Arches Enemy. Scott Graham

up, what, a million times now?”

      “She uses people. She used me.” Chuck blinked, angered at the tears welling suddenly in his eyes. He was a grown man, for Christ’s sake, in his mid-forties.

      Janelle gave his arm a squeeze. “I get it,” she said gently. “She had responsibilities to you as your mother that you don’t feel she kept.”

      “She didn’t keep them.”

      “I know what you’ve told me, Chuck. She drank, she partied, she slept around. I get that she was troubled. But you’ve said she always kept a roof over your head.”

      “Depends on what you call a roof. A boyfriend’s dumpy apartment, a crappy motel room, a falling-down trailer.”

      Janelle’s lips curled upward. “You’ve got us living in a trailer right now ourselves.”

      “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

      “I was a single mom, too.”

      He pulled her close. “I know that,” he said in her ear, his lips to her hair. He leaned back, his hands at her waist. “But you stood by your girls. When they came along, you made them the center of your world. You were, you are, the best mom Carm and Rosie could ever have asked for. Sheila, on the other hand, barely acknowledged my existence the whole time I was growing up. She made it clear I was a mistake, like I was some sort of penalty she was paying. She never beat me, I’ll grant her that. But that’s about the best I can say for her.”

      “People can change, Chuck.”

      “You were a good mom from day one, and you’ve stayed a good mom.”

      “I’m not talking about me.”

      “I know.”

      “It’s been five years since you saw her last, right? I remember you telling me she came through Durango the year before you and I met.”

      “She called out of the blue, looking for a place to stay. I happened to be in town between contracts.”

      “You told me you got her a motel room.”

      “If I had let her stay with me, she’d probably still be there on my couch.”

      Janelle smiled as she looked up at him. “At least, if that was the case, the girls and I would have gotten to know her long before now.”

      Chuck tightened his grip on Janelle’s waist and rocked her back and forth. “I admit it sounds like she may finally be getting her act together. And I know it’s time you met her.”

      “I guess we can thank Sanford for making it happen.”

      He dropped his hands from her sides. “Speaking of whom, I’d like to go check on the site, seeing’s how we’ve got a little time since Sheila didn’t answer.”

      Janelle’s dark brows drew together. “You honestly think the collapsed arch and your contract might be related somehow?”

      “I just want to make sure everything’s okay. It’ll take less than an hour. The girls will be fine.”

      “That’s what you said earlier.”

      “They’ve got the cat now. They won’t go anywhere till we get back.”

      Janelle glanced toward the trailer. “Less than an hour?”

      “Forty-five minutes. I promise.”

      She rolled her eyes. “You and your promises.”

      Chuck and Janelle paused where the path branched at the start of the loop. Boot marks pocked the muddy left fork between lines of plants flattened by the front-end loader. Chuck turned right, away from the collapsed arch, leading Janelle along the saturated path on a winding route across the open desert.

      He pointed out a thick black mat covering an expanse of ground. “That’s why I gave Sanford the look I did when he let the backhoe drive to the arch.”

      “What is that stuff?” Janelle asked, inspecting the knobby substance. “It looks like the ugliest hunk of shag carpeting I’ve ever seen.”

      “It’s called biological soil crust. It takes years to recover when someone steps on it—or drives a front-end loader across it—because it’s alive. It’s not really soil at all.”

      “What is it, then?”