01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin (11 page)

“What are you not telling me?”
His gaze was piercing.

Oh hell. If she didn’t tell him,
he’d just want to stop at the accident site. She sighed. “The skid
marks from my truck were the only ones on the road.”

“That proves my point. I didn’t
see him.” His eyes squinted as he stared out the window. Was he
thinking he was losing it? That it meant the other guy, who
couldn’t have missed seeing him, had not even tried to keep from
hitting him?

“I should be dead. Nobody on a
bike survives a head-on crash with a semi.”

“I, uh, I think the engines cut
out at the last minute.”

“Maybe he was trying to stop.”
Poor guy’s voice sounded hopeful.

“Uh, both engines. The bike’s
and the semi’s.”

He blinked at her. “That doesn’t
make sense.”

She shrugged. It sure didn’t.
“Maybe I got it wrong. It all happened so fast.”

He hunkered down in the seat and
was silent.

She wasn’t feeling good about
letting him stay in a motel tonight. She didn’t want him alone and
in pain, unable to sleep for thinking about why he didn’t see the
semi. What if he threw a blood clot, like the doctor said? But
there was no choice. She was not taking him to Elroy’s, for so many
reasons she wouldn’t recite them to herself.

As bad as dropping him off at
the Motel Six in Reno.

Okay, then. Recite. One.
Elroy. He’d be drunk for sure. Two. The outdoor-plumbing,
electricity-a-few-hours-a-night shack. Three. Having him in the
house, sleeping, vulnerable, brushing his teeth, cleaning
himself.
…

Impossible. She’d see he was
comfortable at the Shady Pines. She’d send over a meal from Jake’s.
It was practically next door. A steak. He’d like that. Could he
undress himself? She’d ask. And if he said he needed help.…
No.
Not thinking about that
. Sleeping in his clothes one night
wouldn’t kill him.

But when they finally pulled
into Austin, the Shady Pines had a “No Vacancy” sign out.

What? That motel was never full.
But then she remembered Tom Munsey in Jake’s saying he was
renovating three rooms, helped to the decision by a burst water
pipe.

Great.

“Guess you’re staying at
Elroy’s,” she said through gritted teeth as they passed the
sign.

He set his lips grimly. Wow. He
must really not want to be anywhere around her. Why would he? But
he’d accepted the ride.
Out of necessity. I’m a necessary
evil.

Good. No involvement. It was
always good not to care. Right now, she wasn’t quite as sure about
that as usual.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A motel actually seemed like a
safe haven. Tris couldn’t imagine spending the night under the same
roof with Maggie and her father. Or rather he could. He could
imagine what she’d wear to bed. Probably a tee shirt. And nothing
else. He could imagine hearing her undressing in another room. He
could see her slim, muscled rider’s legs and imagine them wrapped
around his hips….
Shit.
Apparently he’d gone from not giving
a damn about women at all, straight to what probably amounted to
addiction. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.

Her father would kill him if he
saw the hungry look in Tris’s eyes.

He chewed the inside of his lip
as she turned the truck down an unpaved road, really just two tire
tracks in the sandy dirt where the mountains flattened out into
desert. The tracks wound through a dry streambed that would have to
be forded in the rain. In the distance a clump of feathery
gray-green Palo Verde trees clustered around a weathered and
unpainted house with a corrugated iron roof and a sagging front
porch. The whole shack seemed about to disappear into the gray and
sandy colors around it. The roof barely supported a TV satellite
dish. A windmill towered behind it, blades spinning lazily in the
desert wind. That well must be their source of water way out here.
A white propane tank that looked like a Tylenol pill settled out a
ways from the house. A pickup, circa ’48, more rust than metal, sat
on blocks next to a late ’70s station wagon with peeling white
paint. No yard. But he could see a lean-to full of hay bales out
back and some pipe corrals with horses milling around in them,
peering over the rail toward the approaching truck. He recognized
the mustangs he’d watched her gentle but there were others too,
less rough looking. As they got closer, he saw the horses were much
tidier than when he’d last seen them. The lean-to was freshly
whitewashed and the water barrels in the corrals were painted a
bright blue-green in contrast to their desert surroundings.

Someone took care of the horse
part of the property—the house, not so much.

