The Fall of Maggie Brown (10 page)

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Frazer demanded. “You look like a snake crawled up your leg.”

She gave herself a little shake. “I told you I’m not afraid of snakes. At least, the non-human kind. And I’m tired. My imagination was running away with me.”

“
Hmmph.
I like your orgasmic sounds better.”

She ignored that. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you? I didn’t force you to come this way when it’s really dangerous?”

“Maggie, I hate to break this to you, but you’d be hard put to force me to do anything I didn’t damn well want to do,” he said lazily. “Break into that basket in the back and find me something to eat, would you? I’m starved.”

“We aren’t stopping for lunch?”

“We can stop, but any lunch we get we brought with us, so we might as well keep going.”

“What about dinner?”

He grinned at her. “That’s obviously your problem. I have fed you enough. Dinner depends on how far we get. There aren’t any hotels or restaurants around here, babe. If we’re lucky we’ll make it to Segundo by nightfall, and we might be able to buy something there. Otherwise it’s leftovers and camping rations. You’d be surprised how good freeze-dried chili can taste.”

“I’d prefer not to find out,” she said, reaching behind her, holding onto the back of the seat as the Jeep continued its bumpy climb along the narrow roadway. The left side of the road hugged the mountain. The right side was a sheer drop-off into a rocky valley. Maggie had never been overly fond of heights.

She slid back into the seat, dragging the basket into her lap. “Cheese, fresh bread, some fruit,” she said, once she was settled. “And a jar of something to drink.”

“Probably water,” he said in disgust. “Anything else?”

“If you’re thinking I’m going to let you drink beer while we drive…”

“I was hoping for coffee. Lacking caffeine, I guess you’re going to have to provide stimulation, sweetheart. Tell me the story of your life.”

“Yeah, right. Trust me, you’d nod off in seconds.”

He had a really devastating smile, Maggie thought gloomily. She’d really be much better off concentrating on the mountainous terrain and the hunk of bread she was chewing. Except that the steep drop-off was making her dizzy, and even Frazer’s annoying presence was a welcome distraction.

“Humor me, Maggie. We’ve got a long way to go.”

“I’ve already told you, I’m a banker from Philadelphia. A very good banker, actually. I’m vice president of my branch, and I have a talent for managing money.”

“Does that mean you’re rich? Maybe I should become a fortune hunter and seduce you.”

“Fat chance,” she scoffed. “And no, I’m not rich. I’m so busy taking care of other people’s money that I don’t have much time to see to my own. I live in a town house in Chestnut Hill, my mother lives in Merion, I live a quiet life.”

“You live alone?”

“Yes.”

“No boyfriend? Lover? Ex-husband?”

“None of your damned business.”

“Too busy taking care of other people’s money again? Or do you scare them off with your sweet demeanor?”

“You’re the only one I’d like to scare off.”

“You’re doing a piss poor job of it, angel. Tell me about your family.”

“There’s not much to tell. Nuclear family,” she said shortly. “Born and raised in Philadelphia, with a responsible father and a flaky mother and sister. We took care of them, my father and I. Now that my father’s dead it’s up to me to see that they’re safe.”

He was silent for a long moment. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“And how old is Stella?”

“I told you, we’re twins. She’s twenty-eight as well.”

“And your mother?”

“Fifty-three. My father was a lot older than she was.”

“So what makes you think you’re responsible for a twenty-eight-year-old and a fifty-three-year-old? They’re adults. They can look after themselves.”

“You don’t have any family, do you?” she countered.

“I have too damned much family. A brother in L.A., a sister in Fort Collins, aunts and uncles and cousins all over the place. The Frazer’s are a damnably tight-knit group. It doesn’t mean they can’t look after themselves.”

“Well, my family can’t.”

“Of course not. Not if they’re used to counting on you to take care of them.”

“Thank you, Dr. Freud,” she said stiffly. “Shut up and drive.”

“You’re going to have to face it sooner or later, Maggie. You’d be much better off putting all that phenomenal energy into yourself. Your family will do just fine without you, hard as it is for you to admit it.”

