"Go play on that turtle while I talk to the man, Edward. I won't be long."
His eyes silently pleaded with her not to leave him alone. She smiled and gestured toward the playground.
Other children might have thrown a temper tantrum when they realized they weren't going to get their way, but the normal feistiness of childhood had been leeched out of her son. He worried his bottom lip, ducked his head, and tore her insides into a million tiny pieces so that she couldn't let him go.
"Never mind. You can come with me and sit by the door."
His small fingers clutched hers as she drew him toward the concrete building. She could feel the dust invading her lungs. The sun pounded down on her head while the music wailed like a death scream.
She dropped Edward's hand at the door and leaned down so he could hear her over the poisonous guitars and feral drums. "Stay here, punkin."
He clutched at her skirt. With a smile of reassurance, she gently disentangled his fingers and stepped into the concrete building.
The snack bar's counter area and appliances were new, although the dirty concrete-block walls still held a decade-old assortment of ragged flyers and posters. A pair of mirrored sunglasses lay on one section of the new white countertop next to an unopened bag of potato chips, a sandwich wrapped in plastic, and a radio that blasted out its violent music like lethal gas being pumped into an execution chamber.
The drive-in's owner stood on a ladder mounting a fluorescent light fixture to the ceiling. He had his back to her, which gave her a moment to observe this latest mountain standing in the path of her survival.
She saw a pair of paint-splattered brown work boots and frayed jeans that revealed long, powerful legs. His hips were lean, and the muscles of his back bunched under his shirt as he braced the base of the light fixture with one hand and twisted a screwdriver with the other. The rolled cuffs of his shirt revealed deeply tanned forearms, strong wrists, and broad hands with surprisingly elegant fingers. His dark-brown hair, cut a bit unevenly, fell over his collar in the back. It was straight and showed a few threads of gray, although the man didn't seem much older than his early- to mid-thirties.
She walked to the radio and turned down the volume. Someone with less steady nerves might have been startled into dropping the screwdriver or making an exclamation of surprise, but this man did neither. He simply turned his head and stared at her.
She gazed into a pair of pale-silver eyes and wished he were still wearing his mirrored sunglasses. His eyes held no life. They were hard and dead. Even now, when she was most desperate, she didn't want to believe her eyes looked like that—so unfeeling, so empty of hope.
"What do you want?"
The sound of that flat, emotionless voice chilled her, but she forced her lips into a carefree smile. "Nice to meet you, too. I'm Rachel Stone. That five-year-old you terrorized is my son Edward, and the rabbit he carries around is named Horse. Don't ask."
If she'd hoped to draw a smile from him, she failed miserably. It was hard to imagine that mouth ever smiling. "I thought I told you to stay off my property."
Everything about him irritated her, a fact she did her best to conceal behind an innocent expression. "Did you? I guess I forgot."
"Look, lady—"
"Rachel. Or Ms. Stone, if you want to be formal. As it happens, this is your lucky day. Fortunately for you, I have a forgiving nature, and I'm prepared to overlook your giant case of male PMS. Where do I start?"
"What are you talking about?"
"That sign I saw on the marquee. I'm your help wanted. Personally, I think we should get that playground cleaned up right away. Do you know what kind of lawsuits you're setting yourself up for with all that broken-down equipment?"
"I'm not hiring you."
"Of course you are."
"Now why's that?" he asked with no particular interest.
"Because you're obviously an intelligent man, despite your surly manner, and anyone with intelligence can see that I'm a terrific worker."
"What I see is that I need a man."
She smiled sweetly. "Don't we all."
He wasn't amused, but neither did he seem annoyed by her flippancy. There was simply nothing there. "I'm only going to hire a man."
"I'll just pretend I didn't hear that, since sexual discrimination is illegal in this country."
"So sue me."
Another woman might have given up, but Rachel had less than ten dollars in her wallet, a hungry child, and a car that wouldn't run.
"You're making a big mistake. An opportunity like me doesn't come along every day."
