All About Charming Alice (12 page)

“Lesson number one in desert survival,” said Jace. “I’ll keep it in mind until summer comes around.” Now what had he just said? Summer? That was months and months away. What was he talking about? He wasn’t going to be anywhere around here then. Had Alice noticed the slip up? He didn’t think so.

“I often think of the women settlers who came out to the prairies or to places like this, a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago,” she was saying. “Most came from poor farms in Europe, or big cities in the east. They accepted arranged marriages with ranchers because they thought that out here, they’d have a decent life. They’d arrive at train stations in the middle of nowhere, and their new husbands would pick them up, take them, usually by mule, to the shack or dugout where they’d spend the rest of their days. No neighbors. No entertainment. Nothing but childbearing and drudgery. A few tried running away, but finding them was easy. Some were chained to the doorways of their huts so they couldn’t escape again.”

“Where did you learn so much local history?” Jace asked.

“I read,” she answered defiantly. “Books exist even in Blake’s Folly, in case you didn’t notice!”

“Oh, I noticed, all right,” he said, amused. “There are heaps of books all over your bedroom. You probably spend a lot of time reading in bed.”

“And?”

“So do I,” he said softly. The thought conjured up nights with Alice in that big bed of hers. Reading. And doing other things …

They had reached the top of a high hill now and Jace looked around. Straggling Blake’s Folly was far out of sight, and as far as the eye could see, everything was beige: the wide valley in front of them, the range of bare hills in the distance. “Strange place,” he murmured. “Like the surface of the moon.”

“In a way. But I really do love it here. It’s beautiful.”

He liked the passion she put into the declaration. A passionate woman. Believing passionately in causes. Feeling passionate about a landscape. Reacting with passion when he touched her. Very nice, very rare. As rare as pure gold. And he’d found it here. His feeling of satisfaction curled up nicely with his raw desire.

“Any rattlesnakes out this way?”

“Worried?” she asked.

“Cautious. I’m counting on you to pull me through this.”

“I’ll do my best.” She looked at him. “But why worry about rattlesnakes now? Just because you’re in the desert? There are rattlers everywhere. In the eastern states, in California. They’re wonderful swimmers too: they just push against the water. People have spotted them several miles off shore. And some climb trees.”

The subject wasn’t a pleasant one to him, but for some reason he was feeling less queasy than he usually did. Alice was watching him closely, and he forced himself to smile. More than anything, he didn’t want to look like a coward in her eyes.

“Are you all right talking about this?” she asked.

“Fine. Perhaps the more familiar I become with the subject, the less traumatic it will be. Still, I’d like to make a deal: I charm you; you charm the snakes.”

She laughed, and held out her hand to seal the bargain. He curled it into his, and felt like a king. Savoring the moment, he breathed in deeply and the air was dry, strangely pungent in a harsh, unusual way. “I’m actually starting to appreciate this part of the world,” he said, surprising himself.

She looked pleased. “It does grow on you after a while. When I first came out here, I thought I’d made the crazy decision to live on the moon. I’d spend days walking up around these hills, searching for something that was different, something alive, something green — a forest, a garden, a lawn — anything at all. But all I could find was one beige valley with a rim of hills leading on to another beige valley.”

“But you stuck it out. Came to love the place.”

“I did.”

He waited, hoped she would confide in him, tell him more. But she didn’t. Unless he pried, and by now, he knew how she hated that. Still, he couldn’t stop himself. “But you must have wanted to get away from something pretty badly.”

Her eyes avoided his, but she nodded slowly. “Oh, yes. I was definitely running away.”

“From?”

“From everything. From a life I hated.”

“From a man?”

Her eyes met his, finally. Her lip curled. “Oh yes. Also from a man. My husband, as it happens. The world’s greatest playboy.”

“I see,” said Jace.

“I suppose you do.” Her eyes challenged him. “Don’t you go in for the same billing?”

Jace shook his head. “Oh no, Alice. That’s unfair. I thought I already made it clear I’d never be a playboy husband. Never. And as for calling me a playboy, well, that’s your label, not mine.”

Although, when he remembered the conversation they’d had on the veranda last night, the designation didn’t sound
that
far off the mark.

