The Wilder Sisters by Jo-Ann Mapson Page B

Nordstrom’s. Who cared what she looked like so long as she bought something? The screen door banged shut behind her. Several old men stood around discussing serious plumbing issues. All they needed was a couple of pickle barrels and a checkerboard and they could have modeled for a Norman Rockwell painting. On and on they chattered, slow and deliberate, as if she were no more bothersome than a housefly. Lily tried not to act Californian about having to wait, but it was killing her, plus she was starving.
    “The wax seal,” one of them was saying. “That’s the ticket.” “Yeah, get that little honey off-kilter, might as well go back to
    outhouses.”
    “Those new water conservation jobs seem like the plan. You get many complaints on those, Bill?”
    “Can’t say that I do. Can’t say that I don’t, either.” The men laughed.
    “What can you say?”

    “Expensive.” “Necessary.”
    “Only come in white, so women don’t much care for them.”
    There was hardly any subject discussed in New Mexico that didn’t eventually bear heavily on the issue of water. Who got it, how much was used, and where it was being diverted and for what purpose. Lily tapped her foot and studied a box full of mousetraps. She scanned the shelves behind the counter, where dusty keychains shaped like chili peppers and aluminum flashlights abounded. In a long row, jars of salsa with gold labels sat waiting for some tourist who needed a length of rope to tie suitcases to a luggage rack to buy them on impulse. Bottom line? This was guy heaven, she was a girl, therefore invisible. Her stomach growled and her head ached.
    “Haven’t had much luck with the push-button handle assembly,” the first man said and Lily couldn’t help it, she sighed loudly.
    Behind her she could hear the footsteps of another customer ap- proaching. He cleared his throat, and the plumbing debate ceased. The men looked clean through Lily to whoever stood behind her.
    Well, dammit all, no way was she going to lose her place in this mythical line due to her gender. She stepped forward and slapped her hand down on the counter. “Hey, I might have been gone from town awhile, but that doesn’t mean I’m transparent. All’s I want is a roll of fencing wire for Shep Hallford. He said you’d know what kind, you can charge it to my pop’s account, and I’d appreciate get- ting it before I’m eligible for social security.”
    A hand touched her shoulder, and she spun around angrily, ex- pecting a fight or, worse, additional plumbing facts. Instead she looked straight up into soulful brown eyes surrounded by lashes so long it was criminal they’d been wasted on a male.
    Just saying his name made her throat ache. “Tres?” “Sugarbush,” he said, low and easy, using his pet name for her
    all those years ago. The endearment meant exactly what it sounded like, and Lily’s face burned with equal portions of pleasure and shame. “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”
    “Unless I am too, you’re not.”
    A pretty, dark-haired, very young woman stepped up beside him, locking a possessive hand onto his forearm, the arm attached to the hand that was just barely touching Lily. He placed his hand over the

    young woman’s and patted it, but he did not stop looking at Lily, who had unconsciously tried to smooth her hair, which she was certain looked as bad as the rest of her. “It sure is good to see you. When did you get back into town?”
    Lily wrinkled her nose and stared at the young woman. What was she? Seventeen? For God’s sake, who did Tres think he was? Woody Allen? “Apparently not soon enough.”
    Tres turned to the girl and smiled an embarrassed smile. “I’m sorry. This is Leah. Leah, I’d like you to meet an old friend of mine, Lily—” he stopped and gave her a questioning glance.
    “Oh, it’s still Wilder.” Tres wanted to know if she was single. She supposed that counted for something, but she couldn’t say what, exactly. Leah was dressed in