Welcome to Last Chance by Cathleen Armstrong Page B

didn’t like diet cola. Bring a lot of girls up here?”
    Ray shrugged and took a long pull of his drink. “Actually, I think you’re the first one who’s been here. This is where I go to get away from people so I can do my work. Not too many folks get up this way.”
    â€œAnd all that diet cola?”
    Ray grinned at her over the top of the bottle. “I brought those up last week. You want to be prepared in case someone does drop by.”
    â€œPretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?” Lainie took a bite of her sandwich. “What if I’d said no? Or more likely, what if I had flat refused to get on that horse?”
    â€œOh, I have powers of persuasion. You didn’t stand a chance.”
    Lainie choked on her cola. “Get real! If that guy down there hadn’t practically thrown me on Belle, we’d be back in town by now.”
    Ray looked offended. “You just didn’t get the full dose, that’s all. I wasn’t even in first gear when Billy showed up. And besides, I guess we could have come in the truck, but where’s the fun in that?”
    â€œNow you tell me.” Lainie stretched her legs out in front of her and gazed out over the valley below. “Who is Billy, anyway? Your uncle?”
    â€œNo, Billy’s the foreman. He’s worked here for as long as I can remember, long before my granddad died. I called to say we were coming, so he said he’d saddle the horses for me.”
    Lainie took another sip of her soda. “So why are things awkward between you and Elizabeth? Is it because you don’t go to church?’
    â€œYeah, I guess, in a way. Mostly it’s the bar. She’s hated it since my dad opened it. And she really hates that I’m working there instead of painting.”
    Ray fell silent. The only sound was the sudden whisper of the scrub pines when a gust of wind caught them.
    â€œSee, she was my champion when I was a kid. You can probably figure that art isn’t high on the list of admirable pastimes for boys around here, and I took some flack at first because I liked to draw. But Gran stuck up for me. She’s the one who bought me my first paints. She drove me to the community center in San Ramon for art lessons when I was in grade school. Then when I was in junior high, she sent me to art camp in Santa Fe. Man, that was a different world—one I knew I never wanted to leave. Gran was so proud. When everyone else in the family went to State to study ranch management and I wanted to go to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque to study art, Gran flat said I was going. And that was pretty much that. It takes a brave man to cross Gran when she gets her feet planted.”
    â€œTell me about it. I don’t even know how it happens, but I wind up doing everything she wants me to before I know I’m doing it.”
    Ray’s laugh sounded sad. “Yeah, well, things were going pretty well for me after I finished graduate school. I was represented in some good galleries and was selling fairly well when Dad had his stroke and I came home. Gran didn’t much like it, but she understood. Family is really important to her. But after Dad died and I stayed on at the bar, she just blew up. She saw me giving up everything I had worked for to pour drinks, and that broke her heart. And that broke my heart. Even telling her that it was only till Steven came home didn’t help. She doesn’t think he needs to run a bar either.”
    â€œBut you haven’t given up your art. That’s some gorgeous stuff in there. Doesn’t that prove that you’ll go back to it full-time someday?”
    â€œShe doesn’t know about it. Oh, she knows I’ve built the cabin and that I come up here, but we don’t talk art anymore. It just causes too many problems.” He stood up, dusting his hands on his pants. “Now do you see why I don’t come around much?”
    Lainie