Wishmakers (36 page)

Jack stood at the door and watched him leave. Not a word was spoken until the long black car moved out of the drive and onto the highway. He turned to look at Gloria. Peter's arms were still locked about her neck.

“The papers are probably phony. Don't worry about it,” he said lightly.

She shook her head. “No one has ever talked to him like that. He'll be back.”

“Good. I hope he will, and I'll finish what I started.”

“Oh, Jack! You shouldn't have interfered. He's very powerful. He won't rest until he's put you in jail!”

“Is…he gone?” Peter looked fearfully over his shoulder.

“Yup, he's gone. Come here, Bronco Billy. You're getting too big for your mother to hold.”

“Do we have to go with…him?”

“Naw—who'd take care of Cisco and the cat?” Jack lifted him from Gloria's arms and set him on the floor. “You'd better find that cat before Cisco does. It'll take a while for them to get acquainted.”

“You sent him away, didn't you, Jack? You didn't let him take us, did you?” Peter's eyes shone brightly through his tears. “Mom! Jack woulda hit him. I'll hit him, too, when I grow up.”

“Hold on, Bronco. We'll have to talk about this hittin' business sometime.”

“It's goin' to be all right, isn't it, Mom?” Peter looked up at her hopefully.

Gloria clamped her lips together and willed the tears to stay behind her eyelids. She nodded and tried to smile, silently saying,
I hope so, but don't count on it.

“Sure it's goin' to be all right, Bronco. Now scoot and find that cat before he and Cisco tangle.” Jack gave him a little push toward the door.

CHAPTER NINE

T
HE CLOCK ON
the shelf struck the quarter hour. The sound wafted into the small eternity of silence that followed Peter's happy shout at finding the kitten. Gloria had turned her back to Jack, not wanting him to see the tear-filled eyes she was dabbing with the balled tissue. When she felt his hands on her shoulders, she stiffened. She was deep in the pit of despair.

“Don't!”

“Look at me, Glory.”

“You've really done it, now, Mr. Smart Guy. He'll come back with the sheriff and take Peter. Why couldn't you just stay out of it?” she added bitterly.

“It didn't occur to me that you'd give up without a fight.”

She whirled. Her eyes blazed into his. “Fight? You don't fight a man as powerful as Marvin Masterson, especially if you're a
peon
like me! You run. If he catches up with you, you wait your chance and run again!” Rage, and a blinding headache, were making her sick to her stomach. “That's exactly what I'm going to do, and you'd better do the same or you'll find yourself in jail!” She brushed past him and headed for the room she shared with Peter.

Safely behind the closed door the tight reins she had held on her emotions broke, her face crumbled, and she burst into tears. Still crying, she jerked open the dresser drawers and stuffed her clothes and Peter's into suitcases. When they were filled, she piled some things in the middle of a bedsheet and tied the corners together. She flung on her coat and pulled a stocking cap down over her ears. She didn't care that her face was tear streaked, or that her hair was hanging in strings about her face. All that mattered was to get away as fast as possible, and maybe, just maybe, Marvin wouldn't find her, and would give up and go back to Ohio.

Gloria threw open the door and ran straight into Jack. He put out his hands to steady her. “Ready? I was just coming to get you.”

“Get your hands off me, you…bushman!” she snapped. “I don't need any help from you.”

“Yes, you do. I'm all that's standing between you and that cold fish that's using Peter to get you back.” His grip on her arms tightened.

She pushed at his chest. “Let me go! I don't want you to touch me ever again. I hate it!”

“You didn't hate it the other night.”

Shame and anger seared through her. How could he be so vile as to remind her? Desperately and recklessly she tried to defend herself, but the words that fell from her lips came out in a torrent of lies and accusations that were uncharacteristic of her, words that she didn't really mean at all.

“You must admit there's quite a difference between you and Marvin. After
him,
I wanted to see what it was like to have a real man! Can you blame me for taking advantage of your offer?”

“Shut up!” he snarled. His eyes darkened as his fingers hardened like steel bands about her arms. His face was like a stone statue, hard and bitter. Gloria was sure he was going to shake her. But instead his hands slipped around her throat and his mouth came down on hers savagely, relentlessly, prying her lips apart. His hands beneath her chin held her head immobile, and his mouth burned, delved, bruised.

