Miner's Daughter

by Duncan, Alice

  Tony didn’t want to admit it. Let the insufferable woman worry for a while. He said coldly, “The animal is a menace. If you can’t control it, it ought to be put away.”

  “No.”

  If her eyes got any bigger, Tony might just fall into them and drown. She was going to be spectacular on film. Magnificent. The public was going to fall in love with her. She’d have all the men in the United States wanting to many her.

  For some reason, Tony’s temper erupted again. “If you want to keep that monster dog, Miss Pottersby, I suggest you figure out how to control it.”

  “If you so much as lay a finger on my dog, I swear, I’ll-I’ll—” Her voice started shaking as if it were being disturbed by a strong wind, and she had to stop and clear her throat. “I’ll shoot you.”

  Tony scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s only a dog.” He’d never been allowed to own a dog. His father didn’t like them.

  For some time now, Tony had wondered if his father’s distaste stemmed from the possibility that a dog in the house might garner attention, thus deflecting it from Maurice. Tony prided himself on being a realist. He knew his father’s ego needed constant pampering.

  “Tiny is all I have, you horrid man.”

  Good Lord, her voice had gone positively lethal. Miss Marigold Pottersby could be a volatile female without half trying, couldn’t she? “I thought your precious mine was all you had,” he said, feeling spiteful as he did so.

  “It is. The mine and Tiny. If you do anything to either one of them, I’ll—” She stopped speaking abruptly.

  Tony thought he knew why. He sneered down at her. “You’ll what? Kill me? Don’t be silly. You signed a contract.”

  “There’s nothing in the contract that says you get to do anything bad to my dog,” she snarled. “And you’d better not.”

  This conversation was becoming more preposterous by the second. Tony would never hurt an animal for no better reason than that it got his clothes dirty. He couldn’t understand why he’d threatened Mari with the destruction of Tiny. Such tactics were underhanded and mean; they made him sick.

  He wouldn’t admit as much to Mari in a million years. He yanked his jacket off. “Here. You said you might be able to clean this.” He shoved it at her.

  “Not until you promise me you won’t hurt Tiny.”

  She hugged his jacket to her bosom, and her face held a combination of terror and defiance that made Tony feel unpleasantly guilty

  “Oh, for God’s sake, I’m not in the habit of hurting dogs.”

  “That’s not what you said. You said—”

  “Damnation, I know what I said!” He hated getting trapped in situations of his own making. His father never got tangled up like this. Of course; his father was the meanest son of a bitch on the eastern seaboard. “I promise I won’t hurt your damned dog. Are you happy now?”

  She sniffed. “No.” Her eyes went slitty. “And I’m not sure I trust you. I’ll talk to Mr. Tafft about it. Maybe he can write an amendment to our contract or something.”

  “For the love of—” Tony sucked in a couple of bushels of air. He leaned over and thrust his face close to Mari’s. He awarded her a mental gold star for not flinching away from him. Rather, she stood her ground and glared back at him, although she still held his jacket the way she might hold a shield. “I will not hurt your dog. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. There. Are you satisfied now? You don’t need to talk to Martin.”

  “Well . . .”

  “I swear it.”

  Mari held her rebellious pose for- another second or two, then gave it up. Tony felt an irrational surge of triumph. It really wasn’t much of a victory to manage to intimidate an impoverished girl. He was ashamed of himself.

  With a toss of her head, Mari turned. “I’ll see what I can do for this jacket”

  “Fine.” Tony propped his fists on his hips and glowered after her. “You do that.”

  Damn, she had pretty hair. It shone like the richest mahogany in the fierce sunlight. Today she’d brushed it back from her face and knotted it at the nape of her neck, a practical style for the place she lived in and the kind of work she usually did. She wore no hat, which didn’t amaze him. She was absolutely devoid of any sense of propriety. Any proper female wore a hat outdoors. It was de rigueur. Expected. Polite. Not to mention necessary in this hellish desert.

  Not Mari Pottersby. Defiant as ever, she. Tony wished like thunder that he didn’t feel like throwing his head back and laughing—and then thanking God he’d met her.

