California Girl (3 page)

But if anyone would have a clue of where to find his aunt,
he’d bet
Mrs
. Alys Seagraves would be
the one. He only prayed she hadn’t agreed to any of Mame’s half-baked schemes.

Using his cell phone, he called the New Age school his aunt
worked with. Over the years, “Doc Nice” had built a reputation that opened
doors. Most of the time, Elliot merely tolerated the recognition, but at
moments like this, he welcomed it. Within minutes, he had the phone number of a
yoga student named Alys. With a “y.”

No one answered when he dialed the number.

His car and his aunt were gone. So was Alys. They’d left him
no choice.

He called the police.

* * *

Sitting on the low roof of the sixties-era ranch-style
duplex that had provided her major source of income these last few years, Alys
admired the red and gold of the maple leaves at eye level rather than watch the
movers below haul the remains of her old life away. The renters on the other
side of the house had already moved out. Now it was her turn.

The place had been mortgaged to the hilt, and the
consignment store wouldn’t pay much for her meager belongings. These last eight
years of her life had been a roller coaster of highs and lows. She’d had the
breath knocked out of her when she’d hit bottom with that last plummet, but it
was time to experience the thrills again. No more self-pity. Full speed ahead,
into the future. All she had to do was figure out what that future was.

She couldn’t even plan tomorrow without worrying about Mame.

Which led directly to thoughts of Mame’s nephew.

She’d spent these last years in a state of suspended
animation. She hadn’t thought any man would ever turn her on again. But
Elliot’s obvious concern for Mame stirred more interest than she cared to
admit. She wanted to believe Mame’s stories about her nephew’s dedication to
healing, but just because a kid doctored hurt birds and dogs didn’t mean he
couldn’t be a Type A jerk now.

The old Alys had an irrational thing for Type A
personalities. The person she wanted to be preferred the illusion of Doc Nice. She’d
like to think the warm, understanding radio persona would believe his aunt was
intelligent enough to make her own decisions. Maybe he would recommend that
Mame return to the comfort of her home if all she needed was bed rest and
medication. She’d much rather be sitting with Mame at her home right now than
sitting up here, wondering what to do next.

The roof was still warm from the day’s sun, but the fading
light had brought an autumn nip to the air. With her toes tucked in the crease
between thigh and hip, her palms upturned, she breathed deeply and attempted a
meditative trance, but too many images bombarded her, and she lost her center.

She’d lost her center the day Fred had given up fighting the
cancer. She recalled the day with crystal clarity, sitting in the doctor’s
waiting room, anxiously awaiting the results of his lab test, praying the
drastic radiation and chemo treatment had worked and the cancer was still in
remission. She’d just buried her parents. She was still mourning their loss.
She couldn’t believe God could be so cruel as to take her husband, too.

They’d made so many plans for the future, believing the
treatment would work. Fred had planned an itinerary for Paris and Rome. He’d
wanted to explore the Mayan ruins next, and snorkel in the South Pacific, all
the things they hadn’t done because they’d been too busy building careers.
They’d even talked of children.

She desperately wanted him to have all that and more.
Sitting in the waiting room, she’d prayed and prayed until tears had run down
her cheeks.

The instant Fred had walked out of the doctor’s office,
she’d known her prayers hadn’t been answered.

“It’s back,” he told her with resignation when she ran to
hold his frail hand.

“We can fight it again,” she assured him. Unable to accept
defeat, she whipped out her calendar book to write down the next appointment,
even though the days that had once been packed with activities now stretched
out without a mark on them. “I heard of a new treatment I can call and find out
about.”

“No.” This time, his voice was flat.

Fred had been a trial lawyer, with a rich, evocative voice
that could sway juries and tempt Satan. She’d heard his voice rage in fury and
murmur in love. She’d never heard it go flat.

“Dr. Thompson has a better suggestion?” she asked hopefully,
searching Fred’s beloved face. He had never been a handsome man, but always a
compelling one. Today, with his hair thinning from the radiation and his weight
down from the chemo, he appeared decades older.

