Miner's Daughter (11 page)

It was her fault she hadn’t trained Tiny not
to jump on people. Mari knew it. And she hated knowing it.

By the time she spotted Tony Ewing—clad in
another fancy suit—seated on the porch of the Mojave Inn and
sipping an iced drink, Mari was mad enough to chew nails. He and
Martin Tafft were talking, probably about the darned picture they
were going to make here.

Tony didn’t say anything to Martin when he
spotted Mari Pottersby tramping up to the hotel, carrying a bundle.
He presumed the bundle was his jacket, and he wondered if she’d
managed to fix it. He doubted it.

Not that he gave a rap on a personal level.
What did he care about one measly jacket? Hell, he had enough money
to buy Bloomingdales.

Since her dog had attacked him, Tony’s grudge
against Mari had been growing by the hour, however. He wanted her
to suffer for the animal’s unseemly behavior. He couldn’t have said
why, although he thought it might have something to do with her
illogical loyalty, her damnable lack of respect for him and his
money, and her smart mouth.

It was a pretty mouth.

Damn, he hadn’t meant to admit that.

“Say, Tony, isn’t that Miss Pottersby?”

Tony squinted at Martin and acquitted him of
subtlety. Martin’s open, honest face didn’t betray a hint of
sarcasm. Well, and why should he be sarcastic? It was Tony who had
the problem with the Pottersby wench, not Martin. Martin didn’t
ever have problems with anybody.

“Yeah. I think it is.” He spoke casually, as
if the two men were chatting about espying a lone eagle in the sky.
In Mari Pottersby’s case, it was more like a lone buzzard. Which
might be why Tony often felt like carrion in her presence.

She was a graceful buzzard, though. Even
though the weather stank—the rusty thermometer hanging outside the
Mojave Inn’s back door registered 105 degrees—her back remained
straight, and she seemed to glide across the dusty ground. Tony
wished she were ugly. It would be so much easier to hate her if she
weren’t so darned pretty.

At least she wore a hat this afternoon.
Evidently, not even she could tackle the mid-afternoon desert heat
without headgear. She might even turn out to be human. Maybe.
Unlikelier things had transpired. Or so he’d been told.

While Tony was still sneering, Martin rose
from his chair and called out a cheery greeting “Good afternoon,
Miss Pottersby! Good to see you. Let me get some iced lemonade for
you. You must be dying of heat prostration if you’ve walked all the
way here from your home.”

Her home. Tony very nearly snorted. If that
painfully rustic cabin was a home, Tony’d eat his hat.

Mari trod lightly up the steps of the porch
and gave Martin a friendly smile. “Thanks. I’m dry as a bone and
awfully hot.” She ignored Tony.

“You really ought to allow us to drive you
around, Miss Pottersby,” Martin said. “We’ve got cars and drivers,
and it would save you a good deal of walking in the heat.”

“That’s okay, thanks. I can’t afford to get
soft.”

“Suit yourself. I’ll be right back.” Martin
took off, gracious man that he was, to fetch Mari some
lemonade.

She hadn’t said boo to Tony. Tony noted this
lapse in particular and resented it. It occurred to him that he
hadn’t spoken to her, either, but he quickly thrust the thought
aside. He wasn’t the one at fault here, after all.

He observed with interest as Mari watched
Martin until he was out of sight then took a deep breath, as if she
were preparing herself for an unpleasant task. She turned and
looked down at him, since he hadn’t bothered to rise politely, as a
gentleman ought to do when a lady approached. He justified his bad
manners by telling himself Mari wasn’t a lady.

Thrusting the folded lump of fabric at him,
Mari said abruptly, “Here. I’m afraid I ruined it.”

Tony finally pried himself out of his chair.
Only when he was standing did he take the jacket from Mari’s hands.
He didn’t speak until he’d flapped the folds out and held the
jacket at arm’s length for inspection.

“It shrank,” he noted in a neutral tone.

She clasped her hands behind her back. If
she’d been wearing trousers, Tony had no doubt she’d have stuffed
them into her pockets. “Um, I noticed that.”

He glanced from the jacket to her. “What am I
supposed to do with this? I can’t wear it.”

“Um, I don’t know. Donate it to charity?”

“The stain didn’t come out of the right
shoulder, either,” he pointed out.

