The Baker's Daughter by Sarah McCoy

hair lay uncombed and wavy on the pillow. He’d just left her that way, messy and beautiful. Sometimes it took all the strength he had not to climb into bed beside her and bury his face in her hair and skin and sleepy smells. But he knew the moment he did, she’d wake and push him away. He couldn’t have both the Reba he saw and the Reba who saw him. They were different women, and he supposed he’d rather have one than neither.
    He turned off the music and checked the address. The area was vaguely familiar. A new development of Easter-egg-colored homes strung along streets with providential names like Via Del Estrella and Via Del Oro. Behind the large neighborhood was an agriculture canal, and beyond that the river, smudge sodden and rusty as a penny. A concrete jogger’s trail whimsically snaked along beside, heat rising from it in clear currents. A realty sign boasted the subdivision as LUXURY LIVING ALONG THE RIO GRANDE ! A couple years ago, you couldn’t have paid someone to live there. Nothing but scrub grass, dirt, and gopher burrows as far as the eye could see. Now, big windows and manicured yards glistened under the desert sun. Unnatural yet beautiful. He pulled up to the resident’s home, a two-story, pink palace with iron balconies lacing the upper levels like a tiered
Quinceañera birthday cake.
    Before he’d had a chance to turn off the truck engine, a petite woman came to the front door in pressed khakis. He got out.
    â€œThey’ve been there for over a week,” she immediately began. “My husband said to let them be, and I would have—I really would have—but there are
children
involved, and it’s simply unhealthy for them to be living out of a car and bathing in that muddy river like animals! So I told my husband I was calling you guys for their own good—the children that is. They need proper care. Their mother should be ashamed.” She ran a hand through her bobbed hair. Diamond-drop earrings shimmered against her neck. “She’s out there, too. Every morning, washing dishes—dishes!—inthat muck. You’d think if she was going to hop the border like this, then she’d at least try to be more inconspicuous. I mean, seriously. Every day, I look outside and there they are, acting like it’s the 1800s.” She gestured for Riki to follow her into the house. “Then yesterday, there was a little girl—a toddler—crawling in the dirt with no adult supervision and I said to myself, what if a snake or a coyote came along? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I had a dead child in my backyard and did nothing to prevent it.”
    Inside, a miniature schnauzer yipped at Riki’s heels. The house smelled like new paint and vanilla candles, like the ones Reba lit when she took long baths.
    â€œHush it, Teeny.” The woman moved the dog away with a foot. “Hope you aren’t afraid of dogs.”
    â€œNo, ma’am.”
    â€œI’m Linda Calhoun, by the way.” She stuck out her hand.
    â€œAgent Riki Chavez.” Her fingers seemed to slip right through his clasp, soft and slick with oils.
    â€œWe’re from North Carolina. My husband’s with Union Pacific—the railroad. We moved here a couple months ago. I’m still getting used to … everything.” She waved a hand round like she was swatting flies, then led Riki to the back door. “The cars are over there.” She pointed to the river-bank but stayed inside her refrigerated air.
    Down the Rio, a weathered, four-door Dodge parked off the concrete trail. He couldn’t see the second vehicle.
    â€œAre they there now?”
    â€œI guess,” said Linda. “I don’t know where else they’d be.”
    â€œI’ll go talk to these folks.” He slipped on his cap and went out around the stone fence separating the Calhouns’ green turf and the sandy West Texas dirt.
    A