California Girl

by Rice, Patricia

  Mame must have had a reason for wanting to escape the hospital before Doc Nice arrived. That gleam in her eye had meant something. Alys just hoped it wasn’t something dangerous.

  Deciding the doc probably had only good intentions and shouldn’t be blamed for Mame’s mischief, Alys cried out a warning. An alert policeman grabbed Elliot’s shirt and jerked him out of the mover’s path, narrowly averting the collision.

  All three newcomers turned their attention to the roof. Alys waved. As if they’d seen countless women perched on rooftops, the policemen shrugged and returned to examining the vintage Cadillac.

  The doc’s upturned face looked oddly agitated at the sight of her, as if he’d lost his best friend. Alys appreciated his long-legged stride across her brown lawn, but she didn’t think all that concern was for her.

  What if Mame had taken a turn for the worse? Knowing she wouldn’t be able to breathe until she knew, Alys flung her Superball at him just to see how a renowned author played ball. “Catch!”

  Unfortunately, he didn’t wrap his fingers around the small ball fast enough, and it bounced hard, ricocheting off his hand into the Cadillac’s window. It was Alys’s turn to wince at the resulting cracking noise.

  Unconcerned with the window, the good doctor absently rubbed the center of his expensive knit shirt while he watched her scoot toward the gutter. His hair fell forward in untidy curls that made him look more human than famous, but casualness didn’t disguise his tension.

  As she eased down the rotting trellis, Elliot stepped over a dead holly, caught her by the waist, and helped her to the ground.

  The intimacy of a man’s heat burning through the cotton of her dress shocked her into remembering how long it had been since any man had held or touched her. She missed that closeness.

  Lowering her to the grass, the doc didn’t release her waist. The intensity of his deep brown eyes held her spellbound. Or maybe it was the subtle scent of his shaving lotion making her a little light-headed.

  “Have you seen Mame?” he demanded without preamble.

  She stared up at him, too shocked to speak. Or think.

  Apparently recognizing his forwardness, Elliot dropped his hands and backed away. “I apologize, but this really could be a life-or-death situation. Mame left the hospital. If you know where she is, please tell me.”

  Mame left the hospital. For a brief moment, she felt exultation. Mame was fine.

  Then the doc’s urgency sank in. Mame wasn’t fine. Alys took a deep breath to calm her spinning thoughts.

  Doc Nice had a radio-show voice—moderated and melodious and —Alys wrinkled her nose and gave it some consideration—nice, she concluded. Doc Nice spoke nicely, even under obvious stress.

  “If she’s run away, she must have been feeling better.” Alys had spent the last few years speaking in a voice as modulated as his, attempting to hide her heartbreak behind pleasant reassurance for Fred’s sake. She didn’t have to do that anymore. The knowledge that she could yell and scream and be sarcastic again was liberating.

  “Mame’s a grown woman and knows her own mind. You shouldn’t have bothered the police.” She wanted to believe Mame was feeling fine and was just off running a few errands to prove it.

  Elliot’s look of disbelief made her uncomfortably aware that she wasn’t exactly a testimony to reliability. She was hot and sweaty and her hair was probably standing on end. She’d only had the haircut to please Mame and never remembered to keep it up. Once it had started growing out, she’d whacked at the parts that annoyed her. Fred’s illness had eliminated any pretense that looks mattered. She crossed her arms defiantly.

  “Mame disconnected all her monitors and stole my car. She has no cell phone or any way of reaching me. I don’t consider that a rational act on the part of someone in ill health.” He glanced in the direction of her house and nodded at the two officers crossing the yard to join them.

  “May we look inside, miss?” one asked politely at Elliot’s signal.

  Alys admired the officer’s very stern, very young face. “If you think she’s hiding beneath my dust bunnies, be my guest. Mame may be skinny, but she’s not that small.”

  When Elliot started to follow them, she poked him in his taut abdomen. Abs of steel, she noted. “How did she take off her monitors without everyone in the hospital running into her room?”

