by Gayle Roper
Everyone waved good-bye like Celia was leaving for an around-the-world tour and wouldn’t be returning for five years instead of five hours.
“Here, Jess.” Abby’s mom handed a totebag to the girl, whose arms were already full of towels. “My books and crossword puzzles.”
Books plural? How fast could the woman read?
“Call me around two-thirty,” she called over her shoulder to Abby as the entourage, burdened with more paraphernalia than a rock group, moved to the beach.
“I will,” Abby called as she climbed the steps.
Whoops. Apologies, Abby, for thinking you weren’t carrying your share of the load.
Once again quiet descended. He felt his shoulders relax, and the mists of frustration blew away. He breathed deeply and put the confusion of today’s meeting of the 4311 Central Avenue chapter of the Abby Association from his mind. Except for one loud, “Here we come!” from Jordan, for the rest of the afternoon Marsh lived at Frost Spring Ranch, kept company with Marguerite and Craig, and plotted to hog-tie Snelling. He picked up his plot where Craig was riding the range searching for Marguerite, who, like the troublesome woman she was, had disappeared.
Craig dismounted and walked to Magdalene. She looked up at him and blew softly out her nostrils. He put his hand on her neck and patted her. She wasn’t the least bit skittish. Better controlled than your mistress, eh, girl? He walked around her, looking for some indication of trouble—a loose stirrup, a broken bit—but Maggie and her equipment were fine.
He felt down her legs. Maybe she’d pulled something, and Marguerite had decided it would be damaging even to walk her. Had the woman started back to Frost Spring on foot? No, even she wasn’t that foolish. Not in country laced with wild animals, snakes, and two-legged varmints.
On Maggie’s right leg Craig saw a scratch, not serious but undoubtedly painful when received.
“Did you react to the pain and throw her, girl?” He lifted her leg to look for other injuries. To his surprise, her hoof was covered with dried mud.
The fool woman had gone to Anasazi Creek. Muttering under his breath, he gathered Maggie’s reins and remounted Smokey. He set off for the cottonwoods, Maggie loping behind.
As he rode, he tried to control his imagination, but it was hard. As he neared the cottonwoods, a storm of seed fluffs sailed through the air like late spring/early summer snow. He batted away one that chose his nose as its landing place.
“Marguerite,” he called. “Where are you?”
There was no answer.
He rode up to the edge of the stream, uncertain what he’d find, and stared in disbelief. The water was not flowing. The muddy bed lay revealed, marbled with small fissures where the hot sun beat down and dried the mud, sort of like an elderly woman whose varicose veins were exposed to the world by an unexpected wind.
Snelling! He had diverted Anasazi Creek just as he threatened.
Craig kneed Smokey forward and followed the drying bed upstream. Somewhere he was certain to come across Snelling’s men and the actual diversion of the water. He didn’t even pause when he came to the boundary spike demarcating the end of Frost land and the beginning of Snelling’s property.
Had Marguerite done what he was doing? Had she met and challenged Snelling and his men? Did they have her, hoping to use her as a hostage, a bargaining chip to get control of Frost Spring Ranch?
The phone resting on the table beside Marsh rang. He grabbed it. “What?”
A low laugh traveled across the line. “I can see you’re in a good mood. Won’t the heroine cooperate? Or is it the hero’s horse that’s giving you trouble?”
Marsh felt his shoulders relax. “Rick! Are you in Philadelphia already?”
“I’m at LAX, trying to escape from Billie.”
“Who’s Billy?”
“Just call me Billie,” Rick said in a falsetto voice.
“Ah, Billie with an ie, not a y.”
“You can always tell a guy with a Ph.D.” Rick’s deep voice rumbled through the wires. He had the richest timbre of any actor Marsh had ever heard. “They figure things out right quick.”
“And you can tell the cowboys because they say things like ‘right quick.’ ”
There was a moment’s silence as the men grinned at each other across the miles.
“Does Billie have a last name?” Marsh was always embarrassed by how fascinated he was with the people Rick knew. He felt like a groupie. “Would I know who she is?”
