Texas! Chase #2 (5 page)

"Take another pill. The doctor said you could have one every two hours."

"That's nothing but glorified aspirin. Stop and let me buy a bottle of whiskey."

"Absolutely not. I'm not stopping this car until I get to your place in Milton Point."

"If I wash the pill down with whiskey, it'll go to work faster."

"You can't bargain with me. Besides, it's stupid to mix alcohol and drugs."

"For godsake, don't get preachy on me. Pull off at the next exit. There's a liquor store there. It won't take a sec for me to go in—"

"I'm not letting you buy any liquor while you're with me."

"Well, I didn't ask to be with you, did I?" he shouted. "You ramrodded your way into my business. Now I want a drink and I want it now."

Marcie eased her foot off the accelerator and let the car coast toward the shoulder of the highway.

Gradually she applied the brake until it came to a full stop. She uncurled her stiff, white fingers from around the padded-leather steering wheel and turned to face him.

He wasn't expecting the slap. Her cold palm cracked across his bristled cheek.

"Damn you!" Her whole body was trembling.

Unshed tears shimmered in her eyes. "Damn you, Chase Tyler, for being the most selfish, self-absorbed jerk ever to be born. Look at my hands."

She held them inches in front of his nose, palms forward. "They're wringing wet. I'm scared to death. Haven't you realized that it isn't easy for me to drive under any circumstances, but especially under conditions like this?" She gestured wildly toward the inclement weather beyond the windshield.

"I'm afraid that every car we meet is going to hit us. I live in terror of that happening to me again. Even more so when I have a passenger sitting where Tanya was sitting.

"I was in that car, too, Chase, when that kid ran the stop sign. To this day I have nightmares where I experience the sound of squealing tires and feel the impact and taste the fear of dying all over again. I had to undergo weeks of therapy before I could even get behind the steering wheel of a car again.

"If you didn't need to get home immediately,

I would be holed up in my hotel room in Fort Worth until the next sunny, dry day. I wouldn't think of risking my life or anyone else's by driving in this ice storm."

She paused and drew in a shuddering breath.

"You're" right, you didn't ask for my help, but

I felt I owed you this much, to get you safely home to your family where you can properly recuperate."

She doubled up her fist and shook it at him. "But by God, the least you could do is shut up and stop your infernal bellyaching!"

"… still don't think we should wake him up. If he didn't wake up when we came barging in, as much noise as we were making, he needs this sleep."

Marcie, with both arms curled around loaded supermarket sacks, paused outside the door of Chase's apartment. Through it, she could hear voices.

"But how else are we going to find out how he got here, Mother? And how do we know how many of those pills he's taken? That could be the reason he's sleeping like a dead man."

"Lucky, relax," a third voice said, "the pill bottle was almost full. He couldn't have taken many. Laurie's right. For the time being, he's better off asleep."

"That's a wicked-looking bandage around his chest," Laurie Tyler said. "Obviously he needs bed rest.

We can wait until he wakes up on his own to find out who brought him home."

"Probably his current squeeze," Lucky muttered.

Marcie had heard enough. She managed to grip the doorknob and turn it, staggering inside under the weight of the grocery sacks.

Three heads came around to gape at her with astonishment.

"Ms. Johns!"

"Hello, Mrs. Tyler."

She was flattered that Laurie Tyler knew her. Though she'd been in Chase's class all through school, they hadn't had the same circle of friends. Following her release from the hospital, Marcie had considered going to see

Laurie and apologizing for Tanya's death. She had ultimately decided against it, thinking that it would be a difficult meeting each of them could do without.

"Lucky, take those sacks from her," Laurie ordered, shoving her dumbfounded younger son forward.

"Marcie, what the hell are you doing here?"

Lucky relieved her of the grocery sacks and set them on the bar, which separated the small kitchen from the living area of the apartment.

Marcie dropped her purse and keys into a chair littered with unopened mail and discarded articles of clothing that had lain there long enough to collect dust. "Let me assure you, I'm not Chase's current squeeze," she remarked as she shrugged off her coat.

