Tainted Gold

by Lynn Michaels

  “Listen, Tuck, I gotta tell you this.” He chuckled. “Old man Cassil nearly flipped his wig—no pun intended—after you walked off the job site yesterday. You really put the fear of Uncle Sam in him when you said the EPA would probably want an environmental impact study before they’d let him build his Gold Rush Days amusement park. Oops.” He winced at Quillen. “Sorry, Quill, but it’s not exactly a secret.”

  “So I see,” she replied slowly, glancing again at Tucker as she removed her elbow from his hand. Deep red splotches colored his throat above the open collar of his powder blue shirt and he still avoided meeting her gaze. “Thank you, Cal.” She smiled at her friend. “Good night.”

  Don’t stalk, she told herself, fighting to keep her temper in check as she wove her way through the crowded foyer toward the bank of public telephones on the back wall. Behind her, she heard hurried footsteps and shrugged away the hand she felt closing on her sleeve as she jerked open her gray suede clutch. Digging two dimes out of her wallet, she snatched up the receiver and slid the twenty cents into the slot. Two lean, tanned fingers depressed the switchhook and Quillen pivoted on her heel to glare at Tucker as the coins jangled into the return box.

  “Take your hand off the phone.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “A cab,” she hissed in an icy whisper.

  “No, you’re not,” he countermanded, his voice low and his jaw tightening as he leaned toward her and braced his right forearm on the wall. “I brought you here and I’ll take you home.”

  Quillen slammed the phone back in its cradle but missed his fingers by a fraction of an inch. He pulled them out of the way at the last second, and she saw just a glimpse of his startled, angry expression as she wheeled around and pushed through the wooden swinging doors. Halfway across the veranda, she heard the hinges squeak behind her and quickened her pace. Tucker caught her on the bottom step and pulled her around to face him.

  “What are you going to do?” he demanded, firmly trapping her elbow in his left hand as he pointed at her slingback suede pumps with his right. “Walk to town in those?”

  “No,” she spat out as she shrugged away from him. “I’m walking to the gas station at the junction. Now go away and leave me alone.”

  “Not until you give me a chance to explain.” He grabbed her arm and again tugged her around as she started away from him. “I was out in the field yesterday checking my seismometer—”

  “I said leave me alone!” Quillen repeated, swinging her clutch at his hand. It hit him across the knuckles with a metallic clunk. Probably her compact, she thought as she gasped, horrified at her violent reaction.

  “Ouch! Damn it!” he cursed, first shaking, then sucking on his fingers.

  “All right, talk,” she told him stiffly as she tucked her purse under her arm. “Just keep your hands to yourself.”

  “As I was saying,” he continued, frowning as he shook his fingers again and then flexed them. “I was checking my seismometer and I ran into Cal and his boss with a survey crew from Cassil Construction—”

  “On my land?” Quillen interrupted shrilly. “They were on my land?”

  “I don’t know, Quillen,” he replied irritably. “I haven’t the faintest idea where your property boundaries are. I asked what they were doing and Cassil showed me where they were going to put up this monster roller coaster, some god-awful-sounding thing called a Whiplash, and I thought, Whoa, this guy’s talking tons of steel on an unstable area—”

  “But you said,” Quillen broke in, “that it’s just a little fault.”

  “It appears to be, but I won’t know for sure until I’ve collected all my data. That could take weeks, maybe months, and in the meantime, part of my job is not to create a panic. In most people’s minds the word fault triggers visions of the San Francisco earthquake. That’s almost definitely not the case here, still—”

  “So what’s that got to do with Cal and Cassil?” She cut him off, catching her purse in her left hand as she thrust her hands on her hips. “And the fact that you lied to me?”

  “I did not lie to you, Quillen. I said I’d met Cal. I did not say where or when.”

  Uh-oh, she thought, the two syllables ringing ominously inside her head. As she considered the possibility that she’d misconstrued his exchange with Cal, her defensive posture wilted.

