Blue Clouds (6 page)

Meg nodded slowly. “It's hilly and reminds you of home, maybe. That's why I was so glad I could see the mountains in the distance. But that's not sufficient reason for risking your life.”

Pippa grinned and considered the ice cream selection. “I doubt if I'm risking my life. If he hasn't killed his insane driver by now, I'll survive.”

“Doug? Doug's not insane. Frightening, maybe, but not insane. I think he was in the National Football League until his drinking interfered with his career. Don't let Lisa scare you about Doug. He's the most harmless person out there. If the shopkeepers are intimidated by him, it's because he's big and black. We grow bigots out here as well as anywhere.”

Pippa instructed the waitress on the amount of fudge syrup and nuts she wanted on her mocha sundae, then returned her attention to Meg. “Black? Football player? That's not the driver I met. Maybe Wyatt has killed someone, after all. The driver I met was a grinning dwarf maniac.”

Meg sat back in her chair and relaxed, lifting her mineral water in salute. “Durwood lives, then. I'd wondered. He used to be our gardener, but he wouldn't take a word of instruction. George would tell him to plant roses in the left corner of the backyard, and Durwood would line the driveway with them. I'd ask him to remove those horrible yuccas, and he'd stick them in between the roses and plant peppers in their place. Peppers! We could have supplied half the valley with them. I'm not certain he even speaks English.”

A drunken football player, a maniac gardener, and a Nazi nanny. Quite a household, Pippa mused as she dug into her sundae. Could it be any worse than working with the administrative vultures at home? She'd certainly get paid more here, and have fewer bosses to work around. She could handle Seth Wyatt.

***

She felt less sure of that later that day when Miss MacGregor arrived to pick her up.

Wyatt's current assistant stood nearly six feet tall and wore a business suit like a suit of armor. Pippa had the urge to pinch the shiny gray material and see if it squished or clanked. How could she compare with a monster of efficiency like this?

“If you'll drive me to the airport in the morning, Miss Cochran, I'll leave you the use of my car while I'm gone. You'll need one living out there. Doug isn't reliable, and Mr. Wyatt won't let anyone else drive his vehicles.”

Considering what Durwood had done to the BMW, Pippa could understand his reluctance. He had trouble hiring qualified employees, it seemed. She wondered how he'd kept Miss MacGregor.

As if hearing her unspoken question, MacGregor supplied the answer. “I would have left the place long ago if he hadn't bought me this car and offered a pension plan. I'm near retirement age, and it's quite a temptation, believe me. I could have worked for any major corporation in the country. I've had them inquire often enough. But I'm accustomed to doing things my own way now and don't think I could change.”

Oh, swell, another neo-Nazi with no loyalty whatsoever. Wyatt certainly knew how to pick them. Or maybe his employees just reflected his own character. She didn't have any difficulty believing that.

“I'll show you my filing system this evening. I hope you're familiar with Microsoft. It's the only software Mr. Wyatt uses. I understand you'll have some charge over the child also. I wish you well. He's completely uncontrollable. I hope Mr. Wyatt is paying you well for the extra duty while I'm gone. I'm certain the boy will be your main duty when I return.”

Pippa was beginning to suspect she wasn't paid half so well as Miss MacGregor, or even half as much as she deserved if she survived. No wonder the cad had agreed to her terms so easily.

“I dislike leaving Mr. Wyatt when he's so close to deadline, but the circumstances can't be changed. Supply him with plenty of coffee and don't let anyone disturb him until he's done for the day. He's quite irrational when disturbed. You won't need a strong grasp of grammar and spelling for your editing duties. The software is quite good and Mr. Wyatt knows his business well. You'll learn his few idiosyncrasies after a chapter or two. You can learn from the work I've already completed.”

A chapter or two? Pippa stared at the lantern-jawed woman expertly guiding her candy-red Mazda coupe up the road. “A chapter or two of what?” she inquired politely, hoping the question wasn't too stupid.

