She hadn’t yet taken the time even to think about food because she’d been so busy reliving the night before. Now, she realized she was a little hungry. But she could wait. Heck, she’d been waiting all her life, hadn’t she? What was one more hour?
Telling herself to cease being irrational and dismal this instant, she brought herself up short and said, “Sure. That sounds nice.”
“It’s a great little village, Arcadia. I wish we had more time. I’d take you to Lucky’s place. He throws some pretty good parties.”
Must be nice. Mari wasn’t sure what to say to an unproffered invitation, so she remained silent. Tony didn’t seem to notice, which was par for the course.
Tony told himself he felt particularly well today because he’d come to an understanding with Mari. She’d finally recognized his superior knowledge of the world, and he’d agreed to be gracious and introduce her to it. He wasn’t floating on air for any other reason.
The fact that last night had been almost perfect, and that he’d never had a better time with a woman, out of bed, didn’t have anything to do with his mood of good cheer. Not a bit of it. He was only pleased that Mari was proving herself to be an apt student of the finer things. Why, she’d become a gracious lady in no time at all at this rate.
She could dance, too, which had surprised him. It was true he’d had to demonstrate the steps to her, but she’d learned quickly. And no amount of instruction could impart the natural grace she’d then demonstrated.
Now wasn’t that a funny quirk of nature? Imagine a girl like Mari Pottersby, who’d been wearing britches and grubbing in a filthy mine all her life, having all that natural grace and talent. He breathed deeply of the fresh morning air and started whistling. The tune that came to his tongue was one they’d waltzed to last night: “Beautiful Dreamer.”
The appropriateness of the selection made him interrupt his merry whistle with a chuckle.
“What?”
Mari’s one-word question prompted him to turn and gaze at her. Her gorgeous brown eyes were wide upon him, and the blue flower she’d selected to stick behind her ear set off the ivory of her skin to admiration. She was quite a looker, Mari Pottersby. Tony couldn’t understand why he hadn’t noticed her intrinsic beauty in the beginning of their relationship. No, not relationship; business partnership. Yeah, that was better. Business partnership. It didn’t feel like quite the right phrase, but Tony felt sure it was.
“What what?”
She smiled slightly at his silly question. “What’s funny?” she elaborated. “Why are you laughing?”
“Ah. I see. I was only thinking about the tune I was whistling. It seemed appropriate, somehow, what with us being associated with the pictures and all. If ever there was a dream-making business, the pictures are it.”
“I see. Yes, I guess you’re right.”
Tony’s gaze kept sliding over to Mari. He could hardly feature this lovely young lady—shabbily clad this morning, to be sure, but she was still lovely—digging in the dirt in search of nonexistent silver. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t proper. She belonged in much more refined circumstances. He frowned. Life played some mighty unpleasant tricks sometimes. Tony didn’t approve.
Mari deserved better than that played-out mine. She deserved—well, hell, she deserved money. A nice home. Pretty clothes. A good man to take care of her.
The notion of a good man taking care of Mari didn’t sit well, and Tony discarded it roughly.
All right, so she got along quite well independently. She didn’t need a man. But she sure deserved an easier life than the one she had now.
He wondered if she’d let him help her out. Just a little bit. He could show her around, introduce her to people, get her settled into a job where she didn’t have to work so hard.
The notion of Mari working at some plodding job didn’t sit well with him, either. Dammit, there must be something she could do that he’d approve of.
She could go to bed with him. He’d approve of that.
The truth hit him so hard, he nearly drove off the road.
“Oh, what is it?” Mari cried, clinging to the hand grip of the Pierce Arrow. “Did you hit something?”
Tony cleared his throat. “Ah, no. I, ah, had to swerve to avoid hitting a rabbit.”
“Oh,” Mari let go of the hand grip and relaxed in the seat. “I guess I didn’t see it. I was looking out at the orange grove. Don’t the blossoms smell heavenly?”
