Читать книгу Three For The Road - Shannon Waverly, Shannon Waverly - Страница 7

PETE GOT A BAD FEELING the moment she opened the door.

He was sitting along the far leg of the U-shaped bar, near the back exit where he could keep an eye on his bike and still watch the room. He was trying to mind his own business, catch a little of the American League play-off, finish his beer and ribs, and be on his way. He still needed to check into that motel he’d seen up the road. His body ached and his eyelids felt like sandpaper despite the protective glasses he’d worn while riding.

Still, it had been a good day. No, make that a great day. He’d traveled some of the prettiest country he’d ever seen, the weather warm and dry and sweet. But even better was the riding itself, the sense of freedom that came from the open road, a motorcycle, and no agenda to meet. Time seemed to peel away from his thirty-six years as he’d ranged the wooded hills out of New Hampshire and down the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. By early evening, when he’d reached Connecticut, he’d felt eighteen again. Had the urge to buy a pack of Lucky Strikes and try out a few lines from Rebel Without a Cause.

Stifling a grin, Pete picked up his thick glass beer mug and took a cool sip.

Over the rim of the mug, his glance returned to the young woman at the door, poised on the threshold, surveying the clientele. His good humor dissolved. Damn! What was she doing here? He lowered the mug and gave serious thought to slipping out the back door.

It wasn’t such a bad place, really. A working-class bar, unapologetically masculine. The patrons seemed to be mostly regulars, guys from the nearby town, here to kick back with a cold brew, watch the game on the big-screen TV and gripe about their jobs to somebody other than “the wife.” Pete felt comfortable enough here; at least he didn’t feel threatened. And the ribs were good, just as the guy at the gas station up the road had said.

But Pete wasn’t about to stick around, either. He’d picked up a sense of the place early on and knew that, with just a touch of the wrong ingredient, it could become trouble.

He was pretty sure the wrong ingredient was standing at the door now.

She didn’t belong here. She was as polished as the chrome on a classic old Bentley. With her smooth-as-water natural blond hair and her peaches-and-cream complexion glowing only with health, she might as well have dropped in from Venus. The few other women in the joint looked thoroughly shellacked and frizzled.

Pete doubted any of them would’ve bought the outfit she was wearing, either. The neatly buttoned, maize-colored jacket and matching knee-skimming shorts, worn with tights and loafers, made her look like a model posing for a back-to-college spread in one of those wholesome fashion magazines his sisters used to read when they were teenagers.

His gaze returned to the young woman’s hair, those soft gleaming waves that fell from a side part to just below her collarbone. It was a timeless look, as in style now as it had been in the forties or would be again in the next century.

He focused on her face, a collection of refined features arranged with perfect balance in a perfectly oval setting. She had a small, straight nose and delicately sculpted cheekbones. Her neck was long and thoroughbred, and her eyebrows arched with just the right amount of hauteur. He couldn’t rightly judge her mouth—at the moment her lips were pressed too tight—but he thought it would be appropriately aristocratic. Yes, he decided, hers was unquestionably a face born of well-tended genes.

Pete watched her with more fascination than he usually allowed her type. She was on the prowl for something. A walk on the wild side? That was usually the case when a princess like her walked into a dive like this.

But Pete didn’t think so. Even from clear across the smoke-filled room, he could see how scared she was. When her large, worried eyes fixed on the phone on the back wall over behind his right shoulder, he put two and two together and came up with car trouble. Probably out of gas, or maybe a flat tire.

Damn! Where was her God-given common sense? There was a service station just a mile up the road. Better yet, why hadn’t she ever learned to change her own tires the way his sisters had?

His gaze swept over her fragile features and regal posture. But of course she wasn’t the type to change tires. Probably never pumped her own gas, either.

Or, he thought on an unexpected wave of sympathy, maybe she didn’t have any older brothers to teach her how. For a moment a picture flashed through his mind of his own sisters caught in a similar situation.

Pete shook his head fractionally. No, she was just a princess. Didn’t pump gas. Didn’t change tires. Thought she could sashay into any ol’ place and not suffer the consequences. No one would dare give her trouble.

From under his lowered lashes, Pete scanned the room and winced. Someone was thinking of daring.

