After making sure Judy was beyond hearing range, she hissed to Tony, “I told you so.”
He glanced up from the pile of onions, and Mari wasn’t sure if he was mad at her or not. She thought she detected a twinkle in those magnificent eyes, but didn’t dare stare into them for long enough to be sure. Lordy, the man’s eyes ought to be outlawed.
“You didn’t, either. I distinctly recall you telling me the steaks were as tough as an old boot. You didn’t mention word one about the cook’s penchant for onions.”
In spite of herself, Mari smiled. “I guess I forgot.”
“Um, I kind of like fried onions.” Martin slipped his comment into the fairly tense atmosphere, using a chipper voice in which Mari perceived an undertone of apprehension.
“Want some of mine?” Tony obligingly lifted his fork, from which dangled a tangle of limp onion rings.
“Ah, no thanks, Tony. I appreciate the offer.”
Poor Martin. Of course, he might be a legitimate good guy, but Mari didn’t feel it would be wise of her to let down her guard yet. He still might be out to trick her into some deal she’d regret.
Tony shoved most of the onions into a pile beside his steak. “I like onions, too, but not quite that many.” He tried to saw off a bite of his steak and found it rough going. Lifting his knife, he glanced first at its edge and then at his plate. Gingerly, he stabbed at his steak with his fork. The tines didn’t even make a dent in the meat. He glanced up at Mari, looking rueful. “I’m afraid you were right about the relative tenderness of this steak, Miss Pottersby.”
Mari refrained from another “I told you so.” Rather, she said, making an attempt to be agreeable, “Maybe you can get one of those steel carving knives from the kitchen. It’ll probably taste all right if you can ever cut up.”
Tony shook his head and resumed gazing at his steak. He looked both sad and hungry, and Mari took pity on him. She told herself she was being a jackass to give in to her tender heart. After all, Tony Ewing had enough money to buy the whole town of Mojave Wells if he took it into his head to do so.
Nevertheless, she said, “Please excuse me for a moment,” rose from her place, and walked to the swing door separating the dining room from the kitchen.
Even though she’d never bought a meal in their restaurant, she’d been to the Nelsons’ kitchen often enough to know the way. She returned a few moments later, bearing a sharp knife in her fist. Because she was feeling kind of jocular, she repositioned the knife as if she aimed to stab Tony in the heart with it. The blasted man didn’t even have the decency to pretend fright.
With a sigh, Mari decided she should have expected nothing better from him. He was too darned contrary play along with her joke. “Here, Mr. Ewing. See if you can kill the cow with this”
“Thank you, Miss Pottersby.”
“No problem.” She sat, smiled at Martin, and began on her pot roast.
Mari was no kind of cook, but she decided after the first couple of bites that the meat she cooked up in her one cast-iron skillet along with potatoes, carrots, and onions grown in her garden, tasted a heck of a lot better than this piece of dried-out shoe leather. She chewed, swallowed, took a sip of water to chase the roast down, and sighed. “I’m sorry we don’t have better accommodations for you movie folks here in Mojave Wells. We don’t get a lot of tourists or people who want to shoot pictures here.”
“Think nothing of it, Miss Pottersby. This is great fare compared to some of the places I’ve been.”
Mari gazed at Martin for a moment, trying to catch him in the lie. At the moment, however, he was diving with evident relish into his pot roast. As his portion of beef undoubtedly came from the same cow and had been cooked in the same pot as had Mari’s, she acquitted him of subterfuge. “You must have been in some mighty rough places, Mr. Tafft.”
Martin laughed, took a sip of his wine, and said, “I have. The picture business isn’t all glamour.”
Tony snorted. Before Mari could say something nasty about his behavior, deportment, and general moral laxity, he said, “So far, I haven’t seen any glamour at all, and this is only my first time around a motion picture.”
In spite of herself, Mari was interested. “Is that so? I’d believed you to have been connected with the picture business for quite a while.” Her ignorance of motion-picture making was so acute, she didn’t even know enough to ask questions about it. Fortunately, Tony relieved her of that burden.