“No and I hope not.”
“What?”
“Just call me Billie. I’m sort of like Cher and Madonna, you know? Or Lucy.” Again he spoke in a falsetto.
“Lucy had a last name,” Marsh noted for the record. “Is she like Cher and Madonna?”
“Only in her own mind.”
“So what are you doing with her?”
“I don’t know. I can’t get her to go away.”
Marsh heard the frustration in Rick’s voice. “It’s your curse to attract beautiful women. Sounds like you need a wife to protect you.”
“Yeah, I do.”
Marsh pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it for a beat. “Isn’t that a rather dramatic change of mind?”
“It is. But I’m lonely, Marsh.” His sigh echoed down the line. “I’ve found balance and stability in the Lord. I don’t need or want to run around anymore, hiding my emptiness in activity and carousing. I feel like Adam must have when the Lord said that it wasn’t good for a man to be alone.”
“Sounds like you need this vacation, old buddy.”
“I need to go back to being Rick Yakabuski. Life made sense back then.”
“You’d be bored inside a week.”
“I don’t know, Marsh. I tell you, I don’t know.”
“You need time on the beach with no Billies in sight. When will you arrive?”
“11:35 P.M. I’m going to crash at the hotel at the airport. I’ll be down tomorrow morning in time for church.”
“I’ll look for you.”
“I can’t wait to hear what you think of the script.” The bounce was back in Rick’s voice. “I think it’s great.”
Marsh grinned. “Well, you just—”
“Wait a minute,” Rick said. “Someone’s trying to get my attention.”
“When isn’t someone?”
“Not usually in the men’s room.”
“You’re calling from the men’s room?”
“Billie can’t follow me in here.”
Marsh thought he’d choke on that line. There was the muffled sound of voices, a minor roar of “What?” from Rick. Then he was back on the line.
“She sent some poor schlep in here to see if I was all right.” Rick sighed. “If the men’s room isn’t safe, what is?”
“Will she follow you here?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“She doesn’t have any money, and I won’t tell her where I’m going.”
Marsh was laughing when he hung up, and it felt good. He knew he’d been a grump all day, but Rick had cheered him up. He was still smiling when he heard a noise and looked over at the woman starting up the steps. It was Abby’s mother coming to relieve Abby. She was staring at him, and if looks could harm a body, Marsh knew he’d be twisting in agony.
His smile fled. He frowned and went back to his novel. What had he ever done to her to make her so hostile? He blocked her out and let Craig take over his thoughts, Craig and the missing Marguerite.
Craig’s neck started to prickle again, and he slowed. Cautiously his eyes moved from side to side, missing nothing. He was much more savvy about the unscrupulous character of some men than she, and if there was an ambush waiting, he wasn’t falling into it. He scanned the high desert that rose off to the north. He studied the line of cottonwoods behind and beside him. He looked across the creek bed to the south where there was nothing to see but mile upon mile of sand and scrub.
The moan was so faint he almost missed it. If t
he water had been flowing, its currents still strong from the melt off in the high mountains, he would have. But he heard it, a whisper of sound, a mere breath. His blood turned to ice.
He spun Smokey and there she was, dirty, blouse torn, her right arm held close to her body. She half lay, half leaned against a cottonwood and had been there for some time, if the halo of fluff on her hair was any indication.
He dismounted, grabbed his canteen, and strode to her.
“Don’t say it,” Marguerite managed to whisper between dry lips.
“Don’t say what?” He was appalled at the size of the bruise spreading across her right temple.
“Whatever nasty thing you’re thinking.”
“Huh.” He knelt and held the canteen to her mouth.
“More,” she said when he pulled it back.
“In a minute.” He ran gentle fingers up the arm she cradled against herself.
“Broken.” She flinched when he hit a particularly painful place, but she didn’t allow any noise to escape. “A snake scared Maggie. Rattled right under her feet. She shied. I was so busy watching the dry streambed that I was taken by surprise and thrown. I’ve never been thrown before in my life.” She sounded scandalized.
