California Girl (4 page)

“Mame’s a grown woman and knows her own mind. You shouldn’t
have bothered the police.” She wanted to believe Mame was feeling fine and was
just off running a few errands to prove it.

Elliot’s look of disbelief made her uncomfortably aware that
she wasn’t exactly a testimony to reliability. She was hot and sweaty and her
hair was probably standing on end. She’d only had the haircut to please Mame
and never remembered to keep it up. Once it had started growing out, she’d
whacked at the parts that annoyed her. Fred’s illness had eliminated any
pretense that looks mattered. She crossed her arms defiantly.

“Mame disconnected all her monitors and stole my car. She
has no cell phone or any way of reaching me. I don’t consider that a rational
act on the part of someone in ill health.” He glanced in the direction of her
house and nodded at the two officers crossing the yard to join them.

“May we look inside, miss?” one asked politely at Elliot’s
signal.

Alys admired the officer’s very stern, very young face. “If
you think she’s hiding beneath my dust bunnies, be my guest. Mame may be
skinny, but she’s not that small.”

When Elliot started to follow them, she poked him in his
taut abdomen. Abs of steel, she noted. “How did she take off her monitors
without everyone in the hospital running into her room?”

He didn’t touch her again, although she might have liked it
if he had. Despite her annoyance with the man’s behavior, he awakened
sensations she’d thought long dead. Self-discovery included exploring
sensations, didn’t it? It was a pity she and the good doc appeared to be at
odds regarding Mame’s health. Obviously, he thought his aunt hadn’t the brains
to take care of herself.

Maybe it was time she learned to accept being at odds with
medical authorities. They certainly had proved they weren’t infallible gods.
Perhaps Elliot was part of the learning process the Universe had in mind for
her.

“My father and my grandfather were doctors, and Mame worked
in their offices,” Elliot replied. “She knows as much about medical equipment
as I do. It’s urgent that I find her.”

“Is she going to be okay?” She didn’t want to ask, but cold
tentacles of fear wrapped around her heart. Mame epitomized the vibrancy of
life that Alys wanted to return to, and she would do
anything
for her.

Remembering the gleam in Mame’s eye, Alys had the sudden
suspicion Mame was counting on that. Which meant— She studied Mame’s nephew
speculatively as he spoke.

“The few tests they took indicate congestion and
arrhythmia.” Elliot’s mouth tightened. “Without further testing, I can’t
predict the result, but she’s already passed out once. It could easily happen
again. She might not get treatment quickly enough next time.”

Alys swallowed hard and stared into the canopy of colorful
maple leaves over Doc Nice’s shoulder. “She’s had these spells before, hasn’t
she? And lived to tell about them?” She countered his fear with her hope,
understanding better than he that neither of them had a choice in Mame’s
decision.

“The more often she has these attacks, the more her heart
tissue is damaged. We have to adjust her medication, and she has to rest. We
may need to put her in an assisted care facility.”

She could almost hear her friend’s belligerent response to
that:
It’s my life and I’ll die if I want
to.

She didn’t want Mame to die, but she didn’t want her to
spend the rest of her life in a nursing home either.

Torn, she glanced over at the pink Cadillac, half expecting
Mame to step out and demand that she be allowed to live her life her way. “I
can’t believe she’d leave without me,” she murmured, more to herself than to
Elliot. “She never drives farther than the grocery store or school. I was
amazed when she drove over here.”

“Mame is capable of anything when she puts her mind to it,”
Elliot said with conviction. “I have to find her before she does something
foolish.”

As the policemen emerged, dustier but empty-handed, Alys had
a thought. “Her suitcases? Were they still in the house? Did you look?”

“What suitcases?” And then his eyes widened. “She always
packs and leaves them by the door. There weren’t any.”

“We were planning on leaving first thing in the morning. I
told her I’d carry them for her. Maybe they’re still in her room?”

He shook his head in certainty. “I had an electric lift
installed on the stairway so she didn’t have to walk up and down. She refuses
to move to a smaller place, but she hates the lift. She sends things up and
down in the chair and she walks. She would have sent the suitcases down just to
prove she could.”

