California Girl (14 page)

“Why did Mame pick a Marriott this time? It couldn’t have
been here in the sixties.”

“Most of the stuff here now was just in the planning stage
when Mame came through. They had some big-deal city designer lay out the
downtown back in the sixties. Mame said not much had been built back then, but
her husband rode a bull in the stockyards, and she knew I’d like to see the
fancy new stuff. We talked about staying at the Howard Johnson’s on 39
^th
,
on the old road, but it wasn’t in Triple A, and Mame likes her comforts. So we
opted for near the museum.”

“What’s first then? We don’t even know if Mame is here yet.”

Alys wrinkled her nose. “Do we need to replace the small
tire?”

“Okay, tire store first. And then?”

“I guess then we ought to see the stockyards and look around
for a likely restaurant for lunch. Maybe we’ll luck out and hit it at the same
time as Mame.” She glanced at Elliot’s grim expression. “Or we can call all the
hospitals and make certain she’s not in one.”

His glare told her she’d overstepped, but he was way too
serious about this. “If she needs you, she has—”

“My cell phone number, I know,” he said with a sign of
resignation.

“Let me ask the desk clerk if I can leave the orchid inside.
It will cook in the car.”

After imposing upon the hotel clerk to keep an eye on her
orchid, she took her place in the passenger seat, and played with Elliot’s
digital camera while he drove south on the interstate. She loved framing a view
in its little monitor, running the telescoping thing in and out until she had
the picture just the way she wanted it. She hoped he’d give her copies of the
photos when they were done. She didn’t have a computer to put them on, but she
thought there was some way of making print ones.

“I’d have to brush up on my computer skills to be a
journalist, wouldn’t I? Are the programs for photos difficult?”

“Not particularly, which is why there are ten thousand other
people with more experience in that job line ahead of you. You might as well
say you want to be a cowgirl when you grow up.”

He said it in that same pragmatic voice that she recognized
now as concern mixed with a touch of teasing. The man didn’t know how to
communicate without giving advice.

They found a tire store an exit away from the stockyards.
The clerk took one look at the pink Caddy’s enormous whitewalls and cackled.
“Those are special order, man. I can have ’em tomorrow, or maybe next day.
Ain’t seen them beauties in a long, long time.”

Looking grim, Elliot jammed his hands in his pockets. “We’ll
get back to you then. Thanks.”

Alys trotted out of the store on his heels. “Is the small
one safe?”

“Yeah, but it’s probably tearing up the transmission and
brakes and wreaking havoc on the other three tires. Let’s just hope Mame comes
to her senses before tonight.”

Alys was ambivalent about that, but she didn’t mention it
aloud.

Elliot drove down to the next exit, circled the block, and
parked the car near the historic district of the stockyards.

“Writing books is out too, huh?” Picking up on her earlier
topic of careers, she climbed out beneath his withering look. “There ought to
be some
fun
job I can do.”

“Like sing in a rock-and-roll band? You’re showing your age
again. C’mon, this way.” He led her down the main street of the district.

Passing a western-wear store sporting ten-gallon hats in the
window, Alys tried to picture Elliot in cowboy boots and Stetson and liked the
idea so well, she grabbed his elbow and steered him inside. “You have to play
the part right. You’re not even wearing
jeans
.
What kind of cowboy are you?”

“A comfortable one? What part am I playing?” Entering the
enormous old building with its warped pine floors and battered wood counters,
he stared around at saddles on the wall, cubbyholes filled with jeans, and an
entire corner devoted to felt cowboy hats.

“Exploring the Old West, of course. Hats, first. We can’t
walk around in the sun without hats.” She pounced on a small black hat with
delight, balancing it on the back of her head and heading for a mirror.

“It seems to me black would be hot in the sun,” he
commented, looking over her shoulder.

He stood so close, she could feel the heat rolling off of
him in waves, and a longing so strong welled up inside her that she had to step
away. “Black matches my jeans,” she said firmly, hoping he didn’t notice her
avoidance. “You can buy a white one.”

“I’m not wearing a cowboy hat,” he protested. “I’d look like
an idiot.”

