Summer Shadows (40 page)
Authors: Gayle Roper
Twenty minutes later at the basketball court Marsh and Rick found themselves facing eight boys, aged ten to sixteen. The kids were playing with equal enthusiasm but greatly varying levels of expertise when the two men arrived. The older boys were all on one team, strutting their stuff as they wiped the little guys’ noses in their ineptitude.
The older boys ignored Marsh and Rick as they strolled to the edge of the court. Make believe the old men weren’t there, and they’d go away.
“Here, Hank, I’m open!”
“What’s the matter, Jase? You can’t beat a ten-year-old?”
“I’m twelve,” came the indignant reply. “Mike’s ten.”
Basketball sass. Marsh sighed with pleasure. Some things never changed.
At that moment Mike yelped, “Yipes!” He stopped cold, and the one good pass thrown his way all morning went sailing by him. “It’s Duke Beldon!”
Rick rolled his eyes. Marsh grinned.
Soon they were surrounded by all the boys, the younger ones so excited that they couldn’t stop hopping about, the older ones trying to be blasé but staring wide-eyed.
“I want to be on Duke’s team!”
“No, I get to be on Duke’s team.”
“My name’s actually Rick.”
“Yeah,” mumbled the one called Hank, if Marsh had gotten the names straight. “Rick Mathis, right?”
“This is my friend, Colton West.” Rick’s smile was fiendish.
Marsh started, never having been introduced by that name before.
The little boys looked unimpressed, but a flicker of interest sent the gazes of a pair of older boys Marsh’s way.
“The writer?” Jase asked.
“Shadows at Noon? Rocky Mountain Midnight?”
Marsh was impressed. “You’ve read them?”
“Oh, yeah.” He studied Marsh. “You’re good.”
“You mean he wrote that book you gave me last week?” Hank asked Jase, who nodded.
“He writes all my movies,” Rick added.
“Does he write Duke Beldon?” asked the twelve-year-old whose name Marsh hadn’t heard yet.
“No,” Rick said.
“Oh.”
Marsh smiled to himself. What little cachet he might have gotten from his books and movie scripts counted for nothing with the younger crowd. “Okay, guys. Line up by height, and we’ll pick teams.” He held up a hand to suppress the I-want-Duke comments. “I want you to know that I played on my university’s championship intramural basketball team for four years. I may not be Rick Mathis, but I’m not a slouch either.”
The boys muttered phrases like
so what? yeah, right
, and
big deal
, but they looked at Marsh with less disfavor than before. By counting by twos down the height line, then flipping a coin to see which group got the privilege of playing with Rick, they quelled most of the complaints about being relegated to Marsh’s team.
“Great play, Duke!”
“Over here, Colt!”
An hour and a half later when Marsh picked up little Mike, holding him high so he could dunk the ball and tie the score, everyone decided it was time for lunch.
Panting, red-faced, and pleasantly aching, Marsh and Rick climbed into Marsh’s car. A chorus of “Bye, Duke,” and “Bye, Colt,” saw them off.
“Nothing like being imaginary people for a while to relieve tension,” Rick said.
“Here I thought it was physical activity that alleviated stress.”
Rick just grunted.
“What do you have to be stressed about anyway?” Marsh reminded himself to ease up on the gas. The posted limit was 25. “Oh, wait. Stupid question. I bet it’s Celia.”
Rick studied his nails intently. “How could anyone be foolish enough to walk out on her?”
Marsh frowned. “You’re thinking of walking out? Going back to California?”
“Are you kidding? Not me! I was thinking of her idiot ex-husband.”
“She’s getting to you, isn’t she?”
“She’s real.”
“To say nothing of beautiful, pleasant, fun, gutsy, capable, and strong.”
Rick smiled, an indulgent look spreading over his face. “She’s all of those things, all right. But it’s the real I like best, that and her commitment to the Lord. I’d forgotten how nice it is to talk with someone who doesn’t have a hidden agenda, someone who says what she thinks, someone who likes me, Rick Yakabuski.”
“You haven’t told her yet, have you?”
Rick didn’t answer, but he began to frown.
“You need to, you know.” Marsh pulled into his drive.
Still Rick said nothing, but the frown deepened to a scowl.
“She should hear it from you before she learns it some other way.”