Sweet-smelling orange trees grew on both sides of the road, and Tony blessed them for it. “Yeah,” he said, his mouth gone dry. “Those little critters are quick.”
Good God, was he really in lust with Mari Pottersby? He sneaked a peek at her from out of the corner of his eye. She sat erect on the motorcar’s buttery leather bench, her head turned so that she could watch the scenery as they sped past it. She had an elegant carriage, vivid features, splendid hair, and a shape any man would lust for. She was smart and quick and funny, when she wasn’t being defensive. She could dance. She was ambitious, foolishly so, since her ambitions centered around an unproductive hole in the ground. She had honor and integrity by the ton.
And he really, really wanted to make love with her. He wanted to carry her off to somewhere private—maybe an island in the South Pacific replete with palm trees and coconuts and dusky natives serving them iced drinks—and teach her more than how to behave in society. He wanted to teach her the pleasures of the flesh. He already knew she had a passionate heart. He’d like to redirect her passion toward him.
Impossible. The only way Tony could even imagine Mari capitulating to an affair of the flesh would be if marriage were attached, and that was impossible. Ludicrous. Laughable. They were so far apart socially, it wasn’t even funny. Tony had known men who’d fallen for actresses, but he’d never known a fellow to marry one.
Of course, technically, Mari wasn’t an actress, but a mine owner.
He gulped, that notion having put a liaison with her in a totally different light.
But marriage? To Mari Pottersby? Tony Ewing? He’d never even thought about marrying anyone. He had a couple of friends who’d got married, but they’d done so more for financial reasons than anything else. Oh, he guessed Harvey Morgan had liked Alicia Britton all right, but Tony hadn’t detected anything so exalted as deathless love between them. He shook his head and told himself not to be foolish.
There was no need to think about marriage merely because he found Mari Pottersby attractive. Lots of women were attractive. A man didn’t have to marry all of them in order to appreciate them.
The Marigold Mine elbowed its way into his mind, and Tony frowned when he thought about what would happen a month or so from now, when the Peerless crew deserted Mojave Wells, and the little community went back to its old ways. And Mari went back to working in that black pit. His heart lurched sickeningly, and the notion made him shudder.
“What’s the matter, Tony?”
He glanced over to find Mari peering at him with concern. He said, “Nothing. Just thinking about the picture.”
She nodded. “I’m a little nervous about acting in it.”
“No need to be. You’ll do fine.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Sure.” Because a curious sensation of loss had started crawling through him, and all because he’d thought about Mari slaving away in that dratted mine, he added, “If you want any coaching or anything, I’ll be happy to help.”
“Thank you. I thought you said Martin was the one to help with the acting stuff.”
Dammit, he hated having his own words used against him. “He is, but I’ll be happy to help, too.”
“I see. Thank you.”
They breakfasted in Arcadia, which was a pretty little community. Mari was impressed by all the greenery surrounding her. Tony could understand that, since she probably didn’t see any green growing stuff for months at a time on that ugly desert where she lived. After breakfast, the drive back to Mojave Wells went smoothly
. No tires blew out, the engine didn’t overheat, and nothing rattled off the chassis when they left the paved civilization of the Los Angeles area for the dirt roads of the desert.
The nicest part for Tony, though, was when Mari nodded off to sleep in the car and slid sideways in the seat. He drove for miles and miles with Mari’s head on his shoulder and a smile on his lips.
Martin knew to the second when Tony and Mari returned to town, even though he’d been inside the Mojave Inn for hours, trying to figure out how best to solve the latest hitch in the progress of Lucky Strike. There were so few automobiles in Mojave Wells that as soon as he heard the throb of the Pierce Arrow’s engine, he dashed outside to greet the returnees.
He ran down the hotel’s porch steps in spite of the blistering heat and hurried to open the driver’s door. “Tony! I’m so glad you’re back. There’s— Oh.”