Craig took the scarf from around his neck and wet it with water from his canteen. He wiped the dirt from her face, moving gently around the bruised area. He saw only a small break in the skin just above her hairline, but infection was still too real a possibility.
She sat with her eyes closed. “Feels good.”
He wished the creek were flowing, that he had a source of water to soak his scarf and thoroughly wash the area of the bruise, but it would have to wait until they were home. He wasn’t willing to use their drinking water in such a manner.
He turned his attention to her arm. He shook out his scarf again, fashioned a sling, and tied her arm to her body. She closed her eyes against the agony and her already ashen face paled further.
“This is going to hurt,” he said as he bent to lift her. He slid an arm around her waist and another under her knees.
“Like tying on the sling didn’t,” she managed. Her eyes were huge with pain.
He lifted her. She gasped, wrapping her good arm around his neck. She buried her face in the curve of his neck as she tried not to cry. As he carried her to the horses, he marveled at how light she was. And how unexpectedly brave.
He was unprepared for the gravelly voice that shouted, “Stop right there! You’re trespassing!”
End of chapter.
Nodding in satisfaction, Marsh hit save. The screen cleared and he put the machine on standby. He got out of his chair and moved his creaking body toward the house, Fargo at his heels. Marsh had been sitting without moving anything but his fingers for three solid hours. He desperately needed sustenance and relief.
“Excuse me,” a male voice said just as Marsh reached for his sliding door. The speaker sounded much too vibrant and eager.
Marsh turned, sighing with the ragged patience of a man who had had a very long and trying day. “Yes?”
A handsome man with hair just silvering at the temples smiled. “I’m looking for Abby Patterson.”
Who wasn’t?
Seventeen
MARSH JERKED HIS thumb upward. He wasn’t certain which of the baby-sitters was up there at the moment, but he was confident someone was. The man smiled and started up the steps. Disgruntled, Marsh watched him until his feet, shod in brown loafers and no socks, disappeared from view. Who was he? The “friend” of last night? Someone from Scranton who had driven down to visit Abby?
Whoever he was, Marsh thought sourly, he was too handsome for his own good.
He let himself and Fargo into the house and wandered to the kitchen. He went to the refrigerator, pulling out a cold bottle of water. He forced his mind from the visitor in the bright blue knit shirt with the pony over the heart back to the book.
What did Snelling plan to do with Craig and Marguerite now that he had them?
Where was he going to take them?
How would they escape, especially with Marguerite injured? Should she develop a fever and hallucinate, or were the broken arm and the sore head enough?
As he made his way back to the porch, he considered possible answers to his questions and found none that satisfied him. What he did find was the whole tribe from upstairs in the drive beside his porch, rinsing off sand, laughing, talking, and completely destroying his illusion of being in New Mexico territory in the 1890s. He picked up his laptop, turned it on, and looked at Fargo, who looked woefully back.
“At least Puppy’s still upstairs,” Marsh said. “Probably hiding under a bed.” Fargo licked his lips.
“Don’t even think about it.”
Fargo slumped to the floor, pouting.
Marsh laughed, then settled back in his chair to watch and listen. What else could he do?
“Can we come back after we change?” Walker asked Abby as he stuck a foot under the spigot that protruded from the side of the house. Abby, who had her hands full rinsing a wriggling Jordan under the open air shower located three feet from the spigot, didn’t answer.
“It’s almost dinner, dear.” Abby’s mother answered for her. “Your mother will be waiting for you.”
“No, she won’t.” Jordan shook his head, spraying Abby in a remarkably good imitation of Fargo shaking himself after being caught in a rainstorm. “Will she, Walker?”
Walker, who was mesmerized as he watched Jess blow spit bubbles while she rinsed the ocean from her hair, said, “She won’t care what we do. Ever since Dad left, she doesn’t care.”
“But your father’s here,” Abby’s mother said, gently pushing the thoroughly rinsed Jordan next door. “Abby met him earlier today.” She took Walker by the shoulder and turned him from Jess toward his house.
