The Divide by Nicholas Evans Page B

hiking around, exploring. There was no doubt they had seen her and Ty clearly enough to recognize them and to figure out what they were up to, but they acted as if they hadn’t and without a word veered off and headed down toward the ranch.
    On the ride that morning, when they reached The Outlook, Abbie was appalled to see the two women were there waiting with her mom and dad and the Delstocks.
    “I guess I’d better start looking for another job,” Ty said quietly as they climbed down from their horses.
    But if the women had spread the word, there was no indication. Of all the men, Katie’s dad was the biggest tease and could always be counted on to blurt out anything embarrassing. And it was he who took it upon himself to introduce Eve and Lori to Ty and the kids, none of whom they had, supposedly, yet met.
    “And this is the lovely Princess Abbie,” Tom Bradstock said.
    The women smiled and said a warm hello and Abbie, never normally shy, nervously said hello back with just enough eye contact to see that there was no hint of a knowing look.
    “And this is Ty, Montana’s best-looking cowboy heart-throb.”
    Ty shook their hands and only then, when there was still no betraying look or smart remark from Katie’s dad, did Abbie relax a little and begin to think they might have gotten away with it.
    Right now, watching him singing and playing his guitar, she wanted the whole world to know. Everyone was yelling the final chorus of “Born in the USA” and it felt as if the roof was about to lift. When the music stopped there was a great cheer and Ty waited at the microphone, grinning and glistening with sweat, until he could be heard.
    “Thank you very much,” he said. “We’re going to take a break now. Some of you folks sure look as if you could handle one too. That was just the warm-up. We’ll be back in a while and play some real rock and roll.”
    There was fruit punch at the bar but Abbie just wanted water. Somebody handed her a bottle and she walked out to the deck which had been prettily strung with tiny white lights. It was too crowded and noisy and she eased her way through to the wide wooden steps that led down to the lawn. The low-angled lamps in the flower beds cast swaths of light across the grass but Abbie chose to stand in the shadow between, enjoying the cool of the air on her flushed cheeks and of the grass on her bare feet. She tilted back her head and finished the water in one long draft, staring up at the stars. Even as she looked there was a falling star and an instant later another.
    “I hope you made two wishes.”
    She had thought she was alone and the voice startled her. For a moment she couldn’t figure out who it was and then she saw Eve, smiling from the shadows.
    “Oh, hi. But if you saw them too, I think we should get one each.”
    “Okay, it’s a deal.”
    Eve shut her eyes and presented her smiling face to the sky. Since last evening Abbie had been too embarrassed to take more than a furtive glance at the woman. She was probably in her mid- to late thirties, tall and long-necked, and tonight she had her long, dark, wavy hair all bundled up in a silk scarf, the same sage green as her dress. There was something unusual about her face, with its slightly overlong nose and wide mouth. If not exactly beautiful, she was certainly striking, especially now when she opened her eyes again. There was a stillness, a directness, about the way she looked at you that Abbie found a little unnerving.
    “Did you make your wish?”
    “Not yet. I’ve got so many I don’t know which one to go for.”
    “How wonderful to be young. As you get older they sort of whittle down and you end up wishing for the same thing every time.”
    “You mean, all the others come true?”
    “No. Some do. But I think you just focus on the one that matters.”
    “The one that can never come true.”
    Eve laughed. “Maybe that’s it.”
    Neither of them spoke for a few moments, just stared at the sky, waiting