Grimly, he returned to the main room to find Alys feeding the cat from her hand. She wore her new boots with a pair of snug blue jeans and a black halter-neck ribbed shirt with no cloth to cover her white, nicely rounded, shoulders. He had to fight the memory of how she’d earned that love bite on her right shoulder.
“Do you think we can put Purple in the saddlebags when we go riding?”
She’d erased the night as if it had never happened. Narrowing his eyes, Elliot threw his robe over the bed and stark naked, reached for his suitcase. He’d be damned if he would behave as if they’d never shared a bed.
Admiring the muscular expanse of shoulders and tight butt of the angry man rooting through his suitcase, Alys sighed in regret. Elliot Roth might dress like Mr. Conservative, but underneath that polish he hid raw male—the kind one admired in the movies and never met in real life. Or at least, she hadn’t, though admittedly her life was pretty limited.
Maybe she’d been too hasty in writing him off. She just knew she’d woke up this morning feeling better than she had in her entire life, and she’d panicked. She wasn’t supposed to feel this way again.
“I moved straight from my parents house into marriage,” she tried explaining while he hunted through his clothes, taunting her with his nakedness. “I don’t know how to live on my own.”
“I’ve got a surprise for you. It isn’t all that great.” He pulled on knit boxers that clung like a second skin, discarded the wrinkled white dress shirt he’d worn the first day, and donned the cowboy shirt from yesterday. He hadn’t packed for a lengthy trip.
“But most people use the single life to figure out what they want to be,” she argued. “I never did. I wanted to be Fred’s wife, and that’s all I was. I got my Realtor’s license because he suggested I’d be good at it.”
He jerked on yesterday’s blue jeans. “I’m sure you’ll be good at anything you decide to do. What’s first on today’s itinerary?”
Okay, he wasn’t buying her explanation. Neither was she, not when faced with what she was throwing away. Of course, she couldn’t throw away something she didn’t have in the first place. Her survival instincts were still good, even if her reasoning wasn’t.
“The Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma. We could just check the guest book to see if Mame stopped in.”
“Fine, let’s go.” He pulled a belt through his belt loops, slammed shut the suitcase, and zipped it.
She could cave into his anger or ignore it. Passive resistance was her specialty. She rubbed her nose against Purple’s. “It’s you and me, babe, and the sooner I find you a home, the better off we’ll both be.”
Never let it be said that she was wishy-washy. She’d plotted her course, and she meant to stick with it.
“We need to speed up this search.” Elliot grabbed her heavy bag while Alys slipped the kitten into its travel cage. “I have a deadline to meet, and a radio show on Sunday.”
Alys bit her lip against disappointment. “I can’t imagine how you’ll speed up Mame, but you’re welcome to try.”
As they’d loaded up the car, she regretted caving in to his demands so easily. This was her one chance to see a small piece of the world before she settled in to waiting tables or whatever she’d have to do to survive. Just because Elliot had a life didn’t mean he had to interfere with hers. Or Mame’s. She had a suspicion Elliot had been in the driver’s seat too long. He needed to learn how to go along for the ride.
While he arranged suitcases in the trunk, she strapped the kitten’s cage into the back seat, secured her orchid, and stole the Caddy’s keys from the trunk lock where he’d left them.
He shot her a black look when she slid into the driver’s seat. “I’m paying for this trip. I ought to have some say in where we go,” he said.
“Fine. Mackie D’s or Braun’s?” She revved up the engine. “Most of today’s journey is on I-40, and you’ll be lucky to get plastic food. If you want to munch acorns and raisins for breakfast, we can find a grocery store, and you can snack in the aisles.”
“Whatever,” he answered in resignation.
October in Oklahoma offered weather as changeable as her wardrobe, Alys decided, watching black clouds scuttle over the once blue sky. “Cold front moving in,” she said in disappointment, bumping the car into a Braun’s lot and parking. “No horseback riding today.”
He climbed out and headed for the diner-like ice-cream specialty store that populated this area more frequently than McDonalds. “Maybe some other time.”