• • •

The easiest way back to the house led through the middle of Blake’s Folly. By now, the sun had disappeared and deepening shadows pooled around the odd-looking collection of ramshackle dwellings, the caravans and shacks, lending them a mysterious, but homey air.

Jace seemed to be particularly interested in a huge pile of boards stacked up in a yard that would never, under any circumstances, be called a garden. True, there were a few long-dead and stringy flowers in tubs, several gasping, scraggly trees, but most of the space was taken up by pans, boilers, tires, car parts and unknown metal carcasses that just might — a very long time ago — have belonged to something recognizable.

“If I didn’t know I was in Blake’s Folly, I’d say we were looking at contemporary art in a sculpture park,” said Jace, amusement in his tone.

Alice stole a glance at him from under her eyelashes, at the strong jaw, the fine lines crinkling around the shining green eyes, the hair that curled temptingly over his brow. Useless to try damping down her feelings for him: it was too late. Jace had managed to penetrate every secret place in her heart and there was no going back. All she could do was keep hiding the way she really felt. She even managed to sound calm, slightly mocking.

“Funny. I’ve never thought of Pa Handy as an artist before. I wonder what Ma would say about that. She still thinks Pa’s going to clear this mess away one day. She wants to plant a rose garden.”

“A rose garden? In the desert?”

“You can’t stay married to Pa Handy and not be a little crazy.”

“Does he sell any of this stuff?”

“Would anybody want to buy it?” Alice scoffed.

“Yup. I would.”

Jace swung open a rusty gate and headed along a path leading through the rubble and up to the bungalow door.

Alice followed him with a definite feeling of dread. “You don’t want to do this,” she whispered desperately. “Ma Handy’s the biggest gossip in Blake’s Folly.”

“I can survive that. Blake’s Folly has a population of fifty-four these days, if you count me in.”

“She’ll imagine all sorts of things if we come calling together.”

“So?”

“So? Jace, listen!”

He didn’t.

The door opened before he had even had a chance to knock. Ma had probably been observing them for the last half hour.

“Why Alice, what a nice surprise. Come in, come in. Take off your coats, make yourselves at home.” Ma’s eyes glittered as they unashamedly took Jace in from head to toe.

“We won’t be staying, Ma,” said Alice trying to prepare a quick escape. In another minute, she figured Ma would be asking Jace exactly what his intentions were. “Jace just wanted to ask Pa a question.”

But Alice realized she was only talking to herself. Ma had already linked her arm through Jace’s and was drawing him into a tiny overheated living room crowded with even stranger objects than those out in the yard.

“Of course you’re Jace, Alice’s new lodger. I’ve been hearing so much about you lately.” Ma Handy never did beat about the bush when on an information gathering mission.

Alice’s groan was barely audible, but Jace caught it. She could see by his sparkling eyes that he was actually enjoying himself.

“Welcome, both of you,” shouted Pa from a monstrous armchair in one corner of the room. On a low table in front of him were what looked to be around a thousand bolts, nuts, screws, springs, and wires. “Company’s just what we need. I’m having no luck putting this whoosits together anyway. Sure gets on my nerves.”

“What’s a whoosits actually supposed to be, Pa?” Alice asked weakly, her mind desperately whirling, searching for a safe subject of conversation. There was no telling what embarrassing things Ma would come up with when she had a mind to being obnoxiously nosy.

“Dunno, really,” said Pa scratching his head. “Just a little thing I picked up over Dulverton way, sitting out there on a pile of junk I went to see. Thought if I tinkered around a bit, it’d come to something.”

Search as she might, Alice couldn’t come up with a snappy response to that.

Ma Handy was still staring at Jace, though. She wasn’t going to let him off the hook now that he was in her lair. If anyone had a one-track mind, it sure was Ma.

“You’re a good looking man, too,” Ma now said. “I was just mentioning to Jane Grimes, only yesterday, that it was about time Alice here had a little company in that big old house of hers. I don’t know, but I’d be scared out of my wits out there all on my very own with no one within shouting distance.”

“Ma … ” began Alice, her face pained, but there was no stopping the flow.