He’d noticed the guy earlier, a muscle-bound, muscle-shirted big-mouth with a taste for Scotch, sitting on the other side of the bar. Pete swore under his breath, glanced over his shoulder at the exit again and began to wipe his hands.

* * *

MARY ELIZABETH SERIOUSLY considered retreat, just backing out the door and fleeing up the road to her RV.

But that would mean walking three miles in the dark again, this time with a stitch in her side. And worse, now there was the added risk she might be followed. A few of the men were giving her some decidedly unsettling looks.

In addition, retreat would solve nothing. Even if she did arrive at her motor home safely, it would still be stuck in a ditch. Besides, on the far side of the dimly lit room, beyond the pool table and drifting veils of smoke, hung the solution to her problem—a public telephone. All she needed was the courage to get there.

She pulled in a long breath, gripped the strap of her shoulder bag, and with eyes trained on the floor, made her way through the nearly all-male clientele. It seemed a gauntlet, but eventually she reached her destination.

With her back to the room, she set her purse on the ledge under the phone and took out her wallet. While conversations rose to their natural volume again, she flipped through her credit cards and various forms of identification, searching for the AAA phone number she knew was in there.

It eluded her. A fine tremor of fear shivered over her skin. She started her search again, aware of a sweat breaking out on her neck. Driver’s license, social security card, Visa, American Express...

Suddenly, the room dimmed to the degree where she couldn’t see the contents of her wallet at all. She turned and, with a jolt, realized it wasn’t the room that had dimmed, but only her particular corner of it. An immense pair of shoulders was blocking the light.

“Hi, how ya doin’?” For someone so big, the man who’d spoken had a remarkably high voice.

Mary Elizabeth could barely catch her breath, so acute was her alarm. “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?” Her eyes flicked upward to a square red face made even blockier by a flat-topped buzz cut. There seemed to be no demarcation between his head and shoulders except a pale border where the hair had recently been trimmed.

“I never seen you in here before.” The man inched closer, causing her to back up.

He wasn’t really bad-looking. He didn’t wear a leather vest or have sinister tattoos like those bikers playing pool, yet she still found him threatening. Something in his depthless, slitty eyes...and he smelled of hard liquor.

“Excuse me, I just need to make a phone call.” She attempted to turn and resume searching her wallet.

“And I just come over to help,” he said. “This isn’t the sort of place a pretty little lady like yourself ought to be wandering into alone.”

Mary Elizabeth eyed him guardedly, trying to decide if his offer of help was sincere, wondering if she had perhaps misjudged him. “I...uh...it’s car trouble.” Finally, she found the card. “RV trouble, actually. Nothing mechanical. I just need a tow.”

He leaned his beefy shoulder against the wall, hemming her in. The odor of liquor and smoke, combined with too-sweet after-shave, nearly made her gag. “Well, how about that.” He chuckled. “You’re lookin’ at the answer to your prayers, darlin’. I just happen to have a tow rig on the back of my truck.”

She stood in horrified numbness as he lifted one hand and ran his moist fingertips down her cheek. “Excuse me,” she said, shaking him off and stepping aside. In the process, however, the AAA card slipped from her fingers and fluttered to the floor between them. Swallowing, she bent to retrieve it, but just as she was reaching, his big sneakered foot landed squarely on top.

Heart hammering, she looked up the towering length of him.

With a dry chuckle, he removed his foot, but not until he’d made it clear he was playing a game of cat and mouse, a game he obviously enjoyed and wasn’t about to give up.

She retrieved the card and glanced around the room. A few men were watching them, but they didn’t seem inclined to interfere. The rest were oblivious, playing pool or pinball or watching a baseball game on TV. Mary Elizabeth glanced toward the bar for help, but as luck would have it, the bartender was female.

“How about a drink?” her unwanted companion asked, wrapping his sausagelike fingers around her upper arm. “Let me buy you a drink, huh? I’m in the mood for another myself.”

“Thanks, but I’m not thirsty. All I want is to be left alone so I can call for a tow, then I’ll be on my way. So if you’ll excuse me...”

