by Sheryl Lynn
William tugged the bill of his baseball cap—a gesture Megan noticed both of them made when they were agitated. She also caught the glare of pure rebelliousness the boy slid her way. He promised trouble; her headache worsened.
They drove Tristan’s rental car. Megan had a bright moment of amusement when William had to fold his big body and long legs into the minuscule back seat of the Grand Am. Served the turkey right. She settled comfortably in the bucket seat, stretching out her legs, and directed Tristan toward Eleven Mile.
It was an easy drive up Highway 24, but the Grand Am’s air conditioner didn’t work very well, so they rolled down the windows. William perked up when they passed Florrisant and he noticed the signs pointing to the fossil beds. Megan told him about the volcano that thirty-six million years ago had buried a primeval redwood forest. One of the fossils made evident by erosion was of a tree believed by scientists to be the largest sequoia that ever existed—more than two hundred and fifty feet tall. She asked if he wanted to stop and hunt fossils. Adolescent coolness clouded his expression.
His loss, Megan thought.
William sneered at Lake George, as Megan had predicted he would. The town and lake were pretty, but small. Once they rolled out of the forest and onto the vast high-country plain, he stopped sneering. The reservoir wasn’t huge, but it was large enough for boating and fishing. Mountains far in the distance gleamed pearly under coats of snow.
Megan guided Tristan to a roadside ranger station at the park entrance. It wasn’t manned, so she filled out a visitor permit pass and slid three dollar bills into the envelope before dropping the envelope in the box. She gave Tristan the pass to post in the car window.
“Looks like cow country,” William said.
Megan jerked a thumb out her window. “That’s all national forest, but over to the west there are a lot of ranches.”
“What kind of fish are in there?”
“Trout, mostly. Browns and rainbows. But a lot of people catch kokanee and pike, too. I don’t know why they bother with pike. I think it tastes like cod liver oil. Yuck.”
“What’s kokanee?” William leaned between the bucket seats.
“Salmon, but not very big. I think the biggest ones run about four pounds. You can ask my father. He fishes up here all the time.”
“It’s like a moonscape,” Tristan said. The blacktop road ran straight along the north edge of the reservoir and the surrounding land was flat, rocky and covered with low-growing vegetation.
They reached the turnoff for the road that swung back along the southern edge of the reservoir. Erosion had given the gravel road a washboard texture. Dust blew along with the hot wind through the windows.
“Dad!” William squirmed in the back seat. “You’re hitting all the holes! You drive like an old lady.”
“Hush, son.” He drove with both hands on the wheel, his expression tense. The terrain was hilly on this side of the reservoir, and the road swooped and curved.
Megan tried to tune out the boy’s increasingly loud griping, but his whining grated across her ears. Finally she could stand no more. She twisted on the seat. “Do you want to sit up here? A few bumps won’t bother me.”
His eyes lit with dangerous fire. “You saying I’m a sissy, city girl?” He actually grinned at her, his head ducked so his father couldn’t see the challenge in the rearview mirror.
She’d been more than patient with him. His ungraciousness brought her temper to a boil. “I’m saying you’re a big baby who doesn’t have enough manners to let your father enjoy himself.”
“You ain’t my mama. You can’t talk to me like that!”
“Somebody ought to. Spoiled brat.”
“Megan!”
“I’m sorry, Tristan.” She struggled to keep from yelling. “He’s been picking a fight ever since we left Elk River. I’m sick of him growling at me.”
William leaned between the seats, trying to shove his face against hers. “I’m sick of you! Fancy-pants priss leading my daddy around by the nose!” His voice cracked and quavered, but his eyes blazed. “He ain’t never marrying you! You’re skinny and ugly!”
“Megan!”
“He started it!” she yelled back. Her head felt ready to explode, and her mouth tasted like road dust. “He is a spoiled brat, and if I was his mother, he’d be walking right now.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, you ain’t never gonna be my mother!”
“Megan!” Tristan’s voice boomed like thunder in the small car.
