms of her 4-H kids whose sizes seemed to change by the hour.

  “Well . . .” she said, contemplating my suggestion.

  “Change of subject, just for a minute, okay? I need your advice.”

  She gave me a suspicious look, certain that I was making up an excuse to stop her complaining about her sister. Then again, she could never resist giving her opinion. “About what?”

  I quickly told her about the letters Levi had received and what I’d overheard Milt say last night.

  Dove tsked under her breath. “Lord, Lord, some things never change.”

  “Gabe thinks that Milt’s just a jerk saying stupid things, but I’m worried they might be connected. Should I tell Levi about what Milt said? And there’s something else.” I told her how Dodge Burnside threatened Jazz in the parking lot yesterday. “Should I tell Levi about that too? Maggie and Katsy say that Jazz isn’t a kid anymore and that it might not be our place to tattle on her. Do you think I’m just being a busybody?” I leaned against the wall of the warm building.

  Dove patted my cheek with her soft palm. “Of course you’re being a busybody, but only because you care about this girl. Try to convince Jazz to tell her daddy herself about what happened with this Burnside boy. She might surprise you and agree. But if she doesn’t want to, you’d best stay out of it since it’d be better for her to stay speaking to you than not. As for what Milt said, well, I’m not sure it would do any good to tell Levi about that. This isn’t likely the first time Milt has talked trash about Levi and probably won’t be the last. Right now, Levi doesn’t need more things to fret about. He’s got a full enough plate.”

  I hugged my gramma, inhaling the sweet scent of her Coty face powder. “You are so wise.”

  She gave me a little push. “Now, back to me. What am I going to do about Garnet?”

  “Why don’t you let me be her chauffeur for the rest of the day? That’ll give you a break. How long is she supposed to stay anyway?”

  Dove gave a little growl. “She will not give me a going home date! That woman is up to something.”

  “Maybe it’s not your corn bread recipe she’s after. Maybe it’s something else entirely.” The minute the words were out of my mouth, I tried to grab them back. I slapped the side of my head. “Crazy me, what am I saying? She’s just here to visit you and—”

  “You’re right,” Dove said, her voice pitched low with realization. “The question is what? You keep her as long as you can, honeybun. I’m heading back to the ranch to phone WW back in Sugartree, see if I can pry anything out of him. I’ll bribe him with my snickerdoodle cookies.”

  I watched her stride away, as much as a five-foot-tall woman with a twenty-eight-inch inseam could stride, and wondered if somehow she’d again outfoxed me. Maybe the whole story about Aunt Garnet wanting her corn bread recipe or going through her books was just a ruse to trick me into entertaining Aunt Garnet. If it was, it had worked. Which left no doubt that Dove Ramsey Lyons was still the smartest hen in the chicken coop.

  I called Gabe on my cell and told him that now that I was Aunt Garnet’s escort, we’d probably leave the fairgrounds for lunch since I was pretty sure a cheeseburger at the Kiwanis booth wasn’t up to her persnickety standards. With the heat, I couldn’t imagine that she’d want to stay around the fairgrounds the entire day.

  According to the daily fair schedule, the cake-decorating demonstration had another forty-five minutes to go, so I walked back into the commercial building and wandered the aisles looking at turquoise jewelry from New Mexico, magic mops, sewing machines that could practically drive your car, American flags from every time period in our history, fireplace mantels, CDs from the All American Boys’ Choir, rhinestone cell phone accessories, ladders that looked like you’d need a degree in engineering to fold and unfold, Jacuzzi spas, the ever-present Gilroy garlic products, a man selling honey who wore a hat shaped like a beehive and, my personal favorite, the Electronic Personality Handwriting Analysis. Jack, Elvia and I never could resist this booth, doing it three or four times each fair when we were teenagers just to prove that it was fake. One time Jack and I got the exact same “analysis.”

  “See,” he’d said. “We’re perfect for each other.”

