Tony’s list of conquests wasn’t long. They consisted primarily of society dames who were bored with their husbands. He wasn’t proud of himself for playing that game, although he’d done it. The notion of loving a woman and of having her bed another man had stopped him from seeking pleasures of the flesh far more often than he’d succumbed to his carnal urges. Which, he supposed, made him rather like Mari in that regard. He possessed a trace of honor, if no more than that.
He had no earthly idea how long they’d sat on those two hard chairs of hers, kissing and exploring each other in the desert darkness. He’d become sidetracked somewhere in a sensual haze and lost track of time, when a sudden noise brought them both to attention.
Tony’s arms still held on to Mari, and hers were still wrapped around him, when all at once Tiny bounded into the scene. Tony muttered, “Good God,” when the gigantic black shape showed itself against the grayer blackness of the night. “He could pass for the Hound of the Baskervilles without half trying, couldn’t he?”
Mari giggled. “Except he’s not a hound.”
“Whatever he is, if you didn’t know it was him, you might be scared.”
She sighed, which Tony took for agreement. He didn’t want to do it, but he released her, figuring it would be better for both of them to have hands free in order to fend off Tiny’s loving advances should he make any. He wanted to inspect Mari, to see if she was reacting negatively to his caresses. He hoped not. He wanted to love her, not scare her.
Shoot, did he mean that? How very frightening, to be sure.
His thoughts scattered like chaff when Tiny loped closer to the cabin, his tail aloft and waving proudly, not unlike a celebratory banner. Leaping up to them in a swirl of dust, he dropped a parcel on their feet and let out a huge “Woof!”
“Oh, dear,” Mari murmured, pressing her hands to her cheeks. Her nose wrinkled as she stared at her feet.
Tony looked, too. “Good God.”
The dog had dropped it right smack on top of their shoes: a big, floppy, very dead jackrabbit. Tony burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. This girl and her dog and her cabin and her mine composed the most outrageous set of theatrical paraphernalia he’d ever seen, and he’d seen Broadway productions aplenty.
“Oh, Tiny, I wish you wouldn’t do things like this.” But Mari smiled, too. Hearing his name, Tiny wagged more ferociously still, lowered his big torso until his head was between his front paws, his rump stuck up in the air, and his tail whipped back and forth like a crazed metronome. Then he let out a series of thunderous barks.
Tony shook his head. The beast wanted to play. “Does he want us to throw the rabbit for him to fetch?” Ew.
“Probably.” Mari sighed heavily. “I’ll get it out of the way and bury it in the morning.”
“If you leave it, won’t some animal come by in the night and eat it?”
“I don’t know. Probably, but I don’t want to attract coyotes, because they’re sneaky and might get into the chicken coop.”
“Ah, I see.” Good grief, it seemed like every three or four minutes, Tony endured another shock over the way Mari lived her life. She shouldn’t have to. Things oughtn’t to be this hard for her. It wasn’t fair. He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. He saw Mari watching her dark eyes wide and luminous. Warmth pervaded his body, from his heart to his groin.
“Well,” he said. “I suppose I’d better get back to the Mojave Inn. He didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay here, in this disreputable cabin, with this astonishing girl and her incredible dog. He knew he couldn’t.
“Yes,” she said. “I know you need to get back. We all need our rest, I guess.”
“Right.” She had no idea, he perceived, how very much he wanted her. Why should she? Until he’d kissed her, he’d tried hard to resist. Unfortunately, Mari was irresistible. She was like Circe to his Ulysses.
She turned away and sighed deeply “Thank you for walking me home. I, ah, suppose something might have happened to me if I’d been alone.”
Something had happened to her, although she didn’t appear inclined to admit it. “Right,” said Tony. He forced himself to rise. “I suppose the crew will be at work bright and early tomorrow. I guess tomorrow’s your first scene, if the insurance folks don’t take too much time.”
“Oh, my God, that’s right.” Her face fell ludicrously.
Tony grinned, not entirely happy to have the former seductive mood dispelled, but understanding it was for the best. Damn it. “Try not to worry too much. You’ll be great.”