He lifted his head, and she gasped for breath. Her heart was hammering so hard that her ears were ringing. She couldn't think. She couldn't speak. He stared down at her, and she shook her head in silent protest.

“Be my Glory of the other night,” he whispered. She heard the words as if they were coming from a distance. She stood stock still, waiting for the dizziness to pass.

“No….”

“You know there's something wonderful between us,” he murmured. “I stayed away from you for a whole week to find out if what I felt for you was real and lasting. It is!” His mouth closed over hers as he kissed her gently. Her mouth trembled. “You see how it is with us?”

“No. I don't see that at all.” She tried to twist away from him.

“Yes, you do. You're fighting it. You've totally disrupted my life and you're not going to scamper out of it like a pup with your tail between your legs until I'm sure it's what we both want.”

“You have nothing to say about what I do! Now, bug off! You're nothing to me, and…I despise everything about you…especially that beard!”

His bright-green eyes mocked her. “You're a liar, Glory, Glory,” he drawled softly. “Not a word of what you've said is true, and you know it. You're hurt and miserable and frightened. I can understand that. But pretending that you hate me is juvenile.”

She wanted so badly to hit him that her fists curled into tight balls. Only the fact that Peter was coming into the room stopped her.

“Mom! Mom! Are you coming? I got Cisco and the kitty in the car.” Gloria felt the blast of cool air from the open door. “Jack said I could name the kitty, Mom. Jack said I ought to call her Lucy.”

Jack's hands fell from her arms. “We're coming, Bronco Billy. Get back in the car.” He stepped around Gloria and picked up the suitcases. “Is this all you're taking?”

“Yes. But I can manage by myself.”

“I don't doubt that for a minute, but this time you're not going to. Leave it, I'll get it,” he said when she attempted to intercept him. She could tell that he was angry, but his voice remained calm. He nudged her in the back to force her out the door ahead of him.

Janet was in the office. She looked anxiously at Gloria, and then followed her to the back door.

“Jack explained why you're leaving. That bastard! That no-good bum! Don't worry about the motel. Gary and I will be here.”

“Tell Aunt Ethel I'll get in touch with her as soon as I can. Hey!” she yelled at Jack. “Don't put my things in that car.”

“It's not a car, Mom. Jack said it's a Jeep. He said it can go through snow.” Peter's eyes danced with excitement as he climbed into the back of the vehicle.

Gloria fumed.
Jack said! Jack said!

Jack lowered the back door of the Jeep and set the suitcases inside. He passed her without a glance and went back to the motel for the bundle. Gloria had the suitcases on the ground and was trying to get Peter out of the truck when Jack returned. Silently, and calmly, he put the suitcases back in, wedged the bundle between them, and slammed the door.

“Get in.”

“No. I'm taking my own car. Peter, get out of—” Jack swung her up in his arms and sat her on the seat. “Now, wait just a doggone minute,” she sputtered. “Who do you think—”

Peter shrieked with laughter. “Mom! Jack picked you up like he does me. Jack's stronger than anybody, Mom.”

Jack grinned at her, slid in beside her, crowding her over to the passenger's side, and slammed the door. Before Gloria could find the door handle, the engine roared to life. He shifted the gears and backed the Jeep up so fast that Peter toppled over on the bundle, Cisco barked, and the frightened cat jumped over the seat and into Gloria's lap. They careened out onto the highway, Gloria grabbing the dash to keep from falling against Jack. She glanced at his face. His thick black hair was going in all directions, his eyes were mere slits, and his dark brows were drawn together.
He looks as fierce as a medieval warrior; all he needs is a suit of armor and a lance,
she thought.

“Where are you taking us?” she demanded. When he ignored her she shouted the question, angrily, forgetting about Peter. “I said, where are you taking us?”

“To Hangtown.”

If Jack had suddenly sprouted horns Gloria couldn't have been more shocked. For seconds she couldn't speak. Her heart fell right down through her stomach to her toes. It hadn't occurred to her that he would take them
there!

“No way! We're going to Great Falls. I'll get a job—”

“Do you
want
him to find you?”

“You know I don't!”

“Can you think of a better place? The sheriff won't come out there; Hangtown is in another county. By the time he goes to Great Falls and gets a warrant, I'll have my lawyer in Chicago breathing down his neck.”