She opened her mouth to reply when the glowering sky finally decided to let loose. Within seconds they were soaked. She quickly shoved the loaf of bread back into the basket and covered it with the cloth, but water was already pooling in her lap and on the floor of the Jeep, and her clothes were soaked through to her skin.

Frazer seemed oblivious. The rain ran down his face in sheets, his eyes were narrowed against the blinding water, but he simply kept driving, intent on the roadway that was rapidly turning to mud.

“Aren’t you going to stop?” she shouted over the noise of the downpour.

“And do what?” he shouted back. “There’s no shelter around here. Might as well keep driving.” The Jeep slid in the mud, moving sideways, and Maggie let out a strangled shriek. The road was steep and narrow, and nothing stood in the way of the sheer cliff.

She must have spent more miserable hours, but she was hard-put to remember. The rain didn’t let up, the road, if anything, grew steeper and more narrow, and the mud turned into a soupy consistency as Frazer drove doggedly onward. Maggie clutched the seat in desperate hands, but the rainwater made the old leather slippery, and she kept losing her grip. She didn’t bother complaining or screaming at Frazer, much as she wanted to. All she could do was close her eyes, try to hold on and pray.

They stopped so abruptly that Maggie was thrown forward, banging her forehead against the windshield. She opened her eyes, putting her hand to her face, only to bring it away covered with rain and blood.

She turned to look at Frazer, a dazed expression on her face, but if she expected concern she was optimistic. He’d already climbed out of the Jeep and grabbed his duffel bag and tossed it on the rain-soaked ground. She started to get out of the Jeep as well when he stopped her.

“You might want to stay put for the moment, Maggie,” he drawled, kneeling on the front seat and looming over her. “It’s a sheer drop on the other side.”

She jerked her head around to look, and let out a quiet moan of sheer terror. They weren’t hanging over the edge, but close enough that she might have slipped.

He was cupping her face, moving her hair away from her forehead. “Just a bump and a small cut,” he said briskly. “These head injuries bleed like crazy. Hold on.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. She didn’t move while he proceeded to tie it around her forehead like a bandage. “Climb out this way.”

She didn’t need to be told a second time. She scrambled out of the Jeep after him, landing on her knees in the mud, almost ready to kiss the ground in her relief. He hauled her upright with impartial concern, staring down at her bloody, rain-drenched face, and a small smile curved his mouth. His damnably sexy mouth.

“Now you’re the one who looks like a swashbuckler,” he said.

She yanked her shirt free and tried to wipe some of the blood away with the tail of it. He watched the process with annoying fascination, and she realized she was exposing most of her stomach in the process. She yanked the shirt back down, glaring at him.

“What are we going to do now?” she demanded.

“Looks like we’re going to walk.”

“Walk?” she echoed in horror. “In this rain?”

“The Jeep wasn’t doing much good. Anyway, it’s good and stuck.”

“I’m not walking,” she said. The sultry heat of the San Pablo lowlands had turned sharply colder in the mountains, and the rain seemed to have sunk to her very bones.

“Suit yourself,” he said, tossing his duffel back onto the muddy ground. “I’m not carrying you.”

He started up the muddy track that had once been a road, abandoning both her and the Jeep without a backward glance.

“You can’t leave me here!” she cried.

He stopped and turned. “Then get your butt in gear and come with me. Or you can wait until someone shows up, though I hate to think who might be out in this kind of weather.”

“What about your Jeep?”

“I’ll get it later. It’s just about out of gas anyway—we were going to have to start walking sooner or later.”

Blanche Magnolia Brown, Philadelphia banker, used a word she’d never used out loud before in her entire life. And then, for good measure, she kicked the Jeep.

She heard the groaning sound from a distance. And then she saw that the Jeep was moving, slowly, sliding backward toward the edge of the cliff.

She didn’t even stop to think. She started after it, grabbing for the side in a ridiculous attempt to stop its momentum. In a daze she heard Frazer’s shout of fury, and a moment later she was slammed full face into the mud, with Frazer’s body covering hers.

A moment later he rolled off her, and she lifted her head to watch as the Jeep disappeared over the side of the cliff.

The noise it made as it tumbled down the hillside was endless, and she winced, hoping it would stop. But it didn’t—on and on, as the noise grew fainter, the clang of metal against rock, of trees breaking.