Lucky looked chagrined, but only momentarily.

"I'm sorry you overheard that, but what's going on? We've had his landlord here on the lookout for him.

He was to notify us when and if Chase turned up. He called about half an hour ago and said he'd seen lights on in the apartment although Chase's truck wasn't here. We rushed over and found Chase alone and dead to the world."

"And bandaged," Devon added. "Is he seriously hurt?"

"He's certainly uncomfortable, but the injury isn't serious. He got stamped on by a bull at the rodeo in Fort Worth last night."

Marcie told them about the accident and how she had happened to be there. She avoided telling them that she had spent the night in his hospital room. She had been away from him only long enough to return to the hotel where she was checked in, shower, change clothes, and pack, then drive to the coliseum to pick up his belongings.

"This morning, when I returned to the hospital, he was terrorizing the nursing staff. He refused to be shaved. A bed bath was out of the question. He insisted on leaving."

"He's crazy!"

Devon shot her husband a withering glance.

"As if you'd be a more cooperative patient. I

can see you submitting to a bed bath." Turning her attention back to Marcie, she asked,

"Did he just walk out?"

"He would have, but I called the doctor. He got there in the nick of time. He examined Chase and recommended that he stay in the hospital for a few days. When he realized that he'd as well argue with a brick wall, he signed a release form.

"I volunteered to drive him here and promised the doctor that I would see to it he got into bed. He gave him a prescription for pain medication—the bottle of capsules on the nightstand," she said to Lucky.

"He's taken only the prescribed amount."

Obviously relieved, Laurie lowered herself to the sofa. "Thank God you happened to be there, Ms.

Johns, and took it upon yourself to look after him for us."

"Please call me Marcie."

"Thank you very much."

"It was the least I could do."

They fell silent then. What had gone unsaid was that Marcie's assistance in this matter was nominal repayment for having been driving when Chase's wife had been killed.

Devon was the first to break the uneasy silence. "What's all that?" She pointed toward the sacks standing on the bar.

"Food. There was nothing but a can of spoiled sardines in the refrigerator. Nothing at all in the pantry. I also bought some cleaning supplies."

Laurie ran her finger over the coffee table, picking up a quarter inch of dust. "I don't think this place has been touched since Tanya died."

"That's right. It hasn't."

As one, they turned to find Chase standing in the doorway. He had pulled on a bathrobe, but sturdy, lean bare legs were sticking out of it. The white bandage showed up in the open wedge of the robe across his chest. His hair still looked like he had run through a wind tunnel, and his stubble had grown darker. It was no darker, however, than his glower.

"It hasn't had any visitors either," he added,

"and that's the way I want it. So now that you've had your little discussion about me and my character flaws, you can all clear out and leave me the hell alone."

Laurie, still spry even in her mid-fifties, sprang to her feet. "Now listen here, Chase Nathaniel Tyler, I will not be spoken to in that tone of voice by any of my children, and that includes you. I don't care how big you are." She pushed up the sleeves of her sweater as though ready to engage him in a fistfight if necessary.

"You look so disreputable I'm almost ashamed to claim you as my eldest son. On top of that, you smell.

This place is a pigsty, unfit for human habitation. All of that is subject to change. Starting now," she emphasized.

"I'm fed up with your self-pity and your whining and your perpetual frown. I'm tired of walking on thin ice around you. When you

were a boy, I gave you what was good for you whether you liked it or not. Well, you're grown, and supposedly able to take care of yourself, but I think it's time for me to exercise some maternal prerogatives. Whether you like it or not, this is for your own good."

She drew herself up tall. "Go shave and take a bath while I start a pot of homemade chicken-noodle soup."

Chase stood there a moment, gnawing the inside of his jaw. He looked at his brother.

"Go get me a bottle, will you?"

"Not bloody likely. I don't want her on my tail, too."

Chase lowered his head, muttering obscenities.

When he lifted his head again, his angry eyes connected with Marcie's. "This is all your fault, you know."