It was. Miss MacGregor turned and gave her a disbelieving stare. “Of his book, of course. Why do you think he hired you? We're halfway through it now. He writes one a year, but he always waits until the last minute. It's due the first of June, but he's hit his usual midbook slump. It would help if he could bounce ideas off you. Once he's back in stride, you won't hear anything out of him for days at a time. You'll just find the pages on your desk in the morning.”

“I thought he was in the publishing business,” Pippa answered weakly. Actually, now that she thought about it, they had never discussed precisely what business he was in. Meg's letter about the printing plant had led her astray.

“Oh, he is,” Miss MacGregor replied airily, navigating the last hairpin turn with surprising speed. “He owns an independent publishing house for small-press books and magazines here in California, another in Tokyo, and he's negotiating for one in Boston. He has printing plants and warehouses across the country. He's in a position to compete with the big houses, but he spends so much time on his writing career that he neglects his father's business.”

Writing career? She didn't have a lot of time for reading, but she belonged to the Book of the Month Club and knew the current best-sellers. She couldn't remember ever hearing the name of Seth Wyatt in that context.

“Does he write under his own name?” she asked tentatively.

This time, Miss MacGregor's look contained scorn and a certain amount of pity. “Of course not. He likes his privacy. He writes as Tarant Mott, Miss Cochran. His horror novels make the
New York Times
list regularly.”

Tarant Mott. Pippa couldn't believe it. Mitchell had collected all Tarant Mott's books for years. She saw them everywhere: on the library's new release shelf, in the front of bookstores, in the Book-of-the-Month Club catalog. She'd never read one. She saw enough horror and gore at the hospital. But Tarant Mott... !

Miss MacGregor may as well have said she worked for God. No one knew anything about Tarant Mott. He didn't make personal appearances. He didn't include his bio or photo in his books. He just sold humongous numbers of novels to impatient buyers waiting in line for his latest release.

Rumors abounded, of course. Rumors always did, especially around Seth Wyatt, Pippa decided wryly. She'd seen a magazine article calling Tarant Mott a hermit after a tragic accident that had left him half blind and disfigured and had cost him his wife. Another squib had speculated that his son was dying of an undiagnosed wasting disease. If she thought hard enough, she supposed she could remember more, but she could see the basis of the rumors had very little relation to fact.

Miss MacGregor pulled up to the mansion and handed Pippa over to the housekeeper. As Mrs. Jones threw open the door to her new bedroom, Pippa decided the public could have all the rumors it wanted. She'd come home.

Apparently every room in the house had a spectacular view. Whoever had designed the gothic exterior hadn't had a hand in the interior beyond the strange public entrance with wood where stone should be and vice versa. The door opened into an entire suite of rooms, she realized as Mrs. Jones walked through, opening doors. Sparsely decorated in simple Mission style, the suite contained all the basic necessities and nothing more, which suited Pippa just fine. She smoothed her hand over the fine old wood of the long dresser, admired the crocheted duvet cover on the bed, and stared in awe at the climactic landscape of tumbling rock and cliff outside the patio window. Patio window. She had her own deck overlooking the canyon.

She must have died and gone to heaven. Not noticing when the housekeeper left, Pippa strolled through a closet large enough to hold an entire bedroom, admired the Jacuzzi in the bath, and breathed a sigh of pleasure over the spacious sitting room. A simple wooden sofa held cushions of natural woven linen. A hemp rug served as carpet. Spare bookshelves lined either side of a small hearth. The shelves held an assortment of natural ornaments: seashells, dried grasses, items seemingly plucked from the land and left here to be admired. The few books had titles like
Moby Dick
or
Scarlet Letter
, but she could excuse the designer that faux pas in a house owned by a horror writer. A classic would put her asleep faster than a nightmare story.

Just in case she developed any strange ideas that she had walked into a free California vacation, the phone on the streamlined desk in the corner rang.