  “So you just let me assume—”

  “You bet I let you. I was there this morning when you started after Cassil with fire in your eyes. I couldn’t think of any way to broach what’s obviously a touchy subject without eliciting this little discussion we’re having now. Not that I blame you. From what I’ve heard about the Cassil-McCain feud—”

  “Anything you heard from Desmond Cassil,” Quillen declared fiercely, “is a guaranteed lie.”

  “Give me credit for a little sense, will you?” Tucker retorted impatiently. “Everybody here knows everything about everyone else, remember, and they don’t mind telling. Besides, when Cassil offered me money to soft-pedal my findings, figuring, of course, that once the park’s built, there’d be very little the EPA could do about it—”

  “So what did you tell him?”

  Quillen’s whole body winced at her own question. It was too late, but she bit her tongue anyway.

  “Because I don’t think you meant that the way it sounded, I’m going to ignore the question,” he said quietly. “If I thought you meant it, however, I’d leave you here to think about it and the chip on your shoulder while you’re walking to the junction.”

  “I do not—” Quillen began hotly, then gave it up. Though they were standing in near darkness away from the lights, she looked away from him. “I guess I do have a chip on my shoulder. I wasn’t aware it was that visible.”

  “Your camouflage is damn good, but transparent as Saran Wrap to somebody who’s been in your shoes.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Can I tell you while we’re walking to the car?”

  Though she knew she’d been wrong, though she realized she’d overreacted and misinterpreted everything Cal and Tucker had said to each other, still Quillen hesitated to take the hand he offered her. It wasn’t the gesture, clearly one of capitulation, which bothered her; she’d spent most of her life apologizing for her flash-powder temper. Her reluctance sprang from the remembered traces of his touch, and her certainty, founded in her fear of the intensity of her response to him, that surrender now could be emotional suicide.

  “I knew, Quillen,” he went on, “because I lugged a redwood tree around on my shoulders for years. You see, my parents were firm believers in free love long before the hippies came along. They’re terrific people, they love each other like crazy, they’ve just never found a good enough reason to get married.”

  The tone of his voice was light and conversational; perhaps too much so, Quillen thought. She was grateful for the darkness now which hid her startled expression, and did not resist as he slid his arm around her elbow and steered her across the parking lot.

  “I was about eight when I tumbled to the meaning of the word illegitimate,” he continued as they walked between parked cars toward the Jeep, “and the sidelong looks my relatives and the parents of my friends were giving me. I went to Mom and Dad and asked why didn’t they get married. They said they didn’t need a little piece of paper to certify that they loved each other and me and that we were a family. I resented them and the tag they’d hung around my neck for years. I thought then, and still do, that they were being very selfish and willful, but I finally realized that what they do or don’t do reflects on me only if I let it.” He stopped beside the Jeep, unlocked and opened the passenger door. The interior light softly bathed his smile as he turned her to face him. “I realized, too, that the only person punishing me was me, and then I finally had sense enough to stop trying to defend my parents’ life-style.”

  “It’s not that easy for me,” Quillen countered. “Cassil Springs is a glass house, you said so yourself. Everybody thinks my
father was crazy!”

  “So what do you care? You’re not going to change the minds of the people around here, Quillen, and you’d better accept that. If you can’t, then sell out to Cassil or somebody else and go someplace where you aren’t locked into defending people who are dead and things that happened twenty years ago.”

  “I can’t,” Quillen told him lamely. “I just can’t, Tucker.”

  “So be a martyr,” he told her bluntly. “But ask yourself sometime if you really think that’s what your father wanted for you.”

  Quillen did think about it while Tucker drove back to town the short way. That, and his silence, smarted like salty tears on her exposed feelings. She’d never felt so transparent, so revealed, so mortified, and yet, at the same time, so relieved and comforted. Finally someone else understood, and she wished with all her heart that she hadn’t let her temper get the best of her and make a fool out of her for the umpteenth time. More than that, she wished, stealing a glance at Tucker’s face as he turned the Jeep around the corner onto her block, that she hadn’t blown any chance they may have had at a relationship.

  “This really is a terrific old house.” He sighed, looking up at the white gingerbread trimming the roof, as they walked toward the front porch. “I sure wish you had a vacancy.”

