“I saved my money so I could pig out at every decadent hamburger joint on the route. You can eat yogurt and tofu. I’m in search of the best homemade pie in the country.” She only bought into some of the school’s New Age philosophies. Eating granola wasn’t one of them.
Instead of looking appalled, Elliot narrowed his eyes over his forkful of waffle. “Once we find Mame, we bring her home. This is not a vacation.”
She loved Mame. She wanted to help her if she needed help. But Alys had a suspicion that—for whatever reason—Mame needed help in eluding her overprotective nephew more than she needed a hospital room. She had to place her confidence in Mame doing what was best for herself.
Despite his tame appearance, Elliot Roth looked as if he might growl and bite if she didn’t agree with him. Who was she to shatter his illusions?
She tilted her mug in salute. “To Mame.”
Chapter Four
“If you give me the itinerary, I can plan a route that might save us time.” Elliot hauled his companion’s bags down the porch stairs and contemplated buying her an overnight case if they had to do this too many times.
Too many times? They ought to find Mame by tonight. He should only have to haul the bags wherever Alys Seagraves was going and call it a day. If he spent any more time in the company of legs like hers, he wouldn’t be responsible for his behavior. Today they were molded into gold spandex, and he could see every tempting curve through her gauzy shirt.
“I won’t give you the Caddy’s keys, so you don’t need the itinerary,” Alys chirped.
She looked like one of the autumn leaves floating from the maples in the yard. Bizarre, but colorful. Elliot ignored the twinge beneath his rib cage. He shouldn’t have eaten the waffles.
“What kind of car did Mame steal?”
Her provocatively light eyes gazed up at him from beneath a thick fringe of dark lashes and untrimmed bangs. It looked as if she’d let her hair grow too long, then hacked it straight at the collar, leaving the irrepressible locks of her former hairdo to turn up or stick out haphazardly.
“I drive a Range Rover. Or did.”
He threw their bags into the trunk—her two huge heavy ones and his overnight bag—while she gathered a bouquet of leaves and tucked a yellow rose behind her ear. He waited for her to break out in a rousing chorus of Oklahoma! or something equally uplifting. She had the unreal effect of a staged drama in his prosaic life.
They both halted at the driver’s door, and he could see the impertinence in her eyes, laughing at him. Only Mame ever laughed at him like that, and she wasn’t Mame. “You navigate, I drive,” he said, holding out his hand for the keys she’d appropriated.
“You Tarzan, me Jane.” She slid behind the wheel, leaving him empty-handed. “Jane drives. You look for Rover.”
Under normal circumstances, he might have smiled at her foolishness, but finding Mame was serious business. He wouldn’t let her pretend this was a joyride. He walked around the hood to take the passenger seat while she turned on the ignition. “How do I know you won’t head for Chicago?”
“Because I love Mame, too,” she said simply.
He refrained from commenting. Love had its downside. Chasing incorrigible aunts was a case in point.
“Doc Nice is grumpy in the mornings,” she chanted cheerfully, looking over her shoulder and backing out while he buckled up. “Maybe I could write a book—Traveling with Doc Nice.”
“You do that.” He’d hoped to be out of here by six, but it was already going on seven. Mame could be halfway to anywhere. “Where’s our first stop?” he asked.
Waiting for her to reply, he made the mistake of glancing in her direction.
Was she wearing anything under that shirt? Her breasts moved fluidly as she turned the Caddy’s big steering wheel. Surely natural breasts weren’t so high and round. Not that he had a ton of experience for comparison. He’d been trained to look past the sexual.
A silken lock of dark hair fell forward over her cheekbone, distracting him, as she consulted the odometer and set the mileage gauge. “Mame booked a hotel in Tulsa for the first night,” she finally admitted.
Relief flooded through him. Tulsa had excellent medical facilities. “We can do that in three hours.” He’d thought about renting a car, but the local rental agency had been closed last night, and he hadn’t wanted to waste time waiting for it to open this morning. The Caddy could carry them to Tulsa with no problem.