“Hell, we can have you towed in no time. I told you that already. Come on, relax.” He gave her arm a little shake. “Take a load off.”

Mary Elizabeth tried to stay calm, at least on the surface, but inside she was growing frantic. No way was she going to get in a truck with this gorilla and drive off down a dark, isolated road.

“Excuse me. I...I have to go to the ladies’ room.”

Her friend tilted his thick, squared-off head. “Whatsa matter? Am I bad company?”

She wanted to say yes but had been raised to be impeccably polite. “Excuse me.” Surprisingly, he let her go.

Once she was inside the tiny washroom, she knew why he’d been so agreeable. The window was five feet up the wall and so narrow she doubted even her leg would fit through. Mary Elizabeth sighed aloud and would’ve leaned her weary self against the stall except that it was probably crawling with germs that science hadn’t heard of yet.

What am I going to do? she implored her reflection as she patted a wet paper towel to her flushed cheeks. Inside her open purse, set on the rim of the sink, lay the plastic gun Mrs. Pidgin had given her. Mary Elizabeth smiled wanly. Perhaps she could fill the gun with water and squirt the brute to death.

Ah, well, Mrs. P.’s intentions had been good.

Her newfound friend was waiting outside the washroom door, patient as a puppy. “Missed you.” He grinned. “Hope you like rum and coke.” He held up a glass.

“No, thanks.” Trying to ignore him, she headed for the bar. Another female was sure to sympathize. “Excuse me,” she called, leaning over an unoccupied stool.

“Wait a sec,” the bartender, busy at the cash register, answered distractedly.

“You know,” came the high, now nightmarish voice close at Mary Elizabeth’s side, “if I didn’t have such a sweet, forgiving nature, I’d be mighty ticked off by now. Here I offer to give you a free tow, something worth fifty, sixty bucks...”

The bartender finally headed in Mary Elizabeth’s direction.

“Please, could you do me a favor?” Mary Elizabeth’s voice wobbled noticeably now, but at least she’d been able to fend off tears.

The young woman, who looked to be about her own age, glanced up from the tap where she was filling three glass mugs.

“Would you be so kind as to call Triple A for me? All I need is a tow. Here’s the number....”

The bartender’s left eyebrow arched. “And there’s a pay phone, right there.” She pointed with her chin.

“I know, but...” Mary Elizabeth rolled her eyes toward the man still crowding her, his breath on her neck.

The young woman huffed. “Sonny, leave ‘er alone, huh? You’re being a jerk.” Then she walked away, delivering the three beers to the far end of the bar. It was apparent she didn’t consider him a threat. Also apparent was the fact that she’d be of no help.

Mary Elizabeth slipped onto the stool, planted her elbows on the bar and dropped her head into her hands.

“So, what’s your name?” Her friend, who was evidently named Sonny, placed the rum and coke under her nose.

Too weary even to look up, she said, “Will you please leave me alone? It’s been a very long day.” Now tears did flood her vision. “Damn,” she spat, embarrassed by her weakness. On a spurt of anger she spun off the stool. This was a public place, and that, a public phone. No one had the right to stop her from going about her business.

“Hey, where you runnin’ off to now?” Sonny gripped her arm and gave it a yank. “Here I’m tryin’ to be nice... Whatsa matter? Don’t you like me?”

Something must’ve happened behind her because she noticed Sonny’s slitty eyes shift and refocus. Suddenly he went still, while a calm, deep voice with just a trace of a slow southern drawl said, “Why don’t you give it a rest?”

Mary Elizabeth turned in surprise. A tall, dark-haired man was lounging back in his bar stool, his eyes fixed on the TV screen. He seemed relaxed, but looking at him, she got a sense of tightly coiled alertness.

For the first time since she’d wandered in here, she drew a clear and easy breath. She wasn’t sure why; he certainly didn’t look like anybody a woman ought to be breathing easily over.

Sonny released her arm and stepped aside. His eyes narrowed even further. “What did you say?”

“Leave her alone. Let her make her call.” The stranger calmly took a sip of his beer and continued to watch the game.

Sonny shifted his considerable weight, one foot to the other. “And who’s gonna make me?”

Slowly, the man at the bar set down his mug and carefully got to his feet.

