THE BRIDE WORE BLUE JEANS

by Mary Anne Wilson

  He made himself turn away and cross to the cupboard to get a sheet out of it, then he went back and covered Annie with the plain white cotton. She stirred, her hand clutched the linen and tugged it up under her chin. But she didn't awaken. The lashes lay in arcs against her translucent skin, her lips pale and softly parted.

  The air was thin in here, and Quint felt as if the walls were closing in on him. He turned quickly and didn't look back as he went into the bathroom. But when he turned on the shower and stepped under the chilling cold water, nothing killed the desire in him for Annie.

  As he was surrounded by cold, he knew that the life he'd thought he would lead alone had changed to a life he would lead being lonely. Wanting a woman he'd never have again and feeling as if he'd lost a part of himself. He couldn't change it. He had to live with it, but he wasn't at all sure how to do that.

  Annie didn't remember drifting off, but one minute she was holding on to Quint, filled with his essence and touch, then she was coming out of a deep sleep with a light sheet over her. Quint was calling her name softly, "Annie? Annie?"

  She slowly opened her eyes and rolled onto her back. He was over her at the side of the bed, shadows filling the room, but she could see his hair was damp and slicked back from his face in a low ponytail. And he'd dressed in a clean T-shirt and jeans. The mingled scent of freshness and soap permeated the air. He'd taken a shower without her knowing he'd left the bed. Yet she'd thought she would have sensed his leaving. As she looked up at him and stretched her arms over her head, she froze. Something was wrong.

  She struggled awkwardly to sit up and grabbed at a sheet Quint must have put over her. Had they been found, or were the police outside or coming up the drive? Or Trevor. "Quint, what's wrong?"

  "Nothing, it's time to get up." The words were mundane and didn't fit that edge she felt at all.

  Then Quint moved back a bit, and she could feel the withdrawal in action. The closeness that had been there, the intense joining before she'd slept, was gone. And it frightened her.

  All she wanted right then was to touch him, to make some sort of connection, but she didn't. Instead, she added to the mundane words when she knew something monumental was happening. "What time is it?"

  "Eight o'clock."

  She felt confused and the need to see her daughter came with a vengeance. Sanity in her insanity. "We … we need to go," she said, clutching the sheet to her chest.

  "I let you sleep as long as I could."

  "Did … did you get some sleep?" she asked, desperate to get back that feeling of closeness, but not knowing how to do it.

  "I'm fine." Then he said words that weren't mundane at all, words that made her eyes sting. "Time to get back to the real world. I guess this is over."

  "Is it?" she breathed.

  He studied her with darkly shadowed eyes. "Yes, it is. It has to be."

  "But, I don't—"

  He cut her off. "Get dressed and I'll take you to Sammi."

  He moved farther back from her, almost receding into the gathering shadows of the mom. He'd take her to Sammi. And something in her stopped her from asking "What then?" She didn't want to know that he'd leave her when he'd taken her to her daughter.

  Something so right had changed, and she had no way to define it. She had made horrible mistakes in her life, but whatever was happening here, felt as if it could kill her. "Give me five minutes," she whispered, surprised that her voice sounded vaguely normal.

  "I'll be outside," he said, then turned from her and crossed the room.

  She didn't watch him step out the door. She didn't have to. She could feel the emptiness in the room as soon as he was gone, and she knew it was just the first version of the emptiness he'd leave behind if he left for good.

  Pushing aside any thoughts except getting to Sammi, she got up and found her discarded clothes on the floor at the foot of the bed. Memories of how they were taken off shook her for a moment, then she picked up her things and dressed quickly. She didn't bother even looking in a mirror after tugging her hair back to catch it in a band. She put on her sandals, then looked around, found her suitcase and headed for the door.

  But when she got to the entry, something made her turn and look back at the small, stark room. Hardly the setting to find out what love really was, what it felt like, what it could do to a person. Hardly the place of dreams, yet that's exactly what this room was until she woke from her sleep.