“Not if we go through Kansas,” she said, blasting his relief to pieces. “We can take the interstate out of town, but Mame has Highway 96 marked to Carthage as our first stop.”
Elliot had the urge to reach over and grab the steering wheel out of her hands, but he maintained his outward calm. “We don’t have to go through Kansas to get to Tulsa. The interstate takes us straight through. Mame needs to be in a hospital.”
She turned into the stream of traffic, releasing a cloud of disapproval into the air. How the hell did she do that without saying a single word?
“Mame was married in a church in Carthage before setting out on her journey,” she said frostily. “That will be her first stop. How soon do you want to find her? Tonight, or now?”
Elliot crossed his arms and let her aim for Highway 96.
* * *
“Mame, why do we stop at these places?”
Eyes closed, leaning back on the Rover’s wide leather seat, listening to her heart, Mame smiled at the lilting accent of Dulce’s question. “You said Lucia’s grandfather brings her home only on weekends and holidays, didn’t you?”
Already, Dulce had learned to be wary of Mame’s diversionary tactics. “But she is in that dreadful boarding school! She has quit speaking to everyone after Salvador told her she could not to speak to me again.”
“Do you know where the school is?”
Mutely, Dulce shook her head and choked the leather-covered steering wheel.
“Then we must wait until Wednesday when her grandfather brings her home for her birthday. Amarillo is only a day’s drive and this is Monday. Until then, I’m visiting a few fond memories. I was married back there, to a man who dreamed so big, he thought he could save the world if he put his mind to it.”
Dulce remained silent. Mame didn’t know if she was thinking or just concentrating on navigating the unwieldy SUV around a tractor hauling hay.
Safely back in the right lane, Dulce spoke. “You loved your husband very much?”
“When you’re young, you’re in love with love, in love with the world, in love with yourself. It’s all one. The lucky ones hang on to all that love and make it work.” She’d had decades to think about the paths not taken. She couldn’t explain them all in a few hours.
With the steady patience of her nature, Dulce thought about this, then nodded. “My sister mistook sex for love, too.”
Mame shouted in laughter. She was going to enjoy this trip. She already felt a world younger.
* * *
Lying on the back bench of the small Precious Moments sanctuary, her hands folded over her chest, Alys contemplated the mural on the ceiling. “Why do you think they put that up there where no one can really see it?”
“So heaven can? Come on, Mame’s not here. The car isn’t in the lot unless it’s over at the amusement park. Let’s get moving.” Elliot paced up and down the nearly empty chapel.
Doc Nice had focus down to a science. Earlier, in hopes of lightening his mood, she had turned the radio dial to cheerful music, but he’d insisted on National Public Radio—as if Mame’s whereabouts might be broadcast on the news.
She’d pointed out the beautiful autumn colors and the fascinating rusty artwork decorating poles along the highway, advertising an art gallery. He looked over his shoulder to check traffic behind them to see if she could pass a tractor hauling bales of hay.
She supposed that kind of intense concern for an elderly aunt showed a great deal of love and respect, but not a lot of understanding of human nature.
&nb
sp; She’d hoped to show him spiritual peace in the chapel so he might open up, relax, and let the world happen. Instead, he’d made fun of the saccharine murals of big-eyed children. She’d insisted it was a spiritual calling that had driven the artist to erect the temple, but privately, she agreed with his laughter. She would cross off working in tacky tourist traps from her possible-jobs list.
“The chapel Mame married in isn’t here anymore,” Alys informed him, swinging up from the bench to follow him into the next room. “She thought she ought to see what this one was about.”
Elliot studied the stained glass and quit his mockery. She hoped he was doing as she was, picturing Mame as a young woman, marrying a man about to go off to war. Had Mame and her husband thought they had their entire lives ahead of them? Was her young husband’s death the reason Mame lived each moment as if it were her last? Was she trying to teach Alys something?
