The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby (Man of the Month)

by Dixie Browning

  “How far are you going?” Gus Wydowski had a gruff way of speaking, almost as if his throat hurt.

  “Muddy Landing,” she said morosely. “It’s in Georgia, near Darien.”

  “Near Darien. Right,” he said, and she could tell from his tone that he’d never heard of Darien.

  “Between Brunswick and Savannah, on the Little Charlie River,” she elaborated. Actually, the Little Charlie was more of a creek, barely navigable since it had silted up. It was used mostly by trappers and fishing guides. The whole town had been built on a wetland before the Environment Protection Agency had even discovered wetlands, which was why property there was virtually worthless.

  Gus was staring down at her swollen hand. Mariah stared, too. She could have cried—would have cried—if crying wouldhave done any good. Some models she knew actually insured certain body parts. She pictured herself moving down the catwalk to the music, concentrating on every cue—smile here, open jacket here, pause here, drop stole and turn.

  Great! Her jacket-opening hand was ruined. If she’d needed a sign, maybe this was it.

  “You’re going to have the devil of a time driving with that, you know.”

  She knew. She was going to have the devil of a time driving on an empty tank, too, but she didn’t think their friend behind the counter would advance her much credit. One cheekbone’s worth of high-test, please?

  “I’ll manage,” she said, but Gus had already turned away. During the few moments it took him to stride down one aisle and up another, snatching a roll of paper towels and a box of plastic bags from the shelves, two women came in to use the rest room. Both stared at her curiously, and Mariah had an idea it was not because they recognized her from her brief career as a fashion model.

  Gus ripped a plastic bag from the box, filled it at the ice machine, sealed it up and then tore open the roll of paper towels. A few long strides in the cluttered little store brought him back again, so close she could smell the leather of his coat and a hint of some smoky, spicy scent that reminded her of long-ago cookouts in the woods. If he wore a cologne, it wasn’t obvious.

  While she was still mentally comparing him to the overdressed, overscented men she had worked with for the past few months, he lifted her throbbing hand. She flinched, anticipating pain, but his touch was surprisingly gentle as he wrapped paper towels over the ba ck of her hand. It was when he was folding the half-filled bag of ice around her swollen fingers that she noticed the fresh scar on the thumb side of his left hand. Swallowing a nervous urge to giggle, she said, “It looks like, between us, we have one good pair of hands.”

  He didn’t even spare her a glance. “That hurt? Sorry. Ice’ll take down some of the swelling. You allergic to aspirin?”

  She shook her head.“ No. That is, yes, I know it will, and no, I’m not.”

  He pulled a tin of tablets from his shirt pocket, dumped two into her free hand and another two into his own. Then he got two drinks from the cooler, twisted off the tops and handed her one.

  It was lemon-lime. She didn’t like lemon-lime, but she drank it anyway, to wash down the painkiller.

  “Got a proposition for you,” he said, and she waited warily.“ The way I see it, you’re in no shape to drive, even if you had a driver’s license. You really ought to see a doctor about that hand, and—”

  “No. No, thank you.”

  “If it’s broken-”

  “It’s not.” She couldn’t afford for it to be broken, not with Basil bringing the baby down from Atlanta on Saturday. Couldn’t afford it, period.

  “Don’t get your back up so fast. Just hear me out, okay?”

  “Look, I’ll stop off and see a doctor on the way home, all right? And while I appreciate all you’ve done, Mr. Wydowski, I really don’t need your help.”

  He muttered something under his breath, and Mariah was just as glad she hadn’t heard him clearly. He stared at her for the longest time, making her acutely aware of her lank, wet hair, her damp, stained clothes under the stiff vinyl coat, and the fact that whatever makeup she had started out with that morning had long since been rained off, chewed off and otherwise eroded.

  Shoulders sagging, Mariah thought that if she’d needed a reminder of who she was and where s he belonged, this did the job. Underneath the glossy finish, she was still plain old Sara Mariah Brady, perennial baby-sitter, bespectacled beanpole who, until at the advanced age of twenty-five, she’d made a fool of herself over Vance Brubaker, had been the oldest living virgin in captivity. At least in Muddy Landing.