He caught himself wondering what
his family would think of a girl who came from a house like this, a
desert like this. Sere and hard. That’s what her life must be
like.

Her mouth was set in a grim line
as she pulled up behind the station wagon. She cut the engine.
Staring straight ahead, she said, “Don’t pay attention to Elroy.
You’re my guest here.”

“Okay.” He hoped that word
wasn’t loaded with the dread he felt. He tried not to let in an
ounce of judgment either. He had no right. But he saw why she
wanted to be on the road.

She took a breath before she got
out of the truck. While he peeled his bad leg out and gathered his
crutch, she was already around back getting his things. The air was
thin here and it held a promise of cooler nights. “Can you make it
into the house?” she asked. “Ground’s rough.”

He slid out, waiting for the
pain as he lowered his leg and gravity pulled at the swelling. Oh,
yeah. There it was. “I’m good.” He got his crutch under his good
shoulder.

The door creaked open and
slammed against the wall. The man in the doorway looked too old to
be Maggie’s father. Skin hung around his scrawny neck in folds. His
eyes were bloodshot and his complexion had a yellow cast. Gray hair
was plastered to his balding pate and he hadn’t shaved in a week or
so. But that wasn’t what stopped Tris dead in his tracks.

Elroy had a bottle in one hand
and an old Colt revolver waving in the other.

“How dare you bring your whoring
ways home, you little slut?” he hissed at Maggie.

Tris blinked. Calling his
daughter a whore? And Maggie … blushing Maggie wasn’t a slut. He
saw Maggie’s eyes flash. Then she mastered herself. “It’s not what
you think.”

“You think I don’t know what you
do all that time you’re away? You come home with money. Where else
would someone like you get money?”

So she supported this guy with
her rodeo winnings and the proceeds from her horse dealing. And he
thought she was whoring. Great dad. The revolver waved wildly with
his emotion. His words were slurred. Drunk.

No excuse.

Maggie was speechless. “I.…”

Tris hobbled forward. “Don’t
know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly in any shape to indulge
in a woman.” Even if he was capable of coldcocking the guy, Maggie
might hate Tris for hurting him. He was trying to feel his way
here, deflect the venom from her at least, and wishing like hell he
had two good legs and two good arms.

“You sayin’ you don’t want her?”
The old man chuffed a bitter laugh. “Figures.”

“This is the man who got hit by
the truck, Elroy,” Maggie said. Her voice struggled for calm. “I
told you about him. He’s hitching a ride to LA with me tomorrow
morning.”

“I’ll bet that’s not all he’s
hitching. He’ll want it for free. Someone looks like him won’t pay
for it from the likes of you. You got to think of yourself, gal,
like I’m trying to think of you.”

Tris felt his blood begin to
boil. How long had Maggie been taking this shit?

“He’s paying me.” At Elroy’s
shaking reaction to that statement, Maggie hastened to amend, “For
the ride to LA. Just for the ride.”

“Knowing you, you’ll be throwing
yourself at him before you hit the state line. Whoring just come
natural to you whether you get paid or not. But you ain’t bringin’
him in this house.”

Tris could feel the shame
pouring off Maggie. His hands balled into fists, even the one in
the sling. Tris felt so helpless he wanted to yell something at
someone. Instead he said, “The motel in Austin is full. I’ll pay
for a night’s rest here.”

An avaricious light gleamed in
the old man’s eyes. “Hundred bucks. Cost you a hundred bucks.” He
glanced back at Maggie. “Steep, but I’ll throw in the gal.”

Tris glanced to Maggie, shocked.
She gritted her teeth. “That’s enough, Elroy,” Maggie said with
steel in her voice as she strode forward. Elroy waved the gun.
“What I do with my body is my business, not yours. He’s not paying
for a night’s rest either.”
Damn
. She could get hurt if the
crazy old coot started shooting. Tris hopped forward on his crutch,
but he was way behind Maggie. “This is my house, too. He needs
help,” she continued, stepping up onto the porch. “And we’re going
to help him out of the kindness of our hearts, because we’re human
beings.” She grabbed the old guy’s gun and the bottle too. Tris
sighed in relief.

Elroy cringed away from her. “I
didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

“You never mean nothin’ by it,
Elroy,” she said, defeat in her voice now that she’d won this
round. It was only one round in a long battle, Tris guessed.
“Doesn’t mean it’s right.” She glanced over to Tris and away.
“Sorry you had to see this.”

