Page 111 of The Sun Sister

‘Hi there!’ A man opened the door before Lizzie had raised her hand to knock. ‘You two the friends of Hank?’

I looked up at him, wondering if all men in Arizona were built tall and handsome – this one looked Latino, with his dark skin, brown eyes and head of shiny blue-black hair. ‘Yup, that’s us.’

‘Welcome to the Hacienda Orchídea,’ he said, extending an arm. ‘I’m Manuel. Can I get you a cool drink before I take you around to the stables?’ he asked as he led us both inside. The temperature dropped by several degrees, due to the air conditioning.

‘Thanks,’ Lizzie answered as I looked around.

If I had been expecting a rancher’s shack that smelt of horses and dogs, I could not have been more wrong. I was standing in a huge square room with two walls made entirely of glass, which gave glorious views of the mountains at the back of the house. Colourful indigenous plants and flowers wrapped around the house, and I could see more horses grazing in a paddock in the distance.

The floor was made of shiny red wood and in the centre of the space there was a huge stone chimneybreast, with big comfortable couches on either side of it. There was a kitchen area as well, filled with sleek, shiny units, which reminded me of my apartment in New York.

‘Wow! What an amazing place you have here,’ I said as he poured water and ice from the refrigerator into two glasses.

‘Glad you like it,’ Manuel smiled. ‘My wife, she design all this. She is talented,sí?’

‘Very,’ said Lizzie, joining us as we gazed out of the back window onto the mountains. There was another large veranda beyond the kitchen and Manuel opened the glass door, indicating that we should follow him. Again, the space was covered by an oversized roof and I could hear water playing in the background as we sat down at a curved wooden table that looked as if it had been carved whole from an ancient tree trunk.

‘Is there a stream round here?’ I asked him.

‘No, but my wife, she says hearing water makes one feel cool, so we had that piped from the house.’ Manuel pointed to a rectangular stone-clad pond in which large koi carp were meandering. It was surrounded by blooms of hibiscus and oleander and I thought it was one of the prettiest things I had ever seen.

As I lifted the glass of water to my lips, the clink of the ice made every inch of me long for the burn of alcohol. But I told myself that I was in my first social situation outside The Ranch, and it was going to be tough.

I took a deep breath and grabbed a handful of the chips Manuel had put on the table. At least they had a slightly spicy taste to them – for some reason spice helped stem the cravings – and I swallowed a mouthful fast, hoping I wouldn’t end up back in here in a few months’ time with a food addiction like Lizzie.

‘Manuel, this is the most delightful place I think I’ve ever seen,’ Lizzie said. ‘How did you find it?’

‘It was my father’s ranch, and his father’s before him. He died two years ago and I inherit it. My father, he had sold off much land by the time he died, and what’s left is not enough to run as a business. My wife, Sammi, and I decide we should put in all our savings and renovate it as a private home for someone who want to keep a few horses. But so far, no luck.’

‘It’s for sale?’ I asked him.

‘Sí,señorita.Sammi and I live in the city – she has the interior design business and I work in construction,’ he explained. ‘Okay, you ready for a ride now?’

‘Yes,’ I said, standing up eagerly and hoping I wouldn’t decide to canter off straight back to the liquor store we’d passed in Tucson, because the craving for alcohol was now something else.

‘Goodness me,’ said Lizzie, as we followed Manuel off the veranda in the direction of a newly built stable block. ‘This place is just magical, isn’t it? I could so live here, couldn’t you?’

The answer was an enormous yes, but I could only nod as a bottle of Grey Goose came into view in my imagination.

‘You okay?’ Lizzie looked at me.

‘Yeah, I will be.’

She grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘One day at a time. The first trip out is the hardest of all. You’re doing so, so well,’ she whispered as we reached the stable and Manuel handed us boots and riding hats.

‘So you don’t run this as a proper stable?’ I asked.

‘No, but at weekends I like to leave the city and come here to ride out.’

‘You won’t have that option when it’s sold, though, will you?’ said Lizzie pragmatically.

‘Oh, we will keep enough land back for a small paddock and we will renovate the shack just behind it.’ Manuel pointed across the flat red plain to a tumbledown wooden building some hundred yards beyond the stables. ‘We wait for the sale of the big house to give us the cash to do it,’ he shrugged as he put on his own hat. ‘Now, when Hank call me to ask if I will take you out, he say you are both strong riders.’

‘That might be an exaggeration for me,’ Lizzie said, rolling her eyes. ‘I haven’t been on a horse for almost thirty years.’

‘Then I will give you Jenny. She is very gentle. And you, Electra?’

‘The same as Lizzie, but it hasn’t quite been that long for me.’