“I know. But a poor person probably wouldn’t
care.”

“I’m not a poor person.”

It was very interesting to Tony to watch the
way Mari operated. Now, for instance, she was barely containing hot
retorts to his innocent comments. She looked rather like a pot
about to boil over. Her face, a beautiful golden-tan color from the
sun, had taken on a deeper reddish cast, and her gorgeous eyes had
thinned ominously.

“I know you’re not poor.” Her tone of voice
had become harder, too, and she was clipping her words. “Most poor
people can’t afford to care about a tiny stain or two.”

“Tiny?” Tony lifted the jacket and held out
the right shoulder so it was a mere inch away from Mari’s pretty
eyes. “That doesn’t look tiny to me. Although,” he added smugly,
“Tiny did it.”

She expelled a huff that made the jacket’s
arm flutter. “Darn it, I know Tiny did it. I’ll pay you back.”

“Oh?” Tony flipped the jacket away from him
it landed half on and half off the chair he’d vacated. He watched
Mari watch the jacket’s flight, her expression a priceless
combination of incredulity and rage. “And will you pay only for the
jacket, or does your offer extend to the suit, which is no longer
whole and, therefore, unfit to wear?”

“Darn it, I’ll pay for the whole suit!” She
sniffed and lowered her voice. “You’ll have to wait until I get
paid.”

“Will I? And what if I don’t want to wait
that long?”

Ah. Tony grinned inside. He’d finally made
her lose her temper entirely. He couldn’t account for the feeling
of joy that invaded him when she stamped her foot and hollered,
“Dagnabbit, I’m sorry my dog got your blasted suit dirty. I’ll pay
you back when I can There’s nothing I can do in the meantime but
say I’m sorry. What do you care, anyway? You’ve got more money than
God!”

“True,” Tony agreed calmly “But I think you
ought to pay for the damage your dog does when asked to do so. Do
other people have to wait for months—”

“Months?” Mari shrieked. “
Months
! What
do you mean, months? Dang it, Mr. Tafft said this would only take a
few weeks!”

“Calm yourself, Miss Pottersby. You probably
won’t have to wait months for your money.”

She expelled another gust of air and
whispered, “Thank God.”

“But I think you should pay me for the damage
to my jacket sooner than that.”

Her shoulders went back, her spine stiffened,
she lifted her chin and glared at him. “Well, that’s just too bad,
because I don’t have any money.”

He cocked his head slightly. “Who said
anything about money?”

“Huh? I mean, I beg your pardon.”

He’d managed to fluster her entirely. Tony
had seldom experienced such a swell of satisfaction. How odd. “You
can pay me back by agreeing to take dinner with me this
evening.”

She stared at him blankly, her eyes going as
round as copper pennies. Tony could get lost in those eyes if he
didn’t watch himself. She narrowed them again immediately, and eyed
him in deep suspicion. “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want me to take dinner with
you?”

“It’s your punishment for allowing your dog
to ruin my jacket.”

A gap in the conversation ensued as Mari
stared at Tony, and Tony tried to look innocent. At last she said,
“I don’t understand.”

With a nonchalant shrug, Tony said, “What’s
not to understand?” In truth, he didn’t understand it either, but
he couldn’t shake his compulsion to spend time with Mari Pottersby.
It made no sense. She was the most aggravating, intolerable,
nonsensical female he’d ever met. Yet he wanted to be with her
constantly.

When he’d returned to Los Angeles with Martin
after they’d negotiated the contract shoals with Mari, Tony had all
but pined to get back to Mojave Wells. And, since Mojave Wells was
about as hospitable a place as hell itself, he knew it was Mari
calling to him. It was all very annoying, actually, and he trusted
he’d get over it if he spent even more time in her company.

In the meantime, he could tell she believed
him to have an ulterior and portentous motive. He could almost hear
the little gears in her brain turning. Pasting on a bland smile, he
pretended to reassure her. “My intentions are pure. I promise I
won’t try to compromise you, Miss Pottersby. You needn’t be
afraid.”

From a dull brick red, her cheeks bloomed
fire. The process was fascinating to behold, and Tony watched with
pleasure.

“I’m not afraid! Not of you.”

