Showdown at Lizard Rock (18 page)

And tomorrow began with the morning.

King fell asleep planning just how he intended to wake Ms. Kaylyn Smith—very, very early.

“So that’s it, Kaylyn. I managed to save the springs, but keeping them open to the public … well, the powers that be just aren’t going to let it happen.”

“I see.”

They were sitting at the small Formica table in King’s kitchen. Their knees almost touching, he was holding her hands in his. Kaylyn noticed the patches of light hair growing on his fingers. This hair was more wiry than the hair on his chest and legs, she thought idly as her mind took in what he was saying.

“I’m sorry, Kaylyn. I tried. Truly I did. But you have to understand that no matter how much we’d like to change them, there are some things that have to be.”

“My mind understands,” she said in a voice strained with disappointment, “but my heart says that if you really wanted to, you would pick up one of my protest signs and tell them all to go take a flying leap off the Lizard.”

“I could, but it isn’t just me—there are too many other things involved. You see that, don’t you?”

“No.” She drew her hands away and looked up, squinting with pain at the possibility that he might be right. “No, I don’t.”

“Please, Kaylyn, I care about you. Don’t let your attachment to the springs destroy our relationship. I can finish up here and we’ll take a trip, get to know each other. I don’t want to lose you, darlin’. We’re too good together.”

She looked out at the springs. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She’d wanted King, and she’d given herself to him. And he was right, they were “good” together. But a relationship? No, they couldn’t have a relationship built on giving up. “I’m sorry, King. I know you tried. And I’m not turning my back on you. I’m turning my back on a relationship. Somehow there must be a way for us and the springs. I’ll just have to find it.”

She stood up, and King felt a terrible foreboding. She was leaving. What they’d shared wasn’t important to her. He hadn’t known what to expect when he’d told her the sad truth. But he’d been foolish enough to believe that what they shared was strong enough to weather the loss of the springs. Hell, he didn’t want just a relationship. He wanted Kaylyn—now, tomorrow, and forever. But he’d been afraid that she wouldn’t accept him without the springs.

Kaylyn looked at him. Lord, he was one handsome man. She could tell that he was shaken. Conflicting feelings tumbled through her. She felt as though she were being split in two. Half of her was like ice, while the other half wanted to reach out and fold herself into his arms and stay warm and protected.
She didn’t know how to separate what she wanted from what she had to be. What she wanted was King, but she had a commitment to her patients, her friends, her town. King had a commitment, too, to his family and his investors. One side of her had to lose. She didn’t know if she could love him when so many people were going to be hurt.

As though he could sense the rip inside her, in the very essence of her, King’s expression became bittersweet and resigned. He loved her. Confusion, hurt, and anger were warring inside him. He’d never loved anyone, other than his brothers and his sister. He didn’t know what to do when that love threatened the only reality in his life. He’d betrayed her faith and become diminished in her eyes. King was shaken to the core. He couldn’t have it all.

There was no mathematical formula to guide him now. This action plus that action didn’t produce the desired result. He was floundering badly. There’d been many failures in his life. He’d learned to deal with them, not by acceptance but by diverting his energy to another problem. Why couldn’t Kaylyn see that there came a time when a person failed and there was nothing he could do?

“I’m sorry, King. I need to think. We both need time to think.” She saw the anguish in his eyes. It was the final wrench that tore her heart apart. Whirling, she fled. She ran across the rocks and down the path to the Lizard. Leaning her head against the rock, she wept in uncontrolled abandon.

“Damn you, King!” She hadn’t cried for herself in years, not since the door had closed behind her at her first foster home. She’d sworn then that nothing and nobody would ever hurt her again. She had
never shed another tear over her own pain—until now. The Lizard was cold and hard. She felt the rough edges of the rock dig into her forehead and welcomed the pain. “Damn all the men with money. Damn dreams that cause such misery and pain.”

She let herself cry until there were no more tears. Finally she slid to the ground and leaned against the big stone, seeking some comfort from its solid presence. She closed her eyes. The summer sun fell over her with a deep, penetrating heat.