Rick climbed out of the car and slammed the door. “I’ll tell her about Rick Mathis when you tell Abby about Colton West.”
“Abby already knows,” Marsh called. Rick ignored him, stalking onto the beach. When Marsh sat down to write again, he could see Rick striding to the south.
Snelling pulled his hand back and threw it forward against the window. The whole cabin shuddered under the blow. He drew his fist back again, and Marguerite gave a cry of agony.
“My arm! You knocked my arm.” She whimpered as two tears slid down her cheeks. She grabbed Snelling’s arm like only he could keep her on her feet. Snelling grimaced.
Craig watched in fascination as he sawed on the ropes with Marguerite’s knife. He couldn’t decide if Snelling had actually hit Marguerite’s arm or if she was acting. If it was the latter, she should go on the stage. He twisted his hands every way he could, straining against the ropes. He could tell there was more give than before, but they still held him firm. He went back to sawing.
Where had she hidden the knife? Maybe in her boot? Strapped to her thigh? Though they had patted him down with an impressive thoroughness, no one had thought to
search her. After all, she was just a woman. He couldn’t help but grin. Woe to any man who underestimated Marguerite Frost.
Three things happened at once, each occurrence of major importance.
Snelling rammed his fist against the window sash again. It slipped on the wood and flew through the glass, which shattered with a great cracking noise. A jagged shard slashed across the base of his palm. Blood spurted in a crimson fountain.
As the window exploded, Marguerite grabbed Snelling’s gun from its holster. She had stepped away from him before he even pulled his gushing hand back into the room. As she cocked the weapon, the click reverberated in the little room.
Craig’s ropes parted. He pulled his cramped hands forward, his shoulders protesting as he did. His wrists were chafed and raw, marred with nicks from the knife, but compared to Marguerite’s arm and Snelling’s hand, the wounds were minor. With clumsy fingers he worked at the bonds that held his feet.
When he was free, he climbed to his feet, hurrying to Marguerite. His hand closed over hers, and she surrendered the gun.
Snelling stood by the window holding his hand away from his body, staring in horror at the laceration. Blood flowed in a red river over his hand, dropping to the floor like a ruby waterfall plummeting from a high mountain meadow to the valley below.
Marguerite stepped to Snelling, taking hold of his arm. She raised it as high as it would go. “Hold it there.” She stepped away, ignoring his whimpers of pain and distress.
She walked to Craig. With her good hand she raised her skirt high enough to reveal her petticoat. He blinked in surprise.
“Don’t get any cute ideas,” she said, her voice tart enough to curdle milk. “Just tear off a strip. He needs bandages and a tourniquet.”
In minutes, Snelling had his hand wrapped and a
moderately tight pressure cuff wound about his upper arm. Craig pulled a nail from the wall near the door, probably placed there to hang a coat or hat on.
“Come here,” he ordered Snelling. He waved the gun to encourage obedience. Snelling came, all fight gone for the moment. “Raise your arm.”
A question in his eyes, Snelling did as told. Craig noted where his wrist reached and drove the nail into the wall again. He grabbed the cloth that covered the bed, tearing it into strips. With fingers again agile he plaited three strips.
“Let me see that hand again,” he said to Snelling. The man held it out. Quick as quail seeking cover, he tied the cloth about Snelling’s wrist. “Now raise that arm again.”
As Snelling watched Craig tie his raised arm to the nail, the man began to hyperventilate. “You can’t tie me up like this!” Pant, pant. “I’ll bleed to death!” Pant, pant.
“No, you won’t. Between the tourniquet and the height, you’ll be fine, at least until your men return and find you.”
“But it hurts!”
“I didn’t see you show any sympathy toward Miss Frost in her pain, and believe me, hers is more serious than yours.”
“Are we finished now?” Marguerite was sitting on the edge of the bed, her good arm holding her broken one. She looked fragile, a glorious bloom shattered by a powerful wind.
Craig nodded. “We’re ready to go back to the ranch.”
“Good.” She rose with obvious difficulty. “Because I don’t feel too well.” With that her eyes rolled back and her knees gave way.
Craig caught her just before she slammed into the floor.