Jordan nodded. “She called the cops on him. Mommy’s mad about that.”
“All the more reason for you to be there with your parents. Good-bye, boys.” Abby’s mother waved for good measure. Then she turned her back and began hanging up wet beach towels.
Jordan grabbed Walker’s hand as they walked among the pilings under their house. “We’ll be back after we change,” he called over his shoulder. “Mom may hate you, Mrs. Patterson, but we don’t. We like you lots.”
“Oh, dear,” said Abby, looking after the boys as she picked up a pair of beach chairs with one hand and reached for the banister with the other. “Nothing like getting along with your neighbor.”
Jordan suddenly turned all the way around and yelled, “We like you too, Mrs. MacDonald, even if you do want us to go home.”
Marsh couldn’t help smiling. That kid belongs in politics. He’s got the volume and the people skills, playing up to Abby’s mother like that. I must introduce him to my father.
His father. He was coming on Tuesday. Marsh shuddered, then stilled. What in the world was he going to do with Rick while Dad was here? All the good senator needed was to meet a TV star houseguest, and Marsh’s goose was cooked.
Mrs. MacDonald frowned at the boys’ backs. “You are going to have to be strong with those two, Abby, or mark my words, they will live here all summer.”
Abby shrugged and grinned at Jess as she ran past her up the stairs, sand bucket and flip-flops in her hand. “Worse things could happen.”
“I’m just trying to protect you, dear. You are still fragile.”
Marsh saw Abby freeze, her hands closing into fists. “I am not fragile,” she said. “I am fine.” Each word was clipped, full of indignation.
“Of course you are, dear,” Mrs. MacDonald hastened to say as she put the last clothespin on the last towel. “I didn’t mean to indicate you weren’t. It’s just that two boisterous children climbing all over you all the time, whether literally or metaphorically—well, I don’t like to think of you dealing with something like that. Think of your nerves, if not your hip.”
“There is nothing wrong with my nerves, and my hip is doing fin
e.” Abby spoke with remarkable calm for someone whose knuckles, where they were wrapped around the chairs she was carrying, were as white as a puffy summer cloud. Her voice only shook a little. Marsh couldn’t help but nod his approval.
Mrs. MacDonald waved Abby’s comment away as if it wasn’t worth acknowledging. She seemed to miss Abby’s distress completely, but then from the little Marsh had observed, she always knew she was right even when he knew she wasn’t. Maybe she was the one who should meet his father. They’d deserve each other.
He must have made some sort of noise because Mrs. MacDonald spun and glared at him. “Enjoying our conversation?”
Quickly he turned to his laptop and began typing. Swrtyhinpo dgleighut hensim tehoheddtm. He tried not to feel the brand of Mrs. MacDonald’s eyes.
“Mother, who are you talking to?” Abby turned halfway up the stairs.
“Him.” Mrs. MacDonald jerked her thumb as she started up the steps after Abby. “He’s so rude.”
Marsh raised his eyebrows. Me? I’m just sitting here on my own porch, minding my own business. He stopped. Well, maybe I am a little too curious, but how am I supposed to not hear you when you’re yelling loud enough for the world to listen?
“Mom!” Abby was clearly embarrassed as she came down a couple of steps to silence her mother.
Mrs. MacDonald lowered her voice to a whisper, but it was the kind actors used to project to the farthest corners of a theater. “He’s not only rude; he’s dangerous.”
“Marsh?” Abby squeaked.
Me? Dangerous? I’m willing to admit a touch of rudeness, but that’s it.
“Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he were the one driving that car.”
What? Marsh’s eyes went wide with disbelief and affronted pride. Like he’d ever leave the scene of an accident! What kind of a person did she think he was?
“Mom! Please!” Abby bent and glanced his way. To spare her, he made believe he hadn’t heard. He typed thimnderfulinthebes tyellowrjoud. She straightened and tightened her grip on the beach chairs. “Get up here, Mom,” she hissed, “before I lose my apartment!”
