Dorothy Garlock - [Route 66] (37 page)

How was it possible that she was here with this wonderful, handsome man?
It was a miracle!

When the waitress brought their order, she glanced at Margie, then fixed her gaze on Brady again. Brady smiled and thanked her. They had just started to eat when the waitress came back to the table.

“We have one piece of fresh peach pie left. Want me to save it for you?” she asked Brady.

“Do you want it, honey?”

The waitress took her eyes off Brady long enough to glance at Margie.

“No. I’d rather have raisin or custard.”

“We have custard.” The woman spoke again to Brady.

“We’ll each have the custard,” he said.

After she had walked away, Margie said, “I thought she was going to sit in your lap.”

He smiled broadly. “Jealous? It’s a good sign.”

When they left the well-lit restaurant, Margie couldn’t even feel her feet on the ground. Happiness sang like a bird in her heart. She was proud to be walking beside this tall, broad-shouldered man who said he loved her. She cast a glance up at him and found him smiling down at her, his arm holding her hand tightly to his side.

“What would you like to do? If we go to a movie, we may not get out in time to get back before eleven o’clock, when the man locks the gate.”

“We could sit in the car outside the gate all night.” A blush covered her face.

Brady laughed. “When we spend our first night together, sweetheart, it will be in a bed where I can love you all night long.” He stopped and looked down at her. “Are you blushing?”

“No! Well, yes!”

“Does it excite you to think of spending the night in bed with me?” He started walking again.

“Of course! I’ve … never spent the night—never wanted …” Her voice trailed off as embarrassment took control of her tongue.

“Thank God for that!” They reached the car. “Would you like to stop at that place we saw on the way in? We can get something to drink and dance for a while.” He held open the door for her.

“All right,” she said after he had gone around and slid under the wheel.

“The other time we danced you were so mad at me I thought you’d bite a chunk out of me.” The hand at the nape of her neck brought her face toward his, then slipped down to cup her shoulder to allow her to turn away if she chose. “I want to kiss you, right here on the street. If I do, will you bite me?”

“I might. And I might yell too.”

“To kiss you would be worth a bite and a hundred punches in the nose by those who come to rescue you.” His voice was husky and raw, like his deep, quivering breaths.

She felt the caress of his warm breath on her cheek before his lips, with the utmost tenderness and caution, settled on hers. A warm tide of tingling excitement washed over her. Her heart beat wildly, and her mind whirled giddily. Brady moved his head and placed his cheek against hers. His arm tightened; he was as breathless as if he’d run a mile; he was stunned with happiness.

Finally she stirred and gently moved away from him. People passing on the sidewalk were gawking. She uttered a little laugh so soundless that it was no more than an exhalation of breath.

“We’re putting on a show for people passing by.”

He laughed intimately, joyously, and started the car.

“I don’t care if the whole world is watching. I like kissing you. I’m going to kiss my wife every day for the rest of our lives.”

“I’m not very good at it.”

“Practice makes perfect. We’ll practice some more as soon as I find a place to park the car.”

The next morning at sunrise the women gathered around Grace’s giant coffeepot. Margie’s eyes dwelled on Brady, who was with the other men looking at a map spread out over the hood of Alvin’s truck.

Her mind kept going back to the night before, trying to remember each and every word that was said. Their love was so new they had not talked about the future. They both knew that they would be together, and that was enough for now.

Margie was absolutely sure that it had been the most wonderful evening of her life. They had come back to the campground, sat in the car and in between kisses listened to the singing coming from the group gathered at the Putman camp. Rusty had sung his new song, “What I See.” One of the verses stuck in Margie’s mind.

You were there watchin’ over me

With gentle touch and sweet sympathy
,

With tender care like a gift so free
,

You were there givin’ strength to me.

Margie shivered recalling the chorus of the song.

They are blind who will not see.

None so blind as a man like me.

Rusty was so remarkable, so cheerful, loving and kind, she prayed that he had found the happiness with Mona that she had found with Brady.

Brady. The wonderful feeling of belonging to him was so new, so exciting, that at times she was giddy. A thrill spiraled down her spine when she thought of his words last night as he caressed her breasts.

“Soon I’ll see them, kiss them. No man will ever touch them but me.”

