Miner's Daughter (32 page)

She stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.
Which he might well have done. He’d never experienced this
desperate need to protect another human being before he’d met Mari.
Not only that, but the need extended only to Mari, although it
encompassed her and everything she was, did, owned, and thought.
Even her stupid dog.

“Um, I’m fine, thanks.” Glancing at the
table, she squinted for a moment then said, “Oh, is that Martin?
And George? Is he there? What happened?”

“What happened? The damned wall fell on top
of you!” Modesty was all right in Tony’s book, but this was pushing
things. She knew damned well what had happened to her, and this
pose of coy timidity didn’t wash with him

She gave him an “oh-for-goodness’-sake” look.
“I know the wall fell, Tony. What I was asking was, did George
discover why it fell.”

“Oh.” That made sense. He guessed he was
being slightly aggressive about his protector’s mode. He took her
by the elbow and guided her to the table he’d lately left. “Yes, he
did find out. I’ll let George tell you about it.”

He pulled out a chair for Mari to sit upon
and asked her, “Would you like something to drink? We’re having
beer, but—”

“Beer?” Mari’s eyes opened up as wide as
platters, and she grinned. “Good heavens, however did you persuade
Mrs. Nelson to serve you beer before four o’clock?”

Martin chuckled. Tony, who was too worried
about Mari’s health to find much of anything amusing, answered her
question seriously. “Mr. Nelson thought we could use it to calm our
nerves.”

“That was nice of him.” Mari thought for a
second. “I could use some lemonade, if there’s any made. I’m
awfully thirsty. If there’s none made, I’ll just take water.”

If there’s any made? Tony would see to it
that Mari got lemonade, if Mrs. Nelson and her whole tribe had to
grow the lemon trees, harvest the lemons, grind the sugar beets to
powder, and dig a well to get water for it. “Be right back,” he
said. Before he’d taken more than a couple of steps, he turned and
asked, his brow furrowed, “Do you need anything else? A bite to
eat? Crackers? A sandwich? Something to settle your stomach?
Anything?”

Again, her expression told him she doubted
his sanity. “Um, no, thanks I’m fine. Lemonade would be nice.”

Tony wheeled around and beat a retreat to the
kitchen, where he barged in, thus surprising Mrs. Nelson and Judy,
who were making preparations for lunch. He demanded and received a
whole pitcher of lemonade and then went to the icehouse behind the
hotel and chipped out a bucket of ice in case Mari wanted it.

When he returned to the table, he stopped in
his tracks when he observed Martin patting Mari’s band. He was
about to roar over to the table and demand satisfaction from
Martin—what kind of satisfaction, he didn’t know, since men no
longer fought duels over women—when he caught Martin’s words.

Laughing softly, Martin said, “No, he’s not
crazy, Mari. I think he might be developing some tender feelings
for you, though.”

Now Mari looked at Martin as if he’d gone
mad. Dammit. Tony tromped up to the table, annoyed that Martin
should be talking about him behind his back. Although, he had to
admit, he was glad Martin seemed to have no designs on Mari. He’d
hate it if he lost Martin’s friendship or had to shoot him or
anything

“Here’s your lemonade,” he growled, and
plunked the pitcher on the table.

Mari jumped back a bit startled. “Oh! Thank
you, Tony. I’m not sure I can drink all of that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he grumped. “Here’s some
ice.” He put the bowl of ice down with a loud clunk.

“My goodness, thank you. This is a real
treat, getting to drink ice-cold lemonade. Maybe I should have a
wall fall on me every day if I get rewarded with such
luxuries.”

All three men stared at her, and Mari
blushed. “I didn’t mean that.” She fixed herself a glass of
lemonade, liberally cooled with chipped ice, and smiled at Tony,
who’d resumed his chair. “Thank you very much. I really appreciate
this.”

Tony nodded and tried not to look like a
lovesick schoolboy. Martin’s words had horrified him. Was his
attraction to Mari so obvious? He turned abruptly to George. “Did
you tell her about the wall?”

George nodded gloomily. “Yes. I told her
about the crosspieces that had been sawed nearly through.”

Martin took up the theme. “It’s as though
whoever did it didn’t want anyone to see what he’d done. It was
very subtle. The wall might hold up during several rehearsals or
even several scenes, but sooner or later, when Harrowgate slammed
the door, the crosspieces would break, and the set would
collapse.”