"I don't know how to say it any plainer, lady. I'm not going to hire you." He set the screwdriver on the counter, then reached into his rear pocket and pulled out a wallet that had molded to the shape of his hip. "Here's twenty bucks. Take it and get out."
She needed the twenty dollars, but she needed a job more, and she shook her head. "Keep your charity, Mr. Rockefeller. I want steady work."
"Look for it someplace else. What I have is hard manual labor. The lot has to be cleared, the building needs paint, the roof repaired. It'll take a man to do that kind of work."
"I'm stronger than I look, and I'll work harder than any man you'll ever find. Besides, I can also provide psychiatric counseling for that troublesome personality disorder of yours."
The moment the words were out, she could have bitten her tongue because his expression seemed to grow even emptier.
His lips barely moved, and she thought of a flat-eyed gunslinger with a mile-deep grudge against life. "Anybody ever tell you that you've got a smart mouth?"
"It goes with my brain."
"Mommy?"
The drive-in's owner stiffened. She turned to see Edward standing in the doorway, Horse dangling from his hand and lines of worry etched in his face. He kept his eyes on the man while he spoke. "Mommy, I got to ask you something."
She moved to his side. "What's wrong?"
He lowered his voice into a child's whisper, which she knew the man could hear clearly. "Are you sure we're not gonna die?"
Her heart twisted "I'm sure."
The foolishness of coming here on this wild-goose chase once again hit her. How would she support them until she found what she was looking for? No one who knew who she was would give her a job, which meant her only chance lay in finding someone who'd moved here recently. That brought her full circle to the owner of the Pride of Carolina Drive-in.
He stalked to the old black wall phone. As she turned to see what he was going to do, she spotted a tattered purple flyer hanging nearby. Its curled edges didn't conceal the handsome face of G. Dwayne Snopes, the dead televangelist.
Join the Faithful at the Temple of Salvation
as We Broadcast God's Message to the World!
"Dealy, it's Gabe Bonner. A woman's car broke down out here, and she needs a tow."
Two things hit her at once—the fact that she didn't want a tow and the man's name. Gabriel Bonner. What was a member of Salvation's most prominent family doing running a drive-in?
As she remembered, there were three Bonner brothers, but only the youngest, the Reverend Ethan Bonner, had lived in Salvation when she'd been here. Cal, the oldest brother, had been a professional football player. Although she understood he'd visited frequently, she'd never met him, but she knew what he looked like from photographs. Their father, Dr. Jim Bonner, was the county's most respected physician, and their mother, Lynn, its social leader. Her fingers tightened on Edward's shoulders as she reminded herself that she had come to the land of her enemies.
"… then send the bill to me. And Dealy, take the woman and her son over to Ethan's. Tell him to find them a place to stay for the night."
After a few more terse words, he hung up and returned his attention to Rachel. "Wait by your car. Dealy'll send somebody out as soon as his truck gets back."
He walked over to stand by the door, one hand on the handle, his responsibility clearly discharged. She hated everything abo
ut him: his aloofness, his indifference, and she especially hated the strong male body that gave him a survival advantage she didn't possess. She hadn't asked for charity. All she wanted was a job. And his presumption in ordering her car towed threatened more than her transportation. The Impala was their home.
She snatched up the sandwich and bag of potato chips he'd left on the counter and grabbed Edward's hand. "Thanks for lunch, Bonner." She swept past him without giving him another glance.
Edward trotted at her side all the way down the rutted gravel lane. She held his hand crossing the highway. As they once again sat down under the buckeye tree, she fought against her despair. She wasn't going to give up yet.
They'd barely gotten settled before a dusty black pickup with Gabriel Bonner at the wheel shot out of the drive-in's entrance, turned onto the highway, and disappeared. She unwrapped the sandwich and investigated its contents for Edward: turkey breast, Swiss cheese, and mustard. He didn't like mustard, and she wiped off as much as she could before she handed it to him. He began to eat with only the slightest hesitation. He was too hungry to be fussy.
