One of the patrolmen waved them forward. Maggie eased back up to speed and soon the smoke was just a black pillar in the rearview mirror. Tris couldn’t make out the figure who stood and watched. When even the smoke was obscured by a turn in the road, Tris glanced over again to Maggie. She had the saddest look on her face. Guess he was wrong about her seeing the people in the car.
Tris cleared his throat. “Sorry you had to see that.”
She swallowed and tried to shrug, acting the tough girl. It wasn’t working. “It was red and square, just like my truck,” she said in a small voice. “Guess I’m just sentimental.”
*****
“Excellent.” He flipped the cell phone shut on Prentice’s call. One ex-Tremaine, an ex-girl, and an ex-truck. Now he could report success. Which was good. Now he didn’t have to find the O’Brian place. Maggie O’Brian and Tristram Tremaine were probably already in body bags over in California.
He flipped open the cell and dialed the old woman. “Prentice got them,” he said. “Just like I planned.”
“Eventually.”
“But they’re dead now, for sure.” That had to be enough to redeem himself.
“Come on home.”
Home. Yeah. The Clan and the old woman were all he had, now that Selah was gone.
“We have to find a way to get to the other Tremaines. And you need to meet my new weather controller.” She sounded excited.
The old woman was assembling them. And soon no one would be able to do anything to Jason he didn’t want, except the old woman. She might be the most frightening creature he’d ever encountered. But if she was on your side, she could keep the other nightmares away. And the world was full of nightmares.
“I’ll be there tonight.”
*****
Maggie gave Tris some line about the burned-out truck looking like hers just because she didn’t want to reveal how shaken she was by those two charred figures slumped in the fire. Maybe because it had looked like her truck, the fate of its occupants was even more real. It took all she had to concentrate on the turning mountain road. It was one thing to see someone on fire in some horror movie on TV. Inside you knew it was just the work of some stunt people and a makeup artist who’d be crying their thank-yous on awards night. But those two were not going to show up anywhere except in pictures taken by the coroner, and they died in screaming agony.
Tough as nails Maggie O’Brian wouldn’t be upset about this. Been around. Seen shit. And she had. Horses squealing in pain. Cowboys kicked in the head who wouldn’t be rodeoing again anytime soon. Hell, the man sitting next to her had broken bones sticking out of his leg and she’d kept her cool. Mostly. She chanced a glance to Tris. He had a concerned look.
“Uh, sorry there’s no radio to put on,” he said.
“Yeah.” His hand rested on his thigh. Did he have to do that? She didn’t need to be thinking about his thighs. Why couldn’t she do for herself what she did for horses? He cleared his throat. But nothing else came out. Obviously, he had no idea what to say to her.
She had to admit that his trying to distract her was, well, thoughtful. She ought to cut him some slack. At least make an effort at conversation. “So … what about this business of yours in LA? Want to tell me about that?”
No. The answer was written clearly in his uncomfortable expression. But he gathered himself and made the effort. “Not much to tell. I’ve got a body shop. I restore old cars and cycles. Used to anyway.”
“Where is it?”
“Just east of downtown.”
So the shop still existed. But that was the barrio.... “Oh. Bad neighborhood.”
“Just poor.”
“Gangs?”
He nodded. “They leave the place alone.” He talked about it in the present tense.
“Why?”
He looked over at her until she glanced away from the road. “Because I hired some rival gang members. I taught ’em how to work on their own cars provided they left the violence at home and didn’t steal the parts. Couple of ’em are pretty talented.”
Smart. “So … you have a crew?”
He shrugged as well as he could. “Fifteen guys, not counting the apprentices.”
Whoa. He wasn’t some itinerant mechanic. He was a capitalist. “I thought apprenticeships went out with indentured servitude.”
He glowered at her. “Takes more than a high school class in metal shop to learn motors and metal. You got to serve your time with guys who know.”
“That how you did it?”
He looked away. “I, uh, taught myself.”