She’d have to reward Elliot for his patience by pointing out the interesting notation in the guest book as they left. Of course then he’d realize she’d been stalling, giving Mame time to think out whatever she had in mind. She figured Mame could call Elliot’s cell phone whenever she was ready to turn herself in. Should be interesting to see how Doc Nice reacted to insubordination.
“Do you think children are still sweet and charming like the ones in the murals, or do they pop out of the womb screaming ‘I want’ these days?” she asked, studying the wall.
The Precious Moments children were piercingly lovely, content at their prayers. She’d thought to have a pair of children of her own by now. But she’d need to have a husband to have one, and that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe she should be a schoolteacher.
“Children learn from the adults around them. If you’re planning on having any, they’ll probably dally in churches and sing in rest rooms.” For a change, he didn’t sound sarcastic, just pragmatic and accepting.
He apparently hadn’t entirely forgiven her for the earlier episode when they’d stopped at a gas station to fill up. NPR had been playing Judy Collins’s “Amazing Grace” when she’d climbed out of the car. The rest room had lovely acoustics, and she’d tested them with the lyrics. The mechanics had clapped when she’d emerged, and Elliot had gone all male and huffy, ushering her to the car as if she were an addled adolescent.
It had been kind of nice having his strength between her and the world, but Doc Nice needed to loosen up. He’d obviously lived alone too long.
“Song and laughter heal the spirit.” She sighed blissfully at the morning sunshine through the colored glass. “I wish Mame were here. She’d have some lovely stories to tell.”
Now that she was on her feet and walking, Elliot hurried toward the door. “And I want to keep her telling stories for a long, long time. Hurry up.”
“Slow down.” She lingered on the autumn garden path leading back to the gift shop, but Elliot’s long legs carried him ahead of her. Trotting to keep up, she balked at the pedestal near the entrance where the big guest book lay open for visitors to sign. Elliot had stalked right past it when they’d entered. She’d signed and dated her name. Just as Mame had.
With a look of patient resignation, Elliot halted with his hand on the door. She had to give him credit for being quick on the uptake. Instead of yelling at her for dawdling or telling her she’d already signed the book, he registered her location and her tenacious stance as if struck by a bolt from the blue. In a few quick strides, he was in front of the book, examining the entry she pointed out.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m surprised she didn’t note the time she was here.”
“It’s today’s date and it’s only ten. How far behind can we be?” Delighted that he hadn’t exploded all over her for dallying, Alys dashed out the doors, into the sunshine.
“What’s the next stop?” Elliot demanded, his long strides swallowing the distance to the car.
“According to the guide, U.S. 71 was Route 66 in the fifties. It takes us into Joplin, where we can find the original Route 66 into Baxter Springs, Kansas. There’s a restaurant there with a safe once robbed by Jesse James. We can have lunch. Wouldn’t it be fun to go horseback riding and pretend we were outlaws?”
Alys raced ahead of Elliot, loving the feeling of moving on, getting ahead, seeing what the world was all about. She wanted to dance in the sunshine, climb the trees, and laugh with the children in the school bus in the parking lot.
She was free! She’d forgotten how fabulous it was to be herself, without any responsibility to anyone or anything.
She leaped to grab a yellow leaf dangling from a tree branch, and Elliot gave her the patient look an adult does a child. He was worried about his aunt, so she excused him. For now.
His cell phone rang as they reached the car, and Elliot unconsciously rubbed at his chest throughout the conversation. Sitting on the car hood, swinging her feet, Alys tried to pretend this was 1969 and that she’d just been married and was heading out on her honeymoon. Of course, they didn’t have cell phones back then, and she didn’t think Mame’s husband would have been talking into one if they had. But she could imagine the excitement of admiring her new husband, of setting out on a journey to the future, of anticipating a wedding night.
She eyed Elliot as he snapped the phone closed and stuck it in his pocket. If he weren’t quite so restrained, she could imagine him in her bed. He’d tousled his hair into curls again. She liked the sexy way they softened his lean features. He looked real, not like some unobtainable movie star or muscle-bound oaf.