  The darned jacket would never be clean again. Mari had soaked it in water and washing soda, then scrubbed it on the washboard on which she did her own laundry. “Blast it, Tony—I mean Tiny—why did you have to take a shine to him? I can’t afford to replace his expensive clothes when you ruin them.”

  Hearing his name, Tiny lifted his ham-like head, grinned, and wagged his tail. Mari sighed. “Oh, I know. You were just being friendly. But I wish you wouldn’t jump on people.”

  If she were worth a grain of sand, she’d have trained him not to leap on people before this. But had she? Heavens, no. Mari had thought it was fun to have a dog that scared the bejesus out of people, but was as gentle as a dandelion puff.

  “I can really be stupid sometimes, Tiny,” she mumbled, scrubbing hard.

  When she lifted the jacket out of the soapy water and inspected it, Mari sighed heavily. “It’s better.” She hoped it wouldn’t shrink. Then again, if it did shrink, she guessed it wouldn’t matter much. It was probably ruined already.

  On that happy note, she lugged the tub over to her sparse kitchen garden and dumped it out to irrigate her food supply. The carrots, cabbages, tomatoes, and onions growing there were used to being watered with leftover wash water. Everyone’s garden around Mojave Wells was used to it. People joked about not having to wash their vegetables because they were already clean from all the soapy water dumped on them during the growing season. Soap was supposed to be bad for plants, but Mari guessed it was diluted enough not to affect these hardy specimens.

  She was ashamed of herself for thinking how nice it would be to have running water and indoor plumbing. That sort of idle dreaming resulted in nothing but discontent, and Mari didn’t need it. She had her father’s mine to run. And if some of that money Peerless seemed to heave about by the truckload landed on her, that was what she’d do with it.

  It was stupid to think about installing hot and cold running water. Nonsensical. Folks didn’t need such luxuries, especially around here, where there was hard work to do and no slacking allowed.

  With a sigh, she lugged the heavy tub back inside the dingy cabin and hung it on its peg above the sink. As she wiped a hand across her sweaty forehead and scanned her earthly possessions, she told herself not to waste time in idle daydreams.

  Unfortunately, she spelled the word wrong in her head, and it came out idyll.

  “Blast! Stop it this minute, Mari Pottersby!”

  Tiny lifted his huge head and peered sleepily at her Mari said, “It’s all right, boy. Only a momentary aberration. I ought to take lessons from you on how to live. You don’t crave what you can’t have. All you do is enjoy each day as it comes.”

  And eat. Tiny ate tons, sometimes more than Mari could easily provide. The Peerless money would come in handy for feeding Tiny, too.

  In order to keep her mind from dwelling on useless fancies, Mari started singing. She couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but she loved music anyway. The only time she ever heard music was when she went to church, so most of her repertoire consisted of hymns.

  She sang them loudly until, when she took Tony’s jacket outside to hang on, the line, she noticed the Peerless crew who were pounding the mine shaft into shape had all stopped pounding in favor of looking at her. They were probably all pausing to be thankful motion pictures were silent, given her voice. Like a dog with its tail between its legs, she scurried back into her home, embarrassed and put out.

  “Oh
, Tiny, I’m not used to people being around all the time. I’m used to my privacy.” In fact, she felt invaded and violated. The sensation was most uncomfortable.

  Mari also wasn’t used to making painful confessions and asking for forgiveness. Two hours later, as she neatly folded Tony’s once-fashionable jacket and braced herself to take it back to him, she rehearsed the confession she’d have to make to him She continued all the way to the Mojave Inn.

  That was the easy part. The hard part came next, when she was supposed to ask him to forgive her for allowing her dog to ruin his clothes.

  “Forgive, heck,” she muttered, building up quite a head of steam as she walked. “What do I have to be forgiven for? I wasn’t the one who wore a fancy suit to Mojave Wells. It isn’t my fault my dog likes him.”

  This was the first instance since Tiny had come into her life that she’d looked on him as a traitor. Still, she’d known for a long time that although Tiny might be very big, his brain wasn’t. Anyhow, it still wasn’t her fault the silly dog had taken a liking to the blasted millionaire.