“Wearing that knit shirt, you would. But try a hat with one of
these western shirts.” She pulled a red and black number off the rack, complete
with ivory snap buttons on the cuffs.

Not satisfied with just a shirt, she waltzed down the aisles
gathering the necessary elements for her latest fantasy, and Elliot cringed. On
a slow week day, the cowboy-hatted clerks were more than happy to assist, and
she had a wizened old man dancing to her tune. Before Elliot could explain that
he was only humoring an idiot, the old man ushered him into the dressing room
with jeans and shirts, and when he came out, the clerk was holding up boots for
his approval.

“James Garner!” Alys cried, eyeing the cream-colored shirt
with a top-stitched yoke that he’d chosen as the least horrifying of the lot.
“You need a fancy western vest and you could look like a gambler instead of a
cowboy.”

“I don’t want to look like a gambler
or
a cowboy.” But Alys looked at him as if he were James Garner and
Clint Eastwood rolled into one, and with resignation, Elliot tried on a pair of
brown stitched boots.

They were remarkably comfortable. Standing, testing the
heels and toes, wearing the faded jeans she’d chosen, tucking his fingers into
the belt loops in imitation of some old cowboy movie he must have seen, he
felt
like a cowboy. He even gave in and
let Alys pound a flattish brown Stetson on his head. He hated his curly hair
anyway. Might as well cover it up. At least the hat wasn’t one of those
ten-foot-tall jobs, or one with a turquoise-and-silver headband like the one
she was trying on.

She looked cute with the broad brim shading her light eyes.
She tilted it at a rakish angle, and his heart picked up a beat. She still wore
her faded blue halter and black jeans, but the black hat with its sparkly
headband suited her.

He was disappointed when she hung it back on its hook and
turned to smile in approval at him.

“Perfect. Now we can go riding in the canyon tomorrow, and
you’ll look as if you belong there.”

She spun around to investigate a rack of leather belts,
leaving him reeling in her wake. Riding in the canyon? Horseback? Tomorrow? He
hadn’t even planned how to get through today. He had deadlines to meet, work to
finish. He hadn’t planned on a roller-coaster ride with a lunatic in a pink
Cadillac from which there didn’t seem to be any getting off.

When she handed him the hand-tooled belt she’d chosen,
Elliot refused to put it on. “Does this mean you packed riding clothes in those
enormous suitcases of yours?”

She blinked in surprise. “I’m wearing jeans. I have a
baseball cap to shade my eyes. And a scarf for my neck!” She beamed as if she’d
told him she had silver and gold.

Elliot caught her shoulder before she could spin away again.
“The hat you had on looked good. Get that, and I’ll agree to wear the rest of
this ridiculous gear.”

“Do you have any idea how much this stuff costs?” she asked
in incredulity. “You don’t have to buy any of it. I just wanted to see how you
looked in it. Cool, isn’t it?”

She darted off, leaving Elliot to stare at the startled
clerk who’d overheard. She just wanted to see how he
looked
in it? No way. He wasn’t buying that for an instant. Women
did not simply look at clothes and walk away. He might be out of touch, but he
wasn’t comatose.

“I’ll take these,” he told the clerk, who looked more than
relieved. “And add the hat she was looking at.”

Elliot caught up with Alys in the bolero tie section. There
wasn’t any way she was getting him into one of those string nooses, but that
wasn’t on his mind when he caught her shoulder again.

“Boots,” he ordered, steering her toward the shoe department.
“If I’m wearing them, you’re wearing them.”

“My suitcases are already too heavy,” she argued, resisting
his push. “I ought to be looking for cheap luggage. Or at least a backpack.”

“Boots.” He sat her down in the women’s boot department and
gestured at the clerk following him around. “Black ones. With some kind of
silver things on them to go with the hat.”

“They cost hundreds of dollars,” she whispered. “I had no
idea they cost so much. Let’s get out of here before they start toting up all
this stuff.”

“Clothes cost money. These jeans were cheap. A hundred bucks
for a hat is no big deal. When was the last time you looked at prices?”

At her wounded look, it dawned on him. Maybe he ought to
just go bang his head against the plate glass window a few times.
Dumb, Elliot
. Her husband had died after
years of illness. She had no job. She’d sold her damned
house.
Mame had been paying her way. He’d been hanging around with
the comfortable crowd too long.

