01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin (10 page)

Humph. So she was a way to waste
time. What else had she expected? “I’d have thought you’d have been
too busy, what with women falling all over you to see to your every
need.” Might as well throw it in his face. Bring it up every
chance, just to protect herself from any urge she might have to
follow their lead. As if he’d ever look at a woman like her as
anything but a desperation lay. And she was
not
going there,
no matter how her body urged her.

He grabbed his crutch and pushed
himself up. “Nobody falling over me right at that moment, so I had
time.”

Infuriating! She’d just have to
make sure he never realized the reaction he caused in her. In those
places that shouldn’t be having reactions at all. The fact that he
was infuriating would help remind her why he was a disaster waiting
to happen. She got up and stretched, trying to ease her back.
Sitting forward like that without any support was killing her, even
in the hour out from Reno. But she couldn’t scrunch up his bad leg
when he was so obviously in pain.

They got into the truck for the
long haul to Austin. Before she could get over to Highway 50, he
suddenly pointed to the side of the road. “Pull over,” he
commanded.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Just pull in here.” He pointed
to a used car dealership.

“What the…?” She pulled into the
driveway and watched the predatory salesman rubbing his hands in
anticipation.

“What are you doing?” Maggie
hissed.

“Buying bucket seats,
darlin’.”

“What?”

“You can’t drive all the way to
LA sitting on the edge of the seat so you can reach the pedals,
wearing no seatbelt. And I need a way to stretch out my leg.”

“You are
not
buying a
car. I’m fine.” Wait ’til the salesman saw Tris was hurt. Like
blood in the water for a shark. He’d take Tris for all he was
worth. Tris opened the door and eased his leg out. She could see
little lines of pain around his eyes.

“Well, hello there, big fella.
You look like you been rode hard and put away wet. What can I get
you into today in the way of a fine used vehicle?” The salesman had
tight eyes. He wore a denim jacket with a cowboy-style yoke
outlined with silver piping.

“You aren’t up to this,” she
insisted. “We don’t have time.…” There were a thousand other
reasons she couldn’t let him do this, if he’d just listen.

“I need a truck.” His mouth was
tight and stubborn. “My bike’s totaled.”

“Hel-looooo. You can’t drive.”
Was he insane?

“You’re going to drive it.”

“What about
my
truck?”

“We’ll pay this guy to store it
’til you get back.” Tris reached in back for a crutch.

“You got an answer for
everything?” This man was taking control of
her
trip to LA.
And how would she get back here? Drive his truck? And do what with
it? This was crazy.

“I got an answer to our
immediate problem. We’ll figure the rest out later.”

“No.”

“What, no?” He raised his brows
at her.

“I … I won’t let you buy a truck
just for the trip to LA.” He couldn’t afford this either.

He actually smiled at her. She
caught her breath. That was one attractive smile. “Nothing you can
do to stop me, darlin’. I’m way past twenty-one.”

“Fine,” she said, throwing up
her hands. “Just make it quick.”

Tris turned to the guy. “I need
something that’ll pull a four-horse trailer over the Sierras
without breaking a sweat.”

“Well, have we got something for
you! An almost new Toyota Tacoma X-Runner, right over here.” He
started to the front row of cars facing the street. “Only eighteen
grand. Fully loaded. It’s a steal.” He didn’t seem to notice Tris
hobbling off in the other direction.

“Sir?” he said, hurrying to
catch up to Tris as he realized his mistake.

Tris stopped in front of an old
truck with a new green paint job. It looked a little sad somehow,
sitting in the corner. “How about this F350? The lady is partial to
classic Fords.”

“But the Toyota….”

Tris opened the truck door and
looked satisfied, then bent to examine the tires. They looked
pretty new to Maggie. He straightened. “Wanna lift the hood for
me?”

The salesman scrambled to
oblige. Tris peered into the mishmash of engine parts, pulled on a
few cables, wiggled some connections.

“This here truck is a steal at
five thousand. We can finance you, on approved credit, of
course.”

