Devil Moon (25 page)

"Mr. Wilcox! Mrs. Bailey! Praise the Lord that you're all right!"

Phil halted and set Maddie down. "Reba!" Maddie said. "How did you find us?"

"I called the police like Coach Wilcox told me. I figured Pa would head for his hunting cabin so I rode with them here. The officers are coming behind me. They've called a medivac helicopter."

Maddie spoke up. "I don't need any medical attention, but I'm afraid your father does."

"I wasn't talking about Pa. They've called one for Mr. Bailey. He's been shot."

It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings.

Yogi Berra

Phil ducked as the helicopter rose above the craggy hilltop, sending a wake of windy turbulence. Leaves and dust choked him as he watched the copter wing out of sight carrying Maddie, his unborn child, and Randy to a trauma center in Little Rock.

Maddie had rushed out of his arms to the side of her wounded husband. Beaver Cove's drama teacher had lain on the cold cave floor losing blood as battle raged in the Halloween night. A wild shot from Wade's gun had hit Randy in the upper chest. The last Phil had seen of Maddie, she'd been running alongside Randy's stretcher, fear reflected in her wide eyes. He couldn't resist giving her one more reassuring hug before helping her into the helicopter.

Now Phil stood answering questions among a swarm of police and rescue workers as a crew worked at retrieving Wade from the rocks below the cliff. Phil gazed around the scene and glimpsed Reba standing at the edge of the plateau observing the progress of the rescuers. Slow tears tracked down her cheeks. She swiped them away with the back of her hand. He walked to her willowy figure and wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

"I'm sorry about your father," he said.

"At least he's alive." She sniffed. "A worker told me they're stabilizing him."

In the heat of anger, Phil had wanted to kill the guy. Now, in a more reasonable mindset, he felt relieved he hadn't caused a man's death, even a jackass like Wade Finn.

Reba shivered as she leaned into him. "Drugs have turned him mean crazy, like a mad dog."

Wade's broken body was carried up on a stretcher. Semi-conscious, he managed to cuss out the medics. As Phil watched Wade being loaded onto an ambulance, he thought,
but for the grace of God, there go I.
If he'd kept on with the booze, added the haze of drugs, he might be just as whacked-out and destructive.

Reba trembled under his protective arm. "I knew something bad was coming and I couldn't do nothin’ about it. Now Pa's hurt hisself and maybe killed Mr. Bailey. I should have stopped him somehow."

Phil gently turned her to face him. "Listen, kid, take it from someone who's learned the hard way. Your Dad is responsible for his actions, not you. He's going to have to face the consequences. You did your best to alert us when he drove off with Mrs. Bailey. And you led the police up here. If it weren't for you, Mr. Bailey would probably have bled to death."

"I hope to God those doctors can save him." Reba sagged, exhausted from the night's chaos.

"Let's get you home, kid."

Reba nodded. "Mama's going to have the shivering fits when she hears what happened."

A cop, who turned out to be Ginger's cousin, drove Reba and Phil to the ramshackle Finn stronghold. The cousin cop told Reba to expect a thorough visit from the police in the morning.

Reba nodded in full understanding. "Guess me and Mama better clean house tonight." In other words, all traces of drugs would be destroyed.

Phil had himself dropped off at the high school where he found Maddie's purse and clothing. After changing out of his costume, he got in the Camry and took off for Little Rock.

* * *

He reached the hospital around three a.m. and found the ICU wing. As he pushed open the beige doors, Phil's gaze traveled across the units of glass walled rooms. His search ended when he recognized Maddie wearing a hospital gown over her torn Halloween costume. A stranger stood beside her at Randy's bedside holding the patient's hand. Phil approached the doorway.

As he entered the room, Randy's weak voice reached him. "I finally got to play a great dying scene and nobody was there to see it."

"I take it he's going to make it," Phil said.

Maddie's expression registered obvious relief when she saw him. "Phil...thank God."

She looked so wan, so exhausted he immediately opened his arms in invitation, which she accepted. She leaned into him and sighed.

Phil glanced at Randy's reclining figure and the unfamiliar friend. "I heard there was a party going on in here and I didn't want to miss out on the fun."

Maddie pulled away from him and managed a small smile. "Phil, this is Brent Farnsworth. Phil Wilcox."

Brent nodded. "Ah, the celebrity coach. You've been making headlines even in the Little Rock paper."

Phil grunted. "Yeah? Must have been a slow news day. So, how's he doing?"

"He's lost a lot of blood and has shattered bones and tissue. Fortunately the bullet went high and didn't involve the heart or lungs. He's going to be all right."

Randy spoke again. "Get her out of here, Coach. She looks worse than I do. And that outfit hurts my eyes."

Phil looked down at Maddie, noting her bedraggled face and hair. Besides the hospital gown over Morticia's shredded dress, she wore green paper shoes on her bare feet. "He has a point. Let's blow this joint."

Maddie appeared torn between duty and exhaustion. "But..."

"I'll stay here with him," Brent said.

Maddie nodded. "All right. I'll be back in the morning."

As they walked down the hospital corridor Phil asked, "Who was that guy?"

"Brent? I think he's the love of my husband's life."

"You have a very strange marriage. Do you know what I think you need?"

"A bath?"

"An annulment."

* * *

They stopped at a Wal-Mart where Phil purchased toiletries, a nightgown for Maddie, and various other necessities of life. When they arrived at a Best Western motel, Phil considered his options at the check-in desk. He could go for separate rooms, but he didn't want to leave Maddie alone. A king-size bed seemed like a presumption, so he ordered a room with two beds. He also purchased two bags of peanuts and three candy bars out of a vending machine.

