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going?”
    â€œNone of your damn business.”
    â€œI did not break your heart,” he insisted.
    â€œWhatever,” I answered, because I knew it would piss him off, and if he got mad enough, he’d leave me alone.
    He caught hold of my arm and turned me around to face him. “Damn it, Gayle, I’m not letting you walk away again. Not without an explanation.”
    â€œAn explanation for what?” I demanded, wrenching free.
    Tristan looked up and down the street. Except for one guy mowing his lawn, we might have been alone on an abandoned movie set. Pleasantville, USA. “You know damned well what !”
    I did know, regrettably. I’d been holding the memories at bay ever since I got on the first plane in Phoenix—even before that, in fact—but now the dam broke and it all flooded back, in Technicolor and Dolby sound.
    I’d gone to the post office, that bright summer morning a decade ago, to pick up the mail. There was a letter from the University of Montana—I’d been accepted, on a partial scholarship.
    My feet didn’t touch the ground all the way back to the Bronco.
    Mom stood behind the bar, humming that Garth Brooks song about having friends in low places and polishing glasses. The place was empty, except for the two of us, since it was only about 9:30, and the place didn’t open until 10.
    I waved the letter, almost incoherent with excitement. I was going to college!
    Mom had looked up, smiling, when I banged through the door from the apartment, but as she caught on, the smile fell away. She went a little pale, under her perfect makeup, and as I handed her the letter, I noticed that her lower lip wobbled.
    She read it. “You can’t go,” she said.
    â€œBut there’s a scholarship—and I can work—”
    Best of all, I’d be near Tristan. He’d been accepted weeks ago, courted by the coach of the rodeo team. For him, it was a full ride, in more ways than one.
    Mom shook her head, and her eyes gleamed suspiciously. I’d never seen her cry before, so I discounted the possibility. “Even with the scholarship and a minimum-wage job, there wouldn’t be enough money.”
    For years, she’d been telling me to study, so I could get into college. She’d even hinted that my dad, a man I didn’t remember, would help out when the time came. Granted, he hadn’t paid child support, but he usually sent a card at Christmas, with a twenty-dollar bill inside. Back then, that was my idea of fatherly devotion, I guess.
    â€œMaybe Dad—”
    â€œHe’s got another family, Gayle. Two kids in college.”
    â€œYou never said—”
    â€œHe was married,” Mom told me, for the first time. “I was the other woman. He made a lot of promises, but he wasn’t interested in keeping them, and I doubt if that’s changed. Twenty dollars at Christmas is one thing, and four years of college are another. It would be a tough thing to explain to the wife.”
    The disappointment ran deep, and it was more than not being able to go to college. “You led me to believe he was going to help,” I whispered, stricken.
    â€œI thought I could come up with the money, between then and now,” Mom said. She looked worse than I felt, but I can’t say I was sympathetic. “I wanted you to think he cared.”
    I turned on my heel and fled.
    â€œGayle!” Mom called after me. “Come back!”
    But I didn’t go back. I needed to find Tristan. Tell him what had happened. And I’d found him, all right. He was standing in front of the feed and grain, with his arms around Miss Wild West Montana of 1995.
    I came back to the here and now with a soul-jarring crash, glaring up at Tristan, who was watching me curiously. He’d probably guessed that I’d just had an out-of-body experience. “You were making out with a rodeo queen!” I cried.
    Tristan looked