Interesting. “Oh, do as I say, not as I do?” She lifted her brows.
“Yeah, smartass. Prevent them from making the mistakes I made.”
He wasn’t just talking about mistakes in metal. She could see it in his eyes. “Uh, you still own this business? Cause you sure act like it.”
He looked at the passing forest. “Yeah. Just haven’t been there in a while.”
The emotion in his eyes shut down. He was going to clam up unless she prodded him. And that didn’t seem right, when he knew all her deepest, darkest secrets. Like Elroy. And Phil the Rat. “So. These apprentices work for free?”
“You’re determined to make me into the villain, aren’t you?” He went silent. She’d pushed too hard. His mouth tightened into a grim line. She thought he’d turn away, but after a minute he stared at her defiantly. “Look, I pay good wages,” he said in a low voice. “Health insurance. Hell, I even sponsor a Goddamned Little League team.”
Okay. She’d been kind of an asshole. She took a breath. “I’m sorry. I ... I sometimes make assumptions.” When had she ever apologized to anybody?
He looked away. “You’re not alone in that.” He was mad now. “You also go on the attack when you’re feeling defensive.”
“Defensive? I’m not being defensive, and if that remark isn’t an attack, after I apologized no less, I don’t know what is. It’s you who’s defensive.” Her outrage almost closed her throat.
To her surprise, he sighed a half chuckle. “Yeah. I’m defensive about the shop. Sorry.”
Wow. She’d been gearing up for a big, satisfying argument and he just caved. Still, she hadn’t been defensive. What was the good of being right if she couldn’t shove his face in it?
So why had she gone on the attack? She stared at the road as it wound through pine trees. A semi ground its way up the hill in the opposite lane, bringing back images of a lonely road and a semi barreling off into the night.
Maybe she was on the attack because Mr. Movie-star Biker was not the total bastard she wanted him to be. His urge to protect her from Elroy last night had touched her. His tenderness in making her an ice pack had made her want to kiss him. And a lot more. Even now she lusted for him, and that made her vulnerable. Worse, she admired his skill with motors and found him … well, intriguing. All that Zen engine stuff spoke to her. For an incredibly handsome man who must know it, he actually defied her expectations. He should be smug. Guys who looked like that were. But he wasn’t. He’d never even tried to charm her. He was tongue-tied when she saw him in the hospital and embarrassed about needing a ride to LA. He was vulnerable about something she couldn’t identify. Now he had some self-awareness? Dangerous.
But the fact that he was … well, likable didn’t change how very, very wrong he was for her. In fact, it made it worse. She might be tempted to give into her body’s demands where he was concerned. And then where would she be? He’d admitted that he’d done drugs. She knew he fought and drank. Those she could forgive. But he also said women fell over him, and he took advantage of that. Tomcat. She sure as hell didn’t need that. Men! To hell with them all. She’d have a fine, lifelong relationship with her vibrator.
The only safe course was to give him the silent treatment for seven hours into LA.
Or maybe the best defense was to make him run for the hills (figuratively, since he wasn’t in any shape to run). And she knew just the trick to make sure a
man like Tris Tremaine would treat her like she had the plague. But the price was revealing Maggie O’Brian’s last secret lust. The one she tried to cover up with admonishments to herself. The one that just might kill her someday.
*****
Tris watched the play of emotions across Maggie’s face as she took the truck through its gears on the curves. Uncertainty and a little regret turned to resolve. She pursed her lips.
Uh-oh.
“Yeah, I’m sorry too,” she said. A long pause ensued while Tris’s dismay built. When a stubborn little rodeo rider pursed her lips like that, you were in trouble. She was thinking about what to say, or maybe how to say it. “Guess I’m not really comfortable around guys. Inconvenient, since I spend most of my life around guys. Makes for a hair-trigger temper.”
Tris adjusted his leg by lifting his knee a little. “I can see how you would be.”