  I’ll bet you do, Quillen thought dryly, like you wish there was an empty padded cell in the local asylum. Still, she appreciated the fact that he was trying to be kind, and smiled at him over her shoulder as she unlocked the front door. He followed her into the hall.

  Dread gnawed at the pit of her stomach as she crossed the Oriental carpet covering the polished hardwood floor and slid her key into the lock on her apartment door. Well, here we are, she thought, home again, home again, jiggity-jig, and now we have to somehow figure a graceful way out of this awkward little corner me and my temper got us into.

  “Tucker, thank you for—”

  “Hush! Be still!” Realgar the wizard commanded. “You’re interrupting the flow of cosmic consciousness!”

  Pushing the door open and turning around in the threshold, Quillen stared in bewilderment at Tucker. He stood in the middle of the Oriental rug, feet spread, eyes closed, and fingertips pressed against his forehead. He reached out with his left hand, and Realgar’s rich, vibrant voice filled the hall.

  “I see a sign,” he said, his forehead wrinkling. “A small white sign, words in black written upon it, pitched in the middle of the front lawn next to the birdbath. The letters spell—‘Vacancy, Apply Within.’”

  Why had she worried, Quillen wondered, laughing, and Tucker opened his eyes and grinned at her. Leave it to Realgar to figure a way out of a tight spot.

  “Close, but no cigar,” she told him. “I stake the sign on the other side of the walk and it says, ‘Vacancy, Call for Appointment,’ with my phone number underneath.”

  “Fortunately, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” He winked as he walked toward her and gave her no choice but to back through the door into her apartment. He shut it behind him and leaned against it. “And if Realgar’s sight should fail, which it hardly ever does, I’m still applying to fill the vacancy in your life.”

  “What?” Quillen echoed faintly, still backing away from him.

  “You don’t have a steady fella, you rarely go out—I ask questions, remember, and as I told you earlier, it pays. I’m new in town, I’m lonely, and I’m crazy about you. How can we miss?”

  Quillen’s left heel struck one of the brass andirons on the hearth and it toppled over on the carpet with a thud. She leaned on the mantel to steady herself. “I wasn’t expecting this,” she admitted. “I was expecting a polite peck on the cheek.”

  “Because you lost your temper and went off like Mount Saint Helens?” A smile curved one corner of his mouth as he walked slowly toward her. “If you’re trying to get rid of me, Quillen, you’ll have to do better than that.” He stopped in front of her and gently, almost delicately, curved his hands around her face. “I never give up until I get what I want, and what I want happens to be you.”

  His fingers traced her cheekbones, his touch so light, so deft, that Quillen could almost feel every ridge of skin in the tips of his thumbs. Closing her eyes, she savored the feathery, yet scintillating caresses as her lips parted, and she swayed toward him.

  Very softly, his mouth brushed hers, then he stepped back and his hands dropped to her shoulders. “Will you have lunch with Realgar tomorrow?”

  Instantly Quillen’s eyes flew open. A hot, sizzling flush prickled up her throat and, embarrassed, she ducked her head.

  “You don’t really want me to stay, Quillen,” he told her as he curled his index finger under her chin and raised her eyes to meet his, “and if I kiss you like I want to kiss you, I won’t want to leave. And I’d just as soon spare us both that humiliation.”

  “I’ll pack our lunch,” she offered breathlessly.

  “No, I’m going to buy us each a turkey leg tomorrow. Meet me in our place at twelve o’clock.” He squeezed her shoulder gently, then started for the door. He turned back to her with one hand on the knob and smiled. “You do know where our place is, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know,” she assured him with a soft smile.

  “Good. See you there.”

  He closed the door, and Quillen drifted across the living room to lock it, a silly smile on her face. Our place, she repeated to herself, and felt an ecstatic little shiver ripple across her shoulders as she slid the deadbolt into place.

  Something here bothers me, her little voice said. He’s too smooth. Go take a cold shower and we’ll talk about it.

  “Oh, shut up,” Quillen replied with a dreamy sigh.

