Showdown at Lizard Rock (4 page)

“Oh, my Lord. Now look what you’ve done, Mr. Vandergriff. I’m due back at the nursing home for a special program tonight. I can’t stay in here with a—a pervert. The patients will have a heyday with this little bit of gossip.”

“Oh, shucks, you can’t leave yet,” King said. “This little party is just what I had planned for my day. By the way, what do you do at this nursing home? Teach courses in civil disobedience?”

“It’s a combination retirement and nursing home. We offer full care and a place for those who need occasional looking in on. I’m the recreation director.”

Kaylyn pulled the voluptuous blond wig off and slung it on the cot. She ran her fingers through her own honey-colored, curly hair while she paced back
and forth. King had every right to wonder what kind of recreation director she was, she thought. Everything was getting out of hand. She hadn’t intended to let this happen.

Harold stumbled to the side of his cell and peered myopically at her new hair.

“Oh, my goodness,” he said, slurring his words. “They’ve shaved your head. I’m so sorry, ma’am. I didn’t know you were going to the Big House. That’s the State Pen,” he explained to King. “If you two want to be ‘together,’ I’ll trade cells.”

“
Harold,
” Kaylyn said. “One last time. I don’t want any part of Mr. Vandergriff.”

“Pity,” King said with a drawl. “That might be one thing we could cooperate on, Ms. Smith.”

“Too bad.” Harold moaned. He turned to King and shook his head slowly. “They’ve shaved her head,” he announced solemnly. “They always do, you know.”

“Calm down, Harold,” Kaylyn said in exasperation. “I was wearing a wig.”

“So you’re not bald,” King said. “I was beginning to wonder.” He leaned against the bars separating the three cells and gazed past Harold at her.

Without the wig she was even more appealing. A cap of damp blond curls curled over her head. Her blue eyes had lost their sparkle and she looked exhausted. Hell, she didn’t belong in a jail cell. With a body like that she belonged at some man’s breakfast table, flushed and warm from a night of lovemaking.

King turned away. “Damn!” She was doing it to him again, rattling his concentration. Even two cells away, his body was aware of her.

“I wish you’d listen to me,” she said sadly. “Why would you want to destroy something for no good
reason? That was the whole point of my mission today—to stop the waste and destruction of the springs.”

“When you plan a mission, you really do a job on it,” he said. “Since you appear to have my undivided attention, tell me more about your protest. You’ve already made me do more
wasting
today than I can remember.”

“They send you to the chair for wasting somebody. I heard it on TV,” Harold said.

Kaylyn ignored him. “All right. I’ll try to explain.” She wished she could get her mind off her itchy ankles and onto her real problem. If she ever got out of this, she’d never, ever, go near poison ivy without a full suit of armor. “The springs, Pretty Springs,” she said seriously, “they have to be saved.”

“Why, Ms. Smith? I mean, I understand the sentiment you have for the site, but seriously, wouldn’t you rather have new money and new jobs in the county?”

She sighed. How could she explain the springs to someone who hadn’t seen the results? She’d just end up sounding like some kind of new-age nut. Feeling warm, she unbuttoned the top buttons on the plaid shirt and fanned herself with a torn copy of
People
magazine she’d found on the cell bunk.

“What do you know about the history of the Lizard and the springs?” she asked.

“I know about the springs,” Harold said. “I used to swim there.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about either one,” King admitted. “They don’t look all that special to me. In fact, I tried drinking the water, and it tastes like the ocean when it’s dirty.”

“That’s because you don’t have medical problems that respond to the chemicals in the water. If you had ulcers or arthritis, you’d appreciate that ‘dirty’ salt water.”

“You’re telling me that the minerals in the water actually heal?” King asked.

“The Cherokees thought so. They brought their old and their sick to drink the water and bathe in it. Of course, I can’t give any medical endorsement to the waters; the feds would be down on my head immediately. But even their own inspector admitted that this is the only water like it in America. And I’ve seen firsthand what it can do.”

“Indians, huh? How do you know?”

“That kind of information is passed on. Some of their decendants still take the waters here.”

“ ‘Take the waters’? Hogwash! I’ll bet you believe in Ouija boards and the laying on of hands too. Sorry, Kay, I don’t buy that kind of hocus-pocus.”

“My name is Kaylyn, and I can’t say I really expected you to. You know, I tried to buy the site myself.”