What was she going to do? The city fathers didn’t seem to find the loss of the springs a handicap to the town. They’d rather have the influx of new people and new money. With that money they could improve the schools, build new roads, and benefit more people than she’d ever reach with her little plans. Sacrifice the needs of a few for the needs of many—that was the modern way. Maybe they were right. Other than her nursing-home residents, nobody seemed to care.

“Kaylyn?” Mac had come up behind her and stood over her, an odd expression of reluctance on his face. He hesitated, then said, “King sent me to check on you.”

“I’m fine, Mac,” she said wearily as she pushed herself up to her feet. “Would you give me a lift into town?”

“Sure. I’ll get my Jeep.”

Mac didn’t question her on the way into town. He wanted to speak. Kaylyn could tell that he had something to say but wasn’t sure how to say it. When they reached her trailer behind the nursing home, he cut off the engine and cleared his throat.

“Kaylyn, I’ve worked with King for a long time,
ever since he and I were both just hourly laborers. So I think I know him just about as well as anybody. I can’t guess what happened to tear you two apart, but I think you ought to know that he isn’t a man to give up. He believes that when a man wants a thing, he just keeps working until he finds a way to get it. And he wants you.”

“And I want him, Mac. But I don’t know if I can have him and my own self-respect. I’ve always believed that if a thing is right, it’ll work out. But not this time. Faith may move a mountain, or in this case
not
move a rock, and faith may keep the springs open. But there’re going to be walls around them both that faith won’t penetrate. No amount of believing is going to make the walls disappear.”

“King tried,” Mac said softly. “Give him a chance.”

“I don’t know, Mac,” she said sadly. “I just don’t know what to do. I have to work it out in my own mind.”

For the next few weeks Kaylyn went through the motions of her normal routine. The residents of the Pretty Springs Nursing Home quickly learned not to mention either King Vandergriff or the springs. The bright yellow school buses that announced summer’s end soon began their rounds of the neighborhood. The leaves started to streak with yellow and red. A heat wave tested tempers and the air-conditioning units as if it were pointing an I-told-you-so finger at Kaylyn’s failed purpose.

The days seemed endless, and the sad, sympathetic glances of her patients turned Kaylyn into a walking zombie. What the hell was she going to do?
she kept asking herself. Minnie, Luther, even Harold needed her. But she had nothing to give. She was distracted and empty. Loving King Vandergriff had ended her life. She was alone. One day after the other she got up, performed her job, then went to bed to toss and turn without sleep.

Now it was mid-morning and she was in her office. Minnie and Luther were nowhere to be found. Everybody had just seen them, but nobody seemed to know where they were at the moment. Kaylyn leaned forward, resting her head on her arms.

King. He was all she could think of. He had tried to help her. They
had
saved the springs and the rock. Wasn’t that enough? Couldn’t she forgive him for what he couldn’t control? She’d always known how to give love to those who needed it. Their giving love in return had been her lifeblood. Now that wasn’t enough. Loving King had been more than a physical act. It had been a joining of their spirits, their very souls meshing into one being. Now she was only half a person.

Damn him! He’d taken her heart, her soul, and her faith. Somehow she had to get them back. But sitting here in her office feeling sorry for herself wasn’t going to solve anything. She’d found that out already. The only answer for her was to go to King. There had to be a way. But if there wasn’t, then she faced the harsh truth that she could no longer function without the man.

Kaylyn Smith and King Vandergriff had been inextricably bound together from that first moment on the rock. Magic? Fate? She didn’t know, and she made no attempt to analyze it any longer. From the moment he’d climbed on top of Lizard Rock there
had been an aura about them, an aura of love. She’d left part of herself at that rock. Now she was going back for it—and for King Vandergriff. She climbed into one of the nursing-home cars and cranked the engine.

A warm rush of happiness swept over her. She loved the man—Stetson, coordinated underwear, alligator boots, and all. She would find a way. She
had
found a way, she realized suddenly as she drove recklessly down the highway. And she knew as she turned into the drive and caught sight of the Lizard that she’d felt the return of her faith.