“No.” Carrying himself as proudly as he could after a year
of painful treatments had drained him of every ounce of energy, he walked out
without making the next appointment.

He had never gone back. Rather than repeat the hell he’d
been through, he quit, just like that. At first, she had tried to persuade him
to travel, in hopes that would improve his frame of mind, but no matter how she
tempted him with brochures and plans, he claimed he didn’t have the energy,
sank into his pillows, and flipped television channels.

He’d given up hope. She hadn’t. Where there was love, there
was always hope. She understood his reluctance to return to the indignity of
the hospital and their painful treatments, but she was incapable of giving up
on the man she loved with all her heart. So, she’d searched the Internet for
alternatives, combed the library, looked for every available cure that might
appeal to him, offering each with such hope in her heart that it should have
cured him with the power of her love.

Fred had humored her by taking herbs and letting her bring
in spiritual healers, who promised to open his mind and improve his mood. Books
swore that laughter made the best medicine. She would have hired clowns if he’d
let her. On the days she made him laugh and he could sit up like his old self,
she’d be certain her positive thinking was helping. And then the next day, he’d
be back in bed, refusing to go to the hospital.

Her hopes swung wildly back and forth with each new
treatment the doctors recommended. With the oncologist’s suggestion of a new
drug, she’d sold her engagement ring and filled a prescription that made the
last of Fred’s hair fall out and his once bronzed skin turn yellow.

But he’d given up long before that treatment failed. She’d
read about it in the books. If he hadn’t quit the radiation, if he’d kept up
his spirits, believed in something,
anything
,
he could have lived longer.

He was a strong-willed man, and he’d decided to die. So he
did.

Leaving her numb and shattered and drifting.

Tears welled up from that core of grief inside her, and Alys
let them spill down her face. She’d spent years holding them back, maintaining
a cheerful smile, pretending for Fred’s sake that everything would be better.
The tears had frozen inside her, so that when he’d died, she’d simply gone through
the motions of grieving.

They fell easily now. In this past year since his death,
she’d slowly let go of her anger and heartache. Mame had been a friend of
Fred’s family, and the day Alys had walked through the grocery store with tears
streaming down her cheeks, Mame had introduced Alys to the School of
Alternative Life Lessons, and gradually brought her back into the world.

At first, Alys had obliged for lack of anything better to
do. She couldn’t sit in the house forever. So she signed up for every class the
school offered, and later found others that they hadn’t.

It had taken time, but she had finally accepted that, no
matter how much she hated his choice, Fred had every right to choose death. His
decision wasn’t prompted by anything she had done or not done. She couldn’t
direct the lives or wishes of others. Gradually, her energy returned, her
outlook improved, until now she was ready to make some decisions.

Her first decision had been to sell the duplex and most of
her worldly goods. Fred’s life insurance had paid the bills and bought her a
little time, but she would have to return to work soon.

This little jaunt with Mame was a journey of self-discovery,
a road to plan her future. Or would have been, until Mame’s setback. Now she
had to decide whether to go on or linger.

Giving up on meditation, Alys toyed with the Superball she’d
found in the gutter. She remembered the day one of the neighbor’s kids had
thrown the extra-bouncy ball into the yard. It had been one of Fred’s good
days, and he’d enjoyed playing catch with the boy, watching the tiny hard ball
bounce higher than the house. Had he lived, Fred would have been a good father.

Then the ball had landed in the gutter, and he hadn’t had
the strength to fetch it. He hadn’t gone outside again.

Memories like that were the reason she had to leave.

She leaned over to watch more of her furniture being carried
into the consignment-store truck. Liberation from the material was an exciting
concept. She could feel the freedom already. She wouldn’t miss her furniture,
but she did miss her Nissan. She needed a car if she wanted to see the world.

Alys eyed the enormous pink Cadillac in her driveway. Mame
had told her to take it, that she would catch up with her later. If she
believed Mame was as healthy as she’d declared, did she dare?