  Evidently, the man read body language. He’d probably known the moment he heard her sigh, saw her sagging shoulders, that she was no match for him. “Go ahead and say what you’re thinking,” she said dully. “I’m listening.”

  Which was how she came to find herself a short while later in a motel room somewhere near Saint Augustine. The police had come and gone, for all the good it had done. Her car was back at the gas station, parked in an out-of-the-way spot. Gus had tossed everything from her back seat into the surprisingly ample space behind the seat of his truck.

  “What the hell do you have in here, bricks?” he grumbled, carting the last of the boxes into her room.

  “Do you have something against bricks?”

  He sent her a sour look, and she was reminded that he had an injured hand, too. “It’s books,” she said. “You didn’t have to bring all that stuff. It would’ve been all right in the car until morning.”

  “Do you have a phone credit ca—” Gus caught himself. Of course she didn’t have a phone credit card. It had gone the way of all her other credit cards. “Make whatever calls you need from the room, okay?” He tried to sound gracious, but gracious wasn’t his style.

  He could have been halfway down the coast by now, but, dammit, he couldn’t just drive off and leave her to spend the night where she was. That creep in the service station would have charged her for the floor space she took up. He’d charged for leaving her clunker there overnight, for the plastic bags and the paper towels and the drinks. Gus knew damned well she’d been mentall y running a tab while he was settling up with the guy. She’d asked him to write down his address so she would know where to send the money.

  He’d seen the look on her face when he’d hauled out one of his business cards. what the devil did she take him for, a bum? Was she afraid he was going to hit on her? Was that why she was so worried?

  Because she was worried, all right, and he had a feeling it was more than just getting mugged. That little ditto mark between her eyebrows wasn’t due to an excess of happy thoughts.

  Gus did his best not to look at her any more than he could help, on account of he liked what he saw too much. It was a good thing she’d kept her raincoat on, ‘because in spite of a few superficial deficiencies of a strictly temporary nature, she was something else. Not exactly drop-dead gorgeous. Not even pretty, in the usual sense. The trouble was, she had the kind of timeless beauty he’d always been a sucker for.

  “Maybe you’d better start calling a few people. Family, husband, that kind of thing, but if you want my advice, you’ll call first and put a stop on your credit cards before you find yourself in real trouble.”

  “Real trouble?” she asked, a brittle edge to her voice that Gus didn’t like, not one bit. “You mean’the kind I’m in now isn’t real? You know, I did think for a few minutes there that I might be dreaming.”

  As a joke, it wasn’t even in the running, but he gave her high marks for trying. Maybe after a night’s sleep and a good meal, they’d both feel better. “Hey, are you as hungry as I am? I skipped a few meals today.”

  “Thanks, but I’m not at all—”

  “Piece of pie might lift your spirits,” he tempted. He could have reminded her that she was in hock so deep now that the price of a meal wasn’t going to make that much difference, but he didn’t.

  “Actually, now that you mention it, I’m ravenous,” she admitted.

  He found himself dangerously close to liki
ng her. Studying her with the practiced eye of a connoisseur, Gus summed up what he saw. Five-ten, ten-and-a-half, about 112 pounds. A size six, he figured. Lisa was a size eight. This woman was smaller boned. Almost fragile.

  Back off, man! You’ve taken the cure, remember?

  “So what’ll it be, steak? Seafood?” he prompted.

  “I had a bag of boiled-”

  “Peanuts. Right. They’re on top of the box of bricks. Look, why don’t I check with the desk and see what’s available around these parts while you make your calls? I’m in the room next door. Just bang on the wall when you’re ready.’”

  Gus walked out and slammed into his own room next door, thinking about all the times he’d stopped to pick up a stray mutt and ended up with a stack of vet’s bills and a houseful of fleas, not to mention a few bites. He took the time to shower and change into clean khakis and a black knit shirt. Fortunately, his favorite boots were past the polishing stage. He kept them dressed with wet-proofing, so they still looked pretty good to his way of thinking.

