Last Light (42 page)

Deni caught her breath. “You’re kidding me.”

He shot her a look. “I warned you not to go yapping.”

“An adult book store? You sell trashy books?”

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

He pulled the wagon into the Sneak Peak’s parking lot, and she saw a handwritten sign on the front that said “open.”

He laughed with delight. “My boy’s already got the place open. I have good managers. You want to come in?”

She gave him a disgusted look. “No. I’ll stay here, thank you very much.”

“All right. I’ll leave you the gun. It’s loaded. Don’t shoot yourself with it.”

She took the pistol and watched as he went inside. Nervous, she craned her neck to make sure none of the loitering men approached the wagon. When she was satisfied it was safe, she stood up and reached for one of Vic’s boxes. She pulled back the tape sealing it and ripped it open.

Filthy magazines and pictures were stacked there, carefully wrapped in cellophane to protect them, like rare art. She closed the box, feeling sick.

Vic Green was a pornographer. He got rich pedaling his evil in disgusting stores across the country.

And she had run away with him.

Nausea ripped through her. She couldn’t go on with him. It was dangerous. She had known it last night and had escaped. Why had she accepted a ride from him again?

She should take her suitcase, her wedding dress, and his revolver, and leave right now, while he was distracted. But wouldn’t those men on the street be even more of a threat to her than Vic?

No, she couldn’t leave now. She’d have to stay with him until he got her someplace safe. But she would get away from him as soon as it was humanly possible.

She looked back at the loitering men. Business seemed to be good for them. Despite the shortage of food, she supposed drug addicts still found ways to buy drugs. And husbands and fathers spent their families’ provisions to feed pornography addictions.

That self-loathing at her own stupidity threatened to smother her again. She closed her trembling hand over that pistol, and prayed for a way out.

fifty-four

Vic took back his gun when he got into the wagon and got the horses moving again. “I have good men running my stores. Key is to compensate them well. Give them a share in the profits, and they’ll always put the store first.”

Deni sat stiffly in her seat. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about your perverted business. You should have told me the
kind
of bookstores you owned before we left home. I wouldn’t have come with you. You misled me into thinking you were a legitimate businessman.”

“I
am
legit. There’s nothing illegal about selling adult pornography, depending on the city. And I’m legitimately rich. What I do doesn’t hurt anybody.”

“Tell that to the wives and children of your deviant customers. Does Mark know what you do?”

“Mark couldn’t handle it. He has those trumped-up ideas of right and wrong. His mother made a pansy out of him. Much as I’d like for him to share in some of this wealth, he’d be nothing but trouble.”

Deni closed her eyes. What was she going to do? Last night was enough to make her flee for her virtue—maybe even her life. Then her stupidity had refreshed itself this morning, and she’d accepted Vic’s help again.

Her parents would say she had stinking judgment, and they’d be right. They’d say she was immature and irresponsible, that she wasn’t ready to make decisions for herself. That she followed her emotions without a thought, putting herself at risk. That she did whatever she pleased, determined to manipulate things in such a way that they’d work out somehow.

It had always worked that way before. But now . . . she was in over her head.

She had to get away from Vic. There was no way she would stay with him tonight. If she could just get help from someone, trade something for a bicycle, she could go back home. But she had nothing to trade.

She turned in her seat and looked in the back of the wagon, to the ridiculous suitcase she’d brought with her. It was full of useless things. A flat iron. A makeup mirror. A blow-dryer. They were worthless, like confederate dollars after the Civil War. They only weighed her suitcase down, made it difficult to carry. No one would want to trade a bicycle for them.

She looked at her precious wedding dress, still in its plastic bag. It, too, weighed her down. Why had she brought it? It was just dead weight, making it impossible for her to move quickly.

Anger rose inside her, at the government, at her parents, at Vic, at herself . . .

But most of all, at Craig.

Why hadn’t he come? Why had he left her there in Crockett, desperate to see him? Why hadn’t he been her knight in shining armor, coming for his princess? Just this once, why hadn’t he put her first?

It was
his
fault she had stolen away with this jerk who worked in that sleazy trade, and if anything happened to her because of it, that would be his fault, too. If he’d chosen his work over his bride-to-be, his senator over his fiancée, then he deserved whatever happened.

But it wouldn’t happen to him . . . it would happen to
her.

She seethed at the thought of what his neglect might cost her.

Craig always put his work first. Ambitious to a fault, he’d often stood her up for dates without even an apology when Senator Crawford needed him.

She remembered one Sunday afternoon, not so long ago, when he’d promised to meet her for a picnic at the Washington Mall. She packed fried chicken and potato salad from the local deli, and found the perfect spot to lay her blanket.

Craig forgot to come.

She had finally reached him on his cell phone, and he told her about some public relations crisis that threatened Senator Craw-ford’s reputation. She was expected to understand completely.

So she did.

Even the night he asked her to marry him, he had cut the evening short and run back to the senate office building to work on a bill the senator was proposing. She accepted that, and spent the rest of the evening showing her friends the ring.