“And, of course, you’re robust and healthy, too. That must be a comfort. It’s just the kind of man Alice needs.”

Alice wished with all her might that the ground would open up under her feet or — even better — under Ma’s. Of course it didn’t: you never could rely on natural phenomena when you needed them. She barely dared shoot a miserable glance in Jace’s direction. What could he be thinking?

“Of course, Alice,” continued Pa inexorably. “Looks don’t matter at all when you meet the right person. Nor age, neither. Look at me. I’m a good six years older than Ma.”

“You’d never know it,” Jace confirmed, his face perfectly deadpan. It was true. Pa looked pretty much like Ma. Both of them were shapeless, ageless, and shameless.

“Now you’ll sit down and have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie,” said Ma.

“No, Ma. Thanks, but … ” Alice might as well have saved her breath.

“Of course you will. Fresh apple pie. Just baked it this afternoon. No one walking out that door without having a taste of it.”

Even if it had to be at gunpoint.

“I was wondering if you wanted to sell some of the wood you have outside,” Jace said to Pa as he took the seat Ma offered him. “Some of the paneling on the side of Alice’s house needs replacing and I could get it done in a few hours if I had the boards.”

“Jace … ” Alice began again, then stopped. Ma was looking at her curiously.

“Alice. Don’t tell me this young man is fixing that old dump up of yours. Well, that’s mighty nice of him.”

“Yes,” mumbled Alice, meekly. “Isn’t that what good looking, healthy, robust men are for?” But sarcasm was wasted on Ma who’d never recognize it in a million years. What Alice really wanted to do, of course, was rant, stamp her foot and tell Jace he’d done enough already. That it was, after all,
her
house,
her
property,
her
life. Yet she knew how hopeless her position was.

She certainly couldn’t win in the face of Jace’s determination. Or even Ma’s. Right now, Ma was taking in every single word of the conversation, and before tomorrow’s dawn cracked, every single soul in Blake’s Folly, living or dead, would have heard a totally adulterated and highly dramatic version of it. And cooking up a deeply satisfying, totally incorrect love story as well. One with a happy end, of course.

That’s all she needed, all right. To be the center of everyone’s attention.

And what would they all say when Jace picked up and left? Went roaring back to Chicago, to the good life? To Tanya?

That she, poor Alice, was just too much of a crank to be able to hold onto a man for any longer than a few short weeks?

Phooey.

At nine-fifteen in the morning, a horrendous grinding noise, comparable to that of an ancient dump truck on a corrugated tin roof, was heard on the road. It was only the arrival of Pa Handy’s old pick-up, delivering the wood Jace had requested. After that there was no easy way of getting rid of Pa; he stuck around like glue, feigning interest in Jace’s home improvement scheme but in reality, on another fact-finding mission. No doubt Ma had told him to come back with some new juicy gossip — or else. When Alice caught the silly, sheepish look on his face, she knew her suspicions were right.

Knowing that the slightest comment she made to Jace or even the tiniest look in his direction was bound to be misinterpreted, she decided the best defense against an attack of local curiosity was to remain safe and sound in her study. Not that she was able to get any work done. Knowing her territory had been invaded by two males had her fuming like a badly lit coal stove. Besides, the conversation the men were having outside — if such a thing could be called conversation — was impossible to block out.

“Fixing up the old veranda, eh?”

“That’s right.”

“Sure does need fixing up. Everyone here in town’s been saying that for years.”

Jace’s only answer to that was a volley of hammering. Pa, however, was a patient individual when he had to be. He waited for the next pause.

“Take you years to fix this here whole place up. Yep, years. You thinking of doing all that?”

“Depends what you mean by fixing up.”

Jace had hedged that one nicely, thought Alice with a grim, masochistic sort of satisfaction.

“Well, at least a year or two, or even three. Think you’ll be around that long?”

If Jace had answered that question, Alice wasn’t able to hear over the hammering.

Finally, after an eternity or two, the dump truck whipped up a cloud of dust and carbon monoxide that violently and completely blocked out the cerulean sky, and moved back over the corrugated tin roof in the direction of home.

Only now did Alice dare make an appearance.