One Fool At Least (8 page)

He looked suddenly grim. “I saw it recently, I’d rather not say where just now. I had heard, through the rumor mill, that the Shea family was expecting a guest. I just didn’t know—”

“That the lunatic crawling on her hands and knees was Jack’s new bride?” I asked. Now I was on the verge of laughter.

“Listen,” he said, sensing my hysteria. “We need to get some booze in you. I’m Ardmore, by the way.”

“Ardmore,” I repeated, trying out the name. “First or last name?

“Just Ardmore.” He took a cell phone out of his own pocket. “What’s your hubby’s number?”

I told him, and he bellowed into the phone. “Jack Shea? I just rescued your wife, and I’m taking her to The Bar at the Foot of the Hill. You know it? Great. Want to talk to her?”

The phone was placed in my hand, and I heard Jack saying, “Maddy? Maddy?” I was near tears again.

“Jack, just come and get me, please.” I couldn’t talk any more. I handed the phone back to Ardmore. He reiterated our location, then hung up and turned to me.

“They reckon they’ll be here in about fifteen minutes. That’s enough time to warm your little heart with some whiskey.”

And then he was carrying me. He did an effortless job, due to his huge mountain-man frame. He might have been lugging a bag of salt. “So, Madeline, how did you and Jack meet?” he asked me.

“I lied to get his attention,” I murmured against his T-shirt.

“See? I knew you were a liar,” he said calmly, setting me down on a barstool and motioning to a tall woman behind the bar. “Shelby, we need a whiskey here. This girl’s had the day from hell, and we’ve got to revive her spirits with spirits.” He laughed at his joke, as did the attractive Shelby. Soon a glass of amber liquid was pressed into my hand, and I took a gulp. The burning sensation brought water to my eyes and a path of fire from my esophagus to my stomach.

“Wow,” I said, taking another gulp.

Ardmore laughed. He was like the Brawny paper towel man, big and hearty and handsome in a bearded way. His black T-shirt was tucked neatly into some tight blue jeans, and over it he wore a black and blue flannel shirt. His beard and mustache were brownish red, and his teeth were white and almost perfectly straight. His eyes were brown and friendly. A little too friendly, I thought, as I caught his gaze flitting over my chest. “I’m married,” I told him.

“You’re also drunk from about one finger of J and B.”

“It was your idea.” If a person can feel her eyes becoming bloodshot, I was feeling that now, as well as a sort of pleasant dizziness that made me sway in my seat. The effect on my brain was happening in slow motion, a couple of beats behind the whiskey. I shrugged and took another slug. I liked it because it made me feel brave.

Ardmore admired me some more, taking slow pulls at a giant beer. “You’re some girl,” he said. “This Jack’s a lucky guy.”

“I’m sure I look just gorgeous.”

“So prickly. Do you know how many swear words you used on me?”

“You deserved them all. You—” A guitar blared in my ear; someone had popped a quarter in the jukebox and now Tim McGraw was telling me, at about twenty decibels, how a real bad boy could be a real good man.

Ardmore stuck his face near mine and smiled. “What’s that?”

“Does everyone listen to country music up here?”

He shrugged, reaching out to put a lock of my hair behind my right ear. “Sure, why not?” He was giving me what seemed, in my drunkenness, to be adoring glances, apparently smitten in the way that someone tends to be with a very tiny kitten.

I hopped off my stool, one-footed. “I’m going to wait for Jack outside.”

“Whoa, there, watch it, you’re going to fall!” he yelled, catching me as I lost my balance. He held on to me, and I wiggled to get away.

I turned toward the door and saw the most beautiful sight of my life: Jack Shea, rumpled and pale with worry, raking the bar with his eyes until he caught sight of me. His relief was palpable; I could feel his love from across the room. Pat stood at his side, looking almost as exhausted as Jack did. Through the window I could see the strobe effect of police lights, a comforting red and blue.

“Jack!” I called, and he was there, and I was in his arms. He felt somehow insubstantial, thin even, after the giant Ardmore, but he felt warm and familiar. I buried my face in his shoulder. “Ardmore got me drunk,” I said. Then, to be fair, I added, “But he also rescued me.”

Jack shook hands with Ardmore, and then Pat did. The brothers looked weary and drained. “Those men, Maddy,” Jack said.

“Their names are Jim and Randy Bruder,” I told him promptly. Pat and Jack exchanged a stupefied glance. Like Ardmore, they seemed to recognize the names. Pat went to the door, where two armed officers were standing, and began to speak to them.

