by Gayle Roper
As the window exploded, Marguerite grabbed Snelling’s gun from its holster. She had stepped away from him before he even pulled his gushing hand back into the room. As she cocked the weapon, the click reverberated in the little room.
Craig’s ropes parted. He pulled his cramped hands forward, his shoulders protesting as he did. His wrists were chafed and raw, marred with nicks from the knife, but compared to Marguerite’s arm and Snelling’s hand, the wounds were minor. With clumsy fingers he worked at the bonds that held his feet.
When he was free, he climbed to his feet, hurrying to Marguerite. His hand closed over hers, and she surrendered the gun.
Snelling stood by the window holding his hand away from his body, staring in horror at the laceration. Blood flowed in a red river over his hand, dropping to the floor like a ruby waterfall plummeting from a high mountain meadow to the valley below.
Marguerite stepped to Snelling, taking hold of his arm. She raised it as high as it would go. “Hold it there.” She stepped away, ignoring his whimpers of pain and distress.
She walked to Craig. With her good hand she raised her skirt high enough to reveal her petticoat. He blinked in surprise.
“Don’t get any cute ideas,” she said, her voice tart enough to curdle milk. “Just tear off a strip. He needs bandages and a tourniquet.”
In minutes, Snelling had his hand wrapped and a moderately tight pressure cuff wound about his upper arm. Craig pulled a nail from the wall near the door, probably placed there to hang a coat or hat on.
“Come here,” he ordered Snelling. He waved the gun to encourage obedience. Snelling came, all fight gone for the moment. “Raise your arm.”
A question in his eyes, Snelling did as told. Craig noted where his wrist reached and drove the nail into the wall again. He grabbed the cloth that covered the bed, tearing it into strips. With fingers again agile he plaited three strips.
“Let me see that hand again,” he said to Snelling. The man held it out. Quick as quail seeking cover, he tied the cloth about Snelling’s wrist. “Now raise that arm again.”
As Snelling watched Craig tie his raised arm to the nail, the man began to hyperventilate. “You can’t tie me up like this!” Pant, pant. “I’ll bleed to death!” Pant, pant.
“No, you won’t. Between the tourniquet and the height, you’ll be fine, at least until your men return and find you.”
“But it hurts!”
“I didn’t see you show any sympathy toward Miss Frost in her pain, and believe me, hers is more serious than yours.”
“Are we finished now?” Marguerite was sitting on the edge of the bed, her good arm holding her broken one. She looked fragile, a glorious bloom shattered by a powerful wind.
Craig nodded. “We’re ready to go back to the ranch.”
“Good.” She rose with obvious difficulty. “Because I don’t feel too well.” With that her eyes rolled back and her knees gave way.
Craig caught her just before she slammed into the floor.
Marsh closed his weary eyes, resting his head against the chair back. He was spent but pleased. Snelling would live to fight another day with more reason than ever to hate the Frosts. Craig and Marguerite were free to make their way back to Frost Spring Ranch where they could continue their sparring and sniping at one another.
He wondered how Abby would like the escape scene. It seemed to him he’d done a fine job of balancing the part both Marguerite and Craig played in the action. He knew that the careful weighting of the action into equal contributions was a reflection of how he saw his growing relationship with Abby.
She needed him to help her at the hospital.
He needed her to challenge him about coloring outside the lines.
She suggested he use Colton West to ease the breach with his father.
He told her how to fix the problem of the letters.
She made him want to rise to great heights as a godly man as he watched her stand straight and with courage in spite of her damaged leg.
He encouraged her to believe in herself.
He opened his eyes and saw the glass of iced tea sitting on the table by the chair. The ice cubes were long gone, but who cared? It was wet. He gulped it down.
Perhaps the best thing about Abby was the rapport he felt with her. They understood each other, due in large part to their shared faith. With her he found that soul amity he would never have found with Lane, that oneness of heart.