Mari set her lemonade glass on the table and
rubbed her hands up and down her arms, which had apparently
sprouted gooseflesh. Tony clenched his jaws. He wanted to do that.
The rubbing of her arms part.

“That’s . . . that’s really awful,” she said
in a small voice. “I guess whoever’s doing these things doesn’t
care if people get hurt.”

“Obviously,” snarled Tony, feeling
excessively crabby. Dammit, he wanted to be alone with Mari. He
needed to ask her every detail of her doctor’s examination, to
learn exactly what Crabtree had told her, to find out if she was
supposed to be resting, or sleeping, or what. Dammit, she ought to
have a specialist look at her. He wondered if he could get someone
from New York.

When Mari and Martin glanced at him briefly,
Tony realized where his thoughts had flown and concentrated on the
conversation. A flicker of a smile crossed Martin’s face before he
said to Mari, “We’re not going to resume work on the picture until
detectives arrive from Los Angeles. That will probably be tomorrow,
depending on how quickly Phin can get them here.”

“Detectives?” Her eyes opened wide, and for a
split second, Tony wished he were a detective and could have such
an effect on her. Then he mentally slapped himself and told himself
to get a grip.

“I’m going to post guards, too,” Martin told
her. “I’m sick of this. It’s getting dangerous. We’ve got to
protect our investment, but even more important, we have to protect
our people. We all nearly had heart attacks this morning when we
saw that wall fall.”

Mari shivered. “You’re not alone. I couldn’t
believe what was happening.”

Suddenly, Tony stood. “I’m taking you home in
the motorcar, Mari. Do you have to get anything together
first?”

The three people still seated at the table
gaped up at him. Blast. He frowned at them. “We’re not doing any
more filming today, and Mari needs to rest.”

Hesitantly, Martin nodded his agreement.
“Right. Sure.” He turned to Mari. “Do you need anything, Mari?
Food? Medicine?”

Dammit, Tony was supposed to ask her those
things, not. Martin. He snarled, “I’ll take care of Mari.”

Again, a fleeting grin touched Martin’s lips.
“Okay, Tony.” He kept his tone of voice mild, as he might do if he
were dealing with a lunatic.

Tony resented it. He glowered at Mari. “Come
on, Mari.”

“I haven’t finished my lemonade,” she pointed
out without rancor. “Can you wait just a minute?”

“I guess so.” He thought of something that
would prove to be an impediment if not taken care of immediately.
“I’ll ask Mrs. Nelson to pack something for your dinner and find
Tiny.”

She smiled up at him, which almost made life
worth living. “Thank you. That would be swell.”

Tiny, in the backseat of Tony’s elegant black
motorcar, stuck his head out one open window while his tail churned
a whirlwind out the open window on the other side of the car. Mari,
who’d been through a great deal, now felt peaceful and pleasantly
sleepy. She wished she could stay in Tony’s machine and have him
drive her and her dog around for hours. Being a passenger in a
moving vehicle could be a very relaxing experience.

“Your dog likes the fast life,” Tony
commented with a grin.

Mari glanced first at Tiny, then at Tony.
Tony was absolutely perfect for this setting. At ease, both with
himself and the world, confident, young and handsome, he belonged
to a future filled with motorcars, moving pictures, investments,
and modern inventions.

She sometimes believed herself to be mired in
the past. And it wasn’t even her past. It belonged to her father’s
generation. What’s more, it hadn’t paid off then, and it didn’t
show any signs of paying off now or ever. She sighed.

“Yes, he likes riding in your motorcar.”

Tony slanted her a peek and a grin. “And you,
Mari? Do you like riding in my motorcar?”

Oh, boy, she loved riding in his car. She
said, “Sure. It’s fun.”

He nodded, but she noticed his grin fled.
Should she have been more enthusiastic? But she didn’t want him to
know how much of a crush she was developing on him, if crush it
was.
Crush
was a safe word for a condition in which Mari
felt not at all safe. Besides, crushes didn’t last. She feared what
she felt for Tony was going to last far too long.