  He didn’t touch her again, although she might have liked it if he had. Despite her annoyance with the man’s behavior, he awakened sensations she’d thought long dead. Self-discovery included exploring sensations, didn’t it? It was a pity she and the good doc appeared to be at odds regarding Mame’s health. Obviously, he thought his aunt hadn’t the brains to take care of herself.

  Maybe it was time she learned to accept being at odds with medical authorities. They certainly had proved they weren’t infallible gods. Perhaps Elliot was part of the learning process the Universe had in mind for her.

  “My father and my grandfather were doctors, and Mame worked in their offices,” Elliot replied. “She knows as much about medical equipment as I do. It’s urgent that I find her.”

  “Is she going to be okay?” She didn’t want to ask, but cold tentacles of fear wrapped around her heart. Mame epitomized the vibrancy of life that Alys wanted to return to, and she would do anything for her.

  Remembering the gleam in Mame’s eye, Alys had the sudden suspicion Mame was counting on that. Which meant— She studied Mame’s nephew speculatively as he spoke.

  “The few tests they took indicate congestion and arrhythmia.” Elliot’s mouth tightened. “Without further testing, I can’t predict the result, but she’s already passed out once. It could easily happen again. She might not get treatment quickly enough next time.”

  Alys swallowed hard and stared into the canopy of colorful maple leaves over Doc Nice’s shoulder. “She’s had these spells before, hasn’t she? And lived to tell about them?” She countered his fear with her hope, understanding better than he that neither of them had a choice in Mame’s decision.

  “The more often she has these attacks, the more her heart tissue is damaged. We have to adjust her medication, and she has to rest. We may need to put her in an assisted care facility.”

  She could almost hear her friend’s belligerent response to that: It’s my life and I’ll die if I want to.

  She didn’t want Mame to die, but she didn’t want her to spend the rest of her life in a nursing home either.

  Torn, she glanced over at the pink Cadillac, half expecting Mame to step out and demand that she be allowed to live her life her way. “I can’t believe she’d leave without me,” she murmured, more to herself than to Elliot. “She never drives farther than the grocery store or school. I was amazed when she drove over here.”

  “Mame is capable of anything when she puts her mind to it,” Elliot said with conviction. “I have to find her before she does something foolish.”

  As the policemen emerged, dustier but empty-handed, Alys had a thought. “Her suitcases? Were they still in the house? Did you look?”

  “What suitcases?” And then his eyes widened. “She always packs and leaves them by the door. There weren’t any.”

  “We were planning on leaving first thing in the morning. I told her I’d carry them for her. Maybe they’re still in her room?”

  He shook his head in certainty. “I had an electric lift installed on the stairway so she didn’t have to walk up and down. She refuses to move to a smaller place, but she hates the lift. She sends things up and down in the chair and she walks. She would have sent the suitcases down just to prove she could.”

  She remembered Mame’s disdain for the lift.

  Hope faded. Alys bit the tip of a finger and tried to think where else Mame could have gone, but she knew there was only one conclusion. Mame had her suitcases and her nephew’s car. She had a copy of the itinerary and an old boyfriend waiting at the end of her journey. Alys didn’t think Elliot would appreciate the significance of that.
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  “She’s driving to New Mexico,” Alys said with a sigh. Mame had left without her.

  “New Mexico?” Doc Nice’s eyes lit with hope, and the policemen arrived in time to jot notes.

  “Where in New Mexico?” the younger officer asked.

  “Albuquerque, for the Balloon Fiesta.” Before they could run off and call in the news, she added, “She wanted to revisit her honeymoon journey. The Balloon Fiesta was only incidental. She’s driving old Route 66 to see the sights she saw with her husband in the sixties.” Alys had the uneasy feeling that there might be a little more to Mame’s escape than that. She couldn’t believe Mame would risk her life for a sentimental journey.

  “Route 66? It doesn’t exist anymore,” the older officer said.

  “The Route 66 Association has the old road mapped out,” Alys explained. “It gives directions on how to find the Americana that interstates have gone around. We modified the route and made an itinerary to suit Mame.”