  She glanced at the bed with its exposed mattress and the tangled sheet at the footboard. More memories flooded over her, and right then she heard Quint behind her.

  "I'll take care of things in here and leave some money for the owner. Take your suitcase out to the car, and we can get out of here."

  When he brushed by, she found herself holding her breath until he was well past and over by the bed. Then she looked at him as he grabbed the sheet and began to fold it. "Quint?"

  "We don't have time to waste," he said as he finished with the sheet and crossed to the cupboard.

  "But we—"

  He turned, his expression hidden by the shadows in the room. "Annie, not now." His words were flat and abrupt.

  Unapproachable. That was the only word she could come up with for this man. And it made her stomach ache. "Sure," she muttered, then turned and left.

  She went out to the car, put her case in the back, then went around and got in. She felt as if she could barely breathe until Quint came out of the cabin. She didn't turn to watch him, and when he got in behind the wheel, she caught a glimpse of his hand closing over the gearshift out of the corner of her eye. Strong hands. Gentle hands. She looked away when she started to remember.

  Silently, Quint drove the car back down the road to the chain, got out, took the chain down, then got back in and drove off without bothering to replace the barrier. By the time they got back to a main road, stars were spreading over the open sky, and a full moon was rising behind them.

  She drove with a stranger she'd fallen in love with, a stranger who had shut her out as soon as she'd awakened. She stared out at the night as they headed down a two-lane road. The pavement climbed gradually until the air was thinner, and vast, dark fields on either side of the road were bordered by soaring mountains.

  "I checked the map while you were asleep and found the best route to Taos," Quint finally said, the sound of his voice a jolt after the tense silence.

  She felt uneasy with the idea of him being awake while she was asleep and with the idea that he covered her nakedness with the sheet. "Good," she murmured.

  "We'll head due west and north about a hundred miles after the border. I don't know what the roads are like, but if we get very lucky, we'll be near Taos in four or five hours."

  She let her head rest against the leather support, not able to bear making small talk right now. "That sounds like a plan."

  "I guess it is."

  She turned to Quint, who was a dark silhouette against the eerie glow from the dash. He was looking straight ahead. There was no way she could just pretend nothing happened, that she hadn't been touched by him or that he hadn't touched her soul. "Quint, what's going on?"

  He checked the rearview mirror. "Nothing. We've got the road to ourselves for now."

  "That isn't what I was talking about."

  He never looked at her. "Then tell me what you're talking about."

  "What happened back there?"

  "We outran the police."

  She wanted to scream, but she forced herself to keep her voice down. "No, at the cabin. You and me."

  He looked in the side mirror, then regripped the steering wheel. "What do you want me to say?"

  You love me, you want me, you want to see my child. "Nothing," she muttered.

  "Hey, I didn't promise you anything. We had a good time. We enjoyed each other. That's it."

  "That's it?" she echoed.

  He was silent for such a long time that she was certain he wasn't going to answer her at all. Then she heard him exhale harshly. "What did
you think it was?"

  This was wrong, so wrong. "I don't know."

  He slowed the car and glanced at her for the first time since they'd left the cabin. Night shadows hid his eyes, and she couldn't read his expression at all. "All right. Let's lay our cards out on the table. I wanted you back there, that was pretty obvious. I didn't plan it. It just happened."

  Her hands were clenched so tightly that her nails were digging into her palms. "You can't mean that."

  "Why not?"

  "Quint, you can't … I mean, something like what happened between us isn't just some accident, some time out."

  "That's exactly what it was. Something we both needed, but not something that lasts."

  Each word twisted in her and the pain in her hands was a welcome diversion from other pain that ate at her. "How can you say something like that?"

  "God, I was afraid of this happening."

  "What?" she asked in a tight voice.

  "It's my fault. I thought we both understood the ground rules."

  "Stop," she whispered, enough was enough.

  His glance touched her again, but this time she could see the set of his jaw. "There can't be any more. There isn't any more."