Tris didn’t seem to be listening
to the salesman blather. He let the brace fall. The hood slammed
shut. Then he got his wallet from his jeans pocket while balancing
on his crutch. He held the wallet in his sling hand and peeled out
a credit card with his good one. Was that an American Express card?
“It’s worth twenty-five hundred, only because the last owner took
real good care of it. I’ll spot you a hundred to store her truck
for a week. Twenty-six even—take it or leave it.”

The salesman started to sputter
a protest, but Tris just raised his brows.

The guy finally sighed. “Sold.
I’ll run the card.”

“Do that.” Only when the
salesman’s back was turned did Tris sag.

Maggie slipped out her door.
Tris looked gray. She shook her head. Alpha males. Couldn’t admit
weakness. “You look like hell. Someone’s paying the price for his
stubbornness.”

Tris swallowed and gave a little
rueful move with his mouth. “Maybe.”

Maggie’s eyes strayed to the
truck. “Nice shade of green. A 350 will pull a lot of trailer.”
She’d been wrong about Tris Tremaine, in pain and hurt or not. He
didn’t budge an inch for the smarmy sales guy. And he not only had
health insurance but an Amex card. Maybe she was wrong about him on
a lot of counts. “How do you know so much about old trucks?”

“That’s my business.”

“Well, excuse me for asking.”
Maggie stepped back, affronted.

Tris’s eyes opened in surprise.
“No, no. I mean old trucks are my business. Well, sort of.”

“You sell trucks?” Boy, she
hadn’t pictured him as a salesman.

“Nah, I restore cars and cycles,
sometimes trucks. I did anyway.” His eyes held a lot of hurt. Had
he lost his business? Bankruptcy? Or maybe he just left it behind.
That cycle of his said “wanderlust” with a capital W. Actually,
ex-cycle. He didn’t even have that anymore. Tris Tremaine looked at
that moment like a man without an anchor in his life at all.

*****

Jason turned on the pathetic
excuse for a woman strapped to the chair. “You keep telling me he
was going to the Motel Six on Wells. But he isn’t here, is he?”

Her cheap mascara left spider
streaks down her cheeks from her tears. She could hardly talk,
hardly even see at this point. He rubbed his knuckles, undecided
about hitting her again. Much as he enjoyed this, it was getting
him nowhere. And he was going to have to admit to the old woman
that Tremaine wasn’t dead. He was surprised she hadn’t called
already. Must be busy looking for those Talisman things. His heart
began to pound in time with the pain in his head.

“
How could you not have
gotten the plates on the truck, you bimbo?”

“
Mud,” she slurred. “I told
you.” Blood dripped into her cleavage.

“
Sure. The license plate was
covered with mud.” He decided on hitting her again. Maybe that
would make his headache go away. Her head snapped to the side.
Shit. Damn. Piss. That hurt his hand. She moaned. “Whatever he paid
you, it isn’t worth this.”

“
It was red. Old,” she
managed, coughing.

Red and old. Shit. Could that
be the truck pulling the trailer he’d been passing when he hit
Tremaine? He knew it in his gut. That girl had stopped. She must
have gotten him to the hospital somehow. And now she’d picked up
the man whose life she’d saved and taken him.
…

Where?Not here. Either her house
or his. Either way, this old broad didn’t know shit.

Jason fitted the silencer to the
barrel of the Glock. One shot and it was done. The woman slumped
forward, blood and brains splattered on the dingy beige of the
motel wall.

He stood, shaking, over the
body. Wherever they were going, they had two hours’ head start on
him. He was fucked. If he was lucky, the old woman might just have
Hardwick punish him. He’d seen that once, and he wasn’t sure he
could bear it. But the alternative was that she would use her power
to.
…

Okay. Okay. If the girl was
taking him to LA, could he catch them? Tremaine couldn’t fly, with
that leg. So they’d be driving. That truck couldn’t do more than
sixty. But a two-hour head start on a nine- or ten-hour drive?
Iffy. Too many places to miss them. They’d pull off to eat or piss
or something. They could be on either of two main routes into
California from here.

Would Tremaine really go home?
He hadn’t been in more than a year. In which case he’d go home with
the girl. That could be anywhere.

No it wasn’t. The angles of
chance and coincidence dropped into place.

Fuck me.