“Your what?”

“Even bums like me have the right to legal counsel.” He grinned at her.

Gloria snapped her teeth together in frustration, gave him a freezing look, and turned to gaze unseeingly out the window at the landscape that was flying by.

They turned off the highway and took a dirt road that wound among the foothills. Grass and weeds grew between the wheel tracks, and occasionally Jack had to slow the Jeep to a mere crawl. It was rugged, lonely country where stately cedars were scattered along the hillsides and gnarled oak clung to the ridges of an occasional arroyo. The Jeep rattled over a cattle guard and picked up speed, stirring the dry dirt into a cloud of red dust that floated along behind them like the tail of a giant kite.

The day was as dark and dreary as Gloria's mood. Gray clouds banked the northern sky, and the wind was damp and cold. Warm air from the heater blew on her legs and wafted up, making the inside of the car toasty warm. Gloria sat huddled in the corner, listening to the merry sound of her son playing with the puppy and the kitten. The dog barked, the kitten jumped up on Jack's shoulder, and Peter shrieked. Gloria couldn't even imagine Marvin in a situation such as this. She glanced at Jack. He didn't seem to even notice the confusion; in fact he seemed to be enjoying it.

When they reached Hangtown, Gloria understood what her aunt had meant when she said it was a ghost town. The main street wound steeply up a slope and ended abruptly at the bottom of a huge tailing dump below a gaping hole in the mountain and the relic of a mill that clung precariously to the side of it. Beyond that rose the shoulder of the mountain, its slopes covered with blue spruce, pine, and aspen. On each side of the street was a straggled line of old and weathered buildings; the roofs of some were caved in, their windows were mostly without glass, and their doors were missing or hanging by one hinge, making them look gaunt and cadaverous. An imposing false-fronted “saloon” sat on the corner and lorded it over the stores, which were all fronted by a sagging boardwalk. Some of the structures leaned one way, some another, some seemed in imminent danger of collapsing, and indeed several of those without stone foundations had.

“Welcome to Hangtown. The population is now four people, two dogs, six cats, and an ever-fluctuating number of wild animals.”

“Who lives there?” she asked, pointing to the smoke curling upward from a cobblestone chimney at the end of the town.

“Another, slightly older hippie by the name of Cliff Rice. He's a part-time prospector.”

Jack had stopped the Jeep in front of a building that had a new door and shiny new windows. The porch and steps had been replaced, but left unpainted. A CB antenna was attached to the side of the building and seemed to Gloria to be grossly out of place. She felt as if she had stepped back into time and that at any moment the saloon door would swing open and she would hear the tinkling sound of a piano. She looked down the dusty street, almost expecting to see a group of horsemen ride into town with blazing six-shooters.

Forgetting her earlier hostility she turned shining eyes to Jack. “It's right out of a John Wayne movie!”

“You like it?”

“Of course. I'm a Western fan. I read every Western novel I get my hands on.”

He chuckled. “The ones, I suppose, where the hero and heroine ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after?”

“So? What's wrong with living happily ever after? When I finish a book I want to leave it with the feeling that all is right with the people I've met in the story. Abad ending leaves me depressed.”

“You've got something there. If you want to feel depressed, you can read the newspaper.”

“At least we agree about something.”

“We agree about a lot of things, Glory, Glory. You just don't realize it yet.” His hand reached out and gripped her shoulder. “You and Peter will stay here in Hangtown until I find out which way the wind is blowing, okay?”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly. “But it'll only delay the inevitable.”

“Have a little faith in me, honey.”

Peter jumped out of the car and the puppy followed. “I want to see your dog. I want to see Ringo.”

“Hold it! Ringo's down with Cliff. We'd better leave him there until he gets acquainted with Cisco.”

“Peter! Come back!” Gloria called anxiously.

“He'll be all right. He knows not to go into any of the buildings and to stay in sight. He's a smart boy.”

She looked into his eyes and thought for the hundredth time that it should be a crime for a man to have such beautiful, expressive eyes. They were soft and moved lovingly over her face as his fingertips caressed her neck.
He fully intends to take advantage of the situation and seduce me into his bed again!
The bitter, shocking thought rocked her. Blood drained from her face, and her heartbeat slowed to a dull thud.