  He wondered if his effort to look respectable would reassure the skittish woman in the room next door. He was already beginning to regret the impulse that had made him take on her case. Maybe he should have just bought her a tank of gas, wished her well and kept on going. Unfortunately, that hadn’t been an option. Even feeling like hell warmed over, strung out on caffeine, sugar and aspirin, all it had taken was one look at those stricken eyes of hers and he’d gone down for the count.

  At least he could take comfort in knowing she wasn’t on the road with a busted mitt and no driver’s license, trying to make Georgia on a dark, rainy night. Although, grimacing at his shaggy image in the mirror as he collected his wallet, keys and pocket change, Gus couldn’t say muc h for the judgment of any woman who would meekly allow a stranger to drive her to the nearest motel, no matter how innocent the situation appeared on the surface.

  He stroked his beard. One of these days he was going to have to take the time to get himself trimmed up. Lisa had tried more than once to talk him into shaving, back in the honeymoon stage of their relationship, but he’d held out. Probably, he admitted now, because he’d been afraid she wouldn’t like what she saw.

  Maybe if he got hot enough down on that sundrenched beach that was just waiting for him somewhere south of here—a beach where he didn’t know a bloody soul and nobody knew him—he might even decide to get reacquainted with his own face. At the moment, however, he needed all the cover he could get.

  Sooner or later, Gus told himself as he let himself out the door, he was going to have to kick a few bad habits. Number one was being unable to say no to a lady—canine, feline or otherwise. Just last summer he’d found himself giving aid and comfort—not to - mention room and board—to a one-eared cat and her litter of kittens, two half-starved pups that had been dumped on a country road and a raccoon that was so old and blind she’d fallen out of a persimmon tree and knocked herself out. Eventually, he’d managed to find them all permanent homes.

  With women, his record wasn’t quite so good. The first woman he’d ever loved—or thought he did—had ended up marrying his best friend. He’d been young and idealistic, and it had taken him a while to get over it, but he’d survived. There’d been other women since then—a lot of them, because Gus truly enjoyed women. But he didn’t date anyone seriously. Not until Lisa, and maybe not even then.

  The trouble was, the kind of woman he was booked on never quite lived up to his expectations. Eventually he’d learned not to expect anything.

  And no matter what Mariah looked like—no matter how much she engaged his sympathy—she was not going to get to him. No way! All he had to do was ignore those big weimaraner eyes and that long, lean, languorous body of hers for a few more hours. Come morning, he would drop her off at her car, treat her to a tank of gas and send her on her way with his blessings.

  And then he’d head south and continue his quest for the sun. There damn well had to be a sun out there somewhere!

  It was still coming down like Niagara Falls when Mariah let herself out a few minutes later. Gus took one look at her and then hurried out to unlock the truck.

  Down, boy. Think big, juicy steak. Think pecan pie smothered with ice cream…think anything but what you’re thinking!

  The lady cleaned up real good. She was wearing jeans, a man’s white shirt, vinyl slicker and a pair of cork-soled sandals that towered about three inches off the ground, making those skyscraper legs of hers even more spectacular. She looked like a million bucks. But then, even wet, stained, bruised and swollen, she’d rated well over the top on any man’s gauge.

  Gus figured the sooner they parted ways, the better. “Steak, seafood, waffles or burgers, take your pick. There’s a chicken takeout three miles farther down the road.” He did his best to ignore the way she got into a truck. Mariah was tall enough to edge her hip onto the seat and swing both legs inside in one smooth, flowing motion.

  He closed the door and stalked around the hood. Dammit, it was going on nine and his last meal had been a candy bar a couple of hundred miles ago. “Make up your mind,” he said, his voice rough from an earlier bout of coughing.

  “I’m not real crazy about waffles. Anything else suits me, though. You choose.”

  Following the directions he’d received from the night clerk, Gus drove to the steak house. The waiting line stretched all the way out to the edge of the canopy. Without a word he backe d out and headed for the two closest seafood places, only to discover that the shortest wait at either place would be at least an hour.

