“Then we’re in business.” She poured into two shot glasses and brought one over to him, then snatched it back. “Probably shouldn’t when you’re on pain pills.”
“I’ve done way worse in my time. A little booze and Vicodin won’t kill me now.” He motioned with his fingers and she reluctantly offered it again. He held it up. They clinked.
“To windmills,” she said. Together, they downed the shots. If he expected her to sip it or gasp with the burn, he was off base. She drank it like she meant it. Her eyes crinkled as she realized what he was thinking. “Should I have got out the little paper umbrellas?”
“Not on my account.”
“Mine either, obviously.” She sobered. “Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “For the windmill.”
This was a girl who wasn’t used to thanking anybody for anything. Because nobody did anything nice for her? Jake liked her, and the old waitress. Dillon who ran the wild horse rescue place respected her. Business relationships, though. Made him want to buy her things for no reason, just because. Like maybe an automatic watering system.
What was he thinking? He didn’t even recognize himself since the accident. Must be the concussion. “No problem,” was what he actually said. “I like working with my hands.”
“That’s an understatement,” she said, bringing over the bottle. “You were in some kind of zone there. Like you were connecting to the motor or something.”
He shrugged. “Sometimes it feels like that, getting a motor to purr. I don’t know. Seems almost like a living thing. You gotta treat it just right.”
“Zen and the art of motorcycle repair?” She filled his glass again.
“I guess.”
The kettle screamed. She tossed off the new shot. “I’ll get dinner going before the electricity runs out. You don’t want to eat what I make by lamplight.” She retreated to the kitchen and poured the hot water from the kettle into the big pan of water and slid the frozen steak packages in to defrost.
“Solar panels are expensive, huh?” He didn’t want her to stop talking. This was a real conversation. No one could argue with that. Not like that pathetic visit in the hospital where he couldn’t find any brain cells or his tongue.
She scrubbed her hands under the tap. “Not just the panels. You need a converter and a slew of batteries to store the juice. I couldn’t afford more than just the one panel right now. Wouldn’t have that except I was riding horses for old Mrs. Gottshalb. She had some fancy horseflesh she brought over from Germany. When she broke her back, she needed someone to exercise them. Very particular what kind of riding they got.”
“What kind was that?”
“Called dressage.” She had out some lettuce and was making a salad.
“Sounds like little girls playing paper dolls.” Had Tammy once talked about dressage? If so, he hadn’t really been listening. That was a chronic danger with little sisters.
Maggie chuckled. “Hardest damn style I ever learned. She was a mean old gal, Mrs. Gottshalb. Real taskmaster. Glad I stuck it out though. Improved my riding and training a lot. I can get top dollar for my fancy horses now.”
“I saw some out in the corrals. Hanoverians?” She’d said something about that kind once.
“Quick study. Yeah. Guy’s picking them up tomorrow night. I already cashed the check. I’ll have Bobby meet him and help him load.”
Must be the boy who fed the horses for her. “You still train horses for the German lady?”
“Nah. She died. Too bad. It was good money. Horses all got sold off.” He heard the wistfulness in her voice. She cared for the horses if she didn’t care much for the old woman. She was really an animal person. So foreign to him. Horses—you put in the clutch and they might or might not decide to go. Which reminded him of something missing around here.
“How come you don’t have a dog? You seem the type.”
She was setting the table, so he saw the look on her face. Devastation. “Can’t take a dog rodeoing. Can’t leave them here. Either way, they get hurt.”
Uh-oh. He was betting on dead. Change of subject. Fast. “Uh, you get enough from your fancy horses for maybe another solar panel?”
She managed a chuckle. “I got just enough to pay the mortgage on this dump and buy the next batch.”
Mortgage? She had a mortgage on this place?
“Elroy’s got cirrhosis,” she explained, seeing his question. “Not exactly a surprise.”
“Medicare?”
“Never had a job where he paid into it. I cosigned for him two years ago when I was workin’ a nine to five.”
A fortune in medical bills and the prick hadn’t even stopped drinking. “That’s tough.”