There might not be another time. She’d never rode on a horse, and she’d been anticipating it with glee for months. “The man hasn’t learned to enjoy what he’s been given,” she told Purple. At least the kitten would be comfortable in the car in the cooler weather. She wouldn’t have to give her up yet. She let the cat free to explore the car and filled her bowl with food.
Elliot was already standing in line and looking at the menu before she caught up with him. So much for the gentlemanly treatment he’d been practicing. The real Elliot Roth was wearing through.
He finished his meal first and walked outside to make his daily call to the police from his cell phone while she dallied, debating whether she ought to go back for some of the restaurant’s famous ice cream.
Deciding against it, she hung on to the keys. Elliot’s grim frown said there had been no sign of Mame, so she didn’t bother asking.
No sunlit cornfields today. In a fog of rain and clouds, they crept through traffic along the remainder of four-lane Route 66. It narrowed to two lanes and the traffic cleared outside Yukon, but eventually the old road disappeared, and they returned to the interstate. Mile after mile of desolate flat land stretched before them, unbroken by even a single golden arch.
The odd-sized spare caused the Caddy to tilt, but it was manageable. Puddles of water thrown up by semi tires splashed the cracked driver’s window and seeped through to roll down the door, forming a damp spot on the carpet.
They stopped at the Route 66 museum in the small town of Clinton, but it wasn’t open yet. Alys advocated waiting to see if Mame showed up. Tapping away at his laptop, Elliot insisted on heading for the next stop on the itinerary.
Determined not to let Elliot’s sour mood ruin the day, Alys handed him the packet of Tums, located a country station on the radio, and sang along with a new arrangement of “Ring of Fire” that had Elliot finishing off the Tums.
She drove through rain until Amarillo, stopping only to take a picture of the towering WELCOME TO TEXAS sign before dashing back into the warmth of the car. She was certain Oklahoma was a very nice state, but all she saw of the western half was windshield wipers and taillights. Her excitement at seeing new places had paled slightly since leaving Springfield.
Elliot glanced up from his work at her exclamation over the tilted water tower in Britten, but even she didn’t have the heart to make him get out and take a picture in the downpour.
The clouds relented before they reached Amarillo. Alys laughed at her first sight of tumbleweed and stopped the car for a picture of a windmill. The rays of sun beaming from beneath the heavy clouds threw an orange light over the gullies and hills, and with a sigh of bliss, she figured out the wide-angle mode on the camera and snapped more pictures. This was what she’d come to see.
Entering Amarillo, she blithely decided to bypass their motel on the right to take the Highway 335 loop Mame had indicated as a shortcut to the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum down in Canyon. She thought they could find lunch easier outside the heavy traffic of the city, but realized her error as Amarillo disappeared behind them, and they passed miles of open field without sight of a single fast-food restaurant.
Elliot snapped off the radio and glanced around. “I thought Amarillo was our next stop.”
“For tonight. But we’re supposed to see the museum and the canyon this afternoon. Or maybe one today and the other tomorrow. Mame’s itinerary is pretty loose.”
“I think we ought to find the hot
el and wait for her there.”
“Like, that would have worked well yesterday,” she scoffed. “Mame isn’t predictable. She could be riding down the canyon right now.”
Stopping in a traffic backup, she glanced at Elliot to see how he was taking that news. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he didn’t look well at all. “If you want to go back to the hotel first, we can.” She didn’t want to be totally selfish if he wasn’t feeling well.
All right, maybe she wanted to be selfish, but she couldn’t be. Scratch up one more piece of knowledge about herself—she couldn’t ignore others. Probably went hand in hand with her need to be with people. Maybe she could be a sales clerk. They talked to people all day.
“How far is the museum?” he asked without looking at her.
“Just down the road from the state park. I thought it might have a nice place for lunch.”
“I’m ready to stretch my legs, and the hotel won’t let us check in until this afternoon. Let’s go on.”
