Puss 'N Cahoots

they need a friend. Next thing you know, you’ve got a herd.”
    “I can do the job.”
Tucker could, too.
“I can move them in and out of the barn all by myself. You just get a herd.”
    “He says he likes the horse.” Harry smiled at Tucker.
    The youngster started his trot, extraordinary action, his knees about touching his chin.
    Harry sat up straight. “Holy cow.”
    “I know. That’s why I need to buy him now.”
    “Renata, if you’ve got the money, why not?” Harry couldn’t imagine being able to dash off a check that large. “Guess you’ve patched it up with Charly?”
    Sighing, Renata lifted her chin off her fist, exhaling loudly. “I don’t know what to do with myself. Or with him. I’m embarrassed at the scene I made Wednesday, but he drove me to it. He sets me off, gets under my skin.”
    “Some people do that.”
    “But I can’t stay away. He’s so gifted, and when you spend time with him away from everyone else, he’s funny and kind. Around other men he puts on a show.”
    “I noticed.”
    “Booty’s as bad.” Renata half-laughed. “The two of them are like bulls in a china shop when they’re together. Nonstop competition.”
    “Two successful men with successful egos, hey.” Harry shrugged.
    Renata blushed slightly as Charly winked at her. Now astride, he walked the gelding in front of her, then continued to the other side of the arena, where the horse would be silhouetted against the rail.
    “Booty did get one up on him.” Renata smiled. “Charly still talks about the time Booty milked a rattlesnake. Booty called Charly a chicken since he wouldn’t hold the rattler.” She wrinkled her lips in disgust.
    “Joan told me he keeps snakes.”
    “Too weird.”
    “Useful, I guess. Fair said venom can immunize horses in the production of antivenin serums.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I forgot to ask him.” Harry smiled. “But whatever it is, it’s good. He did say that the venom dries into yellow crystals and can stay toxic for a really long time.”
    “Well, I still don’t like snakes and I think Booty’s weird. Miss Nasty proves that.”
    “Aptly named.”
    “Fair seems to have his ego in check.” Renata returned to men and their egos.
    “He’s an amazing man. His love is his work, and he thinks about the horses, not himself. He doesn’t really care if anyone pays attention to him or not, but I think maybe because he’s so tall and powerfully built, he doesn’t have to care. Who is going to challenge him?”
    “That’s a thought. Can you imagine if women worried about how tall we were? Stood next to one another and looked down, that sort of thing?” Renata laughed lightly.
    “We compete in other ways, I expect.”
    With an unexpected vehemence Renata said, “I’m over it. I’m sick of the A-list parties. I’m sick of the PR firm I had to hire to keep me in the news in a positive light. Harry, it’s such utter and complete bullshit. I’m not a person, I’m a brand, a piece of merchandise. This may surprise you, but I actually like acting, although I hate the rest of it. I don’t know how much longer I can do it.”
    “Kind of what Alicia says.”
    “She could walk back into a studio today and get a great role.” Renata thought a minute. “Not many good lead roles for older women, but if she’d play a supporting role, she could have anything she wanted. Look at the work Julie Christie gets when she wants it.”
    “Alicia doesn’t care. She made a lot of money and inherited a lot, too, from her first lover,” Harry said.
    “Didn’t she have three husbands?”
    “Did. But her first lover, Mary Pat Reines, left her everything. I think she taught Alicia a great deal about being a lady and about life. Not that any of this came to light in Hollywood.”
    “It’s chic to be gay now.”
    “I don’t think so,” Harry countered. “A few get away with it, but—” She watched as the gelding stepped into a canter. “Smooth. Ah, well, as I was saying, our country is odd, you know. We go through economic cycles, fashion cycles, and, what would you call it, tolerant cycles? Right now we aren’t exactly in a tolerant cycle.”
    “I think all countries are that way. There are two opposing points of view, and they can never be reconciled.”
    “Which are?” Harry turned to look Renata full in the face, enjoying a real conversation with someone, not idle social chat.
    “The first is you take people as they are. Sure, you have laws to curb the