But she had a hard time imagining a famous physician falling into any of her plans. He was obviously goal-oriented, and she liked bouncing where life took her, thank you very much. “Any news?” she called, leaping from the hood.
“No. I left the cell phone number with the neighbors in case they heard from her. They’re just checking in.”
He really did look anxious. Despite the reassuring tone of his voice, the little scar beside his mouth had deepened to match the dimple in his chin. She wished she could ease the concern in his luscious brown eyes, but he had to reach that plateau on his own. She’d spent countless hours worrying herself into ulcers over Fred, and not one minute of that worrying had cured him. Telling Elliot that wouldn’t help.
“I can drive anytime you get tired,” he offered.
“And end up in Tulsa for lunch? No, thank you.” She hopped into the driver’s seat and watched him arrange his long legs on the passenger side. She thought he was behaving quite decently, considering the extent of his concern for Mame.
He’d rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt in the growing heat. As they drove toward the highway, he draped one bare arm out the open window and angled his position to study her. “Are you even old enough to drive a car?”
Wow, where had that come from? Wide-eyed, she admired the unruly curl hanging in the middle of his forehead, then offered him a beaming smile.
Momentarily thunderstruck, he jerked his gaze back to the map he’d found in the glove box.
Tickled that he was as caught by this weird electricity between them as she was, she obliged him with the truth. “I’m twenty-seven. How about you?” Twenty-seven, and she’d never even crossed the state line. All but bouncing in the seat, she watched the road signs for miles to Kansas.
“Do you have a driver’s license to prove that?” he asked with a distinct air of testiness.
“Yup. Are you going to tell me to act my age now?” She pushed back in the seat and stretched, which pulled her leggings taut. Sitting still wasn’t one of her better traits. She caught him sneaking a peek but didn’t call him on it.
“I have a younger brother who’s twenty-eight and still in school,” he answered, as if it were relevant. “He rides a motor scooter and lives in a circus. You’d have a lot in common.”
“A circus?” She didn’t think she and his brother would have much in common. She was much too old for scooters and circuses, but she was interested in knowing more about
Elliot Roth, and she finally had him talking.
He shrugged. “Circus. Or a zoo. People coming and going. Animals everywhere. Weird music, strange décor, incense burning. Typical college atmosphere.”
“I never went to college.” Well, she’d commuted from her parents’ home in St. Louis to the university freshmen year, but Fred had swept her off her feet that year, and she hadn’t spent much time thinking about classes.
“Are you planning on going to college now?” he asked.
Ignoring his question, she sat forward to watch the road signs on the four-lane road as they drove through Joplin. “Look at the old car sitting on that pole. I wonder what it represents?” She slowed down to stare at a car’s hood sticking out of a building, apparently an advertisement for a Route 66 body shop. “Interstates are never this much fun. Is this where old cars come to die?”
“This is not about fun. This is about finding Mame before she has another attack.” But this time, he swiveled to stare at the signpost and not the traffic behind them.
“I’ll wager anything that Mame is out here having fun,” she insisted at his contrariness. “We can’t wave a magic wand or look in a crystal ball and find her, so we might as well enjoy the journey. Maybe it will heal what ails you. Worrying certainly won’t get us there faster.”
“Someone has to worry or nothing gets done.”
He said it without resentment, and she thought there might even be a hint of humor behind the thought. The man was subtle. She’d have to start listening closer.
Alys pulled to the right, neatly circumventing an ancient Cavalier creeping along in the fast lane. A pickup hitting the gas as they left town jammed his squealing brakes to avoid her. She felt Elliot grab for the door handle.
“Are you trying to get us killed?” he growled. “Slow down.”
“I’m doing the limit. Don’t be such a worrywart. They really like their antique cars here, don’t they?” Eagerly, she scanned the ancient rock buildings and cotton-littered fields of the old road, lapping up every new sight.
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