Megan and William both flopped onto their prospective seats. Megan clamped her arms over her chest, angry with William and furious with herself. She noticed the scenery whipping past. On a long downhill slope Tristan gained speed, and the car rattled like a tin can full of rocks, bumping and bouncing over ruts and potholes. The speedometer showed fifty miles per hour and gaining. “What are you doing? Slow down!”
“I can’t!” His boot heel thumped against the floorboard as he pumped the brake pedal.
“Dad?” Wide-eyed, William stuck his head between the seats. “They’re antilock brakes, Dad, quit pumping them.”
“What’s wrong with the car?” Megan braced her hands against the dashboard.
But she knew. Tristan pressed the brake pedal all the way to the floor, but still the car gained speed. They had no brakes.
Chapter Eleven
The Grand Am reached sixty miles an hour at the bottom of the hill. The road curved up the next hill, and Tristan turned the wheel hard, overcompensating. The rear end slipped, enveloping the car in a huge cloud of dust. Coughing, Megan met William’s astonished gaze. Gripping the dashboard with one hand, she stared in horror at the massive boulder formations lining the road.
“Shut off the car, Tristan.”
“No!” William grabbed his father’s shoulder. “You’ll lose your steering. Get away from the ditch, Dad. We’re coming to another uphill. That’ll slow us.”
Megan sat high on the seat, anxiously searching the road ahead for approaching vehicles.
The car speeded down the hill, reaching nearly fifty miles per hour, but the next hill was higher and steeper and the car slowed, fifty, forty, thirty—
“Drop it into first gear, Dad. On the transmission.”
Tristan pulled the gearshift and the engine groaned, but the car slowed even more. They were doing barely twenty miles per hour when they reached the top of the hill. The road ahead curved gently to the right on a slight incline.
“You’re doing good, Dad,” William said, his voice as calm and assured as that of an airline pilot. “When you get down to five miles an hour, use the parking brake. It should stop us.”
They slowed to five miles per hour about halfway up the hill. Tristan fumbled around with the parking brake. A red brake-on light flared on the dummy panel and the car shuddered to a stop.
“Put it in park, Dad.”
Tristan shoved the stick. The car remained still, idling roughly. Pale-faced, his hands white-knuckled, Tristan appeared frozen. A pearl of sweat trickled down his cheek.
William reached through the seats and turned the key in the ignition.
Slowly, Megan turned her head to look at the road behind them. From this point of view the road looked nearly flat, the hills long and gentle. Brakes or no brakes, they’d never been in terrible danger. The worst that could have happened would have been crashing into a shallow ditch—unlike the trouble they’d have been in if they’d lost the brakes on the highway to Cripple Creek. In her mind’s eye, she pictured Four Mile Road, winding around the mountains like a snake, including one wicked switchback, with sheer drop-offs hundreds of feet high. On a beautiful day like this traffic would have been heavy. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribs.
William shoved lightly against her seat. “Let me out.”
She fumbled with the seat belt, unfastened it and shakily exited the car. Tristan left the car, too. He squinted into the distance.
“Road looked a lot worse going along it. Guess it wasn�
��t so bad.” He pulled off his hat and swiped his wrist against his forehead. “That got the old ticker pumping. I never lost brakes before.”
“Pop the hood, Dad,” William said.
Tristan and Megan exchanged a puzzled glance.
“Can you fix the brakes—”
“Dad.” The teenager rolled his eyes. “That’s so folks know we’re in trouble.” He looked right, left, up and down. From this position, the reservoir was hidden by hills. Except for a prairie falcon soaring high overhead, they appeared to be alone in a vast wilderness. “That little town we passed is a long way away. Ms. Megan, you got a phone in that purse of yours?”
Megan wished she did. She gazed mournfully at her sandals. If they had to hike out of here, her feet were going to turn into a mass of blisters. “Somebody will be along soon. There are of lot of people on the lake.” She heaved a breath. “How’d you learn so much about cars, William? I’d have done something stupid like turn off the engine.”