  She held up one hand as if she could ward off the impact of his words. "How do you know that?"

  "Take a good look at me and a good look at you. I've got a life waiting for me that doesn't have space for anyone else. I'm an ex-con. I'm on parole. Everything I've got is in this car, and when I hit my brother's place in Santa Barbara, the first place I have to go is to my parole officer. If I sneeze wrong, I'm back inside. It's a hell of a life for one person. And there's no room in it for anyone else."

  "It doesn't have to be that way," she said. "It doesn't, I swear."

  Quint could feel her looking at him, and he didn't know what to say to stop her and her words. His jaw clenched so tightly it ached, and his chest felt tighter. "It's what has to be."

  "You won't give us a chance?"

  "There is no 'us' to give a chance to," he said, hating the words even as he spoke them. There had never been an 'us' in his life, and suddenly he felt empty and very alone.

  But one thought was there, and he needed to hold it up as a shield against every impulse that pummeled him. He was a dead end for Annie. And he wouldn't be anyone's dead end. Least of all hers. And that thought gave him words to say that were as ugly as any he'd heard in prison.

  "I needed someone, anyone, and you were there. Is that clear enough for you?"

  "You can't mean that," Annie choked. Pain was overwhelming. He'd used her. He'd taken her to satisfy some bottled up need. And she'd loved him. There weren't even any tears in her. Just the pain and the sure knowledge that she'd almost destroyed what life she had left.

  "Sorry. You asked and I told you. It wasn't fair to you, but sometimes needs outrun good sense. And we've been alone. Do you have any idea what it's like to be cut off from everything, then to have it right there?"

  "Stop it!" she gasped, fighting the need to press her hands to her ears to block out everything he was saying to her. "Just … just stop … please."

  "You're right. Let's stop this right here."

  * * *

  Chapter 12

  « ^ »

  Annie looked out into the night and felt as if the darkness were invading her soul.

  Quint moved abruptly, and for a moment she was terrified that he'd touch her. If he did, she'd surely hold on to him and never let go. But thankfully he was reaching for the radio. He turned it on, then sat back as the sounds of hard rock filled the empty spaces and cut off all talk.

  The driving music beat against her senses, and she welcomed it, anything to distract her from the man next to her.

  By the time Annie saw a glow of lights in the distance, they'd been in the state of New Mexico for two hours and her emotions had settled into a blessed stage of numbness. When a three-hour retrospective of the Rolling Stones started on the radio, Quint reached over and flipped the radio off.

  "We'll gas up ahead, and you can make the phone call to Jeannie to let her know we're going to be there in a few hours."

  It was a statement, not open to discussion, so Annie kept quiet as Quint drove toward the lights. When they got near, she could see that the glow came from a truck stop on the left side of the road. Brilliant neon lights lighted the sign by the road and outlined the roofs of a restaurant, a gas station and a repair garage. The land around the complex was bare of other buildings.

  A half dozen diesel trucks idled to one side of a series of fuel pumps, and even though it was almost eleven o'clock, there was plenty of activity at the complex. She spotted a bank of telephones in a corner at the far end of the restaurant and picked up her purse to get change.

  When Quint pulled in at the far end of the pumps and stopped, Annie scrambled out and, without a word to Quint, headed for a bank of pay phones by a row of newspaper stands in front of the restaurant. She didn't wait for Quint to say or do anything. There was nothing she wanted to hear from him, and if he drove off without her, she'd manage.

  Only the need to hear Sammi's voice broke through her numbness, and she broke into a jog, passing two truckers who were exiting the restaurant. She picked the last phone in the line, the one closest to a jutting wall so no one could come up behind her without her seeing them. Laying her coins on the side counter, she put in the call, then deposited the money the operator asked for.

  The phone rang twice before Jeannie answered it.

  "Hello?"

  "Jeannie, it's me, I've—"

  "Listen, I told you before I can't come in tonight. It's too late. I don't care what's going on."