Lord, am I reading things correctly? I made a mistake before with Lane, though You in Your grace rescued me. If I’m wrong about this growing bond, please let me know. All I want is what You want.
A car pulled into the drive. He went to the edge of the porch and smiled. Abby’s hair was rumpled and she looked weary, but her smile made his day.
“Hey, tiger.”
“Hey, yourself.” She stopped in front of him. “Tiger?”
“You don’t mind, do you? Tigers are feisty and beautiful, full of character and great courage.”
She blinked. “Wow!”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I was just sitting here thinking.”
Thirty-Seven
ON THE WATERFRONT was a restaurant fancy enough to make Celia’s breath catch. If it weren’t for Rick’s hand on her waist, she would have felt like bolting. Celia Board Fitzmeyer had never in her life been to such a place. What’s more, she had never expected to be. McDonald’s and Burger King were more her style with a big night on the town being an evening at Olive Garden or Red Lobster. She hadn’t even realized that classy places like this actually existed outside the movies and New York City. Maybe Paris, too.
“No wonder you told me to dress well,” she whispered as they followed the maître d’ to a table that sat in front of a great window overlooking the bay. She smiled at the man as he held out a chair for her.
“Like it?” Rick asked when the maître d’ left.
She looked around the room, not wanting to appear gauche but wanting to take it all in. She smiled at the soft lighting, the real flowers in crystal vases on all the tables, at the crisp linens, gleaming silver and stemware, at the beautifully dressed women. Her royal blue rayon felt woefully unsatisfactory compared to the beautiful and obviously expensive dresses and pantsuits of those dining about her, but it was the best one of two dresses she owned. The other was a well-worn denim.
“What’s not to like?” She grinned at him. “I could get used to Saturday night dates like this much too easily. Why, I bet you don’t even have to stand in line at the cash register to pay your bill.”
Rick laughed loudly enough for the surrounding tables to turn and look. She saw them all look a second time as they thought they recognized him. Hopefully in a restaurant as upper-crust as this one, people didn’t ask for autographs. She wanted an evening free of that conflict for him, an evening when he could relax, escaping public scrutiny and wearying explanations.
She looked out the window. The sun was beginning to fall toward the west, gilding the water of the bay a luminous gold. Seagulls swooped and soared; a family of mallards, ducklings paddling furiously behind their parents, floated past; and an osprey rocketed from the sky to scoop up a fish for dinner in his talons, his deep brown back and cream breast a beautiful blur.
“Did you see that?” Celia turned excited eyes to Rick. “He’s so fast! What are those little black birds with the white beaks?”
Rick shook his head. “I’m a California guy. I don’t know.”
“American coots, miss,” said a waiter as he put fresh, crusty rolls and a pot of butter on the table. “Over there in the marsh grass is a blue heron.”
“I don’t see anything.” Celia squinted.
“He’s fishing, so he’s standing still. There. He moved. Did you see him?”
Celia watched, enchanted, as the large blue bird pulled a fish from the marsh water and lifted his head, dropping the fish down his gullet. His neck bulged where the fish slid down. “Oh, Rick, did you see? Wasn’t it wonderfu
l?”
She turned and found him watching her.
“Wonderful indeed.”
Celia blushed and became very interested in arranging her cutlery. “Aunt Bernice wouldn’t have to use her napkin to polish the silver here. No leftover food would dare cling, and water spots would be forbidden.”
When the waiter took her napkin, shook it open, and laid it in her lap, Celia tried not to giggle. When the headwaiter made a Caesar salad from scratch on a cart wheeled to their table, she tried to look blasé instead of captivated. When the flambé dessert burned itself out, she gave up on blasé and sighed with pleasure. When the bill came, she was glad she couldn’t see the total.
“I knew it,” she said. “No line.”
As the waiter hurried away with Rick’s credit card, Rick reached across the table, taking her hand. “Thank you.”
She blinked. “I’m the one who’s supposed to thank you.”