Mary Elizabeth couldn’t take her eyes off him. He was over six feet tall and powerfully built. Tough as the road he’d traveled in on, too, she’d bet. He had wind-tossed black hair, steely blue eyes, weathered skin and a jaw that was unrelenting. Dust burnished his black boots, and the edges of his pale denim jacket were frayed. Beneath the jacket, tucked into low-slung, well-worn jeans, he wore a plain black T-shirt.

But the thing about this man that mesmerized her so wasn’t his clothing or eyes or build. She didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t physical...although his physical aspect was certainly impressive, too.

Mary Elizabeth bit her lower lip while her eyes traveled over him, up, down, up and down again. In all her life she’d never met anyone quite like him. He was like a new, unexplored land, and though her stomach jumped with something akin to fright when she gazed at him, she didn’t want to miss a single mile.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” he said with easy composure, raising his hands like a gunslinger showing he was unarmed.

Sonny snickered.

“But if you start it, I’ll guarantee I won’t run away.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sonny replied with all the cleverness of a block of cement.

Mary Elizabeth’s skin crawled with deepening dread. She’d never witnessed a fight before, but this situation seemed to have all the signs of one brewing.

“Go make your phone call, miss.”

With a start, she realized the tall stranger was talking to her. The bright animal darkness of his eyes made her breath catch. She nodded.

But Sonny responded, “I already told her that isn’t necessary.”

The blue-eyed man impaled Sonny with an immobilizing stare. Then, still holding him in his sights, he took Mary Elizabeth by the arm. “Come on.”

Relief flooded her as he began to escort her to the phone.

No sooner had he turned his back, however, than Sonny gave him a hard shove, sending him stumbling forward.

With a plummeting heart, Mary Elizabeth realized that the fight had not been averted, but rather it had just begun.

The stranger who’d come to her aid rebounded quickly and shoved Sonny in return. “Back off,” he warned, blue eyes blazing.

“Go to hell,” Sonny replied.

And then fists did fly. Mary Elizabeth let out a faint “Yi,” the only sound she was capable of, as the two men crashed into bar stools and people retreated.

“I don’t believe this!” she whispered, retreating with them.

A table went over, glasses sliding and smashing to the floor. The room resounded with the smack of fists, with grunts and fabric ripping, and like in a movie, it was all set to music—”Welcome to Earth, Third Rock from the Sun”—thumping from the jukebox.

At least they seemed evenly matched, Mary Elizabeth thought, watching them go at it—though she did sense a quickness in the taller man that Sonny lacked.

What Sonny had was a mean streak. She watched in horrified silence as he grabbed a beer bottle off the bar, smashed it against the brass rail and lunged at her tall dark stranger.

“Get out of here,” he called to her just before the jagged bottle came down on the side of his forehead. Immediately blood beaded along the gash.

Rather than rattle him, the cut seemed to deepen his anger and resolve. He picked up a chair and slammed it against Sonny’s arm, dislodging the broken bottle from his grip. Then he pushed Sonny against the bar where he kept him pinned until Sonny looked ready to give up.

Mary Elizabeth had no idea where the third guy came from, but suddenly there he was, gripping the dark stranger’s shoulder, swinging him around and landing a blow to his midsection that made her nauseated.

Logic told her she should use the diversion to slip away. Nobody was interested in her anymore. Yet she couldn’t leave. It was clear that the man who’d come to her aid was as much a stranger in this bar as she was, while Sonny was a local, and if she abandoned him, he’d probably get pulverized by Sonny’s friends.

She shouldn’t care, she told herself. She didn’t know this man, she’d never see him again, and if he was in a bar like this he was probably accustomed to fighting, anyway. Besides, she had a responsibility to the tiny life inside her. That especially had her concerned.

But if she slunk away now, what sort of person would that make her? How would she ever face herself in a mirror?

Without another second’s thought, she dug into her purse for the plastic gun. Tossing her bag onto a nearby table, she gripped the gun in two hands and flexed her knees. “All right, everybody freeze!” she called out.

Nobody heard. The debacle continued.