Her daydreaming was interrupted when Alvin folded the map and began talking.

“The man here at the campground says that most of the highway between here and Gallup is under construction. There are many rough spots, and sometimes we’ll have to wait for as long as an hour before we can go on. Loaded as we are, we’ll be lucky to make seventy-five miles a day for the next couple days. After that the going will be easier. I figure that we’re about nine hundred miles from Bakersfield, and unless we have a breakdown, we should be there in about ten days.”

“Hallelujah! I’m wantin’ to sleep in a real bed and put my feet under a real table,” Grace declared.

Alvin smiled at his wife. “There’s a campground at Grants. It’s one hundred and four miles. If we see we can’t make it, we’ll camp along the road. That’s as much as I know. Anyone got anything to add?”

Harry Wills drank the last of the coffee and tossed the dregs from his tin cup. His main concern was the comfort and safety of his wife, who was pregnant with their first child. They had given up all hope of having a family and had decided to move to California to be near his brother and his family when she became pregnant.

He had wanted to postpone the trip until after the baby was born, but she would not hear of it. It worried him that they were bouncing along on rough, dusty roads prowled by bootleggers and outlaws who would cut your throat for a dime. The pistol in the bib of his overalls was a reassuring weight.

“Ya may have another tagalong,” Harry said. “A Ford coupe was about a half mile back all day yesterday. When a car got ’tween us, he’d move up. He coulda passed all of us anytime he wanted to.”

“I noticed a coupe back up the road a ways when we stopped before we got to the public campground,” Foley said. “A fella was out foolin’ around with somethin’ in the rumble seat.”

“I’m wonderin’ if it’s the same one that was in the campground back in Amarillo. It looked like a pretty late model.” All eyes turned to Mr. Taylor. “Two young fellas was in it. Drove in, set a spell, then pulled out. Wasn’t loaded with campin’ gear like ya usually see.”

“They may be thinkin’ it’s safer to tag along. I don’t know what help they think they’d get from us way back there.” Alvin opened the door of his truck and stuck the map inside.

Brady came to Margie, and they went to the truck, where Anna Marie was still sleeping.

“Wake up, honey. Uncle Brady is here to take you to the car.” Margie led the sleepy child to the end of the truck, where Brady lifted her out and carried her to his car. She was picking up Anna Marie’s clothes when Rusty and Jody arrived to check the tie-down canvases.

“I’ll be out of here as soon as I find Anna Marie’s shoes.”

“Let me give you a hand,” Jody said.

“My turn.” Rusty held up his hands. Margie put hers on his shoulders, and he lifted her down.

“Thank you. You’ll get me in trouble with Mona.”

“And with me.” Brady appeared, took Margie’s hand and pulled her to him. “This woman’s mine.”

Rusty spoke aside to Jody. “He’s gotten selfish lately.”

“And grabby.” Jody began tying down the canvas.

“Darn right. A man’s got to be on his toes when his woman is being manhandled by a couple of young scutters.”

“Manhandled? Brady, for goodness’ sake,” Margie scolded, but her eyes danced and her lips tilted. She pulled a bill out of her pocket. “This should be enough for gas and ten pounds of ice, Jody, if we find a place. That chunk we got yesterday is going down fast. Why don’t you fix a jar of ice water for yourself and Rusty?”

“I take it I’ve got a steady job ridin’ with Jody.”

“Yeah,” Brady retorted. “And your pay is getting to cuddle with Mona all day.”

“What more could a man ask for?” Rusty was all smiles as he moved around the truck to the cab.

It had been a week since Sugar Luker left them at Sayre. When he stopped to think about it, Foley was surprised how seldom he thought of the woman he had been with day and night for almost three months. He admitted to having been smitten at first, flattered by the attention of a young, beautiful woman and the sex she offered. After he had married her, it hadn’t taken long for him to suspect that her beauty was only skin-deep. Then, when he knew that to be true, he had been too embarrassed to admit that she had made a fool of him.

He was lucky to have two wonderful kids—his and Marion’s children. They had stuck with him, endured the rough times when he knew that Sugar was making them perfectly miserable.