“Nope. I’d never even been to California before. Poor Martin bears the brunt of the work. He has to do everything that needs to be done for the studio, from hiring actors to finding locations. And wherever he goes, he has to eat the local chow. He’s been everywhere and done everything.” Giving up on his steak for the moment, he asked Martin, “Didn’t you have to travel rough in Mexico once? I remember heart something about fried ants and a donkey.”
“Fried ants?” Mari, who loathed, detested, and despised ants, stared at Martin, horrified. “How awful!”
Martin chuckled. “They weren’t ants, Tony. They were grasshoppers. They weren’t half bad, either.”
Yuck. Although Mari didn’t hate grasshoppers with the same vehemence she reserved for ants, she didn’t think she’d want to eat one. “Did you really have to eat them?” Her nose wrinkled before she could stop it. She hadn’t had much of an appetite when she arrived at the Mojave Inn because of her general state of anxiety. She was rapidly losing the little appetite she’d had to begin with.
“I don’t suppose I had to, but I had no objection, and I always try to blend in. Besides, it made them happy, so I did it. Honestly, they weren’t bad. Very crunchy. If they’d had a little salt on them, they might have tasted something like French-fried potatoes. The folks in this particular village didn’t use salt. Don’t know if that’s because there wasn’t any, or what.”
“Oh.” Mari’s tummy gave a little leap that didn’t do anything for her peace of mind.
“Sounds abominable to me,” Tony, said flatly. I don’t know how you can keep it up, Martin.”
Martin heaved another sigh. It sounded heartfelt to Mari. “I don’t mind the food part, but I do have to admit I’m getting a little tired.”
“A little tired?” Tony guffawed and drank more wine. “I’d be dead if I’d had the job you’ve done for the past eight or nine years.” As if he expected Mari to say something wicked, he turned and gave her a straight look. “Don’t say it, Miss Pottersby.”
For some reason, Mari suddenly felt like laughing. So she did. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Mr. Ewing.”
He grinned back, and Mari almost fainted on the spot. A girl could get used to being grinned at by Tony Ewing. Which was a very bad thing. Mari immediately went back to her pot roast, even though she didn’t think she could fit one more bite into her already overwrought stomach.
After they’d finished as much of their dinner at the Mojave Inn as seemed appropriate for good health, Martin suggested they retire to the hotel’s small parlor to discuss business. Mari had almost begun to relax with the two men by that time, but her nerves sprang to attention as soon as Martin mentioned business.
For some reason, her gaze flew to Tony Ewing. His face told her nothing. It looked to Mari as if he was bracing himself for an unpleasant encounter. She resented that. She wasn’t unreasonable. She was merely trying to protect her interests.
Who was she trying to kid? She’d probably be better off if she sold these men the Marigold Mine outright, moved to San Bernardino or some other decent-size city, and got a regular job for regular wages.
Tony’s spirits were in an uproar as he walked Mari Pottersby home after their wrangle in the parlor of the Mojave Inn. He still resented her a good deal, both for being pretty and not taking care of herself, and also for being too damned smart for a woman. Women were supposed to be meek and yielding. This hardhearted, hardheaded female was about as far from being meek and yielding as they both were from the Rock of Gibraltar.
Yet he couldn�
��t hate her. In fact, although it gave him no pleasure to admit it to himself, he found her fascinating.
His company made her nervous, though. He could tell. Her voice was brittle and breathy, and it seemed to him as if she were attempting to run some kind of race. She’d tried to get him to stay at the inn and let her walk home alone, but he’d refused. She might not like him, but he knew his duty as a gentleman. He held a kerosene lantern, the light guiding their way in fits and starts. He was unused to carrying such a primitive lighting tool, and it took him a while to learn to control it so that the light didn’t bounce all over the place.
“Are you worried about your dog?” he asked curiously, speeding to keep up with her.
She slowed slightly and turned to gape at him “My dog? Why should I be worried about Tiny?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I only wondered why you were hurrying so much.”