  Elliot still looked concerned, but he held out his hand. “Where is the itinerary? I doubt she’ll follow it, but we can have the police looking for her along the road.”

  “And what will the police do when they catch her?” Alys demanded. If Mame was determined to drive to New Mexico, then Alys owed her friend enough to respect her wishes. “Throw her in jail? Chase her down with sirens blaring? That’s enough to give most people a heart attack. The idea is to help her, not terrorize her.”

  At her argument, Elliot strode toward the Caddy. “If I follow the route she’s taking, I can be there when they find her and have her taken to the nearest hospital.” He opened the car door, but the keys Mame usually kept in the ignition weren’t there.

  They were in Alys’s pocket.

  She had been uncertain about borrowing Beulah, but now that Elliot was threatening to go after his aunt, she knew what she had to do. That gleam in Mame’s eye had meant more than mischief, and she owed it to Mame to protect her. “What do you mean, you?” she called after him.

  He bent over to examine the cracked Caddy window, then turned to the officers. “Can you put out an APB on the Rover? I’ll take my cell phone. When they find her, I can be there to pick her up.”

  Alys watched in dismay as the police returned to their radio to report Mame’s direction. Without further ado, they backed the patrol car out of the drive, leaving her alone with Elliot. “You don’t have the itinerary,” she reminded him. Where had she packed the itinerary? Probably in the suitcases in the garage. She’d had to remove them from the Nissan before it was towed.

  “If you’ll give it to me, I will,” he said, standing beside the Caddy’s driver’s-side door as the police drove off. “Just give me the keys and I’ll follow her.”

  “So you can put her in a nursing home?” Outrage roared to life, and it felt good. “Mame is a grown woman and has a right to a choice. If she’s this determined to make the trip, I won’t let you bully her out of it.”

  “She could be dying!” He didn’t shout, but his knuckles turned white where he gripped the door as his fear finally broke through his reserve.

  “She could be living,” she screamed at him, shocking even herself. “You go back to your happy, healthy world while I catch up with her and talk her into seeing a doctor.”

  Was that a flash of guilt in his eyes? If so, he recovered quickly.

  “Mame needs me, and I’m going after her.” Crossing the small lawn, he snatched the keys she’d pulled from her pocket.

  The brush of his hand on hers shot electrifying shock waves up her arm, but undeterred, Alys followed him back to the car.

  “Fine, then see if you can find her without the itinerary.” Triumphantly, she propped her hands on her hips as he climbed into the driver’s seat. His scowl proved she’d had the last word.

  The movers walked over with a clipboard and invoice. “Signature, ma’am?”

  As Alys scribbled on the line indicated, she heard the roar of a powerful engine. Glancing up, she watched Doc Nice backing the pink Caddy out of the drive.

  He was leaving her here with no car, no phone, and no furniture. And no way to find Mame.

  Chapter Three

  Racing down the driveway, Alys smacked the driver’s window of the Caddy before Doc Not-So-Nice could back into the street. Unfortunately, that was the window the ball had hit.

  She winced as the glass splintered in a dozen zigzag cracks. Mame’s nephew hit the brake and stared through the destroyed window in astonishment.

  He turned off the ignition and threw open the car door, climbing out to tower over her. Before she could decide whether to continue asserting her rights or run, he took her hand to examine it.

  “Did you cut yourself?” He turned her hand back and forth in the fading light, checking for damage.

  He had the most amazing touch. If she’d mutilated her hand, she swore he could heal her with just that touch. She didn’t want her hand back. She wanted him to hold it forever.

  Satisfied she hadn’t been injured, he released her. She almost sighed in regret.

  “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded, staring at her in incredulity. “What did you hit the window for?”

  “I have no car, remember? And no place to stay.”

  He continued staring at her as if she were speaking in an alien tongue.

  “You’re taking my only means of transportation,” she explained patiently, “and they’re about to haul off my furniture.”

  The consignment-store truck roared to life to emphasize her point.