“I’ll write it off as research,” he said with an edge of desperation.
“I can probably get a show out of it, and a chapter in the next book.”

“Yeah, how to shop your way to fitness in two easy days,”
she scoffed.

She started to rise, but he stood in front of her chair,
blocking her egress as the short clerk tottered over bearing a swaying tower of
boot boxes.

“Out of my way, Elliot,” she said between clenched teeth.
“You forget, I know karate and a few other more useful martial arts.”

“It won’t kill you to try the boots on.” He refused to
budge.

“I can break bones in your foot,” she warned.

“Not while I’m wearing cowboy boots,” he taunted.

Grasping his shirt front, she planted her feet on his booted
toes, and he rocked backward—into the clerk with the tower of boxes.

Hats and boxes and boots flew everywhere, bouncing off
narrow shelves of more boxes, and toppling the stacks.

Wrapping his arm around Alys’s waist, Elliot hauled her off
his feet, but he couldn’t swivel fast enough to catch anything.

Hanging on to Alys, gazing at the chaos they’d created
together, he had the amazing urge to laugh out loud, only he figured he’d end
up rolling on the floor with some of the loose hats if he really let go.

“After this, we’re spending a lot of money here,” he told
her, before setting her down and hurrying to help the traumatized clerk.

Alys dropped to her knees to scramble after boots and boxes
while the clerk insisted it was no problem at all. She was trembling and didn’t
quite know why. She should laugh this off. It was no big deal. They were just a
bunch of boots. She’d done stupider things in her lifetime. Mame would be
singing about rounding up dogies right now.

She wasn’t Mame.

Had she thought she was?

She sure didn’t want to be, not after Elliot had held her
like that. He wasn’t even mad. He’d held her as if he’d done it all his life,
as if she belonged in his arms, as if they fitted together like two pieces of a
puzzle. It had seemed so natural, it had scared her half to death.

She didn’t even know if he knew he was doing it. She’d given
him one glimpse of sex, and he’d adopted a decidedly proprietary attitude. She
didn’t think their little power struggle was in any way similar to his manner
toward Mame. It had felt like raw sex.

Hiding her flushed cheeks, she dug under a chair for a
runaway boot. Broad hands captured her waist and hauled her upright.

He was doing it again. She stared up into Elliot’s
short-lashed dark eyes and caught her breath. His gaze dipped when she filled
her lungs, reminding her that she was wearing a halter with nothing under it.
The smolder developing in his eyes warned he’d noticed.

“We’ll buy them all if you don’t sit down and try them on,”
he growled.

“What happened to Doc Nice?” she asked in low tones as he
released her in front of a chair.

“He met up with Alys Oakley. I may have to buy leather
gloves and pack a pistol. Sit.”

She sat. She wanted to argue. She wanted to wriggle away
just to assert her rights. But he’d been cooperative with all her whims until
now, and she kind of liked the way he’d just asserted
his
rights. If he had any. She hadn’t decided about that yet.

“Remember, I know karate,” she reminded him as Elliot
pointed out a pair of boots to the clerk.

“You can break boards. Can you hit a moving target?” He
lifted his expressive dark eyebrows.

The boots he’d chosen for her had gorgeous stitching all
across the toe, a dainty silver-and-turquoise chain at the ankle, and heels
that would really let her look him in the eye. They fit her feet as if they’d
been tailored for her. Sighing with regret, Alys stood. Well, she could almost
look him in the eye. Her nose reached his chin.

“Want to find out if I can hit a moving target?” she asked.

In answer, he leaned over and kissed her.

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, Alys wore her sparkly new boots and
hat into the morning sunshine, and her head still spun from that kiss.

She didn’t know what he was doing to her, but she liked it
too much to believe it was safe. On the other hand, the air was charged with
positive vibrations and Elliot wasn’t rubbing his chest.

She halted to admire the jaunty tilt of her hat in a window,
and admired Elliot’s long, lean reflection in the process. With his flat
Stetson and boots, he only needed a holster on his hip to complete the image.
In the window, they presented the appearance of a perfect couple.