  It was her fault she hadn’t trained Tiny not to jump on people. Mari knew it. And she hated knowing it.

  By the time she spotted Tony Ewing—clad in another fancy suit—seated on the porch of the Mojave Inn and sipping an iced drink, Mari was mad enough to chew nails. He and Martin Tafft were talking, probably about the darned picture they were going to make here.

  Chapter Six

  Tony didn’t say anything to Martin when he spotted Mari Pottersby tramping up to the hotel, carrying a bundle. He presumed the bundle was his jacket, and he wondered if she’d managed to fix it. He doubted it.

  Not that he gave a rap on a personal level. What did he care about one measly jacket? Hell, he had enough money to buy Bloomingdales.

  Since her dog had attacked him, Tony’s grudge against Mari had been growing by the hour, however. He wanted her to suffer for the animal’s unseemly behavior. He couldn’t have said why, although he thought it might have something to do with her illogical loyalty, her damnable lack of respect for him and his money, and her smart mouth.

  It was a pretty mouth.

  Damn, he hadn’t meant to admit that.

  “Say, Tony, isn’t that Miss Pottersby?”

  Tony squinted at Martin and acquitted him of subtlety. Martin’s open, honest face didn’t betray a hint of sarcasm. Well, and why should he be sarcastic? It was Tony who had the problem with the Pottersby wench, not Martin. Martin didn’t ever have problems with anybody.

  “Yeah. I think it is.” He spoke casually, as if the two men were chatting about espying a lone eagle in the sky. In Mari Pottersby’s case, it was more like a lone buzzard. Which might be why Tony often felt like carrion in her presence.

  She was a graceful buzzard, though. Even though the weather stank—the rusty thermometer hanging outside the Mojave Inn’s back door registered 105 degrees—her back remained straight, and she seemed to glide across the dusty ground. Tony wished she were ugly. It would be so much easier to hate her if she weren’t so darned pretty.

  At least she wore a hat this afternoon. Evidently, not even she could tackle the mid-afternoon desert heat without headgear. She might even turn out to be human. Maybe. Unlikelier things had transpired. Or so he’d been told.

  While Tony was still sneering, Martin rose from his chair and called out a cheery greeting “Good afternoon, Miss Pottersby! Good to see you. Let me get some iced lemonade for you. You must be dying of heat prostration if you’ve walked all the way here from your home.”

  Her home. Tony very nearly snorted. If that painfully rustic cabin was a home, Tony’d eat his hat.

  Mari trod lightly up the steps of the porch and gave Martin a friendly smile. “Thanks. I’m dry as a bone and awfully hot.” She ignored Tony.

  “You really ought to allow us to drive you around, Miss Pottersby,” Martin said. “We’ve got cars and drivers, and it would save you a good deal of walking in the heat.”

  “That’s okay, thanks. I can’t afford to get soft.”

  “Suit yourself. I’ll be right back.” Martin took off, gracious man that he was, to fetch Mari some lemonade.

  She hadn’t said boo to Tony. Tony noted this lapse in particular and resented it. It occurred to him that he hadn’t spoken to her, either, but he quickly thrust the thought aside. He wasn’t the one at fault here, after all.

  He observed with interest as Mari watched Martin until he was out of sight then took a deep breath, as if she were preparing herself for an unpleasant task. She turned and looked down at him, since he hadn’t bothered to rise politely, as a gentleman ought to do when a lady approached. He justified his bad manners by telling himself Mari wasn’t a lady.

  Thrusting the folded lump of fabric at him, Mari said abruptly, “Here. I’m afraid I ruined it.”

  Tony finally pried himself out of his chair. Only when he was standing did he take the jacket from Mari’s hands. He didn’t speak until he’d flapped the folds out and held the jacket at arm’s length for inspection.

  “It shrank,” he noted in a neutral tone.

  She clasped her hands behind her back. If she’d been wearing trousers, Tony had no doubt she’d have stuffed them into her pockets. “Um, I noticed that.”

  He glanced from the jacket to her. “What am I supposed to do with this? I can’t wear it.”

  “Um, I don’t know. Donate it to charity?”