  “Goodness, I wonder what it’s like on a week end,” Mariah murmured. Her stomach growled noisily.

  “This is Florida, right? It’s February, so what d’you expect?” He was hungry, too, but it was hard to feel too grim when he was this close to a woman who turned him on big time without even trying. Which was crazy, because he wasn’t even over his last affair! At least, he hadn’t thought he was. But there was something downright disarming about a growling stomach on a woman who looked like the cover of a six-dollar fashion magazine, even in a plastic raincoat.

  They drove a few miles farther, picked up a couple of chicken dinners and headed back to the motel. Gus eased into the parking place, then leaned across and opened her door, trying hard to ignore the mingled smell of fried chicken, lilacs and warm woman. He tucked the boxes under his coat and made a dive for the shelter.

  Mariah was right beside him, her wet face and wet slicker glistening under the security lights. She was laughing, but Gus noticed she was supporting her right hand with her left. He knew from personal experience that two hands were better than one, especially for things like opening chicken boxes and shucking plastic utensils out of their packets.

  And hell, it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do.

  While the rain droned down a few feet away, he watched her struggle to unlock her door left-handed, then impatiently took the key and did the job for her. She wasn’t a whiner, he would give her that much.

  “Thanks,” she murmured. “And, Gus, thank you for supper.” She lifted a box off the stack and stepped inside. “I’ll add it to my account.”

  Gus was going to say “You do that” when his throat betrayed him again. His cough, a remnant of the flu, soun ded a lot worse than it was.

  “That sounds awful! Come inside for a minute, I might have something…” She had that same mother-hen glint in her eye his sister Angel always got when she was trying to cure his sweet tooth. “I know I’ve got something in one of my bags—everybody’s been coughing lately.”

  Nearly strangling, Gus followed her inside. Even with his eyes watering, he couldn’t help but appreciate her rear end as she leaned over to fumble left-handed through the bottles, jars and tubes in her makeup case. “Hey, don’t go to any trouble on my account,” he rasped. “I never take medicine.”

  She pulled out a card of foil-wrapped lozenges and held it out to him. “Yes, you do. I saw you take aspirin earlier,
remember?”

  “That’s not medicine, that’s—Ah, hell, give me the thing,” he snapped, and immediately regretted his surliness. “Sorry. It’s been a long day.”

  “It has, hasn’t it?” There was no reproach in her voice, but her quiet Georgia accent made him feel about the size of a small cockroach.“ I expect you’re hungry, too. Why don’t we have supper and make an early night of it? I have a long drive ahead of me tomorrow, and you probably do, too. Where are you going, anyway?”

  As she was making a real mess of trying to open a chicken box one-handed, Gus took it from her and finished the job. With a courtly gesture, he pulled out her chair, partly to make up for being a sorehead.Play it cool, man. This is strictly business. Ships in the night, and all that. “Wait here. I’ll get us something to drink. You want cold from the machine, or coffee?”

  “Cold, please. Diet cola’s fine.”

  “Chemicals are bad for you. Sugar’s real food.”

  She smiled, and it occurred to him as he dug in his pocket for change that if she smiled much more, there was no telling how big a fool he was going to make of himself before he manag ed to get away.

  Awkwardly, she set out the napkins and plastic cutlery. “Don’t go to any trouble,” Gus warned. “I can eat in my own room.”

  “Yes, but if you stay here you can have my biscuit and the wing on my breast quarter. I never eat wings.”

  “Are you trying to bribe me?”

  “Not at all. Call it a down payment on what I owe you. Did you order the potatoes and gravy, or the fries?”

  “There’s one of each, take your choice,” he said, and she smiled again. He wondered if she was coming on to him.

  She wasn’t. He wasn’t quite sure how he knew—he just knew. There was nothing at all flirtatious about the way she picked up her chicken breast in her left hand and bit into it. Hell, she probably, wasn’t any more anxious to get involved than he was, he told himself, wondering why the thought wasn’t more reassuring.