“Double bad, since what I want most in the world is …” She swallowed and went pale. “Is to have a husband and kids. Maybe lots of kids. A … a family. That’s scary, you know?” She heaved in a breath and held it for a minute before she let it out. She was wound tighter than a winch cable with a sixteen-valve motor hanging on it. Did that mean she was lying?
God, he hoped so. “Yeah, I know how it is. What you want most scares you silly.”
She shot him a grateful glance. “I like to think I could do better than my mama, if I got a chance. Maybe I can’t. Maybe I’ll turn out just like her and ruin a good thing. Or maybe I’ll never get a chance. I always kept away from boys after Phil the Rat.”
She wasn’t kidding. The wandering rodeo rider with nerves of steel wanted true love and babies, because she’d never had a loving family. He had a hard time getting his breath.
He should have known. What woman isolated herself and took to rodeoing, but someone who thought they wanted no ties? Especially if her mother deserted her and her father was an asshole and her first love left her? Crystal clear. End of story. Except ties were the one thing she’d never had. And so they became the one thing she secretly wanted. She was revealing her soul here.
And he was the last person in the world to give her what she wanted. He’d had all the ties he could handle in his life. Now he’d been running from ties, including his family, for over a year. Last thing he wanted was to go back now. Create a family of his own? Not likely.
“Well. That’s it then. You know all there is to know about me.” She nodded to herself. But her expression was bleak.
“Forewarned is forearmed?” He hadn’t meant it to come out as a question.
“Yeah,” she said, after a minute. “Warned.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Maybe you could just drop me at the shop,” Tris said, as they saw the first sign for the 10 freeway off the 405. It was after three and the traffic was starting to pick up.
“Your shop?” That made no sense to Maggie.
“I got some rooms over the service bays. I’ll be fine there.”
“Sounds like Motel Six, only worse.”
“I’ll call my family.” He sounded a little panicky.
“Like you did from the hospital?” she interrupted. “No dice. I’m taking you to your family’s house, so they can see you need help. After that you all can do what you want.”
He was silent, chewing his lip. It hadn’t escaped her notice that he’d been getting more and more nervous as they got into LA proper. His family must be even worse than Elroy, if they could upset him like this. “Give me directions, or I’ll just keep driving.”
“You should get the horses over to that camp.” Boy, he really didn’t want her anywhere near his family. Didn’t he know by now she could take care of herself?
“I’ll just wait out the traffic in a coffee shop somewhere after I drop you.”
He sighed like a condemned man on the way to the gallows. “Get off at Hawthorne.”
“You got it.” He’d need some support if the homecoming was going to be that bad, and maybe a ride if they wouldn’t take him in at all. She owed him that for defending her from Elroy. Though she hadn’t needed it, the gesture had been kind. Maggie O’Brian paid her debts.
Hawthorne Boulevard was about ten miles down the road. He licked his lips like his mouth was dry. “Where to now?” she asked when she hit the off-ramp.
He gave her directions as the Ford and its loaded trailer cruised down a main thoroughfare. Looked like suburbia anywhere. Malls, furniture stores. He had her turn onto Pacific Coast Highway then left up the hill onto Palos Verdes Boulevard West. As they drove on, the houses got bigger. Horse properties, some of them, with pristine white painted fences filled with fancy horses. She was willing to bet the people who lived here didn’t call them that. They were driving into the late afternoon sun. A cool onshore breeze picked up, announcing that the ocean was nearby. Soon the houses disappeared behind wrought iron gates and high stucco walls. As they came to the water and curved south at an intricate intersection, the sea finally came into view. Italianate mansions costing multiple millions covered a bluff. They still looked like cookie-cutter houses. If you were rich enough to live here, why would you buy a tract house?
And why was Tris taking her into this kind of a neighborhood? Were his parents caretakers or something for one of these estates? Maybe live-in help?
Then she remembered the American Express card and the insurance. Maybe…. No. His shop in the barrio probably made just enough to provide insurance and credit cards.
