* * *
“Arghh! I’m not certain I’ll ever walk straight again.” After spending the afternoon riding up and down canyon trails, Alys massaged her aching thighs and tried to straighten her knees before climbing out of the Caddy. With interest, she eyed the fake representation of a colorful frontier town that Mame had chosen as their motel for the night. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured Texas.”
Elliot carried their luggage around from the trunk, looked up at the pink porch of the section they’d been assigned, and shrugged. “You expected to stay at J.R.’s palace? You haven’t seen enough rocks and oil wells?” His jogger’s stride didn’t appear in the least harmed by hours in the saddle.
They’d stopped at a men’s clothing store on their way back to the hotel so Elliot could pick up clean shirts and accouterments. Apparently after their argument today, he’d committed to the remainder of the trip. Alys wanted to feel jubilant, but she was just the tiniest bit scared of continued involvement with him.
“Well, at least this isn’t a Holiday Inn clone.” Picking up the orchid and Purple’s travel box, she limped after Elliot toward their assigned room. Rush hour traffic roared past on the interstate behind them.
There had been no cryptic messages from Mame waiting for them at the desk when they checked in, not even an upgrade to a king-sized suite.
She knew Elliot was worried and trying hard not to show it, but he’d checked with the police twice today, and there had been no sign of her. It wasn’t as if Mame were a criminal on the loose. The police weren’t likely to notice her unless she somehow caught their attention—like crashing the car after a fainting spell.
Alys had to admit even she wasn’t as blasé as she pretended. They’d not gone an entire day without finding some reassurance from Mame that she was alive and well. Maybe she was waiting to surprise them inside.
A maid wearing jeans and pushing a cart stepped out on the porch of their room just as Elliot reached to put a key in the lock. Apologizing in Spanish, she scurried out of their way.
“I assume that means we have clean towels. I feel like I’m covered in grime from head to toe,” Elliot said, waiting for Alys to catch up. He gave her one of his heavy-lidded looks that sent her blood racing. “If this place had a spa, we could work out a lot of kinks. Want to find another hotel?”
Oh, yes, she definitely would. Just thinking about what they could do in a whirlpool of water wiped away aches. Afraid she would come to rely on the pleasures he offered, she shook her head. “Mame would look for us here.” She half-hoped he could counter her objection.
Accepting it with a frown but no argument, Elliot lifted the heavy suitcase, opened the door, and froze.
Alys stumbled to a halt, nearly planting her nose in his spine. Hearing him growl something like I’m going to kill her, she thought it expedient to peek around Elliot’s shoulder.
A small girl sat cross-legged in the center of one of the room’s two double beds, emptying a red backpack on the covers. Wearing bright red overalls over a lace-trimmed white blouse, her shoulder-length black hair forming a fringe over big brown eyes, she gazed up from the bag in her lap to stare back at them.
“Oh, dear.” Pushing past Elliot, Alys set her orchid down on the dresser and put Purple’s cage beside it. “Close the door, Elliot. There’s a note on the desk.”
The child didn’t appear to blink, although she gazed at the cat cage with interest. While Elliot hauled in the suitcases, Alys removed Purple from her cage and walked slowly toward the bed. The child showed no fear when Alys sat cross-legged on the end of the mattress facing her.
“Hi, I’m Alys. What’s your name?” Crouched in Alys’s lap to examine the competition, even Purple momentarily behaved.
The child didn’t speak but reached out a tentative hand to the kitten. Purple sniffed and butted his head against small fingers.
“Her name is Lucia.” Elliot scanned Mame’s note. “We’re supposed to deliver her to a reservation in New Mexico.”
Purple fled from Alys’s lap, stalked regally past Lucia, and settled on a pillow to lick her healing paw. Lucia’s head swiveled to watch. Still, she said nothing.
Remaining on the bed’s edge facing the child, Alys took the note Elliot handed her and read Mame’s erratic handwriting.