She brought the car to a screeching halt beside the great rock and took a deep breath, trying to marshal her thoughts. Somehow, some way, they’d find the answer. Then she heard them, the voices, King’s deep tone and the woman’s trilling laughter. There was a splashing sound. King and a woman—in the springs.

“Don’t worry,” King was saying. “This is going to be wonderful. Just relax and let me show you.”

“You’d better not drop me,” the woman answered, “I don’t like the idea of the world knowing that this is how I met my end.”

It was definitely King and a woman. He was turning her wonderful healing springs into a bordello. Then she heard another male voice. “Perfect, King.” Damn, they were having an orgy.

Kaylyn’s first thought was escape. She had even reached for the key in the ignition when a powerful sense of well-being washed over her. She sat for a long moment feeling the harsh emotions subside. Pretty Springs, her springs, King’s springs. How could she have lost sight of the real issue?

The springs belonged to King now, but they’d been her refuge since the first time she’d heard about them. King’s being there with someone else didn’t change her plan. She’d come there to tell King that she was in love with him. If it took interrupting an assignation to do it, then so be it. She got out of the car and stood by the Lizard, gathering her courage.

King didn’t believe in the healing power of the springs, but he’d learn. She’d teach him. He’d learn that their waters healed the body and that the quiet sense of well-being that surrounded the rocks and springs reached the mind—if one were willing to open oneself up to the mysterious powers of nature.

Strange, she thought, that she’d never seen that before. The Indians had come there and held ceremonies on the rock, asking for the gods to touch them. They’d shared their deepest sorrows and greatest joys with this place, and somehow those intense emotions had become a part of the rocks for all eternity. After the Indians the settlers had come and built a town and stayed. The spring waters had been bottled and sent out worldwide. Still, in the end, belief in their healing powers had gone out of vogue and they’d sunk into obscurity.

Now King had come and he and she had fallen in love. Through their love the springs would live on. Kaylyn reached out and touched the Lizard. She felt his surface grow warm beneath her hand and knew she had learned an important truth. Perhaps the real truth only made itself known to a few, but she was one of the chosen. She hadn’t understood before. It was love that had made it possible. And King was chosen, too, only he didn’t know it yet.

Filled with a growing sense of joy, she rounded the rock to confront King and his party and froze.

Standing waist-high in the clear water was King Vandergriff. He was holding Minnie Rakestraw while Sandi Arnold manipulated Minnie’s thin legs. On the other side of the rocks were Tom Brolin, snapping pictures with a frenzy, and Luther Peavey, who was directing the entire operation.

“King?” Kaylyn said in astonishment.

“What’d I tell you?” Luther asked disgustedly. “I knew we wouldn’t get away with this.”

“What are you doing?” Kaylyn asked, then realized what a dumb thing she’d said.

“We’re taking pictures,” Sandi explained with a broad grin on her face.

“For King’s publicity campaign,” Tom added.

“It was to be a surprise,” Minnie said, sounding peeved. “They insisted I put on a bathing suit and be in the picture—me, who’s never worn a bathing suit in all my eighty-five years.”

“I think we have enough, Minnie,” Sandi said. “Luther, get her a towel.” Sandi motioned to King, who was standing like a frozen statue in the water. Sandi shook her head, transferred Minnie’s thin arms from King’s neck to her own, and walked over to the edge of the pool.

Tom reached down and easily lifted Minnie from the water, then wrapped her in a thick towel.

“Which one of those old fools at the home told you where we were, Katie?” Luther asked.

“Nobody.”

“See there, I told you they could keep a secret,” Sandi said. “Well, Tom, if you think we have enough photographs, we’d better get Minnie and Luther back.”

Kaylyn heard the others talking quietly as they
prepared to leave. But all she saw was King standing in the sunlight. His hair was wet and plastered to his head, as she’d seen so many times when they’d played in the water. He looked like the iron-faced savage she’d thought him to be the first time she’d seen him. Yet there was a new uncertainty in his face. He didn’t speak.

“Nobody told me you were here,” she repeated. “I came to see King.” But she spoke to the rocks and the air. The others were gone.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Kaylyn,” King said. “I wanted you to come, but I didn’t want to force you until you’d made up your mind. Let me explain.”