  “Get your personality analyzed,” the twentyish-looking man with a ring in each nostril announced in a bored voice. He handed me the blue and white form with a space to sign my name. “For three dollars our supercomputer will reveal who you are.”

  “What a bargain,” I said. “Except it used to cost me fifty cents to find out who I was.”

  His expression slid from bored to apathetic. I was only thirty-nine, but to him I was a boring old lady.

  “Shoot howdy,” Dove used to say when I read them out loud to her. “I could tell you the same thing and I’d only charge you a quarter.”

  It was silly, but it was also a tradition so I signed my name with a flourish—Albenia Louise Harper Ortiz—and gave it to the hawker. The “supercomputer” with its flashing lights and tinny sound track spit out my “analysis” in about a minute.

  Your persuasive manner enables you to often get your own way. You have an extremely generous nature. You have definite ideas, but you’re open to others’ opinions. Once your mind is made up, you do not hesitate to move forward. You are independent and tend to rely on yourself. You have a special way of influencing others. You are intrigued by the mysterious. You have highly evolved investigative abilities. Your lucky numbers are 7, 19, 25, 47 and 84.

  I smiled to myself. They hadn’t changed. The one thing you could count on was the “analysis” could really apply to anyone’s personality. The line about my highly evolved investigative abilities pleased me. That would give Gabe a laugh. I stuck the paper in my backpack and grabbed a free cup of icy water from the Arrowhead Spring Water booth before heading over to the home arts building.

  The cake-decorating demonstration lady was squeezing the final bit of red piping on a dark chocolate cake when I slipped into the empty chair next to Aunt Garnet.

  “Hey, Aunt Garnet,” I said, putting my arm around her knobby shoulders and giving her a hug. “Are you having fun?” She smelled like fresh mint leaves.

  “Where have you been hiding?” she asked. “I arrived a good twenty-four hours ago and this is the first I’ve seen hide or hair of you.”

  Two seconds in her presence and I was getting scolded. I was already regretting my offer to relieve Dove. I sat back in my chair and faced forward, trying not to let her see that she’d ruffled my feathers. The trick with Aunt Garnet was to feign complete neutrality so she couldn’t ferret out your weak spots.

  “I’m here now,” I said cheerfully, “and I’m going to be your personal chauffeur for the rest of the day.” I didn’t glance over to gauge her reaction but concentrated on the Martha Stewart clone showing the audience how to make perfect-every-time frosting roses. How did she get the frosting that deep dark red? It kind of reminded me of blood.

  “Where’s Dove?” Garnet asked. “What does she have to do that’s more important than visiting with her only sister?”

  I turned to look at my great-aunt, amazed as always, at how physically different she was from her only sibling. Dove was short, plump and had white hair that she wore in a long braid down her back, while Garnet was taller by a vast three inches, thin to the point of gauntness and had short, tightly curled hair that reminded me of a poodle. Only their hair color was the same—the silvery white of former redheads. I mentally put that on my to-do list—find a beauty parlor for Aunt Garnet. Dove wouldn’t have the first clue about hair salons—I trimmed her hair when she needed it, as she did mine—but Aunt Garnet was definitely the weekly wash-and-set type. Maybe one of the docents at the folk art museum could recommend one that specialized in helmet-haired ladies.

  I ignored her question and opened up my fair program. “There’s lots of stuff to see at the fair. Plus I want to take you by the folk art museum and you’ve always liked the chicken and dumplings at Liddie’s so I thought we’d go there for lunch and, of course, there’s Blind Harry’s bookstore. I know you want to see Emory’s baby. I’m sure Dove told you her middle name is Louise like yours and mine. Actually Sophia Louisa, but Emory and I call her Sophie Lou. She’s as beautiful as an Italian painting, but, of course, I’m a little partial—”

  “You know,” Aunt Garnet said, abruptly standing up. “I’m not ignorant. I know my sister pushed me off on you. You can just take me back to the ranch. You don’t need to force yourself to entertain me.” Her voice, normally sharp and demanding as a mockingbird’s, sounded a little . . . hurt.