Rubbing her eyes and looking as if she’d just awakened from a deep sleep, Mari, holding onto Tony’s arm, blinked at Martin. Then she glanced down, saw how close she was sitting to Tony, and scooted backward across the seat, blushing up a storm. Tony, frowned at Martin, and Martin could tell he’d interrupted something, although he didn’t know what.
Before responding to Martin’s worried speech, Tony turned to Mari and said gruffly, “It’s all right, Mari. You only went to sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to . . . to . . .”
Martin got the feeling she wanted to apologize for sleeping against Tony. He also got the feeling Tony wasn’t at all sorry that she’d done so.
“Don’t be silly,” Tony snapped. “I didn’t mind at all. You were tired and needed a rest.”
Martin saw her swallow, open her mouth, shut it again, and decided he might as well speak. “I say, Tony. I’m sorry to barge in on you like this, but we need to talk about some queer things that have happened since you left.”
“Let me get Mari settled first, will you?” Tony said peevishly
Martin wished he’d been less precipitate about approaching the returning travelers. But, honestly, he hadn’t meant to interrupt anything. Besides, the last he’d seen of these two, they’d been at each other’s throat.
That should have been a clue, now that he came to think about it. When people honestly disliked each other, they avoided conversation. These two seemed to go out of their way to get together and squabble. With a sigh, he said, “After you’re settled and everything, come into the parlor. We’ve got to talk about this.”
“All right.” Tony had gone to Mari’s side of the car and opened the door for her.
Martin was both amused and interested to note that Tony took Mari’s arm to help her from the motorcar. If there was any woman on God’s earth who didn’t need help entering or leaving an automobile, it was Mari Pottersby. She was probably the most independent female Martin had ever known, which, of course, meant she’d be perfect for Tony, who was likewise independent.
In fact, Martin had been surprised when Tony’d agreed to Maurice Ewing’s request that he go to California and monitor his father’s investment. Martin and Tony had been friends ever since their college days, and offhand Martin couldn’t think of another time when Tony’d done his father’s bidding.
Tony’d explained it to him, though, and his reason made sense. Desiring to remove himself as far as possible from his father’s sphere of influence, Tony had determined to use this opportunity to become acquainted with the West Coast. Ever since Martin had met Tony’s train at the Los Angeles Depot, he’d been encouraging Tony to move to California. L.A. was a great place. Martin was only sorry Tony didn’t have more interest in the pictures.
Still, a fellow couldn’t have everything. Martin would be happy to have his old friend nearer than New York, even if they would never be business partners. It would be lovely if, along with discovering a practically perfect place to live, Tony were also to find his life’s partner here.
But that was jumping the gun. As Martin walked back to the Mojave Inn’s parlor, he told himself to tackle one problem at a time. Anyhow, Tony and Mari’s relationship was none of his business. Martin didn’t have time for romance, so he certainly wasn’t the appropriate person to advise Tony about its pursuit. Besides, Martin had a feeling Tony could take care of himself with the ladies.
About ten minutes after Tony and Mari’s arrival in Mojave Wells, the door to the hotel’s parlor opened, Martin glanced up from the catalog he’d been poring over, and Tony Ewing stalked in, looking like a thundercloud about to burst. “What’s the matter, Tony?”
“Nothing,” Tony snarled.
Martin lifted an eyebrow. Tony noticed, dropped into an overstuffed chair near the one Martin occupied and sighed heavily. “All right, it’s Mari. She’s the matter.”
“How’s that?” Martin forced himself not to grin. He recognized the same symptoms in his friend that he’d seen in others. If Martin were of a diagnostic turn of mind, he’d have said Tony was coming down with a case of lovesickness, but he’d never say so. He appreciated both Tony’s temper and his musculature too much to rile him.
“Dammit, the woman’s impossible.”
“That’s not awfully informative, Tony. What makes her impossible?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Tony slapped his driving gloves on the table beside his chair. “She’s just so damned proud.”
