California Girl

by Rice, Patricia

  “Not if last night was any indication.” Elliot took his foot off the gas to fall farther behind, then cursed again.

  “We don’t know that it was truckers last night,” she argued. Glancing over her shoulder, she knew her argument was wasted. A third semi had come up behind, boxing them in.

  Her thoughts jumped to the memory of the photo of the back end of a semi in Lucia’s camera. How many children took pictures of trucks?

  Highway signs indicating the next exit rose into view. The semi on their left began easing over as if they didn’t exist, forcing Elliot toward the shoulder. The semi in front moved up to block them from escaping down the ramp.

  Rain slammed the windshield, fogging the interior with the moisture from the leaking window. The truck tires threw up rivers, almost blinding them.

  “All right, I can do this.” Whistling a tune that suspiciously sounded like “Whistle While You Work,” Elliot hit the brake, swerved Beulah to the side of the road, and began backing down the shoulder.

  Even at forty miles an hour, a semi couldn’t stop and reverse that quickly. The remaining two trucks roared past and up the exit ramp. The lines of traffic behind them flew past, rocking the Caddy in their wind.

  Amazed, shaken, Alys merely stared at Elliot as if the top of his head had just blown off. Still whistling, checking the rearview mirror, he found an opening in the traffic and pulled out.

  “How far is the next exit?” he asked, easing into the passing lane and flying past the exit the trucks had taken.

  “Maybe thirty miles. There’s a rest stop.” She needed a rest stop. If she hadn’t wet her pants by now, she would by then. She checked the entrance ramp and watched a purple semi idling there. Could he see them in the rain?

  “Good.” Dodging in front of a cattle truck so he couldn’t be seen, Elliot abruptly steered off the interstate on the left in a patently illegal maneuver. He held tight to the steering wheel as he drove Beulah over the rough divider between the parallel east and west lanes. Halting, he waited for an opening on the other side, and slipped into eastbound traffic, still whistling.

  Alys had closed her eyes somewhere along the way. When no crash resulted, she peeked between her lashes. Not even a police car roared out of the rain to arrest them for the U-turn.

  “Next time, I’m driving,” she muttered.

  Elliot laughed. Laughed! She wanted to smack him with something, but she was shaking too hard.

  “If the semis were waiting for us, they’ll have a long wait, especially if they decide to continue west looking for us.” Adjusting his seat, he flipped on the radio and found a country station. “You want to see Santa Fe, we’ll see Santa Fe.”

  Alys checked on Lucia. Apparently oblivious to the drama playing around her, she’d fallen asleep holding her doll, with Purple on her lap.

  “It’s Lucia, isn’t it?”

  “If so, for once, Mame knew what she was doing,” Elliot admitted. “If someone is after her, I can handle it better than Mame.”

  “I think you lived with Mame too long.” Surely he wasn’t enjoying this?

  Elliot chuckled. “It does give one a warped perspective. I’ll trust Mame over dangerous truckers who force innocent people off the road. So we’ll go to Albuquerque the long way around. Maybe rogue truckers only patrol the interstate.”

  Leaning her head back against the seat, Alys tried to believe that all was well. Except now she knew she was riding with a lunatic—a gorgeous, sexy, dangerous lunatic. Elliot seemed to be thriving on adventure, while she just wanted to survive.

  No, she wanted to live. She’d been just surviving for far too long. And living is what Elliot was doing right now. She’d have to study the holes in her theory some other time. First, she had to make her heart start beating again.

  “The first lighting at the Balloon Fiesta is Friday night. That’s tomorrow, right? I’m losing track.” She breathed deeply, saw no purple cabs, and decided to admire Elliot’s profile instead of the scenery. He seemed serene. He wasn’t even reaching for the Tums.

  “Sounds good to me. I assume that means you and Mame intended to stay in Santa Fe tonight and check in at your Albuquerque hotel on Friday in time to get to the balloon park. So chances are Mame is sightseeing in Santa Fe as we speak,” Elliot replied with confidence.