She remembered Mame’s disdain for the lift.

Hope faded. Alys bit the tip of a finger and tried to think
where else Mame could have gone, but she knew there was only one conclusion.
Mame had her suitcases and her nephew’s car. She had a copy of the itinerary
and an old boyfriend waiting at the end of her journey. Alys didn’t think
Elliot would appreciate the significance of that.

“She’s driving to New Mexico,” Alys said with a sigh. Mame
had left without her.

“New Mexico?” Doc Nice’s eyes lit with hope, and the
policemen arrived in time to jot notes.

“Where in New Mexico?” the younger officer asked.

“Albuquerque, for the Balloon Fiesta.” Before they could run
off and call in the news, she added, “She wanted to revisit her honeymoon
journey. The Balloon Fiesta was only incidental. She’s driving old Route 66 to
see the sights she saw with her husband in the sixties.” Alys had the uneasy
feeling that there might be a little more to Mame’s escape than that. She
couldn’t believe Mame would risk her life for a sentimental journey.

“Route 66? It doesn’t exist anymore,” the older officer
said.

“The Route 66 Association has the old road mapped out,” Alys
explained. “It gives directions on how to find the Americana that interstates
have gone around. We modified the route and made an itinerary to suit Mame.”

Elliot still looked concerned, but he held out his hand. “Where
is the itinerary? I doubt she’ll follow it, but we can have the police looking
for her along the road.”

“And what will the police do when they catch her?” Alys
demanded. If Mame was determined to drive to New Mexico, then Alys owed her
friend enough to respect her wishes. “Throw her in jail? Chase her down with
sirens blaring? That’s enough to give most people a heart attack. The idea is
to help her, not terrorize her.”

At her argument, Elliot strode toward the Caddy. “If I
follow the route she’s taking, I can be there when they find her and have her
taken to the nearest hospital.” He opened the car door, but the keys Mame
usually kept in the ignition weren’t there.

They were in Alys’s pocket.

She had been uncertain about borrowing Beulah, but now that Elliot
was threatening to go after his aunt, she knew what she had to do. That gleam
in Mame’s eye had meant more than mischief, and she owed it to Mame to protect
her. “What do you mean,
you
?” she
called after him.

He bent over to examine the cracked Caddy window, then
turned to the officers. “Can you put out an APB on the Rover? I’ll take my cell
phone. When they find her, I can be there to pick her up.”

Alys watched in dismay as the police returned to their radio
to report Mame’s direction. Without further ado, they backed the patrol car out
of the drive, leaving her alone with Elliot. “You don’t have the itinerary,”
she reminded him. Where had she packed the itinerary? Probably in the suitcases
in the garage. She’d had to remove them from the Nissan before it was towed.

“If you’ll give it to me, I will,” he said, standing beside
the Caddy’s driver’s-side door as the police drove off. “Just give me the keys
and I’ll follow her.”

“So you can put her in a nursing home?” Outrage roared to
life, and it felt good. “Mame is a grown woman and has a right to a choice. If
she’s this determined to make the trip, I won’t let you bully her out of it.”

“She could be dying!” He didn’t shout, but his knuckles
turned white where he gripped the door as his fear finally broke through his
reserve.

“She could be
living
,”
she screamed at him, shocking even herself. “You go back to your happy, healthy
world while I catch up with her and talk her into seeing a doctor.”

Was that a flash of guilt in his eyes? If so, he recovered
quickly.

“Mame needs me, and I’m going after her.” Crossing the small
lawn, he snatched the keys she’d pulled from her pocket.

The brush of his hand on hers shot electrifying shock waves
up her arm, but undeterred, Alys followed him back to the car.

“Fine, then see if you can find her without the itinerary.”
Triumphantly, she propped her hands on her hips as he climbed into the driver’s
seat. His scowl proved she’d had the last word.

The movers walked over with a clipboard and invoice.
“Signature, ma’am?”

As Alys scribbled on the line indicated, she heard the roar
of a powerful engine. Glancing up, she watched Doc Nice backing the pink Caddy
out of the drive.

He was leaving her here with no car, no phone, and no
furniture. And no way to find Mame.

