Cowboy For Hire (9 page)

Amy, at a loss for words, only stared at
them.

“I suppose that’s so.” Martin turned and
yelled into the crowd of movie people who’d begun gathering when
they’d smelled a fight brewing. “Somebody come over here and get
Huxtable to his tent. Give him some … give him some water or
something. Keep him away from the booze, for the love of God.” A
sour glance at his star prompted him to add, “And better get some
cold rags on his jaw. It’s going to swell or I’m a monkey’s
uncle.”

“Oh, dear,” murmured Amy.

“Didn’t mean to cause you grief, Miss
Wilkes,” Charlie told her, fearing she was one of those city girls
who couldn’t tolerate violence even if it was perpetrated for their
sake.

Her eyes were as big as saucers and as blue
as the sky when she looked up at him. “Oh, no, Mr. Fox! Please
don’t think anything of it. I’m glad you hit him.” She sounded
quite fierce, and Charlie wondered if she’d have hit Huxtable
herself after a few more of his nasty comments. Maybe she had more
spunk than he’d given her credit for.

Martin muttered, “This is going to slow
things down. We’ll have to wait to do any camera work until that
jaw goes down.” He rubbed his chin and thought hard. “Maybe we can
shoot him from the right side.”

“You can shoot him in the head, for all I
care,” Amy said, and Martin looked alarmed.

Yes, she definitely had more spunk than
Charlie had originally believed.

“I’m very sorry, Miss Wilkes. I know Huxtable
can be a terrible tease.”

“He’s more than a tease,” she said with
energy. “He’s a vulgar, licentious reprobate.”

Martin sighed deeply. “I’m afraid you may be
right. I don’t know why Lovejoy wanted him for this picture.”

“If he talks to Miss Wilkes like that again,
I’ll do the same thing,” Charlie said, keeping his tone mild. “I’m
sorry, Martin, but there it is.” He wanted Martin to know what was
what. Maybe Martin could talk some sense into Huxtable, although it
seemed unlikely. Huxtable’s ego was huge, and his head seemed hard
and impenetrable.

Charlie was both pleased and surprised when
Amy laid a hand on his arm. “Oh, Mr. Fox, please don’t. It’s partly
my fault for reacting to his taunts. I’m sure that’s what he wants.
I should have ignored him. He’s such a … pig.”

“He is that.” Charlie liked the feel of her
hand on his arm. Unfortunately, she didn’t leave it there.

“You’re very understanding, Miss Wilkes,”
Martin told her with a smile that looked as if it were nine-tenths
relief. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“I don’t know about this.” Charlie didn’t
care for the turn the conversation was taking. “It ain’t right for
a fellow to talk to a lady the way Mr. Huxtable talked to Miss
Wilkes.”

“I know it’s not,” said Martin.

Amy nodded. “Yes, but you see, I don’t think
there’s any changing Mr. Huxtable. He was a beast at my uncle’s
health spa, and he’s a beast here. I think he’s simply a beast, and
there’s no doing anything with him.”

“I did something with him,” Charlie pointed
out, beginning to feel slightly peeved.

“Yes, you did.” Amy beamed up at him, making
him light-headed for a second. “And I truly do appreciate it. But
you really can’t continue to hit him every time he says something
awful, because the only time he isn’t saying awful things is when
he’s asleep. If you hit him all the time, we’ll never get this
picture made.”

“Exactly!” Martin looked happy with her
sensible attitude.

“I don’t know. I don’t like it.” Charlie
kicked at the dirt, beginning to get the uncomfortable idea that
he’d done something silly. Only a moment before, he’d been feeling
kind of heroic. Ding-bust-it, females and movies were a purely
baffling combination. He’d enjoyed watching both individually in
the past, but dealing with them in person and together was another
matter entirely.

“Believe me,” said Amy, “I don’t like it when
he’s rude and awful to me. It’s humiliating to be baited by such a
man. And he deserves to be hit for being such a swine. But the
sooner we get this picture over and done with, the sooner we can
all go home again.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Martin, again with clear
appreciation of Amy’s good sense. “For the time being, why don’t we
take a break from rehearsal. I’m sure everyone’s nerves need to
settle a bit. I’ll go see how the costumes are coming. They might
be ready for your first fitting, Miss Wilkes.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tafft.” She gazed at Charlie.
“And thank
you
, Mr. Fox. It’s nice to know that not all men
are like that … that … awful Mr. Huxtable.”