“Hey!” she hollered, affronted. This time a few onlookers turned. She heard someone say, “She’s got a gun,” and was pleased that the person sounded at least somewhat alarmed.

Within seconds the word passed. Attention turned on her like a tide. Those nearby backed away. A few people slipped out the door.

“Stop fighting,” she shouted. “Stop!” To her utter amazement, they did. The three men turned and looked at her, then each of them swore, different epithets, but all at the same time.

“Now...get against the wall there,” she ordered as she searched her memory for anything else she could borrow from the police movies she’d seen.

The three men moved, amazing her once again. A hush had fallen over the place. Even the jukebox had obediently shut down.

“Good.” She straightened, feeling a heady sense of power. “Now, you...” She waved the gun at the bartender. “I want you to call the police, and this time don’t tell me there’s a pay phone.”

In the dead silence, Mary Elizabeth became aware of sirens wailing in the distance. Confused, she glanced at the young woman behind the bar who made a face that said, What do you think I am, an idiot?

In no time flat, blue-and-red lights were throbbing against the windows, dueling with the neon. The doors banged open and six uniformed officers hurried in, straight to the heart of the fray.

“Thank God you got here so fast,” Mary Elizabeth said, but the officers coming toward her didn’t return her smile. In fact, every one of them had drawn his weapon.

“Drop the gun,” one of them ordered.

She looked at each of the six faces, at each of the six guns pointed her way. “What...?” All at once, she realized what was happening. “Oh. You think...”

But before she could explain the gun was only a toy, three of the policemen had cocked their pistols. She dropped the gun.

A policewoman immediately lunged forward, grasped Mary Elizabeth’s right wrist and twisted her arm up behind her back. Another officer, a serious young man with a dedicated, boyish face, carefully picked up the fallen gun.

After that, events swam together in a dreamlike sequence: across the room, the bartender talking excitedly, pointing this way and that; the odious Sonny saying, “But...but he...but...”; and the tall dark stranger scowling at her, Mary Elizabeth, where a moment ago he’d been duking it out on her behalf.

“Sonny, Sonny,” a craggy-faced sergeant scolded, shaking his head. “It isn’t even Saturday night.”

Sonny returned a sheepish grin.

“Okay, let’s go,” the sergeant said. It was then that Mary Elizabeth noticed the handcuffs glinting on the three men’s wrists. No, that’s a mistake, she wanted to cry out. The tall one is a good guy. But just then she heard the officer who’d picked up her gun reading her her rights. At the same time something cold and metallic encircled her own wrists.

Mary Elizabeth’s face drained of color. “You’re handcuffing me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But there’s obviously been a misunderstanding.”

“We’ll straighten it out at the station. Do you have a purse?”

“Uh, yes.” Mary Elizabeth indicated a nearby table.

The officer picked up her bag and said, “Come with me, please.”

Mary Elizabeth was led through the gawking crowd, close on the heels of her tall, dark stranger. “I don’t believe this,” she muttered, her eyes hot with humiliation.

“Why the hell not?” he snarled over his shoulder. “Acting as stupid as you just did, you must land in messes like this all the time.” His hard lips curled as he muttered something that sounded to her like “Liverpool.” She frowned in confusion until she reasoned he’d said “Little fool.”

“Sorry,” she said.

“You should be.”

Outside, she was led to a cruiser, while the three men were taken to a rescue van where medics waited to patch up their injuries.

She was just slipping into the back seat of the cruiser when it occurred to her that she hadn’t gotten her hero’s name. She peered up at the serious young officer, and with a giggle that rose from hysteria, asked, “Who was that masked man?”

He frowned, staring at her oddly, then shut the door.

She sat back and surveyed her surroundings with combined interest and dread. “Oh, Lord, I’m riding in a cage!” she moaned. The next moment, the full significance of what was happening to her hit home, and two hot tears trickled down her cheeks.

After that, events really blurred. She was taken to the station and booked, only vaguely aware that the three men involved in the fight had been brought in, as well. Her possessions got handed over; she was escorted down a corridor to a cell; handcuffs came off, toilet facilities were pointed out, and then, with a sound that cut right through her, the iron-barred door clanged shut.

And so ended Mary Elizabeth Drummond’s first day of independence.