Showdown at Lizard Rock (15 page)

“No, I can’t be in love with him. The first time I saw him I thought he was a savage, a hawk who hunted his prey. But he isn’t. Sandi, he’s a tycoon, a self-made yuppie, a smooth ladies’ man. He’ll finish up this job and take on the next project somewhere on his way to the moon. I’d never fit into his world. I’m just me, one of the little people.”

“Then you’ve thought about keeping him around here?”

“Oh, I’ve thought about it, but it would never work. There’s only one place where we fit together—” Kaylyn stopped, feeling an unwanted blush warm her face.

“Good! I was beginning to think you didn’t like sex. I have a suggestion to make, Kaylyn. Why don’t you marry him?”

“Me? Marry King Vandergriff? You must be out of your mind. Why on earth would he want to marry me?”

“I can’t imagine, unless it’s that you two are about perfect for each other—when you’re not enemies. Look at what you’ve accomplished since he came to town. Think about it, friend. Forget about everybody and everything else in the world and think about what you want.”

“What do you mean, what I want? Don’t stop now, Dr. Arnold, lay it out.”

“Well, we love you, Katie, but have you ever considered that you don’t have to be all things to all people for us to love you?”

“I don’t understand. I simply do things that need doing. There aren’t any hidden motives to my actions.”

“Maybe there are, a few. We love you, but you need more. We don’t want you to turn you into a bitter
old prune.” Sandi lifted the plastic bag of trash and started toward the door.

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this. A bitter old prune?”

“Forget what I said, friend. There’s no way you could ever be a prune. I’m just exhausted. I’m taking out this garbage, dropping you at the springs, and heading home. With any luck I might get a late-night telephone call from a certain construction foreman who definitely knows what he wants. Turn out the light and come on.”

Kaylyn followed Sandi’s directions, her mind whirling with confusion. “Don’t make me into a prune and then say forget it, Sandi Arnold. Explain.”

“It’s that you’re almost driven to do things, as though you can never do enough. You ought to go out with a man because you need the man, not because you need him to meet the residents of Pretty Springs or to learn to fit into small-town life, or build a stand, or write a newspaper article. You see what I mean? I guess what I’m saying is that it’s time that you admitted you want King for yourself.”

Kaylyn fought Sandi’s suggestion all the way back to the springs. Was Sandi right? Did she want King for herself? Was that what she was unconsciously doing by remaining at the springs when her protest was an acknowledged lost cause?

After Sandi had dropped her at the springs, she stripped off her clothes and crawled inside her sleeping bag, feeling lonely and confused. All her life she’d tried to do everything she could to make things right for those around her. It made her into a real person. It made her feel good to do good. She gasped. Had she really thought such an unkind thing?

Helping people was right, she told herself. There
weren’t enough people in the world who would get involved. If somebody had helped her mother, maybe she wouldn’t have lived the kind of life she’d led. Maybe … maybe Sandi was right. She’d become so involved with others, she’d managed to close out the hurt in her own life. She’d replaced her loss with the needs of others, and it had become her insulation against anything personal—until King had come along.

Kaylyn turned her face away from the sight of King’s trailer. She didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to think about him, or feel his arms around her, or his lips on hers. She couldn’t deal with that yet. These other feelings were too new and perplexing. With any luck she’d go to sleep quickly before she once more ached for the man who was so near and yet so far away.

Across the springs, King stood at the window staring out at the rocks. More and more he saw them as protective sentries, patrolling the area around Kaylyn Smith. He’d jested about the rocks attacking him, but he was beginning to wonder. Construction around the springs seemed to be crawling along at a snail’s pace. They’d had the necessary soil testing done, but the rocks seemed to be shifting constantly beneath the ground, causing equipment problems and breakdowns that were beginning to spook him. That in itself was driving him up the wall.

But more than any problems with the rocks was the constant ache he carried around with him like an inner skin, the ache that pulled his gaze toward that tent and his body toward the springs. He didn’t
want to admit it, but since he’d stopped swimming in the pool, he seemed tired and sore. And since Kaylyn had left his bed, his temper flared too quickly, and his heart felt as if it had grown too large for the space it occupied.

The phone rang.