  “Exactly.” The way he said it returned the world to normal. Finally relaxing, Alys studied the words pouring from the radio so she could sing along the next time she heard the song. She could still find some way of traveling to Los Angeles later. Right now, she was heading for the historic town of Santa Fe with a gorgeous man at her side.

  They took the exit at Tucumcari and traveled a nearly empty state road toward the mountains without a semi in sight, but the rain turned to sharp pellets of ice by the time they’d passed Conchas State Park.

  “This is New Mexico,” Alys declared in astonishment, staring out the windshield at the desert landscape. “Why is it snowing? I was thinking heat and cactus.”

  They’d just passed a cluster of trailers and houses near the park, but beyond that sign of civilization, they seemed to be the only people out here. Only one or two cars passed going the other way—perhaps for good reason.

  “The elevation has been climbing since we crossed the border. We’re headed into the mountains.” Elliot focused on a road nearly obscured by the sudden blustery weather. He would prefer offering Alys a snowball fight to driving through this if the stuff accumulated, but he was too busy cursing himself for not driving straight back to Amarillo and turning Lucia into the police. “Maybe we ought to turn back and see if the park is open.”

  “It’s not that bad yet.” She checked over her shoulder but Lucia was playing quietly. “Let’s see if it won’t let up. It’s only October. It will probably melt right off in a little while.”

  He was listening to a woman who had never left the state of Missouri, who probably thought this was an adventure. Maybe he ought to have his head examined instead of his heart.

  But if they turned back, they could meet head-on any trucker who might have turned back in search of them. The road was too lonely for that scenario. He preferred hoping for the best and staying the course.

  Alys unfolded the map to check their location after passing a road sign. “We’re not even halfway to Las Vegas.”

  Elliot hoped that was in New Mexico. Although, if they were headed for Nevada, the back end of Beulah wouldn’t be sliding on icy patches. “What could we have done yesterday to tick off semi drivers?” he asked, still struggling with the mystery of the trucks.

  She shrugged. “The only truck drivers I remember from yesterday were at the hotel and truck stop, but they weren’t doing anything interesting.”

  “Maybe it was just coincidence. Maybe some drunks saw you walking by yourself and thought you were alone last night, and that’s why they broke in.”

  “Right, and there’s no connection to purple semis?”

  “Exactly.” He liked that theory. Unfortunately, it didn’t make much sense.

  Of course, if the world made sense, he shouldn’t be alive and feeling healthier than he had in a long time. They must have pumped him full of drugs.

  “I saw you kick one of the jerks,” he said, figuring to add a positive note. “He’ll be fortunate to father children. You didn’t learn that in karate.”

  She clasped her hands in her lap—not a positive sign, he was learning.

  “I’ve spent the last year taking classes. Self-defense was one of them. You were doing pretty well on your own, but I was afraid there might be more of them outside.” She glanced sideways at him through the shield of her hair. “I never took you for a brawler.”

  He couldn’t read her tone. Had he frightened her? He’d come close to frightening himself, but just thinking of those thugs harming her or Lucia raised his hackles all over again. “In pursuit of moderate exercise, I’ve tried wrestling and boxing. It’s been a while.”

  “How are you feeling?”r />
  This time, he heard the nervousness behind her words. “I promise not to lie to you, all right? I feel fine—angry, confused, and hungry, at the moment, but otherwise fine. Maybe last night was just some minor malfunction from a blood pressure spike.”

  That was hogwash, but she seemed to accept it. Elliot was glad she hadn’t studied heart medicine along with everything else she’d taken this last year. He had no explanation of why he’d survived last night. He just knew that since he had, he wanted to celebrate whatever might be left of his life.

  Mame was over sixty, so it followed that if he could avoid homicidal truckers, he might live that long. He still had time for a life. He just didn’t think Alys would want to be the one to share it—rightfully so.

  “Santa Fe is a fun place to visit. Maybe we should stay there for the night, wait for the weather to clear.” He’d spent his entire life running against time. This morning he’d vowed to slow down and enjoy what he’d been given while he could. Why not start now?

