Miner's Daughter (6 page)

Mari almost wished he hadn’t looked, his face
was so hard and unyielding. She experienced a humiliating urge to
cry. It wasn’t fair that he should be so heartless to her. What had
she ever done to him? Well, except refuse to rent him her mine, but
that didn’t sound like any sort of crime to Mari. She gazed back at
him with as much serenity as she could muster. “You’re so right,
Mr. Ewing.”

Martin heaved a gusty sigh. “Listen, Miss
Pottersby, I’m sure Tony didn’t mean to be rude—”

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” Mari broke in. “He’s
been rude to me since the moment we met.” There. She felt better
now. She added, “Quite frankly, his conduct seems to me unlikely to
help you in your business endeavors, Mr. Tafft. You ought to leave
him at home next time.” If she’d been six years old, Mari might
have appended a “Nyah, nyah, nyah,” to her assessment. It was
implied, though, and she suspected Tony Ewing knew it. She had the
satisfaction of seeing him look first startled, then embarrassed,
and then furious. Unless that was her imagination.

“Yes.” Martin gave Tony a thin smile. “I’m
afraid he’s not used to the weather out here, and the heat’s made
him somewhat short-tempered.”

Mari said, “Oh?” and eyed Tony glacially.

“You have to admit the heat’s not awfully
hospitable,” Tony said, pushing the words out through clenched
teeth.

With a witheringly condescending smile, Mari
said, “I believe it’s universally acknowledged that deserts are hot
and dry, Mr. Ewing. Or did your teachers in New York fail to teach
anything about geography and weather patterns?”

Martin uttered a pathetic little whimper and
reached for the lock of hair he liked to tug when under stress.

Tony snarled, “No, my teachers did not fail
to teach geography, Miss Pottersby. And whether deserts are hot and
dry or not isn’t the point. The point is the weather here
stinks.”

Mari nodded grandly. “Indeed? I see the
condition is contagious. It’s apparently made a stinker out of
you.”

She and Tony were squaring off to fight some
more when their meals arrived. Mari wouldn’t have known it until
Judy plunked her plate in front of her if Martin hadn’t sighed and
whispered, “Thank God.”

When she glanced around to see why he was
thanking his Maker, she beheld Judy, who was again staring at Tony
Ewing. The fool. Mari had never suspected that Judy could be so
silly as to fall for a pretty face. She peered at Tony and amended
her assessment slightly. Okay, so the guy was more than a pretty
face. Actually, if one judged by appearances alone, he’d be a grand
and glorious sight. Kind of like seeing the flag waving on the
Fourth of July.

Elegantly clad in a lightweight,
light-colored summer suit, he seemed the very essence of masculine
elegance. Mari knew that he wore a sporty straw hat, because she’d
seen it on the hat rack and known it belonged to him because it
looked cosmopolitan and out of place here in Mojave Wells.

His face had the lightly tanned effect that
went beautifully with hair like his. His hair was thick and wavy,
dark blond with lighter streaks that spoke of days spent
out-of-doors. Probably on his yacht, damn him. His eyes were hazel,
leaning toward green, and were large and luminous and exactly what
Mari’s second cousin Joan, who lived in San Bernardino and was much
more worldly than Mari, called “bedroom eyes.”

It seemed a dirty shame to Mari that his good
looks and fine clothes hid the soul of an ogre. As Judy
absentmindedly laid her plate before her, Mari said pointedly,
“Thank you, Judy.”

Judy, who had been lost in a contemplative
fog as she gazed wistfully at Tony, jerked, and her attention
shifted to Mari. “Oh, sure, Mari. Hope you like your food.”

She seemed to have forgotten Mari’s earlier
sniping about the fare at the Mojave Inn. Mari considered this a
piece of good luck, although she didn’t expect it to last The next
time she came to town, Judy would assuredly complain to her about
her bad manners. And she’d be right about them, too.

Mari told herself she could feel contrite and
apologize to Judy later. Right now she had to keep her wits about
her. It was a darned good thing the wine tasted like vinegar, or
she might be tempted to gulp it down to steady her nerves.

Because she felt kind of blue for saying
sassy things about the food, Mari said, “I’m sure we will, Judy.”
She was sure of no such thing, having heard from others about the
fare served at the Mojave Inn.

“Ah,” said Martin, gazing at his plate and
obviously trying to maintain a calm demeanor in, the face of trying
odds, “food.”