Nodding judiciously, Martin murmured, “Too much pride can be a bad thing.” He was neither surprised nor annoyed when Tony swiveled his head and glared at him. If Martin remembered correctly, it was better to say nothing when a man was in a state like the one in which Tony appeared to be.
“It’s better to have pride than to have no self-respect at all,” Tony retorted, as if Martin had accused Mari of being a coward or a sniveling weakling.
“Absolutely,” Martin said in an effort to redeem himself.
“But not like hers.”
Deciding he’d be better off not speaking at all in response to this comment, Martin only nodded.
“Dammit, she won’t let a person do anything for her.”
Interesting. Martin cocked his other eyebrow. “Did you try to do something for her?”
Tony threw his arms out, almost knocking over the lamp sitting on the table. Martin caught it before it crashed to the floor. “Dammit, I only told her I was going to drive her home, and she wouldn’t let me!”
“Oh. That does seem a little, um, excessive. And you chalk that up to pride, do you?”
“What the hell else could it be?”
Since he didn’t have any idea, Martin said so. “I don’t know.”
“It’s because she was embarrassed about going to sleep on my shoulder.” Tony slouched in the chair, sticking his long legs out in front of him “Silly girl.”
“I guess I can understand her point.”
It was the wrong thing to have said. Martin knew it at once and sighed inside. He’d forgotten that when a man was in Tony’s condition, nothing was the right thing to say.
“Dammit, I don’t!” Tony bellowed. “I don’t understand it at all. What’s wrong with going to sleep if you’re tired?”
“Um, nothing?”
“You’re damned right. Stupid chit. What was I supposed to do? Shove her away?”
“Um, no.”
“That’s right. Dammit, if the woman needed sleep, why shouldn’t she sleep? And it was only an accident that she sort of leaned up against me.”
Studying Tony’s disgruntled features, Martin decided that had been a bald-faced lie, but he wouldn’t mention it. He did, however, feel compelled to say something, if only to ease his own conscience. “Well, now, Tony—and don’t take this wrong, because I know you’d never do anything untoward—but I’m sure a pretty girl like Mari Pottersby, especially one who, like her, has few resources and no parents, might feel especially vulnerable when alone with a man.”
Tony vaulted out of his chair, fists bunched, and glowered down on Martin as if he were some sort of repelle
nt monster. “What the hell do you mean by that, Martin Tafft? Do you think I’m the kind of bastard who’d take advantage of a helpless female? Dammit, Martin, you’re my friend, but I swear to God I’ll belt you a good one if you don’t take that back.”
Interesting. In the space of seconds, Mari Pottersby had gone from being too proud and independent to being helpless. The phenomenon of love puzzled Martin mightily. He held up a placating hand. “I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it, Tony. I know you’re not the kind of man who’d do anything unsavory to a girl, and especially not one like Mari. I’m only trying to point out how it’s possible that she might feel . . . vulnerable.”
Tony towered there for another few seconds, looking as though he really wanted to punch something. Martin hoped he’d choose another target than his own cherished body if he succumbed to the urge. Then Tony’s shoulders slumped, his hands unclenched, and he sat again, drooping like a wilted flower. “Yeah. I know. You’re right. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to be so touchy. Don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Martin suspected he knew, but he didn’t say so in order to avoid another outburst on his friend’s part. Instead, he said, “Say, Tony, I need to talk to you. We’ve got some problems.”
Chapter Eleven
An hour later, Tony looked at the remains of Peerless Studio’s camera equipment in befuddlement. They sure did have some problems.
“How in hell did it get both cameras?” Tony scratched his head as he examined the wreckage of the expensive machinery. The cameras had been stored in a locked shed behind the hotel.
Martin shook his head. “I don’t know. We locked ‘em in here yesterday, after you and Mari left for Los Angeles, and they were found like this at eight o’clock this morning. We were going to do some site testing today to get the lighting and filters ready for shooting in the mine.”
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