For the past two days Mona had ridden with him for half a day and with Rusty and Jody the other half. Foley and his children were now close again, as they had been after they had lost their mother and he his beloved wife. It was as if Sugar had never been there.

His little girl was in love with a man who would forever be blind. At first he had felt keen disappointment. He wanted so much more for her: a strong man to take care of her. Then he thought of when he first met Marion. Would he have loved her had she been blind? Hell yes! He would have loved her if she had been deaf and blind and couldn’t move a muscle. If it turned out that Mona and Rusty were truly in love and wanted to be together, he would be there to help them, as would Alvin and Grace.

As soon as they reached their destination, Foley planned to try to get his marriage to Sugar annulled. He was determined to break all ties with her. He suppressed the little nagging fear that he had not seen the last of the woman with the face of an angel and the soul of a wicked witch. She knew he had the money from the sale of his icehouse and was no doubt plotting how she could get it.

The stretch of highway west of Albuquerque was as they had expected. It had been start and stop since they left the campground. A stiff breeze from the south blew the dust that sprayed up from beneath the wheels. Marge pitied the construction workers who had to stand on the north side of the road while a string of cars passed.

Anna Marie was hot and tired. Margie did her best to entertain her by telling stories and teaching her to count on her fingers. The child stayed awake all day, not giving Margie and Brady a chance to talk alone, but Margie was happy just to be with him. By afternoon they’d hit a stretch of newly paved highway and reached Grants in the late evening.

The campground was a large, open field. There were about as many campers as in Tucumcari, but more families than single men. The caravan parked at one end with plenty of space around it. Foley led the other two cars to form a circle with the two trucks and Brady’s car. Anna Marie waited eagerly to play with her new friend, Lucy Taylor. As soon as the Taylors stopped, Lucy jumped out and Anna Marie ran to meet her.

“Stay where I can see you, punkin,” Margie called. Brady caught her hand when she attempted to follow.

“Wait a minute, honey. I’ve been thinking—”

Margie turned quickly to look at him. Something about the tone of his voice chilled her.
O Lord. Don’t let it be that he’s changed his mind!
His next words caused a flood of relief to wash over her.

“I want us to be married as soon as possible. I don’t want to wait until we get to California. I want to know that you’re mine.”

“I … am yours.”

He brought her hand up and rubbed her knuckles against his lips. “I want to take you home to our ranch as my wife, and Anna Marie as our daughter. You can leave the truck and the rest of Elmer’s belongings with Alvin and tell him about where to look for Elmer’s wife. Alvin is a good, honest man. He’ll see to it that she gets it.”

“All right.” Tears filled her eyes.

“Darlin’ girl. Don’t cry about it. You want it too, don’t you?”

“You know I do. More than anything.”

“Tonight go through Elmer’s things and see if you can find the cousin’s address. He had to have some idea of where his wife was going.”

“He didn’t talk to me about anything, but I heard that Goldie’s cousin was in a place called Victorville.”

“Honey, I need to keep as much of my money as I can to get us to Colorado. If you’re not dead set on going on to California, we could be married in Gallup and head home.”

“I thought you’d planned on spending some time in California before you left Anna Marie with Opal.”

“That was before I had a wife and daughter to take care of. I could have bummed around by myself. Things are different now.”

“I’m not dead set on going on to California. I just want to be with you and Anna Marie. If you think Alvin will handle seeing that Goldie gets what was Elmer’s, it’s all right with me. We’ll leave at Gallup, and Jody will drive the truck on to Bakersfield. Let’s go through Elmer’s things tonight. It would be easier if we could tell Alvin where to find Goldie’s cousin.”

“We don’t have to worry about Alvin and Foley being alone. Wills and Taylor are good, reliable men. They’ll be with them for the rest of the trip.”

She saw Alvin getting out the kerosene stove. “I’d better go help Grace if we are all going to eat together.”

“Go on, sweetheart. We’ll talk about it tonight.” Brady reluctantly released her hand, and she got out of the car.

“What a dump!” Sugar’s patience had almost reached its limit by the time they reached Grants. “Whater we goin’ to do in this hick town? We’ve fiddle-farted along behind that drag-ass outfit and eaten their dust all day. We’ve not been dancin’ or to a picture show. I doubt they even got a place to piss in this shitty burg.”