He gave her that smile that turned her heart over every time. “You have no idea what a joy it is to spend time with someone who is real.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean someone who’s so much of a hayseed that she can’t stop staring at it all? I’ve probably embarrassed you several times with my realness.”
He rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand, sending little shock waves racing up her arm. “In my business I meet a lot of poseurs trying to be what they think is expected of them. Some of them are cynics, some act the life of the party, some become flirts or wheeler-dealers. I value honesty and authenticity, to say nothing of natural beauty.” He looked at her, his gaze steady. “I value you.”
Celia looked at her lap, bewildered and scared. Why would he pay her, Celia Fitzmeyer, extravagant compliments like that? Don’t say such things. Please. They mean too much.
“Celia, look at me.”
She raised her eyes to his, then lifted her chin, feigning confidence. If she could handle Aunt Bernice, she could deal with Rick. The only difference between the two was that Celia neither expected nor wanted anything beyond a place to stay from Aunt Bernice. From Rick she could so very easily want it all.
“I mean what I say,” he said.
“Thank you,” she whispered, lifting her coffee cup to hide the hunger his lightly given compliment aroused. To be valued by someone like him. To be loved by someone like him!
Oh, Lord, I’m in deep trouble here. Keep my heart safe. Having it broken once was more than enough.
The waiter appeared for Rick’s signature. He automatically scribbled his name, but his attention was still on her.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“About what?” Her coffee cup clattered as she set it down. She put her shaking hand in her lap, but he still held her other one. Undoubtedly he could feel her nervous quaking.
“About how beautiful you are. About how much I value you.”
“Rick, I—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Mathis.” The man from the next table stood at Rick’s side. “I hate to bother you, but my boys think you walk on water. May I have your autograph for them? Their names are Jason and Tommy.” He stuck a piece of paper under Rick’s nose, holding out a gold pen for him to use.
Celia sighed. Here we go again.
As automatically as he’d signed the credit chit, Rick wrote “To Jason and Tommy,” then signed “Rick Mathis” in large, splashy letters. He handed the paper back to the man.
“Thank you. I’m sorry to have disturbed you.”
Rick smiled and nodded. “No problem.” The man walked away smiling, holding the paper like it was a large denomination stock certificate for original shares of Microsoft. Rick turned back to Celia. He froze.
She wasn’t sure what he saw in her face, but she knew what she saw in his. And she felt the total fool.
“You are him,” she whispered as her heart plummeted to her feet. She’d made the mistake of trusting a man again. She shook her head. “Talk about naïve!” She threw her napkin onto the table, grabbed her purse, and bolted for the door. She was aware of another patron stopping him, but she kept on going. By the time she hit the front door, she was running.
He caught up with her as she stalked along the bay front, heading for the marina and a phone to call Abby or Pinky to come get her. A strange combination of anger and disappointment swirled through her. As she heard him bearing down on her, she swatted at the tears that streamed down her face. She couldn’t let him know how much his deception hurt.
He spun her to face him. “Celia, let me explain!”
She heard desperation in his voice, but she steeled her heart against him. She lifted her face to him, trying to look like Aunt Bernice when she was displeased, which was 99 percent of the time, so Celia had seen the expression with great frequency.
“Don’t,” she said. “Whatever line you’re going to feed me, I don’t want to hear it.” She began to walk again, wishing with all her might that she could hate him. Then his dishonesty wouldn’t matter as much.
He grabbed her hand, pulling her toward him. “You can’t just walk off like this.”
“Just watch me!” She struggled briefly. “Let go.”
“No.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “I can’t let you go.”
She looked at him, knowing he would see more than she wanted him to but unable to think of anything else to do. “Rick, let me go. Please.”
“On one condition.” He pointed to a bench under a tree. “Sit with me for a minute. Let me explain.”
She looked at the bench. If she sat, she was a goner. She knew it. She tended to believe the stories people told her as her years of hoping for the best with Eddie proved. Whatever Rick told her, she’d want desperately, too desperately, to believe. He was an actor. He could conjure up any emotion on demand. How would she ever be able to discern between his lies and the truth? “I—I can’t.”