Frightened by the noise of the motor, a
jackrabbit sailed across the road in front of the car and sped off,
sending Tiny into a gleeful frenzy. Her dog’s antics took Mari’s
mind away from fruitless contemplation, and she laughed. So did
Tony. She sighed again.

If only
, she thought,
this day
could last
. Just like this. Never coming to a conclusion, and
not having to start over again with all of its attendant frights
and flurries. This was so . . . nice, she guessed was the right
word, although it didn’t exactly capture her mood. Blissful? Sweet?
Heavenly? Yeah. Those, too.

It occurred to her that while she’d been
spinning fantasies, she might have included Tony and his motorcar
in at least one of them. But like a grand house in Pasadena and
lots of money, Tony was so far beyond her reach that it seemed
idiotic even to daydream about him.

“There’s the old homestead.”

Tony’s voice penetrated the fuzz of Mari’s
thoughts, and she sat up straight and looked. “Oh, yes.” There it
was, all right. “The old homestead.”

How poetic a phrase for that pile of junk.
And how pathetic that her whole life contained so little more than
that. She took herself to task for sinking into the dismals. She
even tried to convince herself that more people lived in something
like her circumstances than in Tony’s.

That was all well and good. But Mari
suspected in her heart of hearts that not too darned many people
were as poor as she, or as alone in the world. What a fruitless
line of thought, but that didn’t make it inaccurate.

She shook herself and reached around to pet
Tiny. “We’re almost home, boy, and you can go find yourself another
jackrabbit to chase.” And kill. She didn’t add that part, sensing
that a reference to Tiny’s predatory habits might spoil the mood,
whatever it was.

Tony braked the motorcar in front of Mari’s
door. Since Mari had lived in the cabin forever, and since she was
used to it, she seldom noticed its almost perfect shabbiness. She
noticed today. Turning to Tony, she said with a wry grin, “Not
exactly what you’re used to, is it?”

He caught and held her gaze for a minute
before answering. “No.” As if shaking off a mood, he hooked the
basket packed with provender that Mrs. Nelson had provided and that
had been sitting on the front seat between them. “Here. Let’s have
a picnic.”

“A picnic sounds nice, but it’s going to be
dark pretty soon.” She tried to sound enthusiastic but feared she
didn’t quite make it.

Mari’s idea of a picnic, fostered by copious
novel reading, should be held on a quilt spread out at the
seashore. Or on some vast green lawn somewhere overlooking a lake.
Something like that. Squinting at her cabin, the two half whiskey
barrels in which she’d planted geraniums in an effort to perk the
place up, and the bare earth spreading out on every side
thereafter, she decided this scenario didn’t fit her mental
pictures of proper picnic places.

But that was nothing to the purpose. She
smiled up at Tony when she exited the car, having waited without
murmur as he walked around to open her door. “A picnic sounds very
nice. We can set out the food on my table and pretend we’re in the
mountains.” What the heck, she was good at pretending, wasn’t
she?

As soon as Tony opened the back door, Tiny
bolted out of the automobile and frolicked around his two human
friends for several seconds. Then he bounded away, celebrated his
return home by lifting his leg against a cabin wall, and proceeded
to gambol off into the desert.

“He looks like he’s dancing,” Tony commented
with a smile.

“He likes to be home.” Even this home. Mari
pushed her door open and stepped inside. She frowned. “Something’s
not right in here.”

Instantly Tony shot past her into the cabin,
looking around as if he were searching for bandits. “What? Where?
What’s wrong?”

“Oh, dear, will you look at that?” Mari
walked over to the fireplace, where faded photographs of her
parents were displayed in yellowing paper frames. Both photographs
now lay face down on the mantel. She picked them up and set them in
their proper places. “That chair wasn’t on its back when I left,
either.”

Tony’s nose wrinkled as he scanned the tiny
cabin. As he picked the chair up and set it right, he asked, “What
could have done this?”

“I have no idea. I know we didn’t have an
earthquake since this morning.”

“Do you think somebody’s been in here?”

Slowly, Mari circumnavigated her home. It
didn’t take long. The box where she kept her clothes neatly folded
had been moved, and her clothes looked as though they’d been gone
through. “Yes,” she said at last. “But I don’t know why.”

Tony rubbed his chin and frowned. “I don’t
like this. It might be part and parcel of the other things that
have been going on.”