“Hurrying? Am I?”
There wasn’t light enough for him to tell, but he thought she might be blushing. “You needn’t be afraid of me, Miss Pottersby. I don’t bite.” Although a discreet nibble here and there on the comely Mari’s bare flesh held some appeal.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she advised sharply. “It’s late, and I have to get up early to work in the mine.”
He considered asking her why she bothered, but he didn’t want to rile her unnecessarily. “I see.” He was glad when she slowed down, though.
She turned her head and gazed at him, a hint of rebellion in her expression. “I suppose you think I’m a fool to keep working the mine, don’t you?”
“Um, well, that’s not my call.”
“Right. I can tell you do.”
Tony decided silence would be prudent.
“Well, it’s not,” Mari declared hotly. “You’re out here working for your father, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.” Prudence also dictated that he not remind her of the differences between their respective sires. Maurice Ewing was a multimillionaire. Mari’s father had been a lunatic.
“There. You see? We’re both carrying on for our fathers.”
“Right.”
They walked along without speaking for a few minutes until Mari let out a huge breath and said, “Oh, very well. You’re right. The mine’s probably played out, and I’m an idiot for trying to keep it going.”
“I didn’t say a word.”
“You didn’t need to.” She sounded bitter. “And I suppose I am stupid. But I can’t bear to quit. It was Dad’s dream.”
“I understand.” He didn’t understand for a second, although he pitched his voice to what he hoped sounded like a soothing tone.
“I’ll just bet you do.”
They had come to within dog-sniffing distance of her cabin, and Tiny set up an ear-splitting racket, so Tony couldn’t try to redeem himself in Mari’s eyes. It was probably just as well, since he couldn’t figure out why he even wanted to.
Chapter Four
Mari was so concerned about her appearance, it took her five minutes to work up the nerve to open the door and step outside. The camera awaited her there.
“Am I really supposed to look like this?” She heard the despair in her voice and hated it. But, honestly! She looked like a ghost. A ghoul. She looked really, really bad.
The makeup artist who had accompanied the cameraman to Mojave Wells laughed. “Trust me, Miss Pottersby, this is exactly the way you’re supposed to look. Because of the nature of the celluloid film, white makeup is the only type that looks natural.”
She didn’t believe him, although she couldn’t think of any reason he’d lie to her. Unless this was all part of an elaborate plot to deprive her of her mine.
Don’t be any more of a fool than you can help being, Mari Pottersby, she commanded herself. Why would Peerless want the Marigold Mine? The place was a worthless piece of dirt in the middle of an even more worthless desert.
“It’ll be all right,” the makeup man assured her. “I think you’ll look wonderful on film.”
That made one of them. Mari took a deep breath, stiffened her backbone, and turned the doorknob. Staring straight ahead, she flung the door wide and marched out into the heat of the day. That had been a mistake, she discovered immediately when she stubbed her toe on a huge trunk in her path.
“Ow!” She grabbed her foot and hopped up and down. “Who put that thing there?”
“Oh, golly, I’m sorry, Miss Pottersby.” Another man—what his job might be, Mari couldn’t even guess—rushed up and shoved the trunk aside. “I meant to move that before.”
Feeling extremely gloomy, Mari said, “That’s all right. I don’t suppose it matters.” It wouldn’t matter if she broke her neck, if it came to that, and it might spare her a whole lot of future misery.
Which was no way to think. She scolded herself some more as she tried to iron out her rumpled composure. Thank God Martin Tafft possessed a compassionate soul. He hurried over.
“Gee, I’m sorry about the trunk, Miss Pottersby.”
“That’s all right,” Mari repeated dully. This was stupid, and she knew she’d be humiliated when Martin discovered it too. She was no more an actress than she was a princess.
Martin stepped back from her and gazed at her face. Mari hoped the thick makeup hid her blush. “Boy, you look swell!”
Disappointment smote her. She hadn’t truly believed Martin Tafft was a liar until this minute. She said, “Right.”