“No need to apologize to me.”
The fact that she was shamed made him want to rend
someone
limb from limb if it couldn’t be her father.

“You go on into your room,” she
told Elroy. “I’ll get dinner after I’ve fed the horses.”

To Tris’s amazement, Elroy kind
of folded in on himself and shuffled into the house. Maggie stepped
off the porch and poured the whiskey into the dust until the bottle
was empty.

“Won’t do any good. He’s
probably got a dozen hidden around here.” Her tone was so bleak it
hurt Tris more than his body at the moment. She tossed the bottle
into an overflowing trashcan off to the side of the porch, then
flipped open the revolver and let the bullets slide into her hand.
Her back to him, she said, “Let me take you inside where you can
sit and get your leg up. He won’t bother you now.” She sounded sort
of distant. She flipped the chamber shut and put the bullets in her
pocket.

“Rather help you feed the
horses.”

She turned with a grim little
smile on her lips. “Don’t think you’d be much help.”

“Watch, then. Moral
support.”

“Okay.” She went to where she’d
dropped his shopping bags, set them on the porch with the empty
gun, and motioned him to follow her around the side of the house.
Tris hobbled after her on his crutch, his leg throbbing like a son
of a gun. Didn’t matter. He wouldn’t leave her alone right now. And
… and he wanted to be with her. There it was. Couldn’t be
helped.

The house had a back porch, too,
with folding lawn chairs that had seen better days. Two plastic
straps on one hung loose. She pointed to the other. “I’ll be back
and forth for a while.”

He nodded, not knowing what to
say. Nothing was probably best.

She dragged the damaged chair
around and set his leg gently on it. As she was walking away she
turned back abruptly. “He wasn’t always like this. My mama left us.
It broke him. Not pretty, I know.” She managed a shrug, like she
didn’t care.

She forgave her father because
she knew his pain. Even though he berated her. Even though the
bottle had taken him nearly beyond reach. The courage that took
shamed Tris. It was courage he didn’t have around his own
family.

“Guess it’s none of my
business,” he said gruffly. But suddenly he wanted to make it his
business. He wanted to protect her from the canker that infested
her life. He’d been given a window into what made her who she was,
and that was important to him. Really important.

“Well.” She shrugged. That was
all. She strode off, shoulders straight, around the front of the
house. Behind him, through an open window to the shack, he heard
what he thought was the old man sobbing. Hell. Maybe she was right
to try to work with her father. He must have loved her mother very
much, if her leaving did this to him.

Tris heard the truck start. It
appeared around the corner of the house. She backed it up to the
corrals, hopped out, and retrieved two hooks with big handles from
the lean-to, along with some pliers she shoved into her pocket.
What was that little shed next to the lean-to? God. An outhouse.
Windmill could pump water from the well. Maybe the outhouse was a
just relic of times past. He looked up. No wires. Hadn’t seen any
poles on the way in. Did the place even have electricity? Well, you
could power just about anything on propane.

It soon became apparent that the
hooks Maggie carried were for lifting hay bales. She climbed into
the bed of the truck, stuck them into a bale, and then, little
thing that she was, she heaved the bale over the side of the truck
near the corrals. The horses had all gathered at the gate. She
hopped down, clipped the wire on the bale with the pliers, and
broke off several flakes of hay, tossing them into the corrals.
When one bale was distributed she climbed up into the truck bed for
the other bale. Then she pulled the pickup over to the lean-to and
dragged four bales of hay up into the bed. Must be for weight to
steady the truck when it pulled her trailer.

It killed Tris to see her
working so hard. If he’d been the man he was five days ago, he
could have bucked that hay without breaking a sweat. He squirmed in
his seat, fretting. The sobbing from the house turned to snoring.
Maggie shoved two more bales up into the pickup bed, along with a
trunk she dragged from the lean-to. Then she took two empty pails
and headed for the windmill. He watched her pull up a wooden cover
at the base and lower another pail with a rope tied to its handle.
She pulled the rope up hand over hand, filled her two buckets, and
trekked back to the barrels in the corral, sloshing. She heaved up
the buckets, poured, and started back.