She shrugged and looked out into the deepening dusk. “You don’t abandon family.”
Guilt stabbed Tris. This woman was caring for an impossible man just because he was family. Tris had been trying to escape his family as hard as he could. Maybe going back to LA tomorrow was right for a couple of reasons. He swallowed. How to keep the conversation going after that? “Uh, Elroy ever work this place?” He wasn’t quite sure what you’d do with land like this. Maybe cattle?
“Nah. He drove a truck after my ma ran off. He was mostly gone. Blessing really.”
“How old were you?” Tris had a nasty suspicion about how Maggie grew up.
“Eight.” She must have seen the look in his eyes. “Hey, I was fine,” she snapped. “School bus picked me up at the road, and dropped me off. Elroy had a tab at the general store. Fine.”
He mustered a smile. “Don’t doubt you were.” But that explained a lot about Maggie.
They were quiet after that. Maggie worked around the kitchen washing the vegetables for a salad, putting on water for some pasta. Tris sipped his whiskey and watched her as the Vicodin kicked in. Must be the drugs and alcohol combination, but he felt sort of … content. He liked watching her. The way she moved, for instance. Economical, but with the grace of a natural athlete. The old electric bulb in the kitchen fixture cast a warm glow over her hair and her skin. Had any woman besides his mother ever cooked for him? Starlets took him to fancy restaurants to show off their latest bad-boy toy. But eating usually meant fast food in his rooms over the shop, maybe going out to a taqueria for a beer and some carnitas with the guys.
Maggie pulled out a cast-iron skillet and set it on the stove. She laid out the steaks and salted and peppered them on one side before she started making a salad. Tris’s mouth watered.
“That looks good,” he said. “I’m pretty sick of mushy string beans and mystery meat.”
She got a sly smile. “Too bad I can’t muster some Jell-O. You’re probably in withdrawal.”
She looked so good in that light with that smile shining at him. Tris was thinking maybe getting busted up had been worth it, if it got him to here, feeling so … right. “I’m holding out for green. I’ve got Jell-O standards these days.”
“You want to wash up? We’ll eat in a minute.”
Tris cast a guilty look at his hands. Grease. Well-practiced shame washed through him. “Yeah. I’ll … I’ll wash up.” He grabbed his crutch, heaved himself up, and hobbled into the little bathroom. It had a claw-foot tub and an old-fashioned pedestal sink under an oval mirror.
Shit. He had a big grease smear on his forehead. How could she not have told him? He turned on the tap. Before the water was even hot, he started scrubbing at his forehead with a washcloth that hung on the rack. The grease just moved around. He put the rubber stopper in the sink and picked up the soap. Lava. “You could have told me I looked like an idiot,” he called.
She appeared in the doorway and watched as he scrubbed savagely first at his forehead then at his hands. “You look like a working man. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
She looked at him curiously. Then right in front of his eyes, she blushed.
He stopped in mid-scrub. “What?”
“Nothing.” She looked away. “I’ll go wa
ke Elroy for dinner and get his medicine.”
Tris focused on his cuticles. Damn grease. He heard her open the bedroom door.
“What you want?” Elroy’s cracked voice.
“I brought you your pills. Then you come on out for dinner. I’m making steak.”
“I gotta eat with you and your john?”
Tris winced.
“You are eating with our guest. His name is Tristram Tremaine.” He could hear her grit her teeth. “He is not a john.”
“No. Go ’way.”
A pause. “Come on, Elroy.”
A smack sounded along with a small female sound. “Don’t you never lay a hand on me, girl.” This was hissed, like a snake.
Tris fumbled with his crutch, washcloth still clutched in his sling hand, and hobbled out the bathroom door. Maggie was hurrying out of the bedroom, hand to her left cheek, eyes full.
“I’ll throw you out, girl, you try that again. You weren’t never no good. Nothin’! That’s what you always been.” Elroy’s yell trailed off.
Anger welled from Tris’s gut into this throat. “He hit you?” he croaked, his grip on the crosspiece of his crutch tightening.
