01 Do You Believe in Magic - The Children of Merlin (13 page)

A drink. Tris hadn’t had a drink
in what—six days? Hadn’t even missed it. “I’m good.”

“Well, I could use a shot of
whiskey before Elroy wakes up. Have to hide it after that.”

That made him smile. “Guess I
could join you for just one.”

“Well, then.” She turned on her
heel.

She flipped a switch just inside
the back door and the lights went on. “You rigged up propane to run
a generator?” The propane tank wasn’t a big one. The windmill would
provide enough power to pump water but probably not enough for
electricity, too.

“Elroy doesn’t like propane. I
have to sneak in a delivery now and then just to run the stove. So
I put in a solar panel. I got a real good deal on it used. We get
about three, four hours of power. Depending on how long Elroy’s
been watching TV today.”

Tris looked around. Bare wooden
floor hadn’t been refinished, probably ever. Incongruous lace
curtains, kinda gray, hung at the windows out to the porch. Hadn’t
been washed in a while. The room held an old-fashioned kitchen in
one corner open to the room at large and an old, claw-foot oak
table for eating. On the other side a ratty brown couch sagged
between two doors in front of a worn braided rug. Snores were
coming from one door. Maggie shut that one. A small square was
walled off in the back corner of the cabin. Must be the bathroom.
There was an old-fashioned TV in one corner. Elroy’s
babysitter.

She gestured to the dining room
table. He sat and she pushed up another chair for his leg. “But we
got plenty of candles and a lantern for when the power goes out.”
She pulled a couple of Vicodin from the bottle she’d snagged from
his hospital kit, slapped them on the table, and turned on the tap.
After some sputtering, some rusty water came out. She let it run
until it was clear and filled a glass. Turning to him, she grinned.
“How sweet it is.”

He’d made her smile. He’d made
her life easier. That felt … good. He let that feeling play around
his mouth a little. “Solar, huh? Panel on the roof?” He hadn’t seen
it.

“Think I’d put an expensive
panel on this shack? Roof is going to go any minute.” She dug
around in an old, rounded refrigerator and found a package of
frosty steaks.

“So, where is it?”

“Behind the Palo Verde trees,
facing south. I didn’t want anybody to be able to see it from the
road. I might have to kill any kids who used it for target
practice.” She turned the burner on under a teakettle, pulled out a
big pan, and half filled it with water.

“Okay, let’s get to the
important stuff.” She started looking in cupboards. “He’s usually
not too original. Buys pretty good whiskey though, not rotgut.
Technically, I buy it. He puts it on my tab at the general store.”
She finished with the cupboards, checked the fridge. “He had time
to make it into Austin today for more while I was gone.”

The mere thought of Elroy
driving made Tris want to stay off the roads.

She pulled aside a faded print
curtain across some shelves below the sink. “Jackpot. Literally.”
She held up the bottle. Jack Daniels.

“My drink of choice.”

“Then we’re in business.” She
poured into two shot glasses and brought one over to him, then
snatched it back. “Probably shouldn’t when you’re on pain
pills.”

“I’ve done way worse in my time.
A little booze and Vicodin won’t kill me now.” He motioned with his
fingers and she reluctantly offered it again. He held it up. They
clinked.

“To windmills,” she said.
Together, they downed the shots. If he expected her to sip it or
gasp with the burn, he was off base. She drank it like she meant
it. Her eyes crinkled as she realized what he was thinking. “Should
I have got out the little paper umbrellas?”

“Not on my account.”

“Mine either, obviously.” She
sobered. “Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “For the windmill.”

This was a girl who wasn’t used
to thanking anybody for anything. Because nobody did anything nice
for her? Jake liked her, and the old waitress. Dillon who ran the
wild horse rescue place respected her. Business relationships,
though. Made him want to buy her things for no reason, just
because. Like maybe an automatic watering system.

What was he thinking? He didn’t
even recognize himself since the accident. Must be the concussion.
“No problem,” was what he actually said. “I like working with my
hands.”

“That’s an understatement,” she
said, bringing over the bottle. “You were in some kind of zone
there. Like you were connecting to the motor or something.”

He shrugged. “Sometimes it feels
like that, getting a motor to purr. I don’t know. Seems almost like
a living thing. You gotta treat it just right.”