She darted him an uncertain look but the traffic began moving. If only she could turn off her worry gene and her caring gene, she might progress a little better on this journey to find herself.
But she couldn’t, so she took deep breaths, cleared her pathways, and did her best to send Elliot positive vibrations. They had days of travel ahead. She might as well do what she could to make them pleasant. It had never occurred to her that one night of mind-bending pleasure could ruin their trip.
It was a pity Elliot was another narrow-minded man who preferred physical connections over the metaphysical. She could help him much better if he would open to the healing power of the spirit.
She didn’t turn on the music station again but let him listen to NPR. It didn’t seem to make him any happier, but at least he wasn’t growling by the time they reached the flat town of Canyon. The museum area was on the main highway, and Alys pulled into the parking lot.
“Let’s check the guest book first.” He unsnapped his seat belt before she found a space.
“It’s probably not a good idea to travel with a cat,” she said with some concern after they’d parked and released Purple from her cage. The kitten crawled up Alys’s arm and took a flying leap into Elliot’s lap. “But I hate to leave her at a shelter.”
Elliot absently scratched behind the kitten’s ears before it darted off to attack a bug on the windshield. “Maybe we can persuade Mame to go home if we tell her the kitten is unhappy traveling.”
“You live in a dream world, don’t you?” Alys checked to be certain the cage had food and water. “Denial does not change the facts. We’ll catch Mame when she’s ready, and she’ll go home when she wants to.”
“I’m not in a state of denial.” He slammed out of the car and waited for her to gather her purse and lock the car. “Mame is.”
Leaving the window cracked to let in air for the kitten, Alys tucked her hand around Elliot’s elbow and sent more positive vibrations. He definitely needed some calming energy. He was coiled so tightly he could generate electricity. Had she done that by declaring sex off limits?
He squeezed her hand between his chest and muscled arm and all but hauled her across the street into the museum.
“Mame has decided this is something she wants to do before she’s faced with her mortality.” Alys tried to force Elliot to understand the spiritual universe Mame inhabited.
“We can’t always have what we want,” he grumbled.
“We can, if we’re willing to pay the price.” She patted his shoulder.
She could tell he didn’t like that answer but stewed over it while they poured over the guest book’s latest entries.
Mame’s name wasn’t on it.
“We left early,” she consoled him, “and we didn’t stop in Clinton. We’re probably ahead of her.”
Without investigating the museum further, Elliot headed back out. Alys had to run to keep up with his long-legged strides.
“Maybe she’s at the park already.” He strode briskly toward the car.
“You can’t mean to head for the park now!” She caught his elbow and tried to slow him down. “It could take hours to figure out where they might have a guest book in a park. We’re supposed to take our time, enjoy the marvelous scenery.” She had only one life to live, and she didn’t want to barrel through it like he did.
“How am I supposed to enjoy canyons when Mame could be having a heart attack and falling off a cliff?” he yelled, stopping at the car and rubbing his chest with one hand while holding out his other for the keys. “You want me to enjoy horseback riding while wondering if my aunt is at the bottom of a canyon somewhere? I’m tired of playing these games!”
He’d never raised his voice to her before. Had she and Mame finally driven him to his breaking point?
“You know perfectly well that Mame is not in the bottom of a canyon, even if we haven’t heard from her today. Odds are she is having the time of her life.” She paused for breath but didn’t give him time to get a word in. A good tirade should never be wasted. “It’s time you figured out there are some things in life you can’t control. If you intend to spend your life worrying, you need to use your book royalties to buy a shrink.”
Keeping the keys, she strode off in search of lunch.
Chapter Thirteen
It was nearly noon by the time Mame and Dulce fought through the downpours and reached the area just outside of Amarillo where Dulce’s sister had lived. Mame noticed that her companion tensed as they took the side road off the interstate. They’d exchanged enough conversation over the last few days for her to realize Dulce had run as far and as fast from her roots as she could go, earning a college scholarship rather than suffer her late sister’s fate of marrying to survive. Mame suspected the self-defense classes Dulce was taking at her school said a lot about her background.
