California Girl (16 page)

“Yes, ma’am. And a water
mister for the orchid. I remember.”

She thought he was
laughing at her as he slid behind the wheel to go in search of a discount
store.

“Pets are like
children,” she said defensively. “They need loving care and attention. I don’t
have it in me any longer.”

He shot her another of
his disbelieving looks but didn’t argue. Once they found a store, he helped her
tie Purple in her box so they could leave her in the car. Inside, he threw a
kitten-sized travel carrier into a shopping basket. While she looked for a book
on cats, Elliot checked the ingredients of cat foods to choose the one with the
most nutrition. Alys found a purple cat leash. Elliot chose the litter box and
paid for it all.

“I’ll need to start a
list of how much I owe you,” she muttered as they lugged their purchases back
to Beulah.

“The kitten and orchid
are my aunt’s fault, not yours. And I bought the hat and boots for me, because
I like looking at you wearing them.” He opened the car door for her so she
could dump her packages on the backseat.

Startled by the warmth
in his voice, Alys jerked her head back so fast, she clipped Elliot’s chin. He
caught her shoulders to steady her, or attempt to steady her. Her whole world
whirled when he held her like that.

He liked looking at
her?

Finding her center again, Alys retreated from his hold
to release Purple. The kitten writhed in her hands and licked her cheek, her
furry tail wagging like a dog’s. She would not get attached.
Would not
. Gently, she set the disappointed
cat into its new carrier. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

“I give out diet advice
to girls,” he said dryly, handing her the rest of the packages, “not flattery.”

That was an interesting
aspect of Elliot Roth that she hadn’t considered. “I suppose some women might
consider diet advice a seductive topic,” she murmured, hiding her smile.

“We do not want to go
there,” he warned. “I have had women standing at the back door of the radio station
when I’m done taping a show. Suffice it to say that women who think diet advice
is seductive are not high on my list of potential dates.”

“You emit such negative energy.” She shook her head in
sympathy. “No wonder you suffer indigestion. Diet and exercise are only
part
of the formula for healthy living.
Cheerfulness and positive thinking ease stress and open the channel for
spiritual healing.”

“Heart failure is caused by the very physical buildup of
plaque in blood vessels leading to and from the heart,” he corrected. “Lack of
adequate blood supplies weaken the heart muscle. An electrical derangement of
the heartbeat triggered by strenuous or stressful activity causes cardiac
arrest. Cheerfulness will not clean out the arteries or build a stronger heart.
Diet and exercise will.”

“You really don’t let
yourself feel the energy, do you?” Poking a cat treat between the bars of the
cage for the protesting kitten, Alys tried not to let disappointment shadow her
interest in Elliot. Men simply didn’t open their hearts and senses as women
did.

She’d hoped he was
different, but he was a doctor. They were the least likely creatures on earth
to look past their narrow physical view of the world, proving once again that
she was better off without a man in her life.

Not that she wanted one,
she reminded herself. She would just like to think Mame had a nephew who was a
little more sensitive.

Eliot didn’t need to
understand her to have sex with her.

“I have tons of energy,”
he said meaningfully, opening the front car door.

She hid another smile as
he took the driver’s seat. “Stamina is not what I had in mind.”

“It’s almost three.
Should we head back to the hotel?” Undeterred, he watched her through eyes gone
dark with desire.

“To check in.” Refusing
to give in to his sexy gaze—although it activated all her long frozen-hormones—Alys
stared straight ahead. “I still haven’t seen the zoo or the butterflies.” If he
was anticipating the evening half as much as she was, he’d be salivating by
day’s end. That should give him some incentive to ignore her inadequacies.

“Are we likely to see
Mame at the zoo?”

“We’re not likely to see
her, but I’ll bet she was there. She’ll want to compare notes when we catch up
with her.”

“Will we catch up with
her?” he asked, as if she had some special knowledge unavailable to him.

“At the Balloon Fiesta,
I’m sure. This really is what’s best for her, Elliot. She’s running scared
right now.” Mame had given no indication that she was involved in anything
except a few days of freedom, so Alys didn’t mention her suspicion that his
aunt was up to something besides matchmaking. Mame was quirky, but this trip
had gone a little far beyond just quirky.