“Sure thing, ma’am.”

Charlie peered down at her, noticing all over
again how pretty she was, how her hair glinted with red and gold
highlights in the sunlight, how big her blue eyes were, how fresh
her complexion, how elegant her figure. She was quite a package.
Some of the boys on the ranch might even call her a dish. Charlie
would never do anything so disrespectful, but he was beginning to
like her better than he had at first. Maybe he’d been a little hard
on her, even. Just because a person had never drunk coffee was no
reason to—

“Oh, my goodness!”

At Amy’s sharp cry, he jerked his head up so
fast he all but broke his neck. “What is it? What’s wrong?” He was
ready, whatever it was. He didn’t have a gun, but he could heave a
knife as well as anybody in Arizona Territory. He scanned the
scene, from right to left and back again, searching for whatever it
was that had alarmed her. From the tone of her voice, he expected
to see anything from a rattlesnake to a rabid polecat to Horace
Huxtable with a gun.

Her voice had sunk to a whisper when she
spoke again, and she’d pressed a palm to a cheek that had suddenly
gone as white as a snowdrift. “Is that woman actually”—she inhaled
a big breath—“
smoking?
”

Charlie blinked at her, then blinked into the
distance. A young woman stood outside one of the crew tents. And,
yes, she was smoking a cigarette. The way Miss Wilkes had said it,
he’d thought the girl had caught fire, at least.

“I think so,” he said, not sure what she
expected him to say—or what she expected him to do about it. While
he was as happy as a lark to belt Horace Huxtable for making
improper suggestions to a female member of the cast, he sure as
heck wasn’t going to punch that lady for smoking.

“My goodness.”

When he peered at Amy again, he saw that her
cheeks remained pale, and that the expression of horror he’d
thought he’d imagined, he hadn’t. It was there; no doubt about
it.

All righty, then, Charlie presumed that folks
in Pasadena, California, didn’t cotton to females smoking. He
didn’t either, really, although his grounds weren’t moral—as he
felt sure Amy’s were—but protective. It was dang dry in the Arizona
desert, and smoldering cigarette butts had set off more than one
wildfire.

Curious, he asked, “You got something against
folks smoking, Miss Wilkes?” He tried to keep his tone
friendly.

Her head jerked up and she stared at him for
a moment. Charlie all but got lost in those big, limpid pools of
blue. Then her gaze fell, and the pink returned to her cheeks. “I
suppose,” she said tightly, “that you think I’m an unconscionable
snob for being shocked to see a woman smoking a cigarette.”

Well, yeah, kinda.
Charlie said, “Er,
I don’t know about that, ma’am. Just wondered why you cared, is
all. I’m sort of a live-and-let-live kind of feller, myself.”

She made a clicking noise with her tongue,
and Charlie thought he glimpsed the ragged edge of her frustration.
With a gesture of her hand, she said, “Oh, I don’t
care
.
Exactly. Not really. But….” She tilted her head and stared up at
him some more.

Charlie had to swallow an oath. He wished she
wouldn’t do that. It made him prey to all sorts of impulses he was
sure she’d just hate, and which made him feel sort of like Horace
Huxtable, which was an awful way to feel.

“But this is all so new to me, Mr. Fox. I
know you think I’m a straitlaced priss, but I’ve … well, I suppose
I’ve been sheltered in my life.”

Since he didn’t know what to say to that, and
sensing she wouldn’t appreciate agreement, Charlie kept mum.

She went on with a choppy wave of her arm
that spoke eloquently of the state of her nerves. “Since I was
seven years old, I’ve never been anywhere but Pasadena or done
anything but what … well, what people in Pasadena do. And all of us
at home do the same things—and
none
of us do anything I’m
being expected to do in this picture. A woman in Pasadena wouldn’t
be caught dead smoking or drinking.” She hung her head. “I suppose
you think that’s intolerably stodgy.”

Charlie, who had been appreciating the way
Miss Wilkes’s lithe body moved and the way her rosebud mouth tilted
at the corners, pried his mind away from baser matters and thought
about it for a minute. When he answered, he told the truth. “Well,
ma’am, I don’t rightly think it’s stodgy. It’s … well, it’s kinda
irritating when someone keeps exclaiming about what other folks do.
It’s not as if anybody asked for your opinion or anything.”