“Zen and the art of motorcycle
repair?” She filled his glass again.

“I guess.”

The kettle screamed. She tossed
off the new shot. “I’ll get dinner going before the electricity
runs out. You don’t want to eat what I make by lamplight.” She
retreated to the kitchen and poured the hot water from the kettle
into the big pan of water and slid the frozen steak packages in to
defrost.

“Solar panels are expensive,
huh?” He didn’t want her to stop talking. This was a real
conversation. No one could argue with that. Not like that pathetic
visit in the hospital where he couldn’t find any brain cells or his
tongue.

She scrubbed her hands under the
tap. “Not just the panels. You need a converter and a slew of
batteries to store the juice. I couldn’t afford more than just the
one panel right now. Wouldn’t have that except I was riding horses
for old Mrs. Gottshalb. She had some fancy horseflesh she brought
over from Germany. When she broke her back, she needed someone to
exercise them. Very particular what kind of riding they got.”

“What kind was that?”

“Called dressage.” She had out
some lettuce and was making a salad.

“Sounds like little girls
playing paper dolls.” Had Tammy once talked about dressage? If so,
he hadn’t really been listening. That was a chronic danger with
little sisters.

Maggie chuckled. “Hardest damn
style I ever learned. She was a mean old gal, Mrs. Gottshalb. Real
taskmaster. Glad I stuck it out though. Improved my riding and
training a lot. I can get top dollar for my fancy horses now.”

“I saw some out in the corrals.
Hanoverians?” She’d said something about that kind once.

“Quick study. Yeah. Guy’s
picking them up tomorrow night. I already cashed the check. I’ll
have Bobby meet him and help him load.”

Must be the boy who fed the
horses for her. “You still train horses for the German lady?”

“Nah. She died. Too bad. It was
good money. Horses all got sold off.” He heard the wistfulness in
her voice. She cared for the horses if she didn’t care much for the
old woman. She was really an animal person. So foreign to him.
Horses—you put in the clutch and they might or might not decide to
go. Which reminded him of something missing around here.

“How come you don’t have a dog?
You seem the type.”

She was setting the table, so he
saw the look on her face. Devastation. “Can’t take a dog rodeoing.
Can’t leave them here. Either way, they get hurt.”

Uh-oh. He was betting on dead.
Change of subject. Fast. “Uh, you get enough from your fancy horses
for maybe another solar panel?”

She managed a chuckle. “I got
just enough to pay the mortgage on this dump and buy the next
batch.”

Mortgage? She had a mortgage on
this place?

“Elroy’s got cirrhosis,” she
explained, seeing his question. “Not exactly a surprise.”

“Medicare?”

“Never had a job where he paid
into it. I cosigned for him two years ago when I was workin’ a nine
to five.”

A fortune in medical bills and
the prick hadn’t even stopped drinking. “That’s tough.”

She shrugged and looked out into
the deepening dusk. “You don’t abandon family.”

Guilt stabbed Tris. This woman
was caring for an impossible man just because he was family. Tris
had been trying to escape his family as hard as he could. Maybe
going back to LA tomorrow was right for a couple of reasons. He
swallowed. How to keep the conversation going after that? “Uh,
Elroy ever work this place?” He wasn’t quite sure what you’d do
with land like this. Maybe cattle?

“Nah. He drove a truck after my
ma ran off. He was mostly gone. Blessing really.”

“How old were you?” Tris had a
nasty suspicion about how Maggie grew up.

“Eight.” She must have seen the
look in his eyes. “Hey, I was fine,” she snapped. “School bus
picked me up at the road, and dropped me off. Elroy had a tab at
the general store. Fine.”

He mustered a smile. “Don’t
doubt you were.” But that explained a lot about Maggie.

They were quiet after that.
Maggie worked around the kitchen washing the vegetables for a
salad, putting on water for some pasta. Tris sipped his whiskey and
watched her as the Vicodin kicked in. Must be the drugs and alcohol
combination, but he felt sort of … content. He liked watching her.
The way she moved, for instance. Economical, but with the grace of
a natural athlete. The old electric bulb in the kitchen fixture
cast a warm glow over her hair and her skin. Had any woman besides
his mother ever cooked for him? Starlets took him to fancy
restaurants to show off their latest bad-boy toy. But eating
usually meant fast food in his rooms over the shop, maybe going out
to a
taqueria
for a beer and some
carnitas
with the
guys.