Racing down the driveway, Alys smacked the driver’s window
of the Caddy before Doc Not-So-Nice could back into the street. Unfortunately,
that was the window the ball had hit.

She winced as the glass splintered in a dozen zigzag cracks.
Mame’s nephew hit the brake and stared through the destroyed window in
astonishment.

He turned off the ignition and threw open the car door,
climbing out to tower over her. Before she could decide whether to continue
asserting her rights or run, he took her hand to examine it.

“Did you cut yourself?” He turned her hand back and forth in
the fading light, checking for damage.

He had the most amazing touch. If she’d mutilated her hand,
she swore he could heal her with just that touch. She didn’t want her hand
back. She wanted him to hold it forever.

Satisfied she hadn’t been injured, he released her. She
almost sighed in regret.

“Are you out of your mind?” he demanded, staring at her in
incredulity. “What did you hit the window for?”

“I have no car, remember? And no place to stay.”

He continued staring at her as if she were speaking in an
alien tongue.

“You’re taking my only means of transportation,” she
explained patiently, “and they’re about to haul off my furniture.”

The consignment-store truck roared to life to emphasize her
point.

Without waiting for his response, Alys stalked past the
Caddy’s mile-long pink hood, back to the garage where her bags waited.

Apparently having managed to translate what sounded to her
like a perfectly clear explanation, Elliot jogged up and lifted the heavy bags
as if they were grocery sacks. They were old bags without roller wheels,
containing every piece of clothing Alys thought she’d need until she landed
somewhere. They were so heavy, she’d had to haul the bags to the garage in a
wheelbarrow.

She tried not to gape as Elliot easily tucked one under his
arm and lifted the other.

“I’ve decided to take Mame up on her offer of the car,” she
said, initiating a conversation going since he did not. She hadn’t really
decided to keep the car until he’d started to drive off with it, but it sounded
like a plan now. “I’ll be happy to drop you off,” she offered.

He shot her another are-you-from-outer-space look and kept
going. She supposed from the point of view of a harried professional in search
of a misplaced aunt, he had a right to think her deeply weird.

Dismissing his attitude, Alys returned to the house to lock
up. She had no idea what she was doing, but whatever it was, it had to be
better than sitting in the driveway on her suitcases like a homeless waif.

With wistfulness, she took one last look around at the
lovely wood floors she’d kept waxed and polished to a high shine. Empty now,
they simply looked barren and old. With a prayer that the new owner would find
more happiness here than she had, she shut and locked the door on her life with
Fred.

While Elliot arranged her luggage in the Caddy’s cavernous
trunk, Alys usurped the driver’s seat. Like Mame, he’d left the keys in the
ignition. In discovering those keys, she knew her mission.

“What are you doing?” he asked warily, shutting the trunk,
to discover her seat appropriation.

“Taking us to Mame’s,” she answered, staring out over the
long pink hood in a moment’s trepidation at the task she’d just appointed to
herself. “Her place is big enough for a small army. I won’t molest you. And if
we’re traveling together, you might as well get used to having me around.”

“We’re traveling together?” he asked, his expression
cautious as he tucked his long legs into the passenger side.

At least he didn’t run screaming from the car at the
suggestion. Most men would be raising the roof, but he just sat there absorbing
her assertions as if they were symptoms he had to diagnose.

Like insanity.

She wasn’t sure that was too far off the mark. Going after
Mame had some basis in logic, but she’d just suggested she ought to travel with
a man she’d never met before today, even if she’d known
of
him for months.

Her whole purpose in traveling with Mame had been to find
out who she was and who she wanted to be. She was on a limited time frame here.
She couldn’t afford too big a distraction.

In just the attentive way Elliot Roth studied her, he gave
her thoughts she shouldn’t be thinking.

His masculine proximity was overwhelming even in a car this
big. His short-sleeved shirt revealed sinewy forearms overlaid with dark hairs
and accented by an expensive gold watch. His shoulders loomed over the seat and
his dark curls brushed the sagging cloth of the car roof. Maybe she
was
insane to suggest this, but her new
life waited out there, and Mame was part of it. If he wanted to tag along,
fine.