“That's your solution to everything, isn't it?” She shot him a flushed and furious glare, her foot hard on the gas again. “Grab the little blonde with the big case of hero worship and plant one on her.”
Gus pushed himself up in the seat and rubbed his jaw. “What?”
“I probably am—no, make that
was
—your biggest fan.” She clamped her hands on the wheel and squealed the Jeep almost sideways through the last switchback and the final drop to the county road. “Why do you think I have pictures of you tacked all over my writing room?”
He'd thought she was a nut. He'd asked her what kind of nut—Glenn Close or his biggest fan. She hadn't answered him and he hadn't wondered once since what all those pictures of him stuck all over the wall above her rickety old desk signified. Please God, she didn't remember what he'd said. He'd give anything to forget.
“I'll tell you what you thought. You thought I was a nut.” She slammed on the brake and skidded the Jeep to a stop at the bottom of the drive. “Which way?”
“Left,” Gus said. “I'm sorry I called you a nut.”
“I'm sure I looked like one sitting on the floor talking to your picture.” She turned left and floored the accelerator. “I was practicing what I'd say to you. I was so excited that at last I was going to meet you and be able to tell you how much I love your books.”
All Gus had wanted from her father at that long ago mystery conference was an autograph and a chance to tell Fletcher Par-rish how much his books meant to him. He knew what that felt like, to be let down by someone you admire. Gus leaned his elbow on the armrest on the door and wiped his hand over his mouth. Why was there never an abyss handy when he needed one to open up and swallow him?
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Why do you think?” She shot him a sizzling look. “I want you to feel like the sleazy, self-absorbed prick I think you are.”
“That's what I thought. Just checking.”
“How dare you sit in my dining room and tell me you don't read manuscripts by beginning writers? How
dare
you!” She beat her fist against the wheel. “My father is Fletcher Parrish, you arrogant jerk. If I want a published author to read my book, all I have to do is call Dad!”
“So finish the book and let your old man read it,” Gus shot back. “Don't jump on my case 'cause you don't have what it takes to be a writer.”
She hit the brake and slid the Jeep to a sideways halt in the middle of the road. Gus flung up his hands and caught himself on the dash.
“I've got what it takes,” she said between her teeth.
“No you don't. If you did your book would be finished.”
She made a disgusted noise, wrenched the Jeep straight on the road and stepped on the gas. “Like you know anything about my life.”
“I know you've been writing the same book for five years.” Gus grabbed the shoulder harness and fastened it.
“I've written six and a screenplay. If you'd put the amount of time into your writing that you've put into being Bebe's personal body slave you'd have finished your book a long damn time ago.”
“Just put your butt in the chair, right?” she jeered, rocketing the Jeep up the long, curved hill that swooped down from the top of the ridge to the entrance to Tall Pines.
“That's ninety percent of it.” Gus leaned toward the instrument panel and saw the digital speedometer flicking past 50. “Put your butt in the chair and keep it there until the book's finished.”
“Easy for you to say. You're a recluse. You don't have a life.”
“Yes I do and I value it. If you don't take your foot off the gas we're gonna be airborne when we hit the top of this hill.”
She glared at him and glanced at the speedometer, lifted her foot from the accelerator and eased on the brake. The Jeep didn't take off but it bounced going over the crest of the ridge. Cydney kept her foot on the brake until the speedometer fell from 50 to 40 to 35.
“I do
too
have what it takes,” she repeated, a quaver in her voice.
“Prove it. Finish the book.”
“I will, damn you. I'll prove to you I've got what it takes.”
“Don't prove it to me. Prove it to yourself.”
She opened her mouth, snapped it shut and glared at him.
“Are you through yelling and calling me names?” he asked.
“For the moment.” She swung her gaze back to the windshield and slowed the Jeep at a three-way split in the road. “Now where?”
“Straight through, then bear left.”
She didn't say anything else and neither did Gus. The dash clock said it was 10
A.M.
The thud in his head and the throb in his foot said it ought to be midnight. He leaned back in the seat, shut his eyes and opened them only when Cydney asked him which way to turn.
His body was one giant ache by the time they reached Branson. His joints creaked louder than the hinges when Cydney stopped the Jeep at the emergency room entrance and Gus pushed his door open. He swung his left foot out onto the concrete walk, his right foot numb but starting to prickle, and looked at the glass doors of the hospital entrance.