The old beat-up F250 that picked
Tremaine up was there at the accident. Did it also belong to the
girl Tremaine followed to the mustang sale? He’d go ask the Mexican
kid what kind of a truck the girl Tremaine was waiting for drove.
He was willing to bet it was an old red Ford pickup. And if that
was true, he knew where she lived. Austin.

Okay, he couldn’t cover both
angles. He needed some insurance. Prentice. Where was Prentice? He
flipped open his cell.

“
It’s me. Where are
you?”

“
On my way to visit you. Old
woman’s orders. I’m on 95 North just west of Tonopah.”

Bad. Very bad that the old woman
had sent him. But convenient that he was so close. If she had a
load of horse, she wouldn’t take her trailer across the desert in
September. Get over to where 395 crosses into California. You’re
looking for a beat-up old F250, red. Tremaine and a girl are in it.
May or may not be pulling a horse trailer. You either see them on
95, or they’ll be at the state line in about three hours. You know
what to do.”

He hated depending on someone
else. But that was his only option. Prentice was a Firestarter. If
anybody could handle it, he could. Weren’t car fires a bitch?

Jason cut the ropes on the dead woman
and stripped off his gloves. He wiped the gun clean of prints. It
would be traced to the evidence room of the Reno police. Let them
try to figure out how it got to a room in the Motel Six with a dead
body. He was outta here. His hands were shaking. Gods, please let
the old woman not call until he’d taken care of this.

*****

To Maggie’s surprise, they were
out of the used car lot in under forty-five minutes, including
making the sales guy move the bales of hay and her toolbox into
their new purchase. Tris had threatened to beat him senseless if
Maggie’s truck wasn’t in perfect condition with exactly the same
mileage on it when she returned. Bad that Tris was so crude. But it
kinda felt good to have someone, well, take a stand for her. This
truck was more powerful than hers, but it was still a good, solid
square-looking truck. None of the new “Pillsbury Doughboy” look.
And it was made of metal, not plastic. It was a kissing cousin to
her own truck so driving it felt natural. And she could move her
seat up to where she could reach the pedals and fasten her
seatbelt, while Tris had his seat pushed as far back as it would go
and his foot up on the dash. Good solution, if not perfect, she had
to admit.

Tris lay back, his eyes closed.
The pain pills she’d given him in the diner must have kicked in.
His dark lashes brushed his scabbed cheek. She wanted to touch him
while he was dead to the world and couldn’t hold it against her.
She wanted to run her hand along his corded thigh and slip it over
to where his inseam ran up to meet his button fly. She wanted that
real
bad.

His eyelids fluttered open. She
flushed and glued her gaze to the road. He pushed himself up. “How
long have I been out?”

“Half an hour maybe.”

“Then it was right about here,
wasn’t it?” he asked, peering around. Ah. The accident. The flat
desert all looked the same, the road a straight arrow until it
reached the mountains, sometimes raised to keep it from flooding in
the spring rains. Unless you knew the mile marker, or saw the skid
marks, you’d never be able to find the location again.

“Couple miles ahead,” she
said.

“Can’t think why I didn’t see
the truck.”

She didn’t say anything about
what she saw or didn’t see. She’d just lost the truck in her blind
spot for a while. That was all. “You remember the actual
accident?”

He shook his head, obviously
frustrated. “Doc said I’ve got short-term memory loss.”

“Well, then how do you know you
didn’t see the semi?”

“If I’d seen the truck and you
in the other lane, I’d have swerved to the right. Even if he
clipped me with his outside bumper I would have landed on the south
embankment, and my speed would have carried me out from the road.
But I landed on the north side, close by the base of the
embankment. Did you see me get hit?”

She nodded and swallowed. She’d
never forget it.

“Where did I connect?”

“Inside corner. You did swerve
at the last minute, but by that time you wouldn’t have made it back
over to the south side.”

“Bet I flew right over your
hood.”

“I’d slammed on my brakes. But
pretty near.”

He turned to her. His eyes were
filled with painful questions. “Why didn’t I see a truck as big as
a Goddamned house from far enough away to do some good?”

He was feeling like a failure
somehow because he’d been hit by a callous bastard in a semi. She
shook her head helplessly. She had no answers for him.