Martin laughed. “Oh, I know. You don’t believe me. But you’ll see. I have a feeling a new career awaits you in the pictures, Miss Pottersby. Motion-picture actors make a lot of money, so don’t sneer until you see the results of this test.”
“Okay.” Mari figured she might as well comply meekly rather than make a fuss. Her failure would be less mortifying if she didn’t stir up a lot of bother as she achieved it. The sooner this was over, the better.
Great. Perfect. There was Tony Ewing. Why did he have to be here?
Stupid question. It was his father’s money at work on every aspect of this idiotic venture. Mari was surprised when he rose from the camp stool he’d been occupying and came up to her, holding out his hand and smiling. This was a change, indeed. Glancing up at the sky, she had to acknowledge that the weather seemed cooler today. Maybe his bad moods really were a result of the sweltering heat.
“Good morning, Miss Pottersby. You look swell.”
Hmmm. That made two swells and one abysmal—her personal assessment. Mari decided to withhold her final judgment until she saw what Martin called the test.
“Thank you.” The two words were mechanical. It was a darned good thing these silly pictures were silent, because Mari knew from bitter experience that she couldn’t emote worth a darn. Her teacher had told her that more than once, during the catastrophes that passed for class plays.
“Ready, Ben?” Martin called to a man who stood behind the motion-picture camera, an intricate contraption the likes of which Mari had never seen before. It was big and box-like, had a crank on its side, and stood on a tripod. Martin had explained during their meal at the Mojave Inn that great advances were being made almost daily in the motion-picture industry. Folks were developing fancier cameras and better lighting. They were even building huge motion-picture palaces in cities large and small across the nation.
Mari wondered what would happen to the world if all those geniuses spending their brain power on the pictures were to turn it to something useful. Like medicine. Eliminating poverty and famine. Mining engineering.
She was nervous. That was the only reason she was finding fault here; she was sure of it.
The man named Ben stepped out from behind his camera, signaled to Martin that he was ready with a wave and a grin, and Martin took Mari’s arm. “Now try not to be nervous, Mari. We’re all on your side.”
He’d called her Mari. She blinked at him, so surprised he’d used her given name that she forgot to be scared of the camera. She wondered if that had been his intention. After the camer
aman started turning the crank, a huge grinding noise erupted, and Mari whirled around to see what was going on.
“Good!” Martin cried. “Now walk up to Ben. He’s the guy behind the camera.”
Well, heck, this wasn’t so hard. Mari even smiled a little as she did as Martin had instructed her. A big pop startled her, she saw a sprocket fly out of the camera, and she worried for a second that something terrible had happened. Martin’s voice at her back reassured her.
“That’s natural, Mari. Those sprockets chunk out every few seconds. It’s the nature of the filming process.”
“Oh. All right.” She wondered what she was supposed to do now. Fortunately, Martin also directed motion pictures from time to time, and he told her.
“Can you walk over to the fence now? Pretend you’re picking flowers or something.”
Picking flowers? In Mojave Wells? Mari shrugged and did as directed. She felt silly bending over to pluck imaginary flowers out of the air, but she’d built a fairly sizable bouquet before Martin gave her another direction.
“Wonderful. You’re doing swell! Now, can you turn quickly and look frightened, as if someone you fear is creeping up on you?”
“Sure. I guess so.”
“I’ll help,” came a voice she recognized from behind her.
She stood abruptly and turned to see Tony Ewing stalking toward her like the villain out of a nightmare. She backed up, honestly frightened for a moment as she took in the grim expression on his face and heard him snarl wickedly.
“You don’t have to pretend so hard,” she muttered, and put up a hand as if to ward him off.
“Who’s pretending?” he growled.
He sounded as if he meant it, and Mari experienced a moment of real panic. She felt her eyes open wide, and she backed up until she bumped flat against the fence. Still he came at her. She cried, “No! Stop it!”
“Never!” His voice had taken on a timbre Mari had never heard in a human being. He sounded like a human version of Tiny when he was seriously irked.
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