  “The stain didn’t come out of the right shoulder, either,” he pointed out.

  “I know. But a poor person probably wouldn’t care.”

  “I’m not a poor person.”

  It was very interesting to Tony to watch the way Mari operated. Now, for instance, she was barely containing hot retorts to his innocent comments. She looked rather like a pot about to boil over. Her face, a beautiful golden-tan color from the sun, had taken on a deeper reddish cast, and her gorgeous eyes had thinned ominously.

  “I know you’re not poor.” Her tone of voice had become harder, too, and she was clipping her words. “Most poor people can’t afford to care about a tiny stain or two.”

  “Tiny?” Tony lifted the jacket and held out the right shoulder so it was a mere inch away from Mari’s pretty eyes. “That doesn’t look tiny to me. Although,” he added smugly, “Tiny did it.”

  She expelled a huff that made the jacket’s arm flutter. “Darn it, I know Tiny did it. I’ll pay you back.”

  “Oh?” Tony flipped the jacket away from him it landed half on and half off the chair he’d vacated. He watched Mari watch the jacket’s flight, her expression a priceless combination of incredulity and rage. “And will you pay only for the jacket, or does your offer extend to the suit, which is no longer whole and, therefore, unfit to wear?”

  “Darn it, I’ll pay for the whole suit!” She sniffed and lowered her voice. “You’ll have to wait until I get paid.”

  “Will I? And what if I don’t want to wait that long?”

  Ah. Tony grinned inside. He’d finally made her lose her temper entirely. He couldn’t account for the feeling of joy that invaded him when she stamped her foot and hollered, “Dagnabbit, I’m sorry my dog got your blasted suit dirty. I’ll pay you back when I can There’s nothing I can do in the meantime but say I’m sorry. What do you care, anyway? You’ve got more money than God!”

  “True,” Tony agreed calmly “But I think you ought to pay for the damage your dog does when asked to do so. Do other people have to wait for months—”

  “Months?” Mari shrieked. “Months! What do you mean, months? Dang it, Mr. Tafft said this would only take a few weeks!”

  “Calm yourself, Miss Pottersby. You probably won’t have to wait months for your money.”

  She expelled another gust of air and whispered, “Thank God.”

  “But I think you should pay me for the damage to my jacket sooner than that.”

  Her shoulders went back, her spine stiffened, she lifted her chin and glared at him. “Well, that’s ju
st too bad, because I don’t have any money.”

  He cocked his head slightly. “Who said anything about money?”

  “Huh? I mean, I beg your pardon.”

  He’d managed to fluster her entirely. Tony had seldom experienced such a swell of satisfaction. How odd. “You can pay me back by agreeing to take dinner with me this evening.”

  She stared at him blankly, her eyes going as round as copper pennies. Tony could get lost in those eyes if he didn’t watch himself. She narrowed them again immediately, and eyed him in deep suspicion. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you want me to take dinner with you?”

  “It’s your punishment for allowing your dog to ruin my jacket.”

  A gap in the conversation ensued as Mari stared at Tony, and Tony tried to look innocent. At last she said, “I don’t understand.”

  With a nonchalant shrug, Tony said, “What’s not to understand?” In truth, he didn’t understand it either, but he couldn’t shake his compulsion to spend time with Mari Pottersby. It made no sense. She was the most aggravating, intolerable, nonsensical female he’d ever met. Yet he wanted to be with her constantly.

  When he’d returned to Los Angeles with Martin after they’d negotiated the contract shoals with Mari, Tony had all but pined to get back to Mojave Wells. And, since Mojave Wells was about as hospitable a place as hell itself, he knew it was Mari calling to him. It was all very annoying, actually, and he trusted he’d get over it if he spent even more time in her company.

  In the meantime, he could tell she believed him to have an ulterior and portentous motive. He could almost hear the little gears in her brain turning. Pasting on a bland smile, he pretended to reassure her. “My intentions are pure. I promise I won’t try to compromise you, Miss Pottersby. You needn’t be afraid.”

  From a dull brick red, her cheeks bloomed fire. The process was fascinating to behold, and Tony watched with pleasure.

  “I’m not afraid! Not of you.”