I need the two of you to trust me on this, Mame wrote. Lucia has just lost her parents. Her grandmother has no transportation. She is waiting for her in New Mexico. I am fine but I can’t be in two places at once. Lucia’s aunt is in trouble and needs my help. I know both of you know what it’s like to lose parents. Take her to her family, please.
At the bottom of the note she included directions to the reservation.
“I don’t like this,” Alys murmured, handing the note over her shoulder to Elliot.
He stood so close, she could lean back and rest her head against his torso if she wanted. She very much wanted, but she resisted. Elliot was more a temptation than chocolate chip cookies and black-bottom pie all rolled into one. Against her better judgment, she wanted to share her thoughts with him, wanted to lean on him for comfort and support, wanted to go to bed with him, even when she knew she shouldn’t.
It looked like the question of bed had been answered. Privacy was now a thing of the past. She admired the hot pink camera Lucia held out to her.
“This is erratic, even for Mame,” Elliot said worriedly, placing his hands on her shoulders and massaging as naturally as if he did this every day.
It felt so good, Alys refrained from reminding him that she wasn’t his to toy with. She checked the camera, but couldn’t decide if the film had been used up. She aimed the lens at Lucia and snapped. The flash worked. “I wish she’d call. There aren’t any messages on your cell phone, are there?” That was a stupid thing to say, and Alys cursed herself for it immediately. Reminding him of duty always distracted him from pleasure.
Elliot stopped his marvelous massage to check the phone. “No, nothing.”
Watching the silent child attempting to attract Purple’s attention, Alys thought about it, then shook her head. “I prefer to believe Mame knows what she’s doing. She doesn’t always go about like normal people, but she’s far from senile. I think she’s just rescuing another orphan.” The how and why were valid questions Alys couldn’t answer. She simply knew Mame’s heart and trusted it.
Elliot whistled softly and stuck Mame’s note in his pocket. “I think there are better authorities to do that than us.”
“There were probably proper authorities when your parents died, too, but Mame didn’t bother with them, did she? She took you right home, gave you a bed, and let the authorities deal with themselves.”
“Yeah, no matter what happened, we always came first,” Elliot admitted, shoving his hands into his pockets as if to keep them from straying. “I didn’t know it at the time, but the court tried to say a single woman of limited means was an unsuitable guardian for three young boys. Even though my father left us the house and life insurance, his practice closed after his death, and Mame lost her job there. I don’t know what she did, but to this day there are still a few members of the judicial system who steer warily around her.”
“Then we have to trust her now,” Alys said firmly. A woman who could hold off the judicial establishment to protect her nephews was a woman to be admired, not argued with.
The small child attempting to attract the kitten’s attention melted Alys’s heart into a puddle. How dreadful it must be to lose parents so young and be thrust into a world of strangers. She should be eternally grateful her parents had lived long enough to see her grown and out in the world on her own. No more self pity for her.
She wanted to hold this poor little girl, promise her everything would be all right, and make it happen—dangerous to think like that. She could never be a mother if she wasn’t prepared for attachments.
“Albuquerque can’t be more than three or four hours from here, can it?” she asked, deliberately breaking her concentrat
ion on Lucian and standing up to examine—what? Anything. She just couldn’t watch the child anymore.
She’d been an only child. When she married Fred, she’d dreamed of a houseful of laughing, loving children. That dream had died with Fred.
“I don’t think trying to find a house on the reservation in the dark is a wise idea,” Elliot decided. “It would be midnight. And I haven’t fed you.”
“I wonder if Lucia has eaten? What do kids this age eat?” Fretting, Alys searched the desk for a room-service menu. “Hamburger?”
“You can’t feed a kid on a diet of red meat.” He swiped the menu from her hand.
The familiar argument reassured her. Elliot would know what foods were best for children. She didn’t want to be the one relied on anymore.
“Where do you think Mame is hiding?” she whispered, using the excuse of preventing Lucia from hearing to linger close to Elliot.