Not that a dense male
who didn’t open himself up to spiritual energy would notice.

“If Mame knows as much
as you say she does,” she continued, “she knows how to take care of herself.
And she has one advantage that you don’t—she understands the power of the
spirit. She’s generating positive energy, opening channels, and connecting with
the spirit that flows through us. It would have been better if I was with her,
but your negativity might counteract her well-being.”

“I am not negative!” he
shouted. “I’m positive that she can live until she’s ninety if she’d only
follow the damned rules.”

“Rules create stress,
especially if they’re rules created by others. Mame needs to feel in control of
her destiny. That gives her strength and feeds into her energy. Hospitals take
away that control and sap energy. Hospitals are jam-packed with stress and bad
vibrations.”

“We don’t have medical
phasers we can zap at people, like in some
Star Trek
movie,” he protested.
“Hospitals are necessary.”

“Maybe scientists ought
to work on energy phasers.” Stubbornly, she crossed her arms. Maybe she didn’t
want to go to bed with this man. He was even worse than Fred with his logical
mind that required everything be proven. “No wonder men die young and widows
populate the senior citizen centers.”

“Could we go back to the
part where I tell you that you look cute in the hat?” He parked Beulah in the
hotel parking lot.

She slanted him a glance
from the corner of her eye. He looked dead serious. He really had his heart set
on a repeat performance of last night. Cheered that the eminently successful,
attractive Doc Nice wanted her enough not to argue with her, she pretended to
consider his request. “Only if you promise not to tell me that I’m cute when
I’m mad.”

“That was next on my
list, but I’ll refrain.”

Laughing that he’d
managed to say it without saying it, Alys followed him into the hotel lobby. The
clerk had no messages and the room they checked into held no surprises.

“Does Mame have friends
here, too?” Elliot asked warily, canvassing the room as if he expected his aunt
to leap out at them from hidden corners.

“I don’t know. We know
she was here while we were shopping, but she may be trying to get ahead of us
now. Tomorrow is a longer journey, although I’d rather explore here than
Amarillo.”

Until she’d said it, she
hadn’t realized how she’d exposed herself. Would he choose to race on to
Amarillo tonight? It wasn’t as if he had any interest in zoos and butterflies.
She tried not to look too interested in his decision.

Elliot ran his hand
through his rumpled curls and stared out at the Oklahoma City skyline. Absentmindedly
transferring his hand from his head to rub at his solar plexus, he faced her.
“I can’t kidnap her and heave her into a hospital. If she’s feeling well enough
to keep going, the decision has to be hers. She has my cell phone number. It’s
a little late to go traipsing through canyons or whatever she has on the
itinerary for tomorrow.”

The question in his dark
eyes when he turned to Alys cemented the evening’s activities. He didn’t push
or demand or take control of the situation. He left the decision up to her, and
happy wings of freedom fluttered in her chest. “The zoo. Let’s release Purple
so she doesn’t grow too bored in her cage.”

He nodded, relinquishing
the reins of worry he’d attached to his aunt. Now, if only she could get him to
relax and enjoy himself, she would have channeled enough positive energy to
keep Mame going a while longer.

She hoped. She lived in
dread of the phone call saying Mame had been taken to the hospital again. Positive
energy, she reminded herself. No negative vibrations.

“Seafood tonight,” she
promised. “We can bring some back for Purple.”

Oops, she’d forgotten
she wasn’t supposed to become attached to the kitten. Well, a few nights of
caretaking wouldn’t hurt.

If she saved enough food
money in this brief sojourn with Doc Nice, she could afford a bus ticket to her
dream. She’d never seen the ocean. She thought she had what it took to be a
California girl.

“Elliot is in good hands.” In satisfaction, Mame pushed
away from her hiding place off the hotel lobby. If her nephew didn’t recognize
the value of a woman like Alys, she couldn’t help him if she had a hundred
lifetimes.