“I doubt it. I’m scared to death.”
“We’ll all be there to help you. Martin’s a great director. And he’s also a very understanding and kind man. He’s not like me.”
She looked up at him quickly and looked away again. “Oh, you’re not so bad.”
“I’ll send a car for you.” He hoped he’d be able to come himself.
“There’s no need for that,” she muttered.
“I don’t care if there’s a need or not. I’m sending a car. And you can bring that big lug with you.” He gestured at Tiny, who had tired of acting cute since no one was paying attention to him, and was snuffling the ground where Tony had shoved the rabbit with his foot.
“All right,” Mari said, sounding resigned.
He had to kiss her again. He knew he shouldn’t. Everything in his life and nature rebelled against the attraction he felt for her, but he couldn’t stop himself. He lifted her chin with his finger. “You’ll be fine,” he said softly. “Fine.”
Hell’s bells, she already was fine. He kissed her once, tenderly, and let his hand fall. “See you tomorrow, Mari.”
She nodded. He leaned cover to give Tiny a last pat and turned to walk back to the Mojave Inn He still carried the lantern to light his way, and he turned once before he’d gone very far. He could scarcely discern Mari and her dog standing there, but he distinctly saw her lift her hand in a salute of farewell. He waved back, continued his walk, and didn’t turn around again.
The most unsettling combination of emotions roiled in, his breast as he trudged back to the hotel. He felt good and bad and heroic and cad-like and brilliant and stupid and happy and sad and exhilarated and depressed.
Could this possibly be love?
It was, Tony decided grimly, something to think about.
Chapter Fourteen
Mari faced the morning with heavy eyelids and a headache. After Tony’d left her the night before, she hadn’t been able to get to sleep for hours. She’d even gone outside and buried that stupid rabbit carcass sometime past midnight, hoping the exercise would help her sleep.
It didn’t, she didn’t, and now she felt terrible. Faced, however, with the prospect of ten thousand dollars for a week or two’s work, she wasn’t going to shirk.
Ten thousand dollars. The notion of sinking all that money into her father’s unproductive mine, no matter how many deathbed promises she’d made him, sat like lead on her heart.
“I’m so darned tired, Tiny,” she murmured to her wagging dog. “I’m sure I’ll feel more cheerful after I rest up.”
She wasn’t sure though. She feared all of the dogged determination that had kept her going for so long was being seriously eroded now that she’d experienced a little bit of life from a different perspective.
“But that’s silly,” she announced. Tiny wagged harder. “As soon as all these Peerless people get out of my life, everything will get back to normal.”
In a pig’s eye. Nothing in Mojave Wells would ever be the same again. Even if Mari herself went back to life as she’d been living it for all of her nineteen years, the memories would persist. And the talk. So little happened in Mojave Wells on a day-to-day basis that a huge upheaval like a moving picture being made in town would keep folks yapping for years. Decades, even.
She handed Tiny a huge bowl filled with meat scraps and vegetables. He ate like there was no tomorrow. He could probably eat up ten grand in no time at all if she weren’t ac
customed to living frugally.
“Frugally, my foot,” she muttered. “Poorly is more like it. Stupidly probably describes it, too.”
Good gracious, but she was in an evil mood. Why should that be?
“Stupid question, Mari Pottersby. You know darned well why it is.”
That kiss. That wonderful, frightening, spectacular, luscious, deplorable kiss. She lifted a work-roughened hand and pressed it to her lips. “He kissed me, Tony. I mean, Tiny. He actually kissed me.”
Although Tiny didn’t leave off gobbling his breakfast, he did wag his tail some more. Mari considered it a form of communication and was gratified. At least her dog didn’t seem distressed that she’d allowed herself to be kissed by a man so far above her own station in life.
“Lordy, Tiny, I’m beginning to sound like a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.” She and her cousin had seen HMS Pinafore in San Bernardino several years before. Mari had adored it. She thought she would really like being able to go to the theater, if she were ever to be, say, rich. Or even comfortably circumstanced. Fat chance of that ever happening.