She gasped a little before she caught her breath. “He tends to forget about my right hook when… when he’s drunk. I know better than to get near him when he’s like this.”
So she couldn’t bring herself to hit a sick man. “Knowing you, you were probably trying to help him out of bed.” Tris swung unsteadily toward the door, the hand in his sling forming a fist. That piece-of-shit bastard needed to feel some of his own medicine. The urge to protect Maggie sent a film of rage over his vision.
“Don’t,” she said.
One word. A plea more than a command.
Tris swallowed. He had to get control. For her. He might find satisfaction in pounding the old man to a pulp but it would only make it worse for her. Either he killed the bastard and she felt guilty for it (soft heart that he knew she had), or Elroy took it out on her when Tris was gone.
No winners here. He leaned forward and pulled the door shut with a bang. “You’re having a time out, old man. Don’t come out unless you want a beating from someone bigger than you are.” Empty threat.
“You think you can kick my butt, stove up like that? Not likely. But you’re gonna kick her butt,” Elroy yelled. Something clattered to the floor. “You gonna leave her flat soon as you’re done usin’ her, jes’ like Phil. Stupid whore!” Glass crashed against the door.
Who was Phil? Not the time. He turned to Maggie. “He got any more guns around?”
Maggie shook her head, her eyes big.
“Get a chair.”
She dragged one over from the table.
“Prop it under the door handle.” He watched as she barricaded the door. “Window?”
“Broken pane. Boarded up.”
“Good. Let him stew in his own juices.”
She turned away, ashamed. He reached for her shoulder. The pull of her warmth was almost overwhelming. She shrugged away, dabbing at her eye, and stalked to the stove, leaving Tris feeling awkward and foolish in the middle of the room. What could he say? Why don’t you leave here? Like it was simple with the old man having cirrhosis. When she couldn’t afford both a place of her own and his medical bills. He wanted to give her money. He wanted to take her in his arms and tell her she’d always be safe. What she needed was a man of her own.
That thought brought such conflicting emotions he couldn’t decipher them. So he just stood there, trying to settle. All right, he didn’t like to think about her with a man other than him. But he wasn’t her man. He hardly knew her. In fact, he was no woman’s man. No wonder his mother despaired.
But he had to say something. “He doesn’t value you like he should.” Understatement of the century. Great, Tremaine.
She didn’t turn around. She just shook her head as if to tell him to stop talking about it. He hobbled to the refrigerator and pulled some ice from the freezer, wrapped it in his washcloth, and limped over to her. She was crying onto the steaks on the counter. He gently turned her around. He was so close he could smell the kind of soap she used. Something flowery. Not what he’d have guessed. He tilted her chin up to look at her cheek and the move was just the one he’d make if he were going to kiss her. That made his breathing go a little ragged. Don’t be a prick. You’re not going to kiss her. You don’t take advantage of a woman when she’s feeling vulnerable. A nasty red mark was beginning to swell. She’d bruise for sure.
“Here,” he croaked. “Hold this to your cheek.” He wrapped her hand around the washcloth filled with ice, and the feel of skin to skin was…. Tris blinked. Maggie’s eyes jerked to his face. She blinked, too. He swallowed and somehow brought the makeshift ice pack gently to her cheek. “You … go sit down. I’ll get these steaks cooked.”
“You’re the guest,” she said in a small voice. “And you’re hurt.”
“Just let somebody do something for you for once,” he said roughly. Of course she never asked for anything. Why would she, when her only experience was with a father incapable of giving? She’d never realize other people would be glad to do things for her, value her as she should be valued, love her even.
“You can hardly stand.”
“With two Vicodin 750s and two shots of whiskey in me, believe me, I’m feeling just fine. Steaks will just take a minute. If you smell them burning, give a holler, since I might be feeling so fine I forget to turn them.”
She kind of went slack and nodded, the washrag with the ice held to her cheek. She took the salad bowl to the table with her and sat. “Try not to burn the house down.”