He grabbed her other hand. “Celia, you’ve got to. Please.”
She studied his red-rimmed eyes in surprise. Tears? From Rick Mathis? Real distress or alligator tears?
“Please, Cely. I’m begging you.”
She closed her eyes. She felt herself falling, falling under his spell, sinking into the soft, sweet dream of who she had thought he was. She couldn’t decide whom she despised most: herself for being so weak or him for making her that way. She pulled her hands free and stalked over to the bench. He followed. Before she sat, she skewered him with a malevolent look. “Think of this as what I owe you for tonight’s dinner. I don’t want to be indebted to you.” She sat.
I want to be loved by you, she thought as she worked at keeping the nasty expression in place. “All right. Say whatever it is you have to say. Then call me a cab.”
He reached for her hand again. She thought about pulling it back, but this was the last time he’d touch her, and she wanted the bittersweet experience.
“My name is Rick Yakabuski.”
She stiffened.
“It is.” He looked at her, imploring her to believe. “I was born in a little town named Barry’s Bay in Ontario, Canada.”
She frowned, uncertain. “You’re Canadian?”
He nodded.
She was interested in spite of herself. “That’s a long way from California. How’d you end up in Hollywood?”
Her question seemed to release some of his tension. He sat back, sliding an arm along the bench until his hand came to rest on her shoulder. His fingers began to toy with her hair. “When I was in college, I worked summers as a guide at Algonquin Provincial Park, a hour or so down the road from Barry’s Bay. I guided parties on canoe trips on the many lakes pocking the park, places accessible only by canoe. I was the one that cooked them dinner, that kept them from losing their gear, but I made them portage their own supplies.”
She could imagine him as a guide, paddling through the bush, pitching pup tents, cooking over a campfire, taking his party to places most people would never visit.
“One party was a group of ten, three men and their sons.
All I knew was that they came from California. After one of the sons finally understood that I wasn’t his servant and he had to work on this trip, we had a fine time. At the end of their two-week trip, one of the men asked me if I wanted to be on television.”
“Just like that?” Celia grimaced. I’m believing him. She hardened her heart, trying to be skeptical, but it was hard with his fingers tickling the back of her neck.
He nodded. “Just like that. The man’s name was Mike Rosko, and he was about to begin a search for someone to play a cowboy named Duke Beldon for a new series. I was twenty-two. Playing Duke Beldon sounded like a lot more fun than getting a real job, so I said I was game. Mike flew me to California, put me up in his home, and gave me a screen test. It was a great lark.”
Screen tests, Hollywood producers, TV shows. Poverty, Aunt Bernice, Seaside Spa. They hadn’t a thing in common, she thought with a deep sorrow.
“Then it dawned on me that I’d have to ride a horse.” Rick laced his fingers through hers, folding them to clasp her hand possessively. Automatically she gripped him back.
“Never ridden one before?” She stared at their meshed hands, felt the fingers of his other hand comb through her hair.
“Never. I’d been too close for comfort to moose and bear in the Algonquin back country, and it never fazed me. Horses scared me for some reason. The whole deal almost fell apart over that one fact. Mike made me take riding lessons every day for a month until I at least looked comfortable in the saddle.”
Celia thought about the Duke Beldon episodes she’d seen. She couldn’t remember much horseback riding. But she’d watched a Rick Mathis TV movie with Poor Uncle Walter last year. “Do you mean that was a double in that Colton West adaptation on TV?”
He shook his head, amused at her outrage. “No, that was me. Horses and I do very well together now. It was just a matter of getting used to each other. I even own a horse ranch in Montana.”
“A ranch?” Celia couldn’t imagine such a wonderful thing. “A big one?”
Rick’s eyes turned dreamy. “It’s wonderful. Wide skies and open range.” He smiled at her. “You’d love it.”