He lifted an eyebrow. He didn’t like the way
she’d said
you
as if she couldn’t imagine anything less
plausible than an attractive woman being subverted by him. Hell,
women were always plying their wares on him, trying to get him into
compromising situations so he’d be forced to marry them. This
female didn’t know with whom she dealt, if she believed women to be
immune to him, Tony Ewing. Damn her anyhow.

“No? Then why hesitate?” He forced himself
not to grind his teeth, but to smile in a winning way.

“Here’s the lemonade. Nice and cold”

Both Tony and Mari jerked at the sound of
Martin’s voice, cheerful and obliging. Tony turned and found Martin
at his elbow, holding out a frosty glass full of lemonade to Mari.
He saw Mari blink several times, as if she’d been as startled as
Tony by Martin’s arrival.

Which was stupid. They’d both known Martin
would be returning with lemonade for Mari.

“Um, thank you very much, Mr. Tafft,” Mari
said after a quick overhaul of her emotions. She even managed a
gracious smile as she accepted the glass and sipped. “Mmm, this is
good. It really hits the spot”

Martin beamed at her for a second, then swept
a hand out. “Sit down. Sit down! Tony and I were just going over
the shooting schedule.”

“The shooting schedule?” Mari sat, looking
puzzled.

From which, Tony deduced she was unfamiliar
with the language of picture making. He tried to clarify. “That’s
the order in which the scenes will be filmed.”

“Oh.” She frowned at him, as if to tell him
she didn’t care to have him explaining things to her. Too bad for
her.

Mari didn’t know about any of this. She
watched a bunch of actors walk over and clump around the mine’s
entrance. They all carried picks on their shoulders and had their
white makeup smudged to make them look like people who actually
worked for a living, instead of actors. Mari, who’d been a miner
all her life, had never seen a miner look like that, but she held
her tongue. It was apparent that motion-picture folks didn’t go in
much for reality.

At the moment, she sat on a folding camp
chair under one of the umbrellas that had been set up to protect
the cast and crew from the blistering sun. She’d been impressed by
how early these people got up to work. She’d assumed they’d all
sleep in and let the better part of the morning pass before they
did anything. But they’d all started gathering at least an hour and
a half earlier. Mari had joined them about twenty minutes ago.
She’d left Tiny in the cabin to prevent any misunderstandings.

Nothing happened.

The actors shuffled around. A couple of them
lowered their heavy picks to the dirt. Some of them peered into the
distance, toward the town of Mojave Wells, as if they were
anticipating someone’s arrival. Mari wondered who they were waiting
for. She craned her neck and looked, too, seeing nothing but the
barren desert stretching for a mile or so in all directions. So she
sat back again, ready to wait some more.

For several minutes a whole lot of nothing
ensued. Grumbles swelled from the cluster of actors/miners. Mari
crossed her arms over her chest and sweated along with them,
although she at least was protected by the umbrella’s shade.

If whoever it was the actors were waiting for
was late, she didn’t blame them for getting huffy. It was too
darned hot to stand around doing nothing.

After talking amongst themselves for some
minutes and probably melting all that ugly makeup off their sweaty
faces, the actors finally decided they needn’t suffer heatstroke
while waiting for whoever wasn’t here. They began straggling over
to the line of chairs and umbrellas. Several of them saluted Mari
politely. She smiled back.

A young man, breathing heavily, flung his
pick to the ground, collapsed into a chair, and said, “I hate this
heat.”

“It’s mighty hard to take, all right,” Mari
agreed. To make him feel better, she added, “It’s cooler inside the
mine.”

“Hunh! I wouldn’t know. And I may never find
out if the director doesn’t show up pretty soon.” He sounded crabby
and irritable.

For that matter, Mari herself was feeling a
trifle antsy. She wasn’t accustomed to hanging around twiddling her
thumbs, waiting for people to show up. She’d worked independently
all her life, and she’d worked like the devil—for all the good it
had done her. She didn’t like having to wait for idlers to make an
appearance in order to begin her workday.

Shoot, if she hadn’t rented the Marigold to
Peerless, she’d have had half a day’s work done by this time. She
squinted up at the sun and estimated the time to be somewhere
around nine o’clock. Way past time for any respectable person to
get to work.

Which, for some incomprehensible reason, spun
her mind around to Tony Ewing. She heaved a sigh and wished it
hadn’t.