“You?” He was stunned. “Now we’re getting down to it. You want the land. Well, you can forget that. Do you know how long it’s taken my brothers and me to come up with investors to back us? You’re not about to mess up my land deal.”

“Not the land, your highness, only the springs. And just so that you won’t be surprised, I haven’t given up yet. One way or another, I’m going to protect Pretty Springs.”

They heard the sound of voices in the outer office. The door opened.

“Katie? You in there?”

“Tom? Sure. Come on in.”

“It’s all right, Williams,” Tom Brolin assured the sergeant “guarding” them. “I thought she’d want to see me.”

Kaylyn was never so glad to see a familiar face. “Oh, Tom, can’t you get me out of here?”

“You can’t take her away yet,” Harold said seriously, reeling as he made his way to the front of his cell. “She hasn’t had her last meal.”

“What’s Harold muttering about?” Tom asked.

“Oh, he saw me take off my wig, and he thought my head had been shaved. He’s trying to save me from going to the Big House.”

“The Big House?”

“He …” King began. “Never mind, it’s too complicated to explain.”

“I can believe that. Has Kaylyn convinced you to give up your claim to her springs?”

“No way. The springs belong to me. Possession is nine tenths of the law, and I can’t allow her to interfere with my project. This Golf and Tennis Club is very important to me.”

“Surely you won’t destroy them, Vandergriff,” Tom said, “once you understand their value.”

“Oh, he’s not going to destroy them,” Kaylyn muttered. “I don’t intend to give him a chance.” She began to pace back and forth again. “That is, if I can get out of here. I haven’t begun to fight.”

“No problem,” Tom said. But his tone of voice indicated he was cautious. “I’ve arranged bail. They’ll let you out of here in a few minutes.”

The door opened again, admitting Mac Webster, King’s foreman. “Hello, boss. You about ready to hit the road?”

“I’ve been ready. Did you post my bond?”

“Not yet. It seems that the judge had a sudden attack of indigestion and took to his bed. But it’s in the works.”

“Sudden attack of indigestion, my—”

“Now, now, Mr. Vandergriff,” Kaylyn said.

“All right, Ms. Smith. Let’s just prove your claim. Get the judge, Mac, and drop him in the springs. If the lady is right, he ought to recover instantly.”

“So you’re beginning to come around to my way of thinking?”

“Only temporarily,” King said. “I don’t intend to change my plans. And I do know how to fight.”

“I’m sure that you probably fight very dirty,” Tom said. “Have you had much experience battling with women?”

King gave him a cutting look and said sarcastically, “Why, bite your tongue, Mr. Brolin. I’d never do underhanded things to a lady, at least not without her permission.”

He turned to Kaylyn and wished that she’d stop looking do damned martyred. As she stared back at him in exaggerated dismay
he
stared at the top of her creamy breasts in the open vee of her shirt … 
his
shirt. A bead of perspiration slid into the delicate crease between her breasts. King shut his eyes and shook his head in self-rebuke.
Stop staring at her as if she’s ice cream and you’re hungry
, he told himself angrily.

“Come on, you two,” Tom said, looking back and forth at them. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Why don’t we open the cells and let you two kiss and make up?”

“Not on your life,” King said. “But I could be persuaded
to drop the charges, if she’ll do the same. Maybe then we could discuss the situation.”

Temporarily shaken by the conciliatory air of the man she had sworn to thwart, Kaylyn could only stare in undisguised disbelief.

Mac held up a bright red terry-cloth robe. “I thought you might need this, boss.”

King looked from the robe to Kaylyn and back again. “Maybe we can make a deal, the lady and I.”

“What do you want?” she asked.

“First I’ll trade you my robe for my shirt.” He motioned for Mac to take it to her. “That is, if all the voyeurs present will turn around long enough for you to change.”

Tom smiled and covered his eyes. “I’m decent,” he said.

“All right, Kay,” King directed as Mac held the robe through the cell bars to her. “Put the robe on before you go out. From the sound of things, the party down at the Waterhole must have moved up to the jail.”

“Thanks for protecting my image,” she said dryly. “Why should I wear this?” She took the robe and looked at it with great distaste. The only thing good about wearing King Vandergriff’s brightly colored robe was the possibility that she’d spread her poison ivy to him. Hmmph. He much have a fetish for red clothes.