Maggie pulled out a cast-iron
skillet and set it on the stove. She laid out the steaks and salted
and peppered them on one side before she started making a salad.
Tris’s mouth watered.

“That looks good,” he said. “I’m
pretty sick of mushy string beans and mystery meat.”

She got a sly smile. “Too bad I
can’t muster some Jell-O. You’re probably in withdrawal.”

She looked so good in that light
with that smile shining at him. Tris was thinking maybe getting
busted up had been worth it, if it got him to here, feeling so …
right. “I’m holding out for green. I’ve got Jell-O standards these
days.”

“You want to wash up? We’ll eat
in a minute.”

Tris cast a guilty look at his
hands. Grease. Well-practiced shame washed through him. “Yeah. I’ll
… I’ll wash up.” He grabbed his crutch, heaved himself up, and
hobbled into the little bathroom. It had a claw-foot tub and an
old-fashioned pedestal sink under an oval mirror.

Shit.
He had a big grease
smear on his forehead. How could she not have told him? He turned
on the tap. Before the water was even hot, he started scrubbing at
his forehead with a washcloth that hung on the rack. The grease
just moved around. He put the rubber stopper in the sink and picked
up the soap. Lava. “You could have told me I looked like an idiot,”
he called.

She appeared in the doorway and
watched as he scrubbed savagely first at his forehead then at his
hands. “You look like a working man. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing.”
Everything.

She looked at him curiously.
Then right in front of his eyes, she blushed.

He stopped in mid-scrub.
“What?”

“Nothing.” She looked away.
“I’ll go wake Elroy for dinner and get his medicine.”

Tris focused on his cuticles.
Damn grease.
He heard her open the bedroom door.

“What you want?” Elroy’s cracked
voice.

“I brought you your pills. Then
you come on out for dinner. I’m making steak.”

“I gotta eat with you and your
john?”

Tris winced.

“You are eating with our guest.
His name is Tristram Tremaine.” He could hear her grit her teeth.
“He is
not
a john.”

“No. Go ’way.”

A pause. “Come on, Elroy.”

A smack sounded along with a
small female sound. “Don’t you never lay a hand on me, girl.” This
was hissed, like a snake.

Tris fumbled with his crutch,
washcloth still clutched in his sling hand, and hobbled out the
bathroom door. Maggie was hurrying out of the bedroom, hand to her
left cheek, eyes full.

“I’ll throw you out, girl, you
try that again. You weren’t never no good. Nothin’! That’s what you
always been.” Elroy’s yell trailed off.

Anger welled from Tris’s gut
into this throat. “He
hit
you?” he croaked, his grip on the
crosspiece of his crutch tightening.

She gasped a little before she
caught her breath. “He tends to forget about my right hook when…
when he’s drunk. I know better than to get near him when he’s like
this.”

So she couldn’t bring herself to
hit a sick man. “Knowing you, you were probably trying to help him
out of bed.” Tris swung unsteadily toward the door, the hand in his
sling forming a fist. That piece-of-shit bastard needed to feel
some of his own medicine. The urge to protect Maggie sent a film of
rage over his vision.

“Don’t,” she said.

One word. A plea more than a
command.

Tris swallowed. He had to get
control. For her. He might find satisfaction in pounding the old
man to a pulp but it would only make it worse for her. Either he
killed the bastard and she felt guilty for it (soft heart that he
knew she had), or Elroy took it out on her when Tris was gone.

No winners here. He leaned
forward and pulled the door shut with a bang. “You’re having a time
out, old man. Don’t come out unless you want a beating from someone
bigger than you are.”
Empty threat.

“You think you can kick my butt,
stove up like that? Not likely. But you’re gonna kick her butt,”
Elroy yelled. Something clattered to the floor. “You gonna leave
her flat soon as you’re done usin’ her, jes’ like Phil. Stupid
whore!” Glass crashed against the door.

Who was Phil? Not the
time
. He turned to Maggie. “He got any more guns around?”