“The Bruders,” Ardmore said almost genially, slapping Jack on the shoulder. “I thought it was a fucking joke. I thought she was playing a trick on them, you know? Crawling out of the house on her hands and knees? I mean, it seemed hilarious.”

Jack paled even further at this image. He looked almost ready to throw up. “Maddy, I’m so sorry. Pat is beside himself about this. He said this is all their fault, although they have no idea what it’s all about.” He was talking loudly in my ear, to be heard over the music. “God, you feel good,” he said brokenly, squeezing me hard. I’d been clutching him since he arrived, and I didn’t loosen my grip.

“I want to go now. I want to go home,” I said.

Jack shook his head. “Sorry, babe. We’ve got to get you to a hospital. You can’t have done anything good for that foot with them dragging you all over Montana, in and out of cars, and—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. Ardmore was still grinning at me, as though we’d all shared a day at the carnival.

Jack looked briefly at the giant man. I don’t think he really saw him. His eyes seemed unfocused. “Let’s go,” he said.

Ardmore clamped a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “She’s a great girl. I’m glad I could help to get her back to you.”

“Thank you. I’ll be in touch,” Jack said, shaking Ardmore’s hand again.

We began to walk out of the bar; for some reason I turned back, and it was then that I saw Ardmore’s grin had turned to a worried frown. What did he know? I wondered. Where had he heard my name?

I didn’t care. Jack talked to the police, asking them to hold off until I had been to the hospital. By the time we got to the car, I was happy to be bundled up against Jack’s side. I put my arms around him. I breathed in the smell of him. I fell asleep.

When I woke,
Jack was gently stroking my face and telling me it was time to see the doctor. I don’t remember much about the hospital; I know the police talked with me in the emergency room. Did your abductors do this to you? asked a detective, apparently wanting it to be so. I assured him that I’d done it to myself in a moment of clumsiness. He asked a few more things, said his men were even now closing in on Jim and Randy, who had no longer been present at the house, and that they would be in touch.

Then a woman in white with soothing hands touched my swollen ankle, gave me medicine, and sent me off to X-ray. Someone told me to lie just so, protected me with chain mail, and clicked a shot of my poor, much abused foot.

Back in the office, the soothing woman spoke to me rather like a Latin teacher: Fibula, tibia, talus. Subtalar, calcaneus, lateral malleolus. It sounded vaguely like a Catholic blessing, when in fact she was telling me that my ankle was broken. “It’s stable, that’s the good news,” she said as she touched my foot carefully. “We may not have to cast it. I’ll start you with a brace; if it’s mending well when you come back, we’ll leave it at that. All right, Madeline? And I have some lovely pain pills for you, after that shot wears off.”

I nodded, clinging to Jack’s hand like a six-year-old. They were still like a dream, all the events in this strange new scenery. Pat came in to see us, to ask how I was, and Jack told him that I had fractured my medial malleolus. It sounded like a spell that Harry Potter would put on Malfoy. For some reason this made me laugh. Pat looked at me worriedly, then took out his cell phone and went back to the waiting room to fill in Libby and the children, who presumably would pass it on through the entire Shea phone tree.

The doctor looked at me with compassion. “I understand you’ve had quite a day.”

I nodded.

“And that this is your honeymoon.”

I looked at Jack, who nodded.

“You should know that it is possible to have intercourse with this brace on; it will just be slightly more challenging.” She looked at Jack. “You’ll have to be careful not to put pressure on it.”

“No, of course not,” Jack assured her.

I laughed again, but somehow a few tears came out. Now
I
was worried. Was I, on top of everything else, insane?

Jack stroked my back and the doctor tossed in some more Latin as she competently bound my foot. Before our departure, I saw her speaking to Jack in a low voice.

When we left, I was a new woman: broken, but healing; in pain, but flying on wings of morphine; traumatized, but giddy with relief. Between the easing of tension and the workings of drugs, I was quite the humorist when we got back to Pat’s car. I was remembering jokes my brother Fritz had told me, jokes which had bombed horribly, but which now seemed amusing, and I shared them with Jack and Pat as I hobbled along on my newly-fitted crutches. I didn’t realize that I was babbling until Jack leaned over, kissed me, and said, “Maddy, you don’t have to keep up your spirits for us. We’ll understand if you just want to lie back and relax, or take another nap.”

I stared. “Am I talking too much?”