“Boy’s a genius,” Tristan said, and William grinned, ducking his head. “Boy’s a hothead, too.”
Knowing the rebuke was meant for her as well as for William, Megan blushed. They’d been fighting in the car like a pair of children. Megan’s behavior was unpardonable.
She envisioned herself on Tristan’s ranch, squabbling and bickering with William, making Tristan’s life miserable. She was old enough to be his wife, but much too young to be William’s mother.
Miserable with shame, she sidled around the car to Tristan’s side. The color had returned to his face, but the strained expression remained. “I’m sorry. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have snapped at him.”
“You didn’t start it.”
“I was there. I know what happened.” She crammed her hands in her shorts pockets and kicked at clods of dirt.
“It’s all right.” Tristan attempted to put his hand on her cheek, but she ducked and walked away.
“It isn’t all right.” Unable to meet his eyes, she added softly, “It never was to begin with.”
William crouched next to the Grand Am’s right front tire. The car rode too low for him to get under it, so he reached beneath the chassis. Scowling, heedless of the yellow-red road dust dirtying his clothing, he felt around under the car. He brought his hand out and showed Megan and Tristan his glistening fingers.
“What’s that?” Tristan asked.
“Brake fluid, I reckon.” He sniffed his fingers and shrugged before reaching back under the car and feeling around some more. “I think the cap is missing on the brake line.” He went around the car and repeated his blind exploration behind that tire.
“This one’s leaking, too.” He stood and wiped his greasy hands on his shirt. “Somebody opened the brake lines.”
“What does that mean?” Megan asked.
“These are power brakes with fluid lines running to them. Each line has a drain cap. A little nut for bleeding them and such. If you open them up, they don’t drain much unless you pump the brakes. Each time Dad used the brakes, more fluid squirted out until it was all gone. Once it’s gone, no brakes.”
He checked the rear tires, finding brake fluid leaking from those lines, too. “Yep, all four of them are open.”
“Could have shaken off by accident.”
William barked a humorless laugh. “Not a chance, Dad! Maybe one could have worked loose, but not all four of them.”
Fate, Megan thought with a sickening sensation deep in her belly. If William hadn’t been such a pain in the neck, they’d have driven directly to Cripple Creek and would have lost the brakes on the mountain road. Or they wouldn’t have gone anywhere, but when Tristan returned to Colorado Springs the brakes would have given out on Highway 24, which in some places was dangerously curvy and narrow, and heavily traveled. He and William would have been killed.
“Daniella,” she murmured.
Tristan gave her a sharp look. She didn’t care. Just because the cosmetics queen had unimpeachable proof Tristan wasn’t Bradley Carter didn’t mean the woman believed he wasn’t Nicky Alonza. Out of deference to Tristan’s concern for his son, she kept a lid on further comments.
“You two stay with the car,” Tristan said. “I’m going over the hill to the lake and see if I can find some help.”
“No!” Megan gazed nervously at the road they’d traveled. Daniella could have followed them from the resort, ready and willing to pick off Tristan if he survived the brake job. The vast emptiness of the landscape heightened her sense of vulnerability. “We have to stay together. There will be someone along here soon. Stay here.”
“Won’t take me but a minute. Son, stay here with Ms. Megan. Her shoes aren’t fit for hiking.” He took a step away from the car then paused, his glare under the hat brim taking in both of them. “That is, if I can trust you two not to kill each other.”
Stung anew, wishing she could curl up and disappear, Megan mumbled inanely about behaving herself.
She watched him walk away, his loose, long-legged stride filling her with yearning as painful as the knowledge that she’d ruined their grand romance. Tristan disappeared over a hill, along with her dreams of marriage and kids and having her own home and family. A tear leaked from her eye, and she angrily dashed it away.
“He’s really mad,” William said. “He gets quiet like that when he’s mad.” His young face had gone soft; he looked as miserable as she felt.
“I don’t blame him. We acted like jerks.” She dragged a hand across her sweaty brow. Gusts of wind formed tiny dust devils spiraling across the dirt road. “I should have brought something to drink. It’s hot.”