Past the housing development a small carved sign announced that they were entering Palos Verdes. “Green bluffs” in Spanish. To their left, stacked up the hillside, were palatial dwellings of all types, from Tudors to modern glass wonders. Off to the right in the distance, barely glimpsed through rows of some kind of cypress, some Spanish-looking buildings stood silhouetted in the sun out on a point.
“We getting there anytime soon?”
“Just after the lighthouse.” It loomed ahead to the right in a little park out on the bluff above the beach. They passed it and curved in next to the hillside, then out again.
“Slow … there. Just pull in by the gate.”
Maggie pulled into a landscaped area off the road more than big enough for the Ford and the trailer. In front of the high, whitewashed wall next to an impressive pair of wrought iron gates stood a post with a speaker and a touchpad. You couldn’t see much through the gates because the drive was lined with huge oleanders. This place must be huge. “I’ll go announce us. Whom do I ask for?”
Tris sighed. “Better if it’s me.” He opened the door and collected his crutch. He made his painful way around the front of the cab and over to the post. This long ride had really done him in. Or maybe it was the prospect of seeing his family. He looked like a condemned man. She wondered if they lived in some little cottage on the grounds. Good gig if you could get it. Unless they weren’t allowed visitors or something medieval like that.
But Tris didn’t use the speakerphone. He pressed his thumb to the touchpad. The massive gates to his right clicked then swung open. He limped back and pushed himself in, taking a big breath before he pulled his door shut. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
She raised her brows but said nothing. Maybe she was catching his anxiety. She eased the truck out of park and turned in through the gates. As she followed the road between the high oleander hedges, she heard the gate clang shut behind her. It sounded pretty final.
The road wound downward and suddenly the hedge ended. They came out onto that point she’d seen from afar. The rows of cypress trees to her right screened the property from the road. A lovely hacienda-style house of three stories looked out over blue ocean to Catalina Island beyond. Beautiful. She must have gasped, because when she looked his way as she rolled to a stop, Tris grimaced.
He heaved in a breath. “Yeah. Welcome to The Breakers.”
The house had a name? And his welcome sounded ... proprietary. “This … this is your family’s house?” she whispered.
He grimaced again and nodded.
She looked back out over the property. Though dominated by the house, there were what must be garages off to the left with room for a lot of cars, and to the right a stable with two riding rings, one set with jumps. The whole was surrounded by eucalyptus and Brazilian pepper trees and some formal gardens, but there was room for a whole development of houses if they had been placed as close together as those she’d seen on the way in. Much of the land was just left in natural grass and plants, artfully augmented with flowering specimens.
This was where the biker guy who fixed cars came from? When he’d said he didn’t belong with his family, he hadn’t just been whistling Dixie. And if he was out of place, then she was double, triple, quadruple out of place here. Her old Ford and her rattletrap trailer (correction: his old Ford), and her jeans and cowboy boots so didn’t belong here she was half tempted to just turn around and head back out.
Which she couldn’t. Now the support Tris needed was even clearer. And they really might not take him in, so he had to have a way out. She swallowed. Okay. She had to hang in at least until she was sure they’d help him. Lord, it wasn’t as though they couldn’t afford to put him up. But maybe they’d disowned him or something. Tris probably did something people like these would think unforgivable.
She set her jaw and eased the truck down the drive. This could get ugly.
*****
Tris felt Maggie’s wary determination like he was tuned into her wavelength on a CB radio. She had a lot of guts. More guts than he did at the moment. Wait ’til his mother got a load of Maggie. Not his usual type. Or his parents’ type either. Still, his mother would probably start matchmaking within two minutes of meeting her. His mother was really devoted to the idea of the family destiny. Got to get the “one true love” thing going if the kids (as she still called even her grown children) were going to come into their powers. Powers as in magic.
Bullshit. Probably wouldn’t happen for any of them. But true love and special powers were especially not for Tris Tremaine, disappointment extraordinaire.
01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin Page 13