  Hugging herself and relishing the gooseflesh she felt beneath her sleeves, Quillen floated off to bed. Alone, of course, but she had a feeling that would be only temporary.

  Chapter Three

  On Sunday, Tucker was late for lunch.

  Be patient, Quillen told herself, as she sat cross-legged on her cloak in the cleft near the mine entrance, you were late yesterday. To pass the time as the midday sun warmed her shoulders, she tied the thongs on her cloak into decorative knots, carefully worked loose threads out of the hem of her brocade skirt, and wiped smudges of dirt off her suede boots with a dampened thumb. When she checked the Timex in her pouch and saw that it was twelve-thirty-five, an irritated frown puckered her mouth.

  This was no longer late. This was unavoidably detained or— No, she wouldn’t think stood up. Not for another ten minutes or so. At twelve-forty-five, still trying to give Tucker the benefit of the doubt—after all, she’d been late yesterday—she left her cloak in the cleft so he would know she’d been there, and set off in search of him.

  He’d said he was going to buy turkey legs, so the logical place to start looking was the nearest brazier. He wasn’t in line there, so she made her way through the crowds clogging the dale toward the second closest brazier. Her stomach began to growl as she inhaled the mouth-watering smells drifting out of the eateries lining the shady lane. I could never find him and miss lunch, she reasoned, and stopped and bought a packet of tempura vegetables. Munching on batter-dipped broccoli and cauliflower, she continued her search, and had nearly finished the last snow pea pod when she reached the Weavers’ Glade.

  There was no tall, white-haired wizard in a gray robe in line at this brazier, either, which lay alarmingly close to the thatched-roof booth of the Society for Creative Anachronism. Wishing she had her cloak to hide her jabot, Quillen melted into a knot of people, safely out of sight of the two armored knights strutting like peacocks before the hut. The momentum of the crowd carried her toward the archery range and there began to break up as the people surrounding Quillen moved closer to watch a tall archer in forest green tights and jerkin shooting against a white-bearded old man in a gray cloak.

  Boys will be boys, she thought, more amused than perturbed as she found a vantage point near the ropes cordoning off the targets. Sh
e was about ten yards away from Tucker and Cal, far enough away that she couldn’t hear their brief exchange as her friend stepped up to the mark, but close enough to see the thin, tight frown on his chiseled features. This is not a friendly match, she thought as she glanced at Tucker’s target, and saw why.

  There were three arrows neatly planted in the center red. On Cal’s, there were only two, and a third sagged from the second ring. His fourth shot struck the red high with a whooshing, sucking sound as the arrow bit into the hay bale behind the target. Shaking his head, and plucking the bowstring in disgust, Cal backed away from the mark.

  With a good-natured slap on the archer’s broad shoulder, Tucker moved past him and withdrew an arrow from the quiver slung over his left shoulder.

  Pointing his bow at the ground, Tucker strung an arrow and took a spread-footed stance with the toe of his left boot on the mark. Raising his arms, he drew back his right, took aim, and let the arrow go. Quillen never even saw it fly. The next thing she knew, his bowstring was vibrating and the arrow was protruding from the bull’s-eye. Dead center.

  “Shades of William Tell,” she whispered in an awed murmur as gooseflesh crawled up her forearms.

  A grudging smile on his face, Cal shambled forward and offered Tucker his hand as he turned away from the target. Applauding, Quillen started toward them, and Tucker turned to face her. His mouth dropped open and he clapped his right hand to his forehead.

  “Lunch!” He grimaced, wiping his palm slowly down his wrinkled face and crimping Realgar’s nose. “How mad are you?”

  “Not at all, that was worth three turkey legs.” She smiled and reached up to straighten his nose as she peeked around his left arm and grinned at Cal. “I hope you’ve been suitably humbled, hotshot.”

  “More than suitably,” he muttered, then stepped alongside Tucker. “Damn, you’re good. Want to hunt rabbits this winter?”

  “God, no!” He blanched, or at least Quillen thought he would have if he hadn’t been made up. “I mean, thanks, but no thanks. My father took me once and I threw up all over my boots. Do you know what time it is, Quillen?”