“Ten feet,” he said. “I used to play hopscotch. I can do this.”
He drew a breath and hopped toward the door. When he started to wobble, Cydney slid under his right arm and wrapped her left around his waist. Gus curved his arm around her, bent his head over hers and inhaled a noseful of her lilac-scented hair.
“Stop that.” She jerked her head away and nudged him with her shoulder. “C'mon, Hopalong, before you fall and hurt yourself again.”
“I'm going to say this one last time.” Gus clenched his jaw. “I have yet to inflict pain or injury on myself in your presence.”
“Oh, really? Who stepped on the pine needle? Who put his big foot through the wicket after I told him it was there?”
“Who dropped a rock on my foot? Not once, but twice? Who dropped me on a goddamn concrete birdbath?”
“Aldo dropped you on the birdbath. I had your feet.”
They argued all the way to the ER check-in, where Cydney dumped him in a wheelchair and stalked off. Straight back to Kansas City, Gus was certain, but she was in the waiting room when he came limping out of ER on a cane three hours later.
He was so glad to see her sitting in a Pepto-Bismol pink chair, her arms and her legs crossed, her left foot hooked around her right ankle. She glanced him a warning, I'm-still-pissed-at-you look until she saw the blue paper slippers on his feet. Then she smiled, got up and walked toward him. She'd finger-combed her kinked-up hair, washed the mud off her jaw and tried to scrub it off her sleeve. Gus could see paper towel lint caught in the white ribbed fabric.
“You waited for me,” he said, smiling at her.
“Of course I waited. I don't want your pal the Sheriff to arrest me for abandoning you at the hospital.”
“Elvin would never arrest you. He offered to arrest me, but I told him you'd let me rot in solitary before you bailed me out.”
She didn't deny it, just ducked her head and tucked her hands in her back pockets. “So how are you?”
“I'll live.” Gus leaned on the cane they'd given him in ER and wagged his right foot in its paper bootie. “Little toe's broken and taped. They dug the rest of the pine needle out of my big toe and put Neosporin and a bandage on it.”
He left out the jam in his big toe and the joint the ER doctor had popped. If she hadn't heard him yowl he wasn't going to mention it.
“Wait here,” Cydney said, fishing her keys out of her pocket. “I'll bring the Jeep up to the door.”
She did and Gus managed to lever himself up into the seat with the cane. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
She gave him a thanks-for-asking smile. “Starving.”
“Hang a right down here and we'll drive through McDonald's. I'd take you someplace nice, but no shoes, no service.”
Cydney ordered a fish sandwich and a Sprite, Gus two Big Macs and a Coke. They shared a large order of fries and inhaled their sandwiches parked in the back of the lot with the engine off and a cool autumn breeze fluttering through the rolled-down windows.
It would be Thanksgiving before he knew it and Christmas in the blink of an eye. Every year at Advent, Aunt Phoebe had invited the whole of Crooked Possum to Tall Pines for smoked turkey, oyster stuffing and mincemeat pie. Mamie Buckles always brought a pint of Jim Beam to spike the eggnog.
Gus missed that blow-your-doors-off punch and Aunt Phoebe nagging him to put up lights and the tree and hang wreaths on the mantels. He even missed ducking the mistletoe and Elvin's sister Louella. So much that his throat closed and he couldn't finish his second Big Mac.
Since Aunt Phoebe died, he and Aldo had spent Thanksgiving and Christmas eating Boston Market turkey and watching football. This year Aldo and Bebe were flying to Cannes to spend Christmas with Fletcher Parrish—his treat—and Gus would be alone.
Cydney collected the sandwich wrappers, napkins and his blue paper booties and slid out of the Jeep. Gus watched her walk to a close-by trash can and wondered what she'd be doing on Christmas. Knowing Georgette, there'd be a big family dinner and—Wait a minute. What had Cydney told him? Herb was a nice guy, but she'd be surprised if Gus got an invitation to the wedding, surprised if Georgette married him on Christmas Eve. That was it. That lifted his spirits. He'd see Cydney at Herb and Georgette's wedding. Maybe she'd forgive him by then.
Why should she, Munroef
his inner voice asked.
You've never forgiven Fletcher Parrish for cutting you dead.