  Alys unclasped her hands, reaching out as if to catch snowflakes through the windows. Light played off the silver beads dancing from her bracelets, and he relaxed. He’d done the right thing by suggesting Santa Fe. She was unfurling again, radiating sunshine, coloring his dull gray world.

  “I’ve never seen mountains,” she replied in a voice filled with wonder. “Mame and I were planning on spending several days up here after the fiesta, with maybe a side trip to Taos. I’d love to stay for the night.” She threw him an apprehensive gaze. “If you’re feeling well. If you think whoever is waiting for Lucia won’t mind. If you think Mame is all right.”

  Mame. He had to let go of his need to take charge of the world around him if he wanted to enjoy each minute as it happened. Alys had been right all along. Mame was an adult capable of making her own decisions. She had the right to choose her own life. As he did.

  Elliot took a quick look at Alys again, at the silky short hair brushing her cheekbone, and the way her upturned nose and small chin gave her an elfin appearance. He didn’t have the right to ruin her life. If she had been a more sophisticated woman, one who didn’t form attachments simply because they enjoyed each other’s company, he might not be so apprehensive. But she was and he was, so he’d better take this cautiously.

  “Mame is in sunny Albuquerque, riding balloons,” he concluded. “If she needed Lucia immediately, she shouldn’t have left her with us. Or maybe like you said, she’s in Santa Fe exploring.”

  “But I thought . . . a hospital?” Wide clear eyes watched him.

  “I’m sure Santa Fe has one if we need it. One more night won’t hurt, and this weather isn’t fit for driving. How far until Las Vegas? Can we stop for lunch?”

  She eagerly started flipping through guide books. “It should be only about forty-five miles away. They have a bunch of hotels, so there are bound to be places to eat. We booked the El Rey Inn for this evening in Santa Fe. It’s supposed to be left over from the thirties. We may have missed Mame for lunch, though. She would have driven down to Santa Rosa. She said she danced in a club down there.”

  “Mame? Danced?” Lord, she kept spinning his head around.

  “Didn’t you know?” Alys glanced at him in surprise. “Mame traveled for a year as a professional dancer—you know, the sixties go-go kind of stuff in clubs? They’re scattered all along Route 66. I think that’s how she made her way back to Springfield after her husband shipped out to Vietnam.”

  Astounded, he didn’t know what to say. The aunt he knew had always been a bit of a loose cannon, but she’d never swerved in her dedication to him and his brothers. He’d never seen her drink alcohol or smoke a cigarette, never heard her curse. “A go-go dancer?”

  She laughed, and Elliot could swear the sun peered out from behind the heavy clouds for just a moment to see who had made the joyful noise.

  “What’s the matter, Elliot? Doesn’t the world conform to your specifications?” She sat forward to watch the dancing sparkles from the blackened sky. “There’s so much out there to be admired; why put a limit on your expectations?”

  The car fishtailed on a curve, and Elliot slowed down to concentrate on the road. He scanned the highway ahead. The sides of the pavement were disappearing in the blowing snow. He down shifted and slowed some more. Beulah had a huge engine and could take these hills without a hitch. He just didn’t trust the visibility or the ice.

  The snow fell harder, hitting in hard pellets, blending the air and sky in a blanket of gray. No headlights broke the dangerous curves ahead. The Caddy’s lights created triangles of yellow broken only by the falling snow.

  They hit a bump, the car fishtailed again, and the small back tire ran off the road. With a curse, Elliot held the wheel steady, downshifting and slowing without braking.

  “I don’t know if we’ll make it forty-five miles,” he murmured as he regained control of the car. He slowed to a crawl. “We may need to return to the interstate.”

  Even though he tried to speak calmly, Lucia climbed over the seat and settled into Alys’s lap. Alys worked the seat belt around her rather than sending her to the back. Only Purple made a sound. He was meowing kitty curses and cowering on the floorboards. Elliot couldn’t see him in the mirror.

  “I can call the road department and check on road conditions ahead.”

  Elliot could see Alys’s hand tremble as she reached for the cell phone he kept on the console. He wanted to halt the car and haul her into his arms, but this wasn’t the time or place.