  Annie closed her eyes tightly and any numbness she'd used in the car to salvage her sanity was slipping away. "Oh, God, is Trevor there? Did he manage to—"

  "No," Jeannie said immediately.

  "Someone he sent?"

  "Now you're getting it."

  Annie held the phone so tightly she was sure the plastic would snap. "What about Sammi?"

  "That's not the problem. My husband's not here, and I can't just leave. You'll just have to close up the restaurant on your own."

  "Jeannie, is Sammi all right?"

  "Absolutely."

  "Does Trevor know where she is?"

  "Not at all."

  "Is she with Charlie?" she asked.

  "Yes."

  She pressed a hand over her eyes. "All right. I'm in New Mexico, a couple of hours from Taos."

  "That's good."

  "We need to meet where Trevor won't look. Not the restaurant … uh…" Then she knew. Jeannie and Chuck had a house they kept north of the city in a high valley. It was isolated and there was no way Trevor could know about it. "Los Olivos," she whispered. They'd named the place after an ancient olive tree in the courtyard of the house.

  "That sounds like a good compromise."

  "I'll get there as soon as I can. Wait for me and don't let Sammi out of your sight."

  Jeannie spoke quickly. "I don't have time for this. I'll see you there when I can manage it." And the line clicked.

  Annie slowly hung the phone back on the hook, then leaned against the wide wall of the building. The flashing lights from the neon signs gave a garish glow to everything around her, making it feel as surreal as she felt right now. Trevor had sent someone to get Sammi, and he wouldn't be far behind.

  "What's going on?" Quint asked from close by.

  Startled, Annie spun around and he was there, tall and strong and in control. And she wished he was there for her. But he wasn't. He'd made it clear that he never would be after he dropped her off. She was in this alone. A few days ago, it would have been what she expected, but now she felt as if she weren't anchored, as if she could fall apart.

  "He did it," she said.

  "Trevor?"

  She bit her lip hard and nodded.

  "What did he do?"

  "He sent someone to Jeannie's to get Sammi." She hugged her arms around h
erself and dug her fingers into her upper arms, welcoming the slight pain to keep her focused. "He's there now."

  Quint hated the pain he could see in Annie's expression. Her mouth was tight, her skin pale, and that unsteadiness in her chin was there again. Then she wrapped her arms around herself and it struck a chord in him that he could barely deal with. Holding herself together, always having to keep things under control.

  She was terrified, and touching her was a need deep in his soul. But he couldn't, or he'd be back to square one. "Then you'll have to come up with an alternative place to meet your friend," he said with as much cool logic as he could muster.

  She met his gaze, but her look was almost empty, as if she'd turned in on herself, and there was no connection. He should have been thankful to have the intensity broken, but it only made him more edgy.

  "We found a place. Jeannie and Charlie have a second home in the mountains north of the city. Trevor would have no way of knowing about it. You can drop me at the Pennington turnoff this side of Taos, and I'll get a ride from there."

  He'd never just "drop her," but he wasn't going to argue with her right now. "Let's go. We've a two hour drive ahead of us."

  She nodded, then turned, scooped up some change on the shelf by the phone and brushed past him, stirring the night air, but not touching him. He took a steadying breath before heading after her.

  * * *

  The tension in the car was palpable by the time Quint spotted a sign that said they were fifty miles from Taos. His nerves were frayed, and he needed to hear voices, something to fill the void. "Who was at Jeannie's when you called?"

  Annie stirred as if his speaking startled her. Then she said, "Pardon me?"

  "When you called Jeannie, you said someone was there. I asked who it was."

  "Oh, I don't know," she sighed. "A flunky of Trevor's, probably an attorney, or maybe someone who owes him or the family."

  "Where's your daughter?"

  "She's with Charlie, and I hope to God whomever Trevor sent doesn't catch up to them. Quint, she's so little, and she doesn't deserve what Trevor's doing."