Then again, ten thousand dollars could make a girl pretty darned comfortable if she didn’t have to throw it all down the gullet of a bottomless, money-eating mine shaft.
“Stop it, Mari Pottersby. You have no choice in the matter.”
That was a load of junk, and she knew it. The only thing that kept her working in that useless pit was her promise to a man whom she’d loved, but who probably didn’t deserve her devotion.
“Nonsense. Love isn’t something a person deserves or doesn’t deserve. It happens or it doesn’t. I loved my dad. He might not have been the world’s greatest father, but he was the only one I had, and he was good to me.” She had to wipe away a tear, and swore at herself to stop being sentimental and mushy just because she didn’t feel well.
Which didn’t solve any of her problems. She sighed heavily and wished she had some salicylic powders. She’d heard they were good for a headache. But they cost money, and Mari didn’t spend her few pennies on luxury cures for headaches. She didn’t have headaches often, anyway. This morning’s was an exception, and it was due to not sleeping.
The thrum of a motor penetrated the cabin walls. Mari’s heart gave a leap that probably dislodged it from its proper place in her chest cavity, and she raced to the mirror on the wall to see if she looked as bad as she felt. Thank God, she didn’t.
Madly patting at her hair, her skirt, her blouse, and everything else she could reach, she tried breathing deeply to still the battering of her heart. “I wonder if it’s Tony,” she muttered, ostensibly to Tiny, but really because she wanted—needed—to voice her hope, even if she worded it as an idle musing. She longed to see him. She longed to be in his company. To talk to him. To walk with him.
To kiss him
Oh, dear, this was awful. She ran to the door and reached for the knob, then paused. She wouldn’t make a fool of herself over a man. Any man. Especially a man whom she didn’t even really trust.
Something in her chest twisted painfully. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t trust Tony, per se, she amended. It was the circumstances she didn’t trust. He was as rich as God and lived in New York. She was as poor as dirt and lived in California. Under ordinary circumstances, the twain would never have met at all.
Under the odd and fantastic influence of the motion pictures, the twain had not merely met, but kissed.
“It was only a kiss,” she growled to Tiny, as if he’d questioned her on the incident. “I’m sure he kisses girls all the time
There went the twisting in her chest again, harder this time. So hard, indeed, that Mari pressed a hand to her breast in an effort to stop the pain.
She didn’t kiss men all the time. Far from it. In fact, except for Gordon Shay, who didn’t count, she’d never been kissed at all until last night. Anyhow, there was no way on earth to compare Gordon to Anthony Ewing. They might belong to different species entirely, so different were they from each other.
Gordon and Mari were from the same sphere.
Which meant that Mari and Tony might belong to different species, too.
“By thunder, I’m in a bad mood,” Mari muttered. She turned the doorknob and flung the door open, still praying in her heart of hearts that Tony had come to pick her up this morning, even though she tried to deny it.
She watched the dust cloud flung up behind the motorcar, and raised a hand to shade her eyes as she squinted into the bright distance. Her heart was doing an odd-rhythmed jig in her chest, her mouth was dry, her head hurt, and she wished she could get over her fruitless infatuation with Tony. It felt awful. She felt awful.
“I thought love was supposed to be a wonderful thing, Tiny,” she grumbled into the desert air, the temperature of which had already soared to a hundred, or she missed her guess. “If what I’m feeling is love, it hurts like heck, and I wish it would go away and leave me alone.”
But it didn’t. And when the motorcar came close enough so Mari could discern the features of its driver, the heart that had been giving her so many problems lately plummeted into the dirt at her feet. “It’s not Tony, Tiny.”
It was a funny thing, but saying the two names together sounded silly and cheered her up a trifle. So she said them again. “Tony. Tiny. That’s funny. Tiny. Tony.”
Tiny, wagging cheerfully at her feet, seemed to be enjoying the juxtaposition of the two names as well. He barked a greeting as the driver pulled up in front of the cabin. It was George Peters, the set designer.
That was nice. Mari liked George. Even if he wasn’t Tony.
George got out of the motorcar. “Good morning, Miss Pottersby. Tony asked me to pick you up this morning. He and Martin are tied up with the insurance people.”