Tris fired up the stove under the cast-iron skillet and put some butter in the pan. When it sizzled, he slapped in two steaks. Elroy was going without dinner tonight. Just because he had cirrhosis it didn’t mean he could hit a woman for trying to help him. His own daughter, too. Tris would be willing to bet the old coot was selfish and abusive long before he got sick. Tris felt sick himself when he realized Maggie might have been getting hit for years. No wonder she was glad Elroy wasn’t around more. She was resilient all right. But coming from this kind of home, maybe she had to pretend to be tough as nails, even if, underneath, she wasn’t.
Tris flipped the steaks. “How you like it done?” Jesus, but these steaks smelled good.
“Medium rare on the rare side. I’m not scared of a little blood.”
“Didn’t think you would be.” That was just how Tris liked his steak. When the steaks were done he slapped them on the plates she’d left. Maggie hopped up and put down the ice pack to bring the plates over to the table. She helped Tris get his foot up on the third chair. Tris put some dressing on his salad from the bottle of Catalina on the table. Catalina. Made him think of The Breakers, a home he’d tried to run away from the way Maggie couldn’t.
She needed somebody to protect her. Or maybe she had somebody. “So, who’s Phil?” he asked around a mouthful of vegetables. Again that confusing feeling made his stomach roll over.
“Nobody.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “I doubt that.”
“Old men remember weird things. Elroy can’t let go of Phil.”
“And Phil is.…”
“Phil was my boyfriend my senior year in high school. Ancient history. Played drums in a small-time rock and roll band. Used to hang out here some. Guess that’s why Elroy can’t let him go. I don’t bring friends here, for obvious reasons.”
So, she didn’t bring men home. Maybe Elroy’s reaction to Tris was born of a suspicion that Tris was important to Maggie. Which of course, he wasn’t. He was just evidence of her soft heart. “So what happened with Phil?”
“Band went to Vegas to make it playing in small-time casinos.”
Tris chewed his steak. He’d never tasted anything so good. It was like his taste buds had been half-asleep all his life. “You didn’t go? That must have been before Elroy got sick.”
“Phil wanted a clean brea
k, I guess.” She wasn’t looking at him again.
Tris would have Kemble find this guy and then Tris would go and personally beat the crap out of him. The way they all thought he’d beat up that photographer. Maggie obviously thought she loved this “Phil.” Maybe Tris wanted to beat the crap out of him for two reasons. Tris didn’t want Maggie loving some prick musician. And you know the jerk would hurt her. Maybe dead was better than just beaten to a pulp.
“What about you? You ever get your heart broken?” She was trying to turn it around on him, so she wouldn’t be the only one feeling vulnerable.
He wished he could come up with something to match her story. “Only the kind of heartbreak that happens when you’re twelve.” He made his tone light. Don’t let her know you pity her for being dumped. Maggie would hate that. “She was maybe sixteen. Blond and blue eyed, looked too old for her age. You know the kind a kid falls for. Thought I was gonna die for twenty minutes maybe when she started going out with the captain of the basketball team. He went around saying, ‘These are the best days of our lives.’ ”
She smiled a little. “I know the type.” She sobered and looked at her plate. “That the last heartbreak?”
He wouldn’t lie. “Yeah. Guess I wised up.”
CHAPTER NINE
She might have been his last heartbreak but she sure as hell wasn’t his last girl. Not looking like he did. Tomcat. Love ’em and leave ’em. Danger, Will Robinson. Remember Phil the Rat. She didn’t want to remember Phil the Rat. She’d spent years learning to forget the one true love that wasn’t. Stupid girl.
Not anymore. Tough as nails. That’s what she was.
Like tonight, when she’d cried in front of Mr. Movie-star Biker? Ugh.
Maggie concentrated on her steak. When had steak tasted this good? Was it just because somebody else cooked it? But Jake’s steak didn’t make her taste buds actually sing. This steak sure did. Almost made up for her swollen cheek.
“Thanks for the book,” he said, after the silence had stretched until she thought she would break. “That was you, wasn’t it?”
Here was something safe to talk about. “Yeah. Good ole James Lee is great, isn’t he?”
01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin Page 10