Having said that, he turned and lumbered down the hallway toward his bedroom. The door was slammed shut behind him.

Marcie had actually fallen back a step as though he had attacked her physically instead of verbally.

Unknowingly she had raised a hand to her chest. Devon moved toward her and laid her arm across Marcie's shoulders.

"I'm sure he didn't mean that the way it sounded, Marcie."

"And I'm sure he did," she said shakily.

Lucky tried to reassure her. "He wasn't referring to the accident. He was talking about bringing Mother's wrath down on him."

"He's not himself, Marcie." Laurie's militancy had abated. She was smiling gently.

"Deep down he's probably grateful to you for being there last night, forcing him to do something he really wanted to do—come home.

You provided a way for him to do it and still save face. We owe you a real debt of gratitude and so does Chase."

Marcie gave them a tremulous smile, then gathered up her coat and purse. "Since you're here to take over, I'll say goodbye."

"I'll walk you to your car."

"There's no need to, Lucky," she said, hastily turning to open the door for herself. She didn't want them to see her tears. "I'll call later to check on him. Goodbye."

What had been falling as sleet a hundred miles west was a cold, miserable, wind-driven rain in East Texas. Marcie drove carefully, her vision impaired by the falling precipitation on her windshield… and her own tears.

Chase released a string of curses when someone knocked on his door late that evening.

After having been dusted, mopped, scoured, vacuumed, and disinfected, his apartment was finally clean, empty, and silent. With only himself and the nagging pain in his ribs for company, he was finishing his dinner in blessed peace.

He thought of ignoring the knock. Whoever it was might think he was asleep and go away.

However, on the outside chance it was Lucky sneaking him a bottle of something stronger than tea or coffee, he left his seat at the bar and padded to the door.

Marcie was standing on the threshold, holding a bouquet of flowers. He had never seen her in a pair of jeans that he could recall.

They made her legs look long and slim—thighs that seemed to go on forever.

Beneath her short, quilted denim jacket, she was wearing a sweatshirt. It was decorated with splatters of metallic paint, but it was still a sweatshirt and a far cry from the business suits she was usually dressed in.

She'd left her hair down too. Instead of the tailored bun she had worn that morning, the flame-colored curls were lying loose on her shoulders. They were beaded with raindrops that glistened like diamond chips in the glow of the porch light. He didn't particularly like red hair, but he noticed that Marcie's looked soft and pretty tonight.

About the only thing that was familiar were her eyeglasses. All through school, Goosey Johns had worn glasses. It occurred to him now that she must have been wearing contacts, even two years ago when they had been reacquainted in his office just before she and Tanya left to look at a house together—the afternoon Tanya died.

"It's a cold night out," she said.

"Oh, sorry." He shuffled out of her path and she slipped past him to come inside.

"Are you alone?"

"Thankfully."

He closed the door and turned to her. Her eyes moved over him in a nervous manner that made him want to smile. To please his

mother, he had bathed and shaved and shampooed.

But he hadn't dressed and was still wearing only his bathrobe.

An old maid like Marcie probably wasn't used to talking to a barefooted, barelegged, bare-chested man, although she had demonstrated aplomb when he had come out of his hospital bed wearing nothing more than his bandage.

A hospital room was a safe, uncompromising environment compared to a man's apartment, however.

Chase sensed her uneasiness and decided that it served her right for butting in where she wasn't wanted.

"These are for you." She extended him the colorful bouquet.

"Flowers?"

"Is it unmacho for a man to accept flowers?" she asked testily.

"It's not that. They remind me of funerals."

He laid the bouquet on the coffee table, which

Devon had polished to a high gloss earlier that afternoon. "Thanks for thinking of flowers, but I'd rather have a bottle of whiskey.

I'm not particular about brand names."

She shook her head. "Not as long as you're taking painkillers."

"Those pills don't kill the pain."

"If your ribs are hurting that badly, maybe you should go to the emergency room here and check in."

"I wasn't talking about that pain," he mumbled, swinging away and moving to the bar where he had left his dinner. "Want some?"