Except for the buckled bumper, Beulah gleamed with years of
loving care. Mame had earned the car decades ago for selling cosmetics, and it
was as much a trophy as a means of transportation. Alys didn’t want to imagine
how Mame would feel if anything happened to it.

Of course, if she didn’t take it, she couldn’t set out on
her journey. She had no home, no car, and no place to go.

The police car pulling up behind the Caddy’s tail fins
diverted that train of thought, thank goodness.

She spun the Superball in her palm and watched with interest
as Mame’s imposing nephew unfolded from the backseat. From this distance,
Elliot Roth appeared cool, collected, and sophisticated—the kind of man who
snapped his fingers and the world laid down at his feet.

The two uniformed police officers stepping out of the front
of the car consulted with the good doctor. She’d lived a quiet life. The only
child of elderly parents, she’d been a relatively obedient teenager. She’d
never had officers of the law in her home. Was Mame’s nephew about to sic them
on her? For what? Stealing Beulah? Maybe her journey of self-discovery would
start behind bars. She could become a career criminal.

Unaware he stood in the path of the movers, Doc Nice turned
to stare at the SOLD sign on her front lawn. He wasn’t paying any more
attention to the movers than they were to him. The burly truck driver backed
down the stairs carrying a heavy oak cabinet, and Alys debated watching the
play unfold without interference.

Mame must have had a reason for wanting to escape the
hospital before Doc Nice arrived. That gleam in her eye had meant something.
Alys just hoped it wasn’t something dangerous.

Deciding the doc probably had only good intentions and
shouldn’t be blamed for Mame’s mischief, Alys cried out a warning. An alert
policeman grabbed Elliot’s shirt and jerked him out of the mover’s path,
narrowly averting the collision.

All three newcomers turned their attention to the roof. Alys
waved. As if they’d seen countless women perched on rooftops, the policemen
shrugged and returned to examining the vintage Cadillac.

The doc’s upturned face looked oddly agitated at the sight
of her, as if he’d lost his best friend. Alys appreciated his long-legged
stride across her brown lawn, but she didn’t think all that concern was for
her.

What if Mame had taken a turn for the worse? Knowing she
wouldn’t be able to breathe until she knew, Alys flung her Superball at him
just to see how a renowned author played ball. “Catch!”

Unfortunately, he didn’t wrap his fingers around the small
ball fast enough, and it bounced hard, ricocheting off his hand into the
Cadillac’s window. It was Alys’s turn to wince at the resulting cracking noise.

Unconcerned with the window, the good doctor absently rubbed
the center of his expensive knit shirt while he watched her scoot toward the
gutter. His hair fell forward in untidy curls that made him look more human
than famous, but casualness didn’t disguise his tension.

As she eased down the rotting trellis, Elliot stepped over a
dead holly, caught her by the waist, and helped her to the ground.

The intimacy of a man’s heat burning through the cotton of
her dress shocked her into remembering how long it had been since any man had
held or touched her. She missed that closeness.

Lowering her to the grass, the doc didn’t release her waist.
The intensity of his deep brown eyes held her spellbound. Or maybe it was the
subtle scent of his shaving lotion making her a little light-headed.

“Have you seen Mame?” he demanded without preamble.

She stared up at him, too shocked to speak. Or think.

Apparently recognizing his forwardness, Elliot dropped his
hands and backed away. “I apologize, but this really could be a life-or-death
situation. Mame left the hospital. If you know where she is, please tell me.”

Mame left the hospital
.
For a brief moment, she felt exultation. Mame was fine.

Then the doc’s urgency sank in. Mame wasn’t fine. Alys took
a deep breath to calm her spinning thoughts.

Doc Nice had a radio-show voice—moderated and melodious and —Alys
wrinkled her nose and gave it some consideration—nice, she concluded. Doc Nice
spoke nicely, even under obvious stress.

“If she’s run away, she must have been feeling better.” Alys
had spent the last few years speaking in a voice as modulated as his,
attempting to hide her heartbreak behind pleasant reassurance for Fred’s sake.
She didn’t have to do that anymore. The knowledge that she could yell and
scream and be sarcastic again was liberating.