“Well, I thought that you were through playing show-and-tell for today,” he said smoothly.

“Not by the hair of your chinny chin chin,” she muttered. She unbuttoned the plaid shirt and dropped it to the floor, then slid her arms into the terry-cloth robe. She tried unsuccessfully to ignore the
blatant stare King Vandergriff gave her bikini-clad body before she closed the robe and tied it at the waist.

“Do you have to wear red?” she asked, thoroughly out of sorts.

“Thought you’d understand, woman. I’m kinda partial to red. Never did like anything tame in my colors—or my women. You can return it this evening, darlin’.”

Sergeant Williams unlocked Kaylyn’s door. “You’re out of here, Ms. Smith.”

“Good. Give this shirt back to Mr. Vandergriff. I wouldn’t want him to get cold during the night.”

“What?” King said. “You’re not seriously going to leave me in here, are you, Ms. Smith, darlin’?”

“Why, Mr. Vandergriff, I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait for the judge to get better. And the only thing that clears up the judge’s stomach condition is either a glass of mineral water from Pretty Springs or a good night’s sleep. And the springs are off-limits. You said so yourself.”

“Wait a minute. Where do you think you’re going with my robe? Bring it back here, woman!”

Tom, grinning, held out an arm, and Kaylyn slid her hand through it. “I’m going back to the nursing home to plan my strategy, your highness. You’re right. Playtime is definitely over. Nighty night, now!”

The last words Kaylyn Smith heard from the cell behind her were King Vandergriff’s furious, colorful cursing, Mac trying to calm him down, and Harold delivering a mournful rendition of “When We Meet on Heaven’s Happy Shore.”

…

“She’s what?”

“She’s camped out at the springs, complete with tent, cook stove, lounge chairs, and a portable television.”

King groaned. “I don’t believe it. What are the men doing?”

“They’re … waiting.”

“Mac, you’re the job foreman. Couldn’t you have prevented this?”

“I should have posted a guard. But it never occurred to me that she’d be back. Sorry, King.”

This couldn’t be happening to him, King thought. Not only had he spent half the night in jail listening to Harold grieve over Kaylyn’s being “sent to the Big House,” he hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking of her. Now he was facing another day of disruption on the job, disruption that he couldn’t afford.

“Reporters?” he asked. “Has she called in the world press this time?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then what the hell is she doing?”

“When I left to call you, she was … frying sausage.”

Twenty minutes later King and Mac were at the construction site. King stopped at the rock and looked up at it with dismay. He wouldn’t admit it to anybody, but from the moment he’d put his arms around Kaylyn Smith the day before, he’d felt as if his entire body were racing out of control, leaving his logical calculations in some cottony limbo.

Now this. Even as he stood considering his options, he heard the rich sound of her laughter and knew that he wanted to feel the warmth promised behind those cool blue eyes. But hell, not here, and not on his project. This was business and she was
pleasure—pure, muscle-tensing, man-woman pleasure.

“Is she dressed, Mac?”

“She’s dressed, but shorts and a tank top don’t do much to take the men’s minds off what she looks like.”

King groaned. She wasn’t going to make it easy. But then, when had anything easy been worth having? He straightened his shoulders and strode around Lizard Rock to a cluster of smaller rocks surrounding a large, deep pool of bubbling spring water.

“Good morning, your highness,” Kaylyn said sweetly. She poured coffee from a large metal pot into a ceramic cup. “Have some coffee with us.” The smell curled around King’s nose and wafted in his nostrils as she held out the mug.

“Us” was his construction crew, the entire bunch. Sheepishly the men stood up, mouths paused in mid-chew, holding paper plates filled with half-eaten eggs and pancakes. King surveyed the group angrily.

“Gentlemen, do finish your breakfast. I wouldn’t want to be accused of depriving you of your last meals.”

The men backed away, and King faced Kaylyn across the springs. She looked like a lithe African lioness ready to defend her territory.

He turned to Mac. “I don’t want to see any of the men around this spring again, not as long as she’s here.”

“Yes, boss.”

The mass exodus was complete within seconds, leaving only King and Kaylyn within the circle of rocks around the springs. In the silence he could hear the gurgling of the water as it rose out of the
ground and fell over rocks in little waterfalls that ended in the pool.