“You think that lady in purple wrecked the brakes?” He slanted a glower her way as if Daniella Falconetti were somehow Megan’s fault.
“No way,” she lied. “It must have been the rental car company. This has the makings of a good lawsuit. You—”
He barked a harsh laugh. “That’s stupid! Every time Dad used the brakes more fluid would squirt out. There’s not all that much in there to begin with. If this happened at the airport, we’d have lost the brakes before we got out of Colorado Springs.”
Lots of luck with Tristan calling it bad luck. If this wasn’t a murder attempt, she didn’t know what was.
William clamped his arms over his chest and looked down his nose at her. “Somebody at the resort did it.”
“Don’t look at me like it’s me.”
“He’s my father! I got a right to know what’s going on.”
“Then talk to your father.”
He hopped onto the hood of the car and the front end dipped under his weight. He stared glumly in the direction Tristan had gone.
Megan almost asked him why he hated her so much, but between her throbbing head and dark mood, she didn’t want to know.
TRISTAN SIPPED from the beer bottle. The cold bite of the yeasty brew soothed his parched throat. A heck of a day, he decided. Up at the reservoir he’d found a couple camped at the lake who were willing to give Tristan, William and Megan a ride to Eleven Mile village, and from there they’d arranged for a tow truck to take the Grand Am to Lake George. Megan had called her father, and he’d driven over to pick them up in a van.
A heck of a vacation. The tourist board ought to put a new line in their brochures: Come to Colorado, where your life ain’t worth two cents.
He swigged deeply from the beer bottle. Seated upon the front steps of the cabin, he stared at the play of light on the fountain between the four cabins of the Hideaway. The sun had dipped below the trees so shadow and golden rays slanted off the arcs of silver water.
An amazing thing had happened today. William and Megan fighting in the car should have angered him, and for a while he had been mad, but it had given him an insight, too.
William liked his life exactly as it stood, with him at the center of attention between his father and grandfather. Tristan supposed it only natural William rebelled against a change. Marrying, however, didn’t mean abusing the boy. It didn’t mean
William would be shunted off to the side or ignored or made to feel as if he didn’t belong. The boy was old enough and strong-willed enough to hold his own.
As Megan could hold her own. She wasn’t about to take any guff off an obstinate teenager with an attitude. Another weaker woman might bend over backward to accommodate the boy’s feelings. Megan Duke didn’t have a weak bone in her body.
A crunch of gravel caught his attention. He watched Megan walking toward him. Emotion welled, sticking in his throat.
“Hi, honey,” he said, and offered her a beer. “Have a cold one. Imagine you can use it.” He scooted over to make room for her on the step.
“Thanks.” She twisted off the cap, tipped the bottle to her lips and drank, the slender column of her throat working in fascinating display. She made a breathy “ah” sound and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I talked to Daniella. She denies everything.”
“What did you expect?” He leaned back on an elbow. “Besides, how would a lady like that know about brake lines? Can you see her ootched up under the car, getting those purple duds dirty?”
“It isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. I found out Daniella had another husband, a professional race car driver.” Megan played her fingers over the beer bottle as if seeking a vulnerable place to squeeze. “A person can pick up all kinds of information just by hanging around.”
“Was she part of the pit crew?”
“I doubt it. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know about brake lines. I’m sure her other husband talked about cars and had a lot of them around.”
Tristan chuckled. “Honey, I’ve been driving since I was fourteen, and I don’t know squat about cars. Far as I’m concerned, whatever happens underneath the hood is pure hocus-pocus magic. She could have been married to Mr. General Motors himself and still not know a thing about mechanics.”
“So this is just more bad luck to you?”
He swung his head vehemently. “Luck had nothing to do with it. Except like you said, us losing the brakes where we did instead of doing it in the mountains. That was good luck in my book.” He set down his beer bottle and curled his hand around her slender arm. She had the prettiest arms he’d ever seen on a female, slender and finely muscled, her skin as fine as polished cloth.
