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unattractive end of Margie O’Conner, he jumped back, which sent him tumbling over a bale of hay. He landed sprawled on his back into the dirt.
    “Coco rubbing off on you?” Chuckling, she held out her rugged man-hand, but he managed to scramble to his feet without touching her. She opened the door to the office and invited him inside with a chilled nod.
    Doug O’Conner’s office was pretty much a reflection of its owner: old and crusty. The walls were paneled with dirty rough-cut lumber. Faded win pictures hung crooked on the walls among weathered bridles and dirty clipboards. A beat-up desk littered with tattered race programs, ashtrays filled to the brim with crushed half-smoked cigarette butts, filthy coffee mugs, and several empty cans of Copenhagen filled one corner. A brick substituting for one of the legs was stuffed under a corner of the desk.
    Covered with a thick layer of dust, a small black-and-white TV and an old VCR rested on a rickety stand next to the desk. Margie gestured to a scarred wooden chair near it, but Mike politely declined with a wave of his hand.
    She pushed the door closed with a loud clap. Uncomfortable with being in a small, closed-in room with her, Mike flinched. The anxiety etched on his face did not go unnoticed, but she let him off the hook and got to the business at hand.
    “Every morning we’d come into a wrecked barn,” she said, “Charlatan and his friends would really work the place over every night.” She slipped a battered tape into the VCR. “Dad got sick of it, so we set-up a close-circuit TV to see who the smarty-pants in the group was. Watch this.” She poked a screw driver into a hole where the power button used to be and turned it, the screen lit up to a dull gray.
    A wobbly image of the barn aisle filled the screen. Gradually, a stall door jerked, bumped, and then slid open. Charlatan stepped out of his stall and meandered down the aisle while plucking mouthfuls of hay from the bales stacked along the walls.
    Stopping at a stall, he nuzzled the horse through the bars. Then, with proficiency, he unlatched the stall door with his teeth, and slid it open. Repeating the routine, he continued down the aisle until five horses wandered freely through the barn to munch on the stacked bales and knock over pitchforks, wheelbarrows, and buckets of water.
    “Well, I’ll be damned. We’ve got a regular Houdini on our hands.” Mike was most impressed.
    “He’s very smart,” she said. “Funny how he only lets out some of the horses. His buddies, I guess.”
    “We’ll fix that.”
    “Good luck.”
    Mike turned from the TV. She was so close to him that her breath feathered his face. He swiftly eased away. “Well, thanks for the information, Margie.”
    “Sure.” She looked into those mysterious hazel eyes. He’s uncomfortable, but maybe if he got to know me better, that would change. She wanted it so badly to change that she decided to take a leap. “Hey, Mike, I’m making my famous fried chicken for supper. Dad will be at the bar for a while. You wanna come over?”
    Now Mike’s body language was shrieking. His eyes immediately darted to the closed door. Struggling, he stammered for words. “Oh … I’d love to, Margie …” What luck! He remembered his other engagement. “I’m having dinner with Coco tonight. Maybe some other time.”
    By the look on Margie’s face, he knew the words didn’t come out well. They sure as hell didn’t go over big.
    She bit her lip and dropped her gaze to the floor. Abruptly, she lifted her chin, marched to the door, and yanked it open. “Sure.”
    “Thanks again, Margie.” He scooted out the door as fast as he could.
    She slammed the door behind him and leaned against it. Her breath boomed inside her head and chest. Much to her own surprise, she wasn’t feeling helplessly contrite like she usually did when she saw him in the shed rows, and he didn’t acknowledge her. After all, it was no secret—not even to her—that