“Wherever it is, when I find her, I’ll wring her neck.” Absently, he ran his fingers through her hair while glancing up from the menu to watch Lucia and the kitten check each other out.
“At least we know she’s all right.” She was becoming as uneasy as Elliot about the state of Mame’s health. They’d been on the road for three days, and even these short hops could be exhausting.
Refusing to pick up Elliot’s negative vibrations, Alys escaped his tempting presence and sat down on the bed again. Lucia shyly looked at her as Alys opened the backpack to check its contents.
“How old are you?” Alys asked in some hope of encouraging the child to speak.
Lucia held up five fingers, then ducked her head down to examine the book Alys handed to her.
“Five! You’re a big girl. Do you like that book?”
Lucia nodded emphatically.
Well, the child could hear just fine, at least. “Do you know your grandmama’s name?” Alys wondered how many kids could say their grandmother’s name, but she didn’t know how else to find out more.
Lucia sent her a heartbroken look, pulled the edge of the bedcover from the pillow, and rolled up in it. Only her head emerged, and she was looking at the kitten, not Alys. Purple seemed to understand that Lucia needed her and curled in a ball close by.
“Maybe we should call the police.” Rubbing his ribs, Elliot frowned and looked uncertain.
“Maybe Mame will come back and explain everything.” Alys knew that was overly optimistic, even for her, but she didn’t want to turn the child over to the police. Lucia could be lost in the system and never seen again. And her grandmother was waiting for her on the reservation.
Trying not to worry about the child hiding in the bedcovers, she remembered Elliot had eaten the last of his Tums, and grabbed at the excuse to escape. “I saw a Wal-Mart up the road. I’ll stretch the kinks out and walk over there while we’re waiting for room service. Wal-Mart should have children’s books. And she’ll need a toothbrush. While I’m at it, I can ask the pharmacist if he has any recommendations for your heartburn. Will you be all right here with her?”
“I’m a doctor,” he said with a tone of resignation. “I know the remedies for heartburn. I don’t need anything, thank you.”
“Physician heal thyself. Maybe they have some sulphuricum. Bet you haven’t tried natural remedies.” Picking up her purse, Alys remembered Lucia’s toy camera and grabbed it, too. “I’ll get her some film.”
He didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t object at being left with a child and a kitten, so Alys all but ran out of the room. She didn’t know what Mame was trying to prove, but she wasn’t going to prove it by her. She wanted her freedom, and she wouldn’t be tricked into falling for biological clocks and sad dark eyes and playful kittens.
Or by a sexy man who had the idiotic notion he could take care of himself and everyone around him.
She’d set out on this journey to learn who she was and what she wanted. That was hard to do when sheltered by Elliot and worrying about Purple and Lucia. She needed to experience life face-on, on her own.
Determined to enjoy this moment of independence, she looked around with fascination. Following Route 66 had taken them down byways the interstates would never touch, but this particular stretch of the old road was right next to the interstate. Apparently a favorite for truck drivers, there were truck stops on either side, and the parking lot between the hotel and its restaurant was large enough for the big rigs. There were semis all around her.
Even though the hotel was on the new interstate and surrounded by fast-food joints, this was Texas. She’d never seen trucks wearing longhorns, or tumbleweed rolling down city streets. Using Lucia’s camera, she snapped a picture of the weirdly colorful motel, the tumbleweed, and the bright yellow restaurant, then started down the highway.
The street was jammed with rush-hour traffic, so she was glad Wal-Mart was within walking distance. It would take her longer to drive than to walk. She took a picture of some evil-looking men at the gas station who reminded her of pictures of Pancho Villa. They needed to wear serapes instead of ribbed undershirts and gold necklaces. She thought maybe the beautiful woman on the corner was Native American, so she snapped her picture, too. Having lived in rural Missouri all her life, she’d not had the opportunity to meet many people of other cultures. It might be interesting to live here. What occupation could keep her here?