Oh. At least Tony had a plausible excuse for not coming to get her himself. Mari tried to be understanding as she shook George’s hand. “Call me Mari, please. I understand all picture people call each other by their first names.”
George laughed as he opened the door to the backseat of the big touring car and gestured for Tiny to enter. “I guess they do. I’m just not used to it yet.”
“That makes two of us.” Tiny didn’t get into the car, but stood there glancing from George to Mari and wagging his tail. Mari sighed. “Come on, Tiny, get in the car. Here, I’ll show you.” She did, and he got in.
George rolled down the glass of the back passenger’s window, and patted it for Tiny’s benefit. “See? You can stick your big head out there and sniff to your heart’s content while we drive to Mojave Wells.” He laughed when Tiny took him up on his suggestion. “That’s one big dog you have there, Mari. It’s funny that you named him Tiny.”
George’s good humor buoyed Mari’s spirits slightly. “Believe it or not, he was the runt of the litter. That’s how he got his name.”
“Wow. I’d like to see the other pups, if he’s the littlest.”
Gentlemanlike, George opened the front door for Mari. She thought that was sweet of him. George seemed like a genuinely nice young man. He probably wasn’t so far above her in life that it would be nonsensical to love him. Unlike Tony Ewing, who was. Unfortunately, while she liked George, he didn’t make her heart sing and her blood race and her whole being want to smile.
She had to stop this. “I don’t think he’s the smallest anymore. He grew like a weed after he came to live with me.”
“He must eat a lot.” George cranked the motorcar to life, jumped into the front seat next to Mari, and the automobile chugged off toward Mojave Wells.
“He does. He’s a real sweetheart, though. He fools people, because he’s so big.”
“I’ll say. Martin told me what happened when he and Harrowgate first came to talk to you.” He shook his head and looked wistful. “Wish I could have seen it. Harrowgate’s such a pompous old thing. I’d love to see him being given a bath by Tiny.”
Mari laughed at the memory. She couldn’t help herself; and she blessed George for remindin
g her.
They chatted amiably as George drove Mari to the Mojave Inn. The first thing she saw as the automobile roared close to the town was the crowd of people gathered around the shed in back of the hotel. They were quite far away yet, and soon buildings would interfere with her vision, so she squinted and tried to pick out Tony’s form from among the others.
No use. Before she’d managed to focus on a likely candidate, her view of the scene was obscured behind Mr. Fenster’s barn. “How long have the insurance people been there?” she asked. “They must have come mighty early this morning.”
“They did.” George laughed. “Martin was already up and eating breakfast—he’s an early riser—but the rest of us had to be rousted out of bed. Tony wasn’t happy about it.”
Mari felt herself quiver to attention, like some sort of sharp-eared animal catching the sound of its prey “Oh? He doesn’t like early mornings, eh?”
“I guess not. Don’t blame him. I prefer sleeping until around eightish myself. Picture folks usually have to get up earlier than that, so I’m adjusting.”
“Eight? That’s early? Shoot, for me, that’s the middle of the day” One more massive difference between poor Mari Pottersby and rich Tony Ewing.
“The middle of the day?” George exclaimed. “For goodness’ sake, Mari, that’s appalling.” He laughed again. “You and my sister-in-law ought to meet each other. She’s always telling me I’m a lazy bum because I don’t like mornings.”
“She is?” Until this moment, Mari had been under the impression that Brenda Fitzpatrick was a nice woman. Now she wasn’t so sure.
George set her mind at rest on the matter at once. “She’s only teasing. It’s just that she had to get up so blasted early for so many years, that it was hard for her to adjust to a life of ease after she married my brother.”
“Oh. For heaven’s sake.” Well, now, wasn’t that interesting? Mari had assumed, because of everything she’d read, that famous actors and actresses lived lives of idleness and luxury. Of course, now that she thought about it, it made sense that they had to work, too. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be rich and famous, would they? Unlike the Anthony Ewings of the world, they had to labor for their wages. Tony’s fortune had descended on him at birth, as if from heaven. Sort of like bird droppings.
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