“No, no,” they both said.

They were being very accommodating, I thought. Whatever I wanted, they were happy to give. Perhaps, I thought, I should ask for diamonds.

Jack was tucking me into the car when Pat received a call on his cell phone. He spoke briefly, staring at the ubiquitous mountains and spitting once before he hung up and turned to me. “That was the police. They picked up Randy and Jim Bruder, and the two of them are basically cooperating. They say it wasn’t a kidnapping, more like they were an escort service, just helping to facilitate a meeting between you and their boss.”

“Bullshit!” Jack yelled.

“Who’s their boss?” I asked.

“Their boss is Damian Wilde, the biggest name in these little parts. He grew up here. He’s become a very successful businessman. An entrepreneur. He has a home up on the Cats’ Teeth Trail. He bought out Bruder Brothers supply a year or two ago, turned it from a little junk shop into a thriving concern.” Pat shook his head. “There’s no reason I can think of for him to be behind a kidnapping.”

“So are they picking him up, too?” asked Jack.

“He denies giving any orders of that kind to the brothers. Says the two of them are a little dotty in their old age. Cops have nothing to link them, other than the word of the old guys.”

I laughed. “They obviously didn’t plan it, Pat! They’re about as likely to mastermind a kidnapping as a cat is likely to rob a bank. Seriously! And I think Jim was having second thoughts. I think he let me get away.” I thought back; it was too convenient, Jim going out for wood right when he expected a visitor. No one was that stupid.

Pat scratched his head as he started the car. “Well, they’re assuming you’re pressing charges, Maddy. You are, aren’t you?”

I looked at Jack, who studied me with surprise. “Maddy, you’re not considering letting them get away, are you?”

“Jack, it’s not their crime! They’re just dumb fools who wanted some money.”

“That’s what lots of criminals are, Madeline!”

“I don’t know. I mean, they scared me, and they ruined my first day in Montana, but I don’t want to see them in jail for the rest of their lives. They’re just old men.”

Pat and Jack exchanged an uneasy glance. They obviously thought I was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Pat sighed. “I think we’ll just leave you alone, Madeline. No point making any decisions right now, when you’re exhausted.”

“Right.” I leaned my head on Jack’s shoulder, then bobbed back up to kiss him on the side of his stubbly face. “You know, it is possible to have intercourse with this brace on,” I whispered in his ear. That elicited the first genuine smile I’d seen since Jack had picked me up at the bar.

“I don’t know, Maddy. I don’t think it would be such a good idea, not tonight. You’ve been through hell.” He squeezed my arm in a brotherly fashion.

When we reached our destination, it was dark. Pat pulled into a little circular drive in front of an attractive white house. “This is your place,” he said. “And if you need anything—” he pointed upward, where a larger, beautifully lit and landscaped place sat on a bluff—“that’s ours.”

He and Jack helped me in. Libby had been here; there was a fire crackling in the fireplace. Little Tiffany-style lamps glimmered in discreet corners. In front of the fire was a tray with sandwiches and a pot of coffee, along with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. I felt my hunger hit me like a bullet. “God, I’m starving,” I said. “Thank Libby for me. Jack, help me to the food,” I begged.

Jack laughed, settled me in a chair and brought the tray to me. He and Pat watched me eat like nervous mothers. “Pat, thank you so much,” I said after swallowing a few bites. “I’ve given you quite a stressful day.”

He walked to me, bent down, and kissed my mouth. “I may have just met you, but I already love you, and I’m glad you’re safe and sound.”

I felt tears burning my eyes. “Thanks,” I said.

He went to the door, waved, said, “If you need anything,” and left.

I finished my sandwich and sighed, easing back in my chair. “Well, husband, today was interesting; what have you got planned for tomorrow?” I asked. Jack had been watching me quietly, kneeling on the floor at my side.

He stood up, kissed my hair, and said, “I’ll be right back.” He left the room, going into a little hallway behind the fireplace wall. I heard water running. Eventually he returned. He held out his arms and said, “Come on,” and picked me up, then carried me to a bathroom around the corner, which either he or Libby had lit romantically with candles scattered all over the room: window ledges, countertops, even the edge of the bathtub itself. The bathtub was full of bubbly water. Jack sat me down on a little stool and began peeling off my clothes. I submitted tiredly, lifting my arms so that he could strip off my shirt and bra, then hoisting up my bottom so that he could slide off my pants and underwear. He worked them carefully over my brace.