Marsh closed his weary eyes, resting his head against the chair back. He was spent but pleased. Snelling would live to fight another day with more reason than ever to hate the Frosts. Craig and Marguerite were free to make their way back to Frost Spring Ranch where they could continue their sparring and sniping at one another.
He wondered how Abby would like the escape scene. It
seemed to him he’d done a fine job of balancing the part both Marguerite and Craig played in the action. He knew that the careful weighting of the action into equal contributions was a reflection of how he saw his growing relationship with Abby.
She needed him to help her at the hospital.
He needed her to challenge him about coloring outside the lines.
She suggested he use Colton West to ease the breach with his father.
He told her how to fix the problem of the letters.
She made him want to rise to great heights as a godly man as he watched her stand straight and with courage in spite of her damaged leg.
He encouraged her to believe in herself.
He opened his eyes and saw the glass of iced tea sitting on the table by the chair. The ice cubes were long gone, but who cared? It was wet. He gulped it down.
Perhaps the best thing about Abby was the rapport he felt with her. They understood each other, due in large part to their shared faith. With her he found that soul amity he would never have found with Lane, that oneness of heart.
Lord, am I reading things correctly? I made a mistake before with Lane, though You in Your grace rescued me. If I’m wrong about this growing bond, please let me know. All I want is what You want
.
A car pulled into the drive. He went to the edge of the porch and smiled. Abby’s hair was rumpled and she looked weary, but her smile made his day.
“Hey, tiger.”
“Hey, yourself.” She stopped in front of him. “Tiger?”
“You don’t mind, do you? Tigers are feisty and beautiful, full of character and great courage.”
She blinked. “Wow!”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I was just sitting here thinking.”
O
N THE WATERFRONT
was a restaurant fancy enough to make Celia’s breath catch. If it weren’t for Rick’s hand on her waist, she would have felt like bolting. Celia Board Fitzmeyer had never in her life been to such a place. What’s more, she had never expected to be. McDonald’s and Burger King were more her style with a big night on the town being an evening at Olive Garden or Red Lobster. She hadn’t even realized that classy places like this actually existed outside the movies and New York City. Maybe Paris, too.
“No wonder you told me to dress well,” she whispered as they followed the maître d’ to a table that sat in front of a great window overlooking the bay. She smiled at the man as he held out a chair for her.
“Like it?” Rick asked when the maître d’ left.
She looked around the room, not wanting to appear gauche but wanting to take it all in. She smiled at the soft lighting, the real flowers in crystal vases on all the tables, at the crisp linens, gleaming silver and stemware, at the beautifully dressed women. Her royal blue rayon felt woefully unsatisfactory compared to the beautiful and obviously expensive dresses and pantsuits of those dining about her, but it was the best one of two dresses she owned. The other was a well-worn denim.
“What’s not to like?” She grinned at him. “I could
get used to Saturday night dates like this much too easily. Why, I bet you don’t even have to stand in line at the cash register to pay your bill.”
Rick laughed loudly enough for the surrounding tables to turn and look. She saw them all look a second time as they thought they recognized him. Hopefully in a restaurant as upper-crust as this one, people didn’t ask for autographs. She wanted an evening free of that conflict for him, an evening when he could relax, escaping public scrutiny and wearying explanations.
She looked out the window. The sun was beginning to fall toward the west, gilding the water of the bay a luminous gold. Seagulls swooped and soared; a family of mallards, ducklings paddling furiously behind their parents, floated past; and an osprey rocketed from the sky to scoop up a fish for dinner in his talons, his deep brown back and cream breast a beautiful blur.
“Did you see that?” Celia turned excited eyes to Rick. “He’s so fast! What are those little black birds with the white beaks?”
Rick shook his head. “I’m a California guy. I don’t know.”
“American coots, miss,” said a waiter as he put fresh, crusty rolls and a pot of butter on the table. “Over there in the marsh grass is a blue heron.”
“I don’t see anything.” Celia squinted.
“He’s fishing, so he’s standing still. There. He moved. Did you see him?”
Celia watched, enchanted, as the large blue bird pulled a fish from the marsh water and lifted his head, dropping the fish down his gullet. His neck bulged where the fish slid down. “Oh, Rick, did you see? Wasn’t it wonderful?”
She turned and found him watching her.
“Wonderful indeed.”