The pink in her cheeks deepened
significantly. “Oh, dear, you must dislike me intensely, Mr.
Fox.”

“Good God, no! I don’t dislike you at all.”
Her little rosebud mouth quivered, and Charlie went all gooey
inside.

Amy hung her head. “Thank you for saying
that, even if you don’t really mean it. I honestly didn’t mean to
give you the impression that I disapprove of everything everybody
who doesn’t live in Pasadena does. It’s only that this is all so
new to me.”

“I understand,” Charlie said, nodding. And he
did. Sort of.

The poor thing looked as if she were
suffering acute humiliation, and Charlie hadn’t meant her to. He
was shuffling through the rubbish heap in his brain, trying to dust
off some words that might both soothe her and keep her from
slapping his face, when Martin’s voice came to them. Reprieve,
thank God! Charlie turned with a real, live, honest-to-God happy
smile. “Well, howdy, Martin. How’re things?”

Martin eyed him as if he wondered if Charlie,
too, had taken to drink, and Charlie realized that Martin had only
left Amy and him five minutes before. He broadened his smile to
show that he was in full possession of his senses.

He wasn’t, though. Staring into Amy Wilkes’s
eyes had done something serious to his senses, although Charlie
wasn’t sure what it was. They were heaving and spluttering like
crazy, though, and making him wonder if he’d taken sick.

She, too, appeared comforted to have Martin
interrupt what she evidently considered the scene of her
embarrassment. She shot one last glance at the cigarette-smoking
woman over by the crew’s tent. Charlie thought he detected a little
reproach—and a whole lot of bewilderment—in her expression.

Her smile for Martin Tafft was a winner,
though. Charlie wouldn’t mind her tossing a couple of those smiles
his way. Not that she would, since she thought he was lower than
snake spit—and she thought he thought she was, too. It was tough
maintaining his smile with that notion rattling around in his brain
pan.

“Miss Wilkes!” Martin called while he was
still several yards off. “The costumes are ready for your first
fitting, and I think they’ll be wonderful.”

“Thank you. That sounds like a nice—er—thing
to do.”

What it sounded like to Charlie was that she
was guarding her tongue to within an inch of its life and was
trying like thunder not to allow another spontaneous comment past
her lips. Charlie wished he’d kept his danged mouth shut earlier.
He kind of enjoyed hearing about all the things that perturbed her
and made her ever-so-dainty feelings recoil. A body couldn’t haul
back his spoken words like he could a runaway calf, though. Fine
time to remember that, he thought glumly.

Martin shook Charlie’s hand when they were
close enough to reach each other. Charlie wasn’t used to shaking
hands every single time he came across a fellow he worked with, but
guessed he could stand it.

“Let me show you to the fitting tent,” Martin
said to Amy. “It’ll probably be lunchtime when you’re through
there. When the bell rings, why don’t I drop by and walk you to the
chow tent?”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Tafft.”

Turning to Charlie, Martin said, “Why don’t
you—ah—study your script or something, Charlie? We’ll have another
rehearsal after lunch, since this morning’s was—er—shortened
unexpectedly.”

If that wasn’t a polite way of putting it,
Charlie didn’t know what was. He said, “Sure think, Martin. Will
do.”

And as he watched Martin and Amy walk away,
Charlie noticed that they constraint Amy exhibited when she was in
his own vicinity had slipped away. He frowned. She was cozy as
kittens with Martin Tafft. With Charlie Fox, she was like a frozen
millpond. He figured it was because he’d teased her a wee tiny bit
when they’d first met.

And maybe he’d hinted that she might be a
drop too fussy.

Oh, all right, and he supposed he’d treated
her as if he thought she was a stuffy prig.

Aw, hell, what he’d done was make her feel
like a pile of horse poop. He heard his uncle Bill, clear as a
bell, telling him, “Never miss the chance to keep mum,
Charlie.”

Uncle Bill, as usual, was right. Charlie
hadn’t kept mum when he’d had the chance, and he’d managed to hurt
Miss Wilkes’s feelings. Shoot.

As he shoved his hands into his pockets,
hunched up his shoulders, and headed to his tent, another one of
his uncle Bill’s favorite sayings tiptoed into his head. “There’s
two ways to deal with women, Charlie, and don’t neither one of ‘em
work.”

Charlie could almost hear his Aunt Bess’s
hollered reaction to Bill’s words from the kitchen of their ranch
house.