The tow truck arrived before he finished, and a short, stocky teenager got out. She left Edward under the tree and crossed the road to greet him with a cheery wave.
"As it turns out, I don't need a tow. Just give me a push, will you? Gabe wants me to put the car behind those trees over there."
She pointed to a grove not far from where Edward was sitting. The teenager was clearly dubious, but he also wasn't very bright, and it didn't take her long to convince him to help her. By the time he left, her Impala was hidden.
For now, it was the best she could do. They needed the Impala to sleep in, and they couldn't do that if it had been towed to a junkyard. The fact that the car couldn't be driven made it even more imperative that she convince Gabe Bonner to give her a job. But how? It occurred to her that someone so devoid of emotion might better be convinced with results.
She returned to Edward and pulled him to his feet. "Bring along that bag of chips, partner. We're going back to the drive-in. It's time for me to get to work."
"Did you get a job?"
"Let's just say I'm going to audition." She led him to the highway.
"What's that mean?"
"It's sort of like showing off what I can do. And while I work, you can finish your lunch on that playground, you lucky dog."
"You eat with me."
"I'm not hungry right now." It was almost true. It had been so long since she'd eaten a full meal that she'd passed the point of feeling hunger.
While she settled Edward by the concrete turtle, she studied her surroundings and tried to see what chore wouldn't require any special tools but would still make an impression. Clearing the lot of some of its weeds seemed like the best option. She decided to start in the middle, where her efforts would be most conspicuous.
As she began to work, the sun beat down on her, and the skirt of her blue chambray dress snagged her legs, while dirt sifted through the straps of her battered sandals and turned her feet brown. Her toe began to bleed beneath the makeshift patch.
She wished she were wearing her jeans. She only had one pair left, and they were old and frayed with a gaping hole in the knee and a smaller one in the threadbare seat.
The bodice of her dress was soon soaked with sweat.
Her damp hair lay in wet ribbons against her cheeks and neck. She pricked her finger on the spine of a thistle, but her hands were too grubby to suck the wound.
When she had a large pile, she threw everything into an empty garbage can, then dragged it to the dumpster behind the snack bar. She returned to her weeding with grim determination. The Pride of Carolina represented her last chance, and she had to show Bonner that she could work harder than a dozen men.
As the afternoon grew hotter, she became increasingly light-headed, but she didn't let dizziness slow her down. She hauled another load to the dumpster, then bent back to her task. Silvery dots swirled before her eyes as she pulled up ragweed and goldenrod. Her hands and arms bled from deep scratches made by blackberry brambles. Rivulets of sweat ran between her breasts.
She realized that Edward had begun pulling up weeds at her side, and once again, she cursed herself for not giving in to Clyde Rorsch. Her head felt as if it were on fire, and the silver dots raced faster. She needed to sit down and rest, but there was no time.
The silvery dots turned into an explosion of fireworks, and the ground began to shift beneath her. She tried to keep her balance, but it was too much. Her head spun, and her knees gave way. The fireworks passed into inky blackness.
Ten minutes later when Gabe Bonner returned to the drive-in, he found the boy huddled on the ground, guarding the motionless body of his mother.
Chapter Two
« ^ »
"Wake up."
Something wet splashed on Rachel's face. Her eyes flickered open, and she saw bars of blue-white light shining above her. She tried to blink them away, then panicked. "Edward?"
"Mommy?"
Everything came back to her. The car. The drive-in. She forced her eyes to focus. The bars of light were coming from the fluorescent fixture in the snack bar. She was lying on the concrete floor.
Gabe Bonner crouched on one knee at her side, and Edward stood just behind him, his little boy's face old with worry. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry…" She tried to struggle into a sitting position. Her stomach heaved, and she knew she was going to throw up.
Bonner pushed a plastic cup against her lips, and water trickled over her tongue. Fighting the nausea, she tried to turn away from it, but he wouldn't let her. The water splashed over her chin and ran down her neck. She swallowed some of it, and her stomach steadied. She swallowed more and noticed a faint aftertaste of stale coffee.