“Hey, big bro,” Joker’s familiar voice came over the line. “How we’re doing down there? ’Bout ready for me to come along and set up a sales office to relieve those suckers of their money?”

“Suckers?”

“Those great money moguls who want to retire to our resort and spend their time playing golf and tennis? Our investors are straining at the gills to have a look at their project.”

“Well, they can’t. Not yet.”

“Say, what’s wrong, King?”

“Nothing,” King snapped. “I’d just prefer that you not call them suckers. This is a nice little community, and I’d like to think that the people we sell to will fit in.”

“Well, excuse me. I didn’t mean to sound like a con man. Of course, we could ask every buyer to submit to an investigation before we sell to them. There’s a problem, isn’t there? I know you too well, King Vandergriff. What’s wrong?”

“Well, I have run into a small problem down here. There’s a woman—”

“Aha, a woman! Now, why didn’t I think of that?”

“No, it’s not what you’re thinking. This woman is special. She’s trying to prevent our closing off the mineral springs on the site. It seems the townspeople have been bathing in them for a hundred years. She even chained me to the Lizard and …” King’s
voice trailed off. There was no way he could explain to his younger brother what had happened.

“Lizard? I’m not going to try to understand that one. You’ve never let a woman slow you down before. Just romance the broad. You know women don’t resist the King.”

“This one does,” King admitted with a wrench in his gut and a pain in his voice that his brother couldn’t miss.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll come up with something, and soon,” Joker said. “The advertising program is under way, and I’ll be down in about three weeks to get things rolling. By the way, guess who called about moving in—Tommy Temple.”

“Tommy Temple the quarterback? You’re joking.”

“Not this time, King. Wouldn’t it be great if we could get a couple of big-name jocks to buy in? That would just about cinch our success.”

Long after he’d hung up the phone, King paced his trailer. Joker was right, he thought. He’d come up with something, he had to. In a few weeks memberships in the Golf and Tennis Club would go on sale, and the houses would be open for examination. And the time was approaching when he’d have to fill in and close up the springs. He opened the refrigerator to see if Harold had left him anything to snack on. No such luck. The only thing he found was a bottle of mineral water from the springs.

“Why not?” He unscrewed the lid and took a long swig. “Hell. It still tastes like dirty seawater.”

King was almost back to his trailer the next day when he heard the voices—a man’s and a woman’s.
They were in the springs. He glanced toward Kaylyn’s tent—empty. Well, he’d throw them out right now. The townspeople might as well understand that the springs were off-limits now. He broke into a run, then stopped when the woman spoke again.

“Put your knees on either side of my body and work yourself up and down.” The voice was Kaylyn’s, intimate and seductive.

“Oh, my.” The man groaned. “I didn’t realize I would be so stiff. You’re just what I’ve been needing, Kaylyn.”

Kaylyn and some bozo were in his springs together? King saw red. He saw white and blue, too, and a full chorus of the “Star-Spangled Banner” was blaring in his head as he catapulted over the rocks and came to a stop at the rocky ledge bordering the pool.

“Kaylyn Smith, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Kaylyn looked up, her eyes wide with shock, and loosened her grip on the elderly white-haired man she’d been balancing in the water. The man, looking for all the world like Stan Laurel, slid slowly under the water.

“Now look what you made me do!” Kaylyn said angrily. “Mr. Reeves can’t swim.”

She dived under water. King slung his Stetson over his shoulder and jumped in after her, just as she lifted the old man to the surface. He glanced at King, nodded, and extended one gnarled hand. “Good morning, I’m Walter Reeves. You must be the generous man Ms. Smith told me about.”

Now it was King’s turn to look like Stan Laurel. He shook the man’s hand. “Well, I don’t know about that. I’m King Vandergriff. Are you all right?”

“Yes. I knew she’d get me. You can trust Kaylyn. I just held my nose and looked around. Interesting place down there. We don’t have anything like these springs in Montana; certainly nothing that gets these arthritic old bones going like I hear these waters do. And to believe that you allow us to bathe in them free! You’re a real Good Samaritan, young man.”