  Without waiting for his response, Alys stalked past the Caddy’s mile-long pink hood, back to the garage where her bags waited.

  Apparently having managed to translate what sounded to her like a perfectly clear explanation, Elliot jogged up and lifted the heavy bags as if they were grocery sacks. They were old bags without roller wheels, containing every piece of clothing Alys thought she’d need until she landed somewhere. They were so heavy, she’d had to haul the bags to the garage in a wheelbarrow.

  She tried not to gape as Elliot easily tucked one under his arm and lifted the other.

  “I’ve decided to take Mame up on her offer of the car,” she said, initiating a conversation going since he did not. She hadn’t really decided to keep the car until he’d started to drive off with it, but it sounded like a plan now. “I’ll be happy to drop you off,” she offered.

  He shot her another are-you-from-outer-space look and kept going. She supposed from the point of view of a harried professional in search of a misplaced aunt, he had a right to think her deeply weird.

  Dismissing his attitude, Alys returned to the house to lock up. She had no idea what she was doing, but whatever it was, it had to be better than sitting in the driveway on her suitcases like a homeless waif.

  With wistfulness, she took one last look around at the lovely wood floors she’d kept waxed and polished to a high shine. Empty now, they simply looked barren and old. With a prayer that the new owner would find more happiness here than she had, she shut and locked the door on her life with Fred.

  While Elliot arranged her luggage in the Caddy’s cavernous trunk, Alys usurped the driver’s seat. Like Mame, he’d left the keys in the ignition. In discovering those keys, she knew her mission.

  “What are you doing?” he asked warily, shutting the trunk, to discover her seat appropriation.

  “Taking us to Mame’s,” she answered, staring out over the long pink hood in a moment’s trepidation at the task she’d just appointed to herself. “Her place is big enough for a small army. I won’t molest you. And if we’re traveling together, you might as well get used to having me around.”

  “We’re traveling together?” he asked, his expression cautious as he tucked his long legs into the passenger side.

  At least he didn’t run screaming from the car at the suggestion. Most men would be raising the roof, but he just sat there absorbing her assertions as if they were symptoms he had to diagnose.

  Like
insanity.

  She wasn’t sure that was too far off the mark. Going after Mame had some basis in logic, but she’d just suggested she ought to travel with a man she’d never met before today, even if she’d known of him for months.

  Her whole purpose in traveling with Mame had been to find out who she was and who she wanted to be. She was on a limited time frame here. She couldn’t afford too big a distraction.

  In just the attentive way Elliot Roth studied her, he gave her thoughts she shouldn’t be thinking.

  His masculine proximity was overwhelming even in a car this big. His short-sleeved shirt revealed sinewy forearms overlaid with dark hairs and accented by an expensive gold watch. His shoulders loomed over the seat and his dark curls brushed the sagging cloth of the car roof. Maybe she was insane to suggest this, but her new life waited out there, and Mame was part of it. If he wanted to tag along, fine.

  Adjusting to the newly awakened hum of hormones, she backed the car onto the quiet street. Driving off, she watched in the rearview mirror as her home faded into the distance. Blinking back tears, she set her chin. The time for looking back had ended. Forward, ho!

  “Do I get a chance to express my opinion?” he finally asked.

  “As long as it includes us finding Mame.” With the shattered window open, the wind blowing through her hair, and the wheel beneath her hands, Alys inhaled a deep breath of freedom. She had to believe that Mame was blazing a trail to a new life, and both their futures shimmered with limitless possibilities.

  She refused to consider the alternative.

  “I’d planned on setting out tonight . . . if you would give me the itinerary,” he added politely as she steered the yacht-length car through her shabby-genteel neighborhood, in the wrong direction for the interstate.

  “Mame won’t drive at night. My bet is that she’s looking for a driver. We’re better off spending our time checking with some of the students at the school. Maybe someone will call you and let you know they’ve seen her. Besides, we both need some rest before we set out.”

  “We?” Intense dark eyes studied her with an air of skepticism.