Maddie seemed nearly incoherent as he guided her into the room. It smelled of cleaning fluid and fake potpourri. He threw the key on the dresser and noted the faded floral spreads on the beds. At least the joint looked clean. Maddie hovered at the door, seemingly unable to decide what to do next. He led her toward the bathroom door.

"Take a shower, you'll feel better," he said, as he dumped the Wal-Mart bag beside the bathtub.

She nodded numbly and began fumbling with the strings of the hospital gown. He watched it drift to the floor. Seeing the battered dress under it made him angry all over again at what that maniac had put her through.

"Turn around," he ordered.

Obediently, woodenly, she complied. He undid the zipper and then gave her some privacy in the bathroom. He laid back on a fully made bed, hands locked behind his head. What a helluva night. Bedlam and babies.

Maddie emerged from the bathroom with a towel twisted on her head like a turban. Dressed in the soft pink cotton gown he'd purchased, she reminded him of cotton candy.

"Feeling better?" He lifted up on one elbow, chin resting on a palm.

Nodding her head, she said, "Much, but I can't seem to put two thoughts together."

"You need to hit the sack. I'm going to take a shower. Try to go to sleep."

Maddie moved toward the bed and yanked the towel off her wet hair. She threw it on the table in an uncharacteristic gesture of messiness.

"Need the hair dryer?" he asked.

"Please."

He brought her the dryer and brush and stood a moment studying her back as she sat on the bed going through the motions of drying her hair. He wondered if she had any idea how beautiful she looked to him right now, watching the graceful sweep of her arm repeating the fluid motion over and over through her clean hair. Her shapeless gown only allowed a hint of the form beneath and he felt a surge of protectiveness that he'd only previously experienced for Melissa. Never in his life had one woman aroused such a varied range of emotions in him.

These past few weeks since she'd disappeared during their weekend getaway, he'd been so damn mad at her, he'd spent hours pounding out his frustrations into a punching bag. Tonight when he'd lost sight of the truck he'd known real fear. Fear as palpable and terrible as a stab in the heart. Later, pure joy and relief flooded his being when she'd limped into his arms on top of that Ozark mountain. The woman was his personal emotional roller coaster.

When he stepped out of the steamy bathroom a few minutes later clad in good old sweats, the lights were out, but the curtains were opened wide to reveal the waning moon and stars. The outline of her body raised the covers in the bed closest to the window. A feminine scent now filled the air. She lay too quiet to be asleep. He walked around to the space between their beds and pulled back his comforter.

Needing to touch her, he turned and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Good night. Wake me if you want anything."

Her voice came out in a high-pitched squeak. "Okay." Two small, uncontrolled contractions of her shoulders jerked under his fingers.

"Oh, man. Are you crying?"

"No," she said in a sob.

He sat on her bed. As she rolled into a tight ball with her back to him he said, "Come on, I can spot a crying woman a mile away." He stroked her soft, freshly cleaned hair. "What's wrong?"

Maddie turned over and looked up at him, the tears turning into a real downpour. "I'm just so tired and confused. This has been such a crazy night. First, I was angry at that rotten drug dealer and then I was scared by his beastly dog and then I was angry when I couldn't get out of the truck." She scooted back and sat up against the headboard. "And when Wade said
he'd
taken the quilt that I was so sure
you'd
taken, I couldn't make sense of it." He handed her a tissue. She dabbed her eyes and then twisted and shredded it as she talked. "Oh Lord, that's when I fear I must have gone out of my mind, because I hallucinated I saw Grammy and... the man in the moon turned into a jack-o-lantern!"

She leaned into him and whispered as if imparting a terrible secret. "I haven't told anyone about this before, but I've been seeing Grammy for some time. She just pops out of nowhere and gives me a piece of her mind. I've tried to ignore her, but she won't go away. And the truth is, I don't really want her to leave. I'm hanging on to my delusion. Do you think I'm mentally ill? Should I commit myself somewhere?"

Phil smiled. "Well, then I'll be right there with you. And so will Randy. We both saw your Grammy tonight. She showed us where you'd gone."

Her eyes glistened in the blue light. "Really? You mean Grammy is an actual ghost?" She heaved a big sigh. "Oh, what a relief."

"Yeah, we saw some other strange things tonight, too. So, let's just chalk it up to Halloween and not worry too much about being crazy."

He wiped some tears from her cheeks with his thumb. "What else is bothering you?"

She sighed heavily. "It all came back to me–that night last summer, I mean. I'd kind of buried it and made up a fantasy about the baby being a sort of Immaculate Conception." A choked laugh rose from Phil's chest, but she continued on in agitation. "Oh, Phil do you think of me as some kind of a pathetic sex-starved spinster having anonymous intercourse with a total stranger?"

He cupped her face with his hands. "Do you want to know how I remember that night? It was great, like something out of a dream. I was in the arms of a Moon Goddess and I didn't come back to find her because I didn't think reality could live up to the illusion. But I was wrong. You're better than any illusion I could dream up. You're a brave, beautiful, smart woman." Dropping his hands from her face, he leaned back. "But, maybe I should be apologizing for taking advantage of you in a vulnerable moment. Should I have just turned around and left that night, Maddie?"

"No!" She placed her hand on his chest. "I said I remembered it all and I did. It was wonderful. Magical. Moments out of time and space, better than any fantasy I could ever have imagined."

With a small smile on his lips he said, "So, what's the problem?"

"It's just come as such a shock, to discover you're the baby's father. I can't quite put it together in my mind."

He pulled away from her as his old feelings of inadequacy bubbled to the surface. "You're not sure you like the idea, is that it? It's one thing to have a hot night in the moonlight. But finding out an alcoholic, broken-down football player is the father of your baby comes as a nasty surprise."

She sat up indignantly. "I never said such a thing! I never thought such a thing. You really need to do something about your self esteem."

He shot her a heavy-lidded scowl. "Thank you, Dr. Laura."