Mari considered it an optimistic statement
under the circumstances.

Tony Ewing lifted about a pound of fried
onions with his fork, peered beneath to discern what they’d hidden,
and said, “Um . . .”

If Mari hadn’t been so angry with him, she
might have laughed. Nobody’d warned him about the onions. Judy’s
mother claimed that any kind of meat tasted better when smothered
in fried onions. Since hers was the only restaurant in town, nobody
dared contradict her for fear of being barred for life from her
dining room.

After making sure Judy was beyond hearing
range, she hissed to Tony, “I told you so.”

He glanced up from the pile of onions, and
Mari wasn’t sure if he was mad at her or not. She thought she
detected a twinkle in those magnificent eyes, but didn’t dare stare
into them for long enough to be sure. Lordy, the man’s eyes ought
to be outlawed.

“You didn’t, either. I distinctly recall you
telling me the steaks were as tough as an old boot. You didn’t
mention word one about the cook’s penchant for onions.”

In spite of herself, Mari smiled. “I guess I
forgot.”

“Um, I kind of like fried onions.” Martin
slipped his comment into the fairly tense atmosphere, using a
chipper voice in which Mari perceived an undertone of
apprehension.

“Want some of mine?” Tony obligingly lifted
his fork, from which dangled a tangle of limp onion rings.

“Ah, no thanks, Tony. I appreciate the
offer.”

Poor Martin. Of course, he might be a
legitimate good guy, but Mari didn’t feel it would be wise of her
to let down her guard yet. He still might be out to trick her into
some deal she’d regret.

Tony shoved most of the onions into a pile
beside his steak. “I like onions, too, but not quite that many.” He
tried to saw off a bite of his steak and found it rough going.
Lifting his knife, he glanced first at its edge and then at his
plate. Gingerly, he stabbed at his steak with his fork. The tines
didn’t even make a dent in the meat. He glanced up at Mari, looking
rueful. “I’m afraid you were right about the relative tenderness of
this steak, Miss Pottersby.”

Mari refrained from another “I told you so.”
Rather, she said, making an attempt to be agreeable, “Maybe you can
get one of those steel carving knives from the kitchen. It’ll
probably taste all right if you can ever cut up.”

Tony shook his head and resumed gazing at his
steak. He looked both sad and hungry, and Mari took pity on him.
She told herself she was being a jackass to give in to her tender
heart. After all, Tony Ewing had enough money to buy the whole town
of Mojave Wells if he took it into his head to do so.

Nevertheless, she said, “Please excuse me for
a moment,” rose from her place, and walked to the swing door
separating the dining room from the kitchen.

Even though she’d never bought a meal in
their restaurant, she’d been to the Nelsons’ kitchen often enough
to know the way. She returned a few moments later, bearing a sharp
knife in her fist. Because she was feeling kind of jocular, she
repositioned the knife as if she aimed to stab Tony in the heart
with it. The blasted man didn’t even have the decency to pretend
fright.

With a sigh, Mari decided she should have
expected nothing better from him. He was too darned contrary play
along with her joke. “Here, Mr. Ewing. See if you can kill the cow
with this”

“Thank you, Miss Pottersby.”

“No problem.” She sat, smiled at Martin, and
began on her pot roast.

Mari was no kind of cook, but she decided
after the first couple of bites that the meat she cooked up in her
one cast-iron skillet along with potatoes, carrots, and onions
grown in her garden, tasted a heck of a lot better than this piece
of dried-out shoe leather. She chewed, swallowed, took a sip of
water to chase the roast down, and sighed. “I’m sorry we don’t have
better accommodations for you movie folks here in Mojave Wells. We
don’t get a lot of tourists or people who want to shoot pictures
here.”

“Think nothing of it, Miss Pottersby. This is
great fare compared to some of the places I’ve been.”

Mari gazed at Martin for a moment, trying to
catch him in the lie. At the moment, however, he was diving with
evident relish into his pot roast. As his portion of beef
undoubtedly came from the same cow and had been cooked in the same
pot as had Mari’s, she acquitted him of subterfuge. “You must have
been in some mighty rough places, Mr. Tafft.”

Martin laughed, took a sip of his wine, and
said, “I have. The picture business isn’t all glamour.”