Dulce had abandoned college and her dreams to come on this journey to take on a burden that wasn’t hers. Mame saw something of herself in Dulce. The girl was no doubt wondering if she was crazy to throw her life away for her sister’s child. There had been days when Mame had wondered that, too. But over the long run, she knew Elliot and his brothers were the best thing that could have happened to her. They’d ended a decade of selfish mourning and given her purpose.
Dulce drove past abandoned storefronts and empty parking lots, aging neighborhoods of deteriorating two-room houses, into an area of expensive shopping centers and golf courses. Taking the turn-off into a gated community with no security guard, she slowed to a crawl.
Houses adorned with Jaguars, swimming pools, and water-sprinkled lawns in this desert-dry country screamed excessive wealth. Mame had second thoughts about this expedition while watching a nanny push a plush twin stroller to a pretty neighborhood park. “Are you certain Lucia is unhappy here? It looks to me as if her grandfather could give her everything she could want.”
“Salvador did not fight his way to wealth by being a nice man. He is cruel, calculating, and cold, and when he drinks, he is worse. He gave his son everything money could buy. Henrique shot himself after my sister died. Does this sound like a stable, happy family man? Lucia no longer speaks. Salvador won’t let us—her family—near her. He has told the court he has put her in a school for dysfunctional children, and then wonders why she’s dysfunctional?”
“Money can’t buy happiness, got it.” Still, Mame warily watched the million-dollar mansions they passed by. A man with this kind of wealth could afford to go to the end of the earth to have his way. No wonder Dulce felt forced to kidnap her niece even though she had legal guardianship. It might take the entire Navajo nation to stop Lucia’s grandfather.
“Do you have some kind of plan?” Mame asked worriedly as Dulce found house and steered the Range Rover up the curving driveway. She’d been envisioning some pleasant ranch house where they could stop and find Lucia playing in the yard. Did children play in these yards?
“My cousin works for the utility company. He has parked his truck here and wa
tched when Lucia comes home. He says there is a maid and the old man and no one else.” Dulce looked determined as she threw open the car door.
“You can’t just walk into a place like this,” Mame protested when it became apparent she intended to do just that. “There are alarm systems. Someone will recognize you.”
“Even if they don’t recognize me, they’ll know who did it.” Dulce shrugged and climbed out.
“Wait a minute! Stop right there.” Mame struggled with her seat belt while Dulce stood beside the driver door in puzzlement. “If the maid answers the door, I can say I’m a social worker appointed by the court. You stay in the car. In fact, duck down so no one can see you.”
Dulce’s eyes widened, but she understood at once. Dulce was brown-skinned and young. Mame was white and older. The maid would listen to Mame.
Thinking Elliot’s expensive SUV might add to the impression of respectability, Mame girded herself for battle, ignoring her erratic heartbeat. If possession was nine-tenths of the law, she was about to have the law on her side, where it belonged.
Clasping her big black purse in front of her as if she were as ancient as she felt, Mame rang the doorbell. It took several minutes of waiting before the door creaked open. A small Hispanic woman peered around the partially open door.
“I’m Margaret Emerson, from the federal court in Amarillo.” She opened her purse to display her identity badge from school. “I’ve come to have a few words with Lucia, if that is convenient.”
“I will have to ask Mr. Mendoza,” the maid said hesitantly. “Wait right here.” She shut the door in Mame’s face.
So much for hoping Salvador wouldn’t be here. Turning around, Mame gestured at Dulce, but the girl was extremely bright. She was already racing around the side of the house.
Praying Lucia was somewhere easily accessible, Mame stood on the doorstep doing her best to look like a nonplussed court official tapping her foot and glancing at her watch. She hoped the maid took a while. Locating Lucia in a mansion this size—even if Dulce circumvented security—could take time. Of course, if Dulce set off alarms, they’d be arrested before they drove a mile. Good thing she had Elliot’s cell phone number.
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