She wished she could build a career on taking pictures, but she didn’t know how any of those she’d taken turned out. Elliot had said he could show her the pictures from his digital camera on his laptop. She would have to remember to remind him.
He would tell her photography was another hobby and that she couldn’t make a career of it. He was probably right.
Sighing in exasperation that she couldn’t keep her thoughts away from Elliot long enough to figure out her path in life, she walked into the air-conditioned cold of the superstore. Shopping might straighten out her brain.
She located some adorable picture books in both Spanish and English, a child’s toothbrush, and a pretty bow for Lucia’s hair. Deciding to find out more about Lucia’s camera, she asked the man behind the film desk what kind of film it took. He told her he could have the current roll developed by morning, so she bought a new roll and left the old one. Maybe something on the film could tell them more about the silent little girl.
She had a long discussion about heartburn with the pharmacist before deciding on a packet of antacids. Maybe room service had delivered their supper by now. If she dallied long enough, Elliot could feed Lucia. He was the food expert. She didn’t want to get involved.
An ambulance screamed somewhere down the street as she stepped outside, and she flinched until she realized it was in the opposite direction of the hotel. She knew the hard way that caring for people meant worrying about fires and ambulances.
She didn’t have the strength in her to do that again. She’d bravely told Elliot that people die, but that didn’t mean she could tolerate losing someone she loved any more than he could.
So she wouldn’t think about it. She wanted to enjoy the world without ever worrying again.
Passing by the truck stop, she noticed several of the drivers standing by their trucks, staring at her. Driving must be a lonely profession. She didn’t think she wanted to learn trucking, even if it meant she could travel. Smiling, she waved at the men, then aiming the hot pink camera down the street, she started snapping more pictures. She’d give Lucia a record of her journey.
Chapter Fifteen
“Jell-O tastes good, but green beans will make your eyes prettier.”
Mame had told his brothers that vegetables would make them stronger and put hair on their chests, but Elliot didn’t think that trick would work so well with a little girl. Lucia seemed to be studying the matter while she picked at her plate.
He’d pulled the hotel’s small table over to the bed so she could reach her food, but her chin barely extended above it. She eyed him skeptically, picked up a bean, and pushed it into her mouth.
; The door opened and Alys blew in. The sound of sirens racing by caused Lucia to glance up in alarm. Staying on a major highway had its drawbacks. Alys hastily slammed the door.
Elliot couldn’t tear his gaze away from her. She was so slight she ought to blow away in a good wind, but she’d broken a board with her bare hand and rode a huge horse down a difficult trail without faltering. And he’d spent a night in her bed. She wasn’t frail.
She had curves in all the right places, but it was her expressive face he watched now. He’d seen her smile of pleasure when she entered. She’d been bouncing and happy—her natural state, he suspected. But as soon as she’d walked inside, a light inside her had turned off, and he didn’t know what had flipped the switch. Or who. She set her package down on the dresser and checked her flyaway hair in the mirror.
One thing Alys did not do was primp. She was avoiding him. Or Lucia.
She hurt his heart in ways no physical pain could. He wanted her to look at him with the joy he’d seen in her eyes last night. He needed her laughter and teasing to lift him from the rut he’d dug for himself.
He needed her to teach him how to enjoy life, but he couldn’t ruin her life in the process.
“What did you find?” he asked, helping Lucia spoon up Jell-O.
“Books. No herbal remedies, just antacids. I used Lucia’s camera to take some pictures and left her film there. We need to pick up her photos before we leave. Maybe they can tell us something about her.”
He could hear the avoidance in her voice. She was distancing herself already.
He thought she’d been ready to share his bed again when they’d arrived at the hotel. The only thing that had changed was the presence of the dark-eyed child.
Elliot studied Lucia. She was sturdy and wholesome, not in danger of departing the world soon. Her silence was heartbreaking but not a reason to deny her existence.
So maybe it was children in general Alys ran from. She didn’t have any. Couldn’t? That would be a tragedy for someone so specifically designed to bring joy and love into lives.
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