Tony snorted. Before Mari could say something
nasty about his behavior, deportment, and general moral laxity, he
said, “So far, I haven’t seen any glamour at all, and this is only
my first time around a motion picture.”

In spite of herself, Mari was interested. “Is
that so? I’d believed you to have been connected with the picture
business for quite a while.” Her ignorance of motion-picture making
was so acute, she didn’t even know enough to ask questions about
it. Fortunately, Tony relieved her of that burden.

“Nope. I’d never even been to California
before. Poor Martin bears the brunt of the work. He has to do
everything that needs to be done for the studio, from hiring actors
to finding locations. And wherever he goes, he has to eat the local
chow. He’s been everywhere and done everything.” Giving up on his
steak for the moment, he asked Martin, “Didn’t you have to travel
rough in Mexico once? I remember heart something about fried ants
and a donkey.”

“Fried ants?” Mari, who loathed, detested,
and despised ants, stared at Martin, horrified. “How awful!”

Martin chuckled. “They weren’t ants, Tony.
They were grasshoppers. They weren’t half bad, either.”

Yuck. Although Mari didn’t hate grasshoppers
with the same vehemence she reserved for ants, she didn’t think
she’d want to eat one. “Did you really have to eat them?” Her nose
wrinkled before she could stop it. She hadn’t had much of an
appetite when she arrived at the Mojave Inn because of her general
state of anxiety. She was rapidly losing the little appetite she’d
had to begin with.

“I don’t suppose I had to, but I had no
objection, and I always try to blend in. Besides, it made them
happy, so I did it. Honestly, they weren’t bad. Very crunchy. If
they’d had a little salt on them, they might have tasted something
like French-fried potatoes. The folks in this particular village
didn’t use salt. Don’t know if that’s because there wasn’t any, or
what.”

“Oh.” Mari’s tummy gave a little leap that
didn’t do anything for her peace of mind.

“Sounds abominable to me,” Tony, said flatly.
I don’t know how you can keep it up, Martin.”

Martin heaved another sigh. It sounded
heartfelt to Mari. “I don’t mind the food part, but I do have to
admit I’m getting a little tired.”

“A little tired?” Tony guffawed and drank
more wine. “I’d be dead if I’d had the job you’ve done for the past
eight or nine years.” As if he expected Mari to say something
wicked, he turned and gave her a straight look. “Don’t say it, Miss
Pottersby.”

For some reason, Mari suddenly felt like
laughing. So she did. “I wouldn’t dream of it, Mr. Ewing.”

He grinned back, and Mari almost fainted on
the spot. A girl could get used to being grinned at by Tony Ewing.
Which was a very bad thing. Mari immediately went back to her pot
roast, even though she didn’t think she could fit one more bite
into her already overwrought stomach.

After they’d finished as much of their dinner
at the Mojave Inn as seemed appropriate for good health, Martin
suggested they retire to the hotel’s small parlor to discuss
business. Mari had almost begun to relax with the two men by that
time, but her nerves sprang to attention as soon as Martin
mentioned business.

For some reason, her gaze flew to Tony Ewing.
His face told her nothing. It looked to Mari as if he was bracing
himself for an unpleasant encounter. She resented that. She wasn’t
unreasonable. She was merely trying to protect her interests.

Who was she trying to kid? She’d probably be
better off if she sold these men the Marigold Mine outright, moved
to San Bernardino or some other decent-size city, and got a regular
job for regular wages.

Tony’s spirits were in an uproar as he walked
Mari Pottersby home after their wrangle in the parlor of the Mojave
Inn. He still resented her a good deal, both for being pretty and
not taking care of herself, and also for being too damned smart for
a woman. Women were supposed to be meek and yielding. This
hardhearted, hardheaded female was about as far from being meek and
yielding as they both were from the Rock of Gibraltar.

Yet he couldn’t hate her. In fact, although
it gave him no pleasure to admit it to himself, he found her
fascinating.

His company made her nervous, though. He
could tell. Her voice was brittle and breathy, and it seemed to him
as if she were attempting to run some kind of race. She’d tried to
get him to stay at the inn and let her walk home alone, but he’d
refused. She might not like him, but he knew his duty as a
gentleman. He held a kerosene lantern, the light guiding their way
in fits and starts. He was unused to carrying such a primitive
lighting tool, and it took him a while to learn to control it so
that the light didn’t bounce all over the place.