Well, no one could live on fantasy forever.

Picking up the receiver, she listened to the voice on the other end.

“Dinner is at seven. Don't wear perfume. Chad has a cold. Check his temperature and see if he needs a doctor.”

The click on the other end didn't allow any reply.

Wondering if she should drop bread crumbs so she could find her way back, Pippa wandered through the guest wing, across the central block overlooking the two-story foyer, and down the long hall she hoped led to Chad's room. She supposed if her mind weren't already so thoroughly occupied by thoughts of her employer and this new job, she might enjoy a leisurely stroll through mahogany and marble, priceless Oriental carpets, and stunning artwork. But she couldn't concentrate on objects right now.

No matter how casually she had treated Wyatt's offer, she needed this job as desperately as he needed her services. Until she'd lost it, she hadn't realized how much she had depended on her job as a reason for living. Without the constant daily demands of people she knew, she felt like a kite without a tail. Grimly, she faced the fact that she was one of those stupid women who needed to be needed. She didn't like believing that at the grand old age of thirty, she could be washed up, worthless, unneeded by anyone.

Pippa couldn't even excuse her desperation as an escape from Billy. She figured she'd pretty well escaped all on her own. She hadn't reached total incompetence yet. But the horror stories of abusive men who chased their wives and girlfriends until they killed them haunted her. This fortress Seth Wyatt called home could protect her. She liked the solidity of these stone and mahogany walls.

So when Pippa entered the boy's room to the splat of a water gun drenching her hair and new dress, she managed a smile quite effortlessly.

“Good shot, cowboy, but didn't anyone ever tell you that it's against the Code of the West to shoot unarmed, defenseless women?” Briskly swiping the bright orange machine gun from his hands, she turned the barrel on him and pulled the trigger.

Chad yowled. He screamed bloody murder. He pounded his fists against his wheelchair, then charged forward in Pippa's direction. She dodged it expertly, grabbed the handles, and swung it in an arc toward the open balcony doors.

“We can play water games out here. I don't think the floor in your room can handle a flood. Do you have another water pistol or do I get to use the watering can?”

When Chad didn't immediately stop screaming, Pippa shoved the gun back in his hands and picked up the watering can. “Count to three or shoot anytime?”

He shut up. Eyeing her warily, he aimed the pistol. Pippa smiled and dodged the squirt of water. Whistling, she anointed him with a spray from the can. Truly furious now, Chad swung his chair and shot again, following her steadily everywhere she jumped. Within minutes, they were both drenched head to foot and Chad had started sneezing.

“Okay, cowboy, that did it. The first one who sneezes, dies. Let's get you into your coffin.” With the assurance learned from years of dealing with temperamental doctors, Pippa removed the water gun from the boy's hands, dropped it on the balcony, and spun him back into his room.

“I'm not dead,” he complained, sneezing again.

“Are too. I'm burying you on Boot Hill.” Expertly, she lifted him from the chair, dropped him on the massive playground she assumed was his bed, and began stripping off his wet clothes.

He couldn't kick his legs, but he twisted and turned and fought her every step of the way. Still, a forty-pound six-year-old didn't have the strength or stamina of a two-hundred- pound man, and she'd fought patients bigger than that before. She had him out of his wet clothes, dried off, and into a pair of cowboy pajamas before his screams alerted the entire household.

“What in hell is going on?” Seth demanded, stomping through the doorway with murder in his eyes.

“I'm burying Cowboy Bob on Boot Hill,” Pippa replied calmly, applying a towel for one final drying to Chad's hair. “If you've got some decongestant medicine, he could probably use a spoonful before we tuck him in. Corpses shouldn't sneeze all night.”

Seth eyed her drenched dress and cheerful expression with the same wariness his son had earlier. “I see. I take it Chad lost the gunfight at the OK Corral?”

“I did not! She cheated,” Chad protested from his throne among the pillows and stuffed animals. “Dead men don't sneeze.”