“He
is a grown man. He has already healed
Púpura
. He
can take care of himself.” Dulce slipped out of the ice-machine niche. “It is
yourself you must worry about.”

“Now that your foolish Purple is in good hands, it’s you and
Lucia we must worry about. I’m feeling healthy as a horse.” That was only a
tiny lie. Her pulse rate was irregular, but that was because of Dulce’s
difficult situation. By tomorrow, matters would be under control. How difficult
could rescuing a child from a cantankerous old bigot be?

Mame wasn’t quite so certain about what waited on the other
side of this adventure, but at least she would have settled all outstanding
matters before she subjected her traitorous body to whatever depredations the
doctors had in mind.

“I would never have agreed to this had I known about your
health, Mame. You risk too much for us.”

If Mame hadn’t had another fainting spell, Dulce would never
have known. Maybe she should take two pills for safety’s sake. She dismissed
her companion’s concerns with a wave of her hand. “I risk nothing but a few
days and a bit of fun. We’ll be out of Amarillo and into Albuquerque before
Salvador knows what hit him.”

Mame ignored Dulce’s worried expression. Positive energy and
blind luck had brought them this far. They couldn’t fail so close to their
goal. The Universe must have meant for her and Dulce to help one another, or
they wouldn’t have been heading in the same direction. It had been sheer coincidence
that she’d mentioned going to Albuquerque to a student who’d known Dulce’s
desire to go there, too.

“You do not know Salvador,” Dulce murmured, hurrying after
Mame. “He is a big man in the community, in more ways than one. He was a truck
driver who bought the truck company for which he worked. He despised my sister
not just because she was a Navajo, but because she was a woman. He will not
respect you anymore than me.”

“That will be his downfall,” Mame replied confidently. “God
is on our side. Let us free Lucia and you will both be on your way to safety.”

Mame trusted the words Dulce muttered under her breath were
prayers. Their next task wouldn’t be quite so easy or pleasant as bringing Alys
and Elliot together.

* * *

A bundle of gray fur darted from beneath the sofa fringe,
hopped to a cushion, and took a flying leap at a lamp shade. As the lamp
toppled, the kitten sailed from the shade to the top of the entertainment
center, where it peered over the edge in confidence that it had eluded capture
by the humans who had just invaded her territory.

“Mighty Cat,” Alys declared in admiration of the kitten’s
acrobatics. They’d put a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door and left Purple to
roam in the hotel room while they visited the zoo. He didn’t seem to have done too
much damage. Standing on tiptoes, Alys reached for the culprit.

“Wildcat,” Elliot suggested, righting the lamp and shoving
the sofa cushion back in place. “We should have left her in her box.”

“Keeping the poor thing penned up would be cruel.” Alys placed
the purring kitten over her shoulder, absorbing its soft rumble with pleasure.

She wouldn’t admit to nervousness as Elliot flung his
Stetson on a table and reached for a phone. He’d been a complete gentleman all
afternoon, patiently escorting her through the zoo and the butterfly garden,
even expressing interest in the scientific displays of butterfly migration and
propagation. He wasn’t the kind of man given to public displays of affection,
but he’d held her hand often enough for her to learn to like it. She’d enjoyed
sharing his intellectual interest and discussion, enjoyed it far too much for
her own good. She’d be better off becoming attached to the cat than the tiger
awakening behind Doc Nice’s laid-back façade.

What was wrong with her that she couldn’t walk through the
world alone without craving the company of others? How would she ever learn to
stand on her own?

Elliot ordered a bottle of wine from room service, then sat
on the edge of the bed to remove his boots. Unlike the prior night, there was
assurance in his every move. He had no doubt how this day would end.

That
knowledge shivered her timbers as much as the idea of a committed relationship.
She didn’t want him counting on her for
anything.

“Would you like to shower first, or shall I?” he asked. He
was always amazingly polite, even when on the verge of murder. Maybe she hadn’t
driven him quite that far yet, but she calculated she and Mame had skirted
pretty close to his boiling point a time or two. Or maybe she was wrong, and he
really was just a purring kitty-cat looking for a good time.