She turned to look at Ben. He was lying on his back in the rain, breathing deeply, not even blinking as water splashed over his face.

Finally the noise stopped. “It didn’t explode,” she said in a small voice.

“Not enough gas left in the tank.” His voice was calm, remote. He still didn’t move.

She sat up. “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said.

He nodded. And then he surged to his feet, effortlessly. He looked down at her. “You coming?” he inquired.

She nodded. She stood up, glancing over the hillside to the path of devastation. The Jeep was nowhere to be seen, but its trail had carved a swathe across the valley. “My suitcase,” she said in a mournful voice. “My Ferragamos.”

“Gone,” he said grimly, unmoved. He looked at her. “Did you have any more of that underwear?”

“Yes.”

“Damn.” He picked up his duffel bag. “Come on, Maggie. You need to rescue your sister, remember?”

“I remember,” she said. So the shoes were gone. And her ridiculously fanciful underwear. And her travelers checks and passport and ATM card and all her clothes. She had a kerchief around her head, she was soaked to the bone, and she’d just pushed a car over a cliff in a fit of pique.

She started to laugh. She threw back her head and laughed, in the face of the rain and the San Pablo mountains, she laughed, the sound ringing out over the valley.

“Have you lost your mind, Maggie?” Ben demanded warily.

“No,” she said, controlling her amusement. “I’ve lost everything else under the sun, and you’re doing your best to take away my very reason for being here, but no, I haven’t lost my mind. I just found my sense of the absurd.”

She didn’t expect him to get it. But a slow smile curved across his face, and he shoved his wet hair back, nodding with approval. “Maybe there’s some hope for you after all, Miss Magnolia.”

And for some reason she smiled back at him, no longer furious. “Maybe there is.”

* * *

T
HEY’D GIVEN HIM A BAD
moment there. When El Gallito had seen the Jeep tumbling end over end down the mountainside he’d thought his entire trip had been for nothing. If they’d crashed in the Jeep there would be no one to lead him to The Professor, and these mountains guarded their secrets too well. There was no way he could find his target in the next twenty-four hours without divine intervention, and El Gallito had learned that the Almighty didn’t have a whole lot of sympathy for a hired killer.

But there’d been no screams, no death cry, no bodies flying from the open cockpit of the Jeep. And he knew Frazer far too well to expect him to make that kind of mistake. No, he and the woman were out of the Jeep before it made its abrupt descent, and Frazer had probably pushed it himself. He knew El Gallito was out for The Professor’s blood—he was smart enough to assume he was being followed.

Not too smart if he thought he’d fool El Gallito with such a crude bluff. They were heading onward on foot, and they’d be just as easy to track. They’d be moving slower, and it wouldn’t be long before he’d catch up to them.

He had to be very careful, though, and pick the right moment. When Frazer’s defenses were down. He was a formidable opponent, and El Gallito couldn’t count on the presence of the woman to effectively distract him.

He had a few hours to play with. It was growing late, they’d be wet and miserable while he was still safe and dry inside his sturdy SUV. When he was ready, they’d be defenseless.

He could hardly wait.

CHAPTER NINE

M
AGGIE WAS SHIVERING.
Her head hurt, though less than she would have expected, given her brush with the windshield on the erstwhile Jeep. She was soaked to the bone, and while the last downpour had the dubious benefit of sluicing most of the mud and blood off her, it left her chilled and achy and ready to weep with exhaustion.

She didn’t say a word. She kept pace behind Frazer, moving steadily, and if she slipped on the wet pathway she simply got up again without a word.

It was getting dark. The road had turned into a narrow track, climbing higher and higher into the mountainous terrain, and she had no idea whether the altitude was getting to her or simply the lack of food and warmth. He was right—Stella could take care of herself in the future. And Maggie would tell her just that, if she ever managed to catch her breath long enough to speak.

She’d long ago lost any reluctant admiration for Frazer’s tall, strong body. He just kept moving, inexorably, and if there was a sort of catlike grace to him she didn’t give a damn. All she wanted was a fire and a place to lie down and the world to leave her alone. Her amusement had fled long ago, and right now misery was her only companion. Frazer seemed to have forgotten about her entirely.