She barely managed to sit up the rest of the way, and her hands shook as she tried to take the thermos cup from his hand. He let go the moment their fingers touched.
"How long since you've had anything to eat?" He uttered the question without much show of interest and rose to his feet.
Several more swallows of water and a few deep breaths let her recuperate enough to manage a smart-ass response. "Prime rib just last night."
Without comment, he thrust some kind of snack cake into her hand, chocolate with a creamy-white center. She took a bite, then automatically held it out toward Edward. "You eat the rest, honey. I'm not hungry."
"Eat it." An order. Curt, flat, impossible to disobey.
She wanted to shove the snack cake in his face, but she didn't have the strength. Instead, she forced it down between sips of water and found that she felt better. "This'll teach me not to stay out dancing all night," she managed. "That last tango must have done me in."
He wasn't buying her act for a minute. "Why are you still here?"
She hated having him loom over her and forced herself to her feet, only to realize her legs weren't working all that well. She settled into a paint-splattered metal folding chair. "Did you happen to notice… how much work I got done before my… unfortunate lapse of consciousness?"
"I noticed. And I told you I wouldn't hire you."
"But I want to work here."
"Too bad." With no particular haste, he ripped open a snack-sized bag of tortilla chips and handed it to her.
"I have to work here."
"I doubt that."
"No, it's true. I'm a disciple of Joseph Campbell. I'm following my bliss." She pushed a tortilla chip into her mouth, then winced as the salt stung the cuts on her fingers.
Bonner didn't miss a thing. He caught her by the wrists, then turned her dirty hands upward to study her thorn-slashed palms and the long, bloody scratches on the undersides of her arms. The wounds didn't seem to bother him much. "I'm surprised a smart-ass like you doesn't know enough to wear gloves."
"I left them at my beach house." She rose. "I'll just slip into the ladies' room and wash off some of this dirt."
She wasn't surprised when he didn't try to stop he
r. Edward followed her to the back of the building where she found the ladies' room locked, but the door to the men's room open. The plumbing was old and unsightly, but she spotted a pile of paper towels and a fresh bar of Dial soap.
She washed as much of herself as she could reach, and, between the cold water and the food, felt better. But she still looked like a train wreck. Her dress was filthy, her face ashen. She combed the snarls out of her hair with her fingers and pinched her cheeks while she tried to figure out how she could possibly recover from this latest disaster. The Impala wasn't going anywhere, and she couldn't give up.
By the time she returned to the snack bar, Bonner had finished putting the plastic cover over the fluorescent light. She summoned a bright smile as she watched him lean the folded ladder against the wall.
"How about if I start scraping these walls down so I can paint them. This place won't look half bad when I'm done."
Her heart sank as he turned to her with his flat, empty expression. "Give it up, Rachel. I'm not going to hire you. Since you wouldn't leave with the tow truck, I've called somebody to come get you. Go wait by the road."
Fighting despair, she gave a saucy toss to her head. "Can't do it, Bonner. You forgot about the bliss thing. Drive-ins are my destiny."
"Not this one."
He didn't care that she was desperate. He wasn't even human.
Edward stood at her side with her skirt crumpled in his fist and that old-man worried look on his face. Something inside her felt as if it were breaking. She would sacrifice anything, everything, to keep him safe.
Her voice sounded as old and rusty as her Impala. "Please, Bonner. I need a break." She paused, hating herself for begging. "I'll do anything."
He slowly lifted his head, and as those pale-silver eyes flicked over her, she was conscious of her wild hair and dirty dress. She experienced something else—an intense awareness of him as a man. She felt as if she'd come full circle right back to the Dominion Motel. Right back to six days ago.
His voice was low-pitched, almost inaudible. "I seriously doubt that."
He was a man who cared about nothing, yet something hot and dangerous filled the air. There was no lechery in his gaze as he studied her, but at the same time, a primal alertness in the way he was watching her told her she was wrong. There was, indeed, at least one thing that he cared about.
Dream a Little Dream Page 2