Kaylyn hadn’t said a word. King gazed remorsefully at her, prepared to receive a scathing tongue-lashing. What he got was an attempt at suppressed laughter. The attempt was unsuccessful. Kaylyn began to giggle in spite of herself. The giggle turned into a full belly laugh that was contagious. Suddenly all three of them were laughing wildly.

Gasping for breath, Kaylyn turned to King and asked, “What on earth did you think we were doing, Good Samaritan?”

King looked sheepish. “Don’t ask.” He glanced down at his feet, still under water. “I’m just glad that these boots are made from alligators.”

“Your boots! You’ve probably ruined them,” she exclaimed in dismay.

“Not to worry, darlin’. This successful entrepeneur type will just buy some more. Since I’m already in over my head, what can I do to help?”

“You’re serious?” Kaylyn had forgotten Mr. Reeves. From the moment King had joined in on the laughter, the world had brightened. Foolish? Yes, but the feeling inside her had simply burst loose, like the water falling over the rocks behind her. She felt good all over.

“I never make idle offers,” King said seriously. “You know me batter than that, Ms. Smith. Always direct and to the point. Let’s do it!”

He leaned down in the water and removed the alligator-skin boots and red socks one at a time and flung them toward Kaylyn’s tent. His shirt and jeans followed. If Walter Reeves was surprised by King’s red briefs, he didn’t show it.

Kaylyn, however, was temporarily speechless. She could only stare in appreciation at the wavering image of slim, muscular legs and massive thighs. She’d missed those legs and those outrageous briefs. She’d missed King and the good feelings that washed over her when he was nearby. She’d missed their doing things together.

“Now,” he said, breaking into her thoughts with a knowing smile, “I believe you had prescribed some kind of up-and-down motion for stiff bodies. Do let me help. This exercise sounds like a move I’d find very helpful for a problem I’ve had lately.”

“Oh?” She refused to look at him as she manipulated Walter’s knees back and forth. “I thought you knew all the moves.”

“It isn’t a matter of knowledge,” King said, using his chest as an anchor against Walter’s back as he supported the man in the water. “It’s a matter of not being able to get the necessary kind of medical treatment in my time of need. These springs do marvelous things,” he confided to the still grinning Mr. Reeves. “Has she told you about the theory that they will restore certain power to men who are—”

“King! Lift Walter a bit higher while I manipulate his limbs. Walter, forget King and concentrate on moving your body.”

“Good idea, Walter. You’d better do as she says. This woman is a personal friend of the rocks that guard these springs. If you cross her, they get even.
Believe me, I know. They’ve been on my case for the last week.”

Kaylyn looked at King seriously over Walter Reeves’s head. “Is something wrong, King?”

“Not anymore, darlin’. Not anymore.”

“You mean that Luther was as crippled as Walter Reeves when you started bringing him here?” King asked that night. Reluctantly he had gone to work after Kaylyn had returned to the nursing home earlier in the day. The hours had seemed to crawl by until she finally came back long after dark. He had pulled on a pair of black swimming trunks and strolled casually over to the springs, announcing his plan to take a late-night swim. Without an invitation, Kaylyn, wearing a black tank suit, soon joined him.

After a brisk swim King was sitting on the rocks across the springs from Kaylyn, wishing they were side by side. This was the first time they’d been alone together since the Church Homecoming and Dinner on the grounds, and he was afraid to try to return to their former relationship too quickly. Even a simple swim was a gamble.

“Yes,” she answered, “and you can see how far he’s come. The springs, the exercises … I can’t explain the healing process, I just know that the power is there.”

“If these springs are as remarkable as you claim, why hasn’t the medical world acknowledged them?”

“I’m not sure, King. The Cherokee knew about the healing powers. Back in the 1800s the medical authorities were so convinced of their power that an
international conference of physicians was held here. The waters were sent all over the world and endorsed as a medical treatment, but as time passed, other medicines were invented and the springs fell out of fashion, except to the old ones who remembered.”

King kicked his feet in the water, watching the ripples in the moonlight. “It seems to me that for medicinal purposes it would be more helpful to arthritis if the water weren’t so cold.”

“You’re right. I’ve tried my best to think of a way to heat them … but they don’t belong to me, and I couldn’t convince the new owner to cooperate.”