Gus scowled. Cydney stuffed the trash in a can and started back to the Jeep. Parrish brushing him off was one thing, but calling him a “no-talent pretty boy” was flghtin' words. Cydney ducked her head, caught the cuff of her sleeve in her fingers and plucked at her hair. Gus smiled. She'd done the same thing Monday night when he'd caught her talking to his picture. He made her nervous, but did he make her hot? In her kitchen Tuesday night, yeah, baby, but now? Gus doubted it, but he would do just about anything—including forgiving her father—if only she'd forgive him.
“Look, they're hiring.” He nodded at a banner stretched across the window when Cydney got in behind the wheel. “I'll tell Aldo.”
Gus smiled at her but she didn't smile back, just started the engine and drove to the exit. “Which way?”
“Depends on where you're going.”
She blinked at him. “Back to Tall Pines.”
“Left.” When she made the turn, Gus asked, “And from there?”
“Up to my room to write a book.” She glanced at him, chin
up and eyes glinting. “Unless you want me to leave because I broke your toe.”
“Are you going to yell at me some more?”
“I don't know.” She frowned, not at him but at the traffic snarled ahead of the Jeep. “I haven't decided.”
“Take the next right,” Gus said, and Cydney did when the Jeep crept up to the intersection. “Is this the way we came in?”
“Nope, it's the back way. Branson was just a berg in the sticks till Nashville moved north. Now the roads are two-lane parking lots.”
It was also a shortcut to Tall Pines that took fifteen minutes off the almost hour trip. Gus sat sideways in his seat with his legs stretched toward the console, telling Cydney where to turn and which way. She didn't so much as nod. Clearly she had nothing to say to him and didn't want to be anywhere near him. Every time Gus nudged his left knee closer to the console Cydney edged closer to the door. She kept frowning, like she had a headache. Maybe she was trying to think of a worse name to call him than a sleazy, self-absorbed prick.
It was 2:37
P.M.
when the Jeep swung off the two-lane county blacktop and up the drive to Tall Pines. Cydney looked weary, her eyes smudged with dark circles in the deep shade cast by the pines.
“I'd like you to come up to my office,” Gus said, “and watch me delete the Grand Plan to Wreck the Wedding.”
“What difference will that make? It'll still be in your head.”
“Call it an act of contrition.”
“I think the only reason you're sorry is because I caught you.”
“I'm sorry I hurt you. I never meant that.”
“But you meant to hurt Bebe and Aldo.” She steered the Jeep through the first switchback and glared at him. “You meant to break them up and break their hearts.”
“I meant to stop this mad rush to get married in a week.”
“Then why don't you freeze Aldo's trust fund? That's what you intended to do Monday night when you barged into my house.”
“I didn't intend anything. I simply lost my temper and jumped in the car and drove to Kansas City.”
“With the codicil to your brother's will in your pocket.” She shot him a gimme-a-break look. “Sounds like intent to me.”
Gus sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair. “How can I explain this so you'll understand?”
“You can't, so stop trying. You haven't said or done one thing since I met you that wasn't aimed at trying to stop this wedding.”
“I just want Aldo and Bebe to wait a few months, that's all.”
“I'll bet you do.” She shot him another glare midway up the second grade. “It'll give you more time to plot and scheme to break them up.”
“I am not trying to break them up,” Gus insisted. “If Aldo and Bebe still want to get married in six months I won't stand in their way.”
She stepped on the brake, slamming the Jeep to a stop that snapped Gus' neck. He whipped his head toward her just as she flung herself at him over the console, fire in her eyes and a twitch in her clenched jaw.
“You aren't going to stand in their way now. If you do one more thing, one tiny little thing to screw up this wedding any worse than it already is, I'll—”
“You'll what? Drop another rock on my foot? Threaten me with a croquet wicket? Come after me with a birdbath?”
A horn blew behind them, startling Gus and Cydney around in their seats—so quickly they almost bumped heads—to look out the Jeep's back window at Herb's white Cadillac. Georgette and Herb waved.
“Oh hell. They were supposed to be gone all day.” Cydney waved back, straightened behind the wheel and stepped on the gas. “What's happened now?”
“Flat tire,” Herb explained when he parked the Cadillac beside the Jeep and he and Gus opened their doors at the same time. “Took the Auto Club three hours to find us, so we just had lunch in Branson.”