  “There’s no reception,” she murmured, returning the phone to its case.

  They couldn’t say anything more in front of Lucia. The child had settled in Alys’s lap and now stared out the front window intently.

  “We need to get rid of this car.” He was thinking aloud, cursing the road, the car, and the truck who had sent them off their safe route. “We’re a bright pink moving target if we turn back to the highway.”

  “Beulah is Mame’s baby,” she protested.

  “And we don’t have another vehicle,” he agreed. “Maybe we’ve lost them.”

  “Or they’re behind us, figuring we’ll have to stop in Las Vegas in this weather.”

  Elliot could hear the businesswoman she must have been behind her curt words. He wanted the dreamy, laughing gamine back, but for right now, he’d accept her shrewd depiction of the situation.

  “Check the map. Where else can we go? I don’t want to travel much farther north in this weather.”

  She scanned the map and shook her head. “If you don’t want to go north, all we can do is drive to Las Vegas or back to I-40.”

  They needed to eat, fill up the car, and buy a tire. This was the most bizarre experience of his life, but adrenaline had roused primitive instincts that demanded he protect Alys and Lucia, at whatever cost.

  No amount of logic could convince him to leave them with the police and go after Mame. Of course, logic had gone out the window the moment Alys had walked into his life.

  Another fifteen minutes of crawling down the road, and Lucia made a demanding noise, tugged on her seat belt, and leaned forward, pointing at something on the side of the road. He scanned the horizon for whatever was bothering the child.

  “Slow down, Elliot.” Alys tilted her head, trying to read the sign ahead.

  “Looks like a gate.” Whatever had been painted on the ranch sign dangling from the metal post over the driveway had worn away. The countryside sprawled out around them in undulating hills and scrub disguised by cloud and snowfall. Another half hour, and they could be in town—if they didn’t slide off a mountain.

  Lucia bounced up and down and pointed eagerly, looking hopefully from him to Alys and back at the gate.

  “Do you know this place?” Alys asked the child.

  Lucia nodded and pointed again.

  Elliot carefully downshifted and braked in front of the turnoff. If a dirt road lay beneath the layer of icy snow, he couldn’t see it. Judging by the absence of scrub along
the hill just past the posts, it was possible pickups used it, but it didn’t look any safer than the dilemma awaiting them ahead. “I’m thinking being stranded in the middle of a cow pasture in a snowstorm is not a wise idea.”

  “There’s a mailbox.” Alys pointed out a tilted post with a rusted box hanging on by one nail. “Lucia lived in Amarillo and she’s going to Albuquerque. Chances are good she has relatives in between. This may even be a reservation for all we know.”

  Lucia nodded eagerly. “Bisabuelo.”

  Alys caught Elliot’s gaze. Lucia had spoken.

  “Remember that in Spanish?” she murmured.

  “Abuelo is grandfather. Great-grandfather?” Against his better judgment, Elliot gave in to the will of the two women in his care, even if one was a half-pint who’d spoken only one word. He knew this wasn’t the reservation where they were supposed to take the child, but it was better than nothing. He hoped.

  The weather was bad. They had mysterious thugs trying to drive them off the road. And they were driving a target the color of Pepto-Bismol. Driving into a cow pasture couldn’t be much worse.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Alys leaned forward to scan the horizon as Beulah lurched down the ruts of the dirt road. She prayed they were still on the right track. She doubted if the road would be easy to see in good weather. How did people live without grass or neatly fenced fields or some attempt to mark the boundaries of civilization? “I see smoke.”

  “With our luck, it’s a volcano. Or Old Faithful.” White-knuckled, Elliot gripped the steering wheel tighter, easing the old car over ruts and rocks disguised by blowing ice and snow and sand.

  “I don’t think we’re that far off the route.” She tried to keep amusement in her voice, but it was difficult. She’d persuaded him to this insane side trip because a five-year-old thought she knew where they were. What were the chances?

  But Lucia had actually spoken. She didn’t want to terrify her into silence again. Sometimes, miracles happened. Positive energy, Alys. Maybe they could find out what this was all about.