Now she hated herself and all she stood for, all she fell for, all she was.

She had to cut her losses and get out of this wagon. She determined that the next safe-looking house she saw would be her destination. She’d get off the wagon and tell Vic good-bye. Maybe some kind soul would show compassion and loan her a bicycle.

Her stomach signaled the dinner hour, but she didn’t want him to stop to eat. She wanted to move on, until she could see a place where she could find refuge.

And finally she saw it. A farm off the highway, with a big white house on the other side of a plowed field. She saw people sitting on the porch of that peaceful-looking house, a family enjoying each other’s company, children playing in the yard.

Her heart jumped. This was it. This was where she would get off.

“Stop the wagon,” she said.

Vic glanced over at her. “Why?”

“Just stop!”

He reined the horses in, and the wagon rolled to a creaking halt.

Deni reached over the boxes of his sleazy books and magazines and pictures, and grabbed her suitcase.

“What are you doing?” Vic watched her throw her suitcase over the side.

“I’m getting off here.”

“What? You can’t just get off out in the middle of nowhere. What’s the matter?”

“I just don’t want to go any farther.” She grabbed her wedding dress and jumped off the back of the wagon. Walking around to the front, she looked up at him. “Thank you very much for the ride, Vic. But I’ve changed my mind.”

She grabbed up her suitcase, and lifted her dress to keep the bag from dragging the ground.

“Wait a minute. You think you’re just gonna up and leave? I haven’t done anything to run you off.”

“It’s not you,” she lied. “I just realized this is too hard. I don’t think I can handle it for several more days. I want to go home.”

“Well, you’re not gonna get there. What do you think you’re gonna do? Prance back up the highway on foot?”

“I’ll think of something. It’s not your problem.”

He gave her a disturbed, somber look. “If you go back home and tell them about my stores, I swear I’ll make you regret you ever knew me. And I’ll make your family regret it, too.”

The threat hit home. “I won’t tell them, Vic. I don’t want them knowing how stupid I am.”

It was then that the farmhouse caught his eye, and he saw the family sitting on the porch. “Oh, I get it. You think you’ll get help from them.”

Deni turned and looked at them. “So what? That shouldn’t affect you at all. It’s just a decision I’ve made.”

“You scared of me now? Is that it?”

She swallowed. “No. I’m just tired and hot. I’ve had it. I regret coming in the first place.”

He looked up toward the house with narrow eyes, and watched the people for a moment. Someone from that porch got up and walked down the steps, staring their way. It was an older woman, and she looked kind. She waved.

Vic waved back.

“I have to go.” Deni got her suitcase, pulled out the handle, and tried to roll it through the soft grass, toward the barbed wire fence at the edge of their field. She glanced back, and saw Vic laughing softly. Let him laugh, as long as he left.

She heard him slap the horses with the reins, heard their feet clomping on the road again. It was too good to be true. He was leaving, and she would really be rid of him!

She took her suitcase, and with both hands, hefted it up and dropped it over the fence. Carefully, she dropped the dress over, letting it fall on the luggage. Then she pulled up the bottom wire and squeezed under it.

When she stood back up, she saw that the woman had come out into the yard, and seemed to be waiting for her. She didn’t look angry that Deni had trespassed, or that she was crossing over their plowed field of beans.

Deni’s feet sank into that soft dirt as she carried her wedding dress on one arm and the suitcase that felt as if it held cement blocks in the other.

By now that whole family had come off the porch and waited for her in the yard. One of the younger men came toward her.

She trudged forward as fast as she could, hoping they were as kind as they appeared.

Finally, the man approached her. He was young, maybe twenty-four or twenty-five.

“Hi,” she said, out of breath. “I’m Deni Branning. I was hoping you could help me. I’ve been on the road for a couple of days—”

“Welcome, Deni.” He took the suitcase out of her hand. “Mama saw you coming and told me to run out and help you.”

“Thank you.” She surrendered the suitcase, but held on to the dress.

“You look like you have a story to tell, and we need some entertainment.” As they started back toward the house, he nodded to the dress over her arm. “Can I help you with that?”

“No. It’s my wedding dress. I’ll carry it myself.”

He laughed then. “Well, that ought to make a doozy of a story.” Calling up toward the house, he said, “She brought her wedding dress, everybody! And here I thought I was gonna have to go looking for a bride.”

The family laughed as Deni and the young man came off the field, and she was suddenly surrounded by smiling, friendly people—the older couple who owned the farm, their two married daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren, and Michael, the handsome young man who had come to relieve her of her load.

She would be safe here, she thought as they invited her in. But as she started up the steps of the big house, she heard the sound of clomping hooves.

Her heart sank as she saw Vic in his wagon, coming up the long driveway from a side road.

fifty-five

Frances Jones insisted that both Deni and Vic stay in their home for the night. Vic took her up on the offer right away, explaining that he and his “daughter” had had a little tiff out there on the road, and when they’d seen the house, Deni had huffed off. Frances seemed to understand the temper and mood of a young woman. She probably thought Deni was just a spoiled brat who didn’t respect her father.