A Steal of a Deal (10 page)

How many other ways have I underestimated him? All because of my pride . . . and my fear of relationships. Especially with a guy like him.

Worse yet: how would I feel if he’d done the same to me? “I’m sorry, Max. I have no excuse. Beats me why I thought you’d resent working with the Musgroves. I deserve the crummy way I feel right now.” I tuck a loose lock behind my ear. “I need to work a whole lot on . . . oh, let’s just say my pride’s first in line. I owe the Lord a bunch of knee time.

It’s going to be a long night for me.”

To my shock, he drapes an arm over my shoulders. “Look, Andie. Everyone does and says stupid things.” He gives me a mischievous wink. “Some of us just clock in more than others.”

When I go to object, he holds up his hand. “Just listen to me, okay? I don’t know why we got so far off on the wrong foot in the first place, but I do see where you felt I would ruin your show. Anyway, you can give your ruffled feathers a break now, since the show’s a hit. And you can also rest easy: I forgive you. I’m not so frail and flimsy that a couple of zingers are going to do me much harm.”

“But—”

“Shh!” He puts a finger on my lips, and my knees take a dive. I catch myself before I hit the pavement.

Uh-oh!
He’s at it again, doing that good-looking, nice-guy thing he does every once in a while. Of course I can’t work out a word, the way he’s turned me to mush.

He goes on. “I don’t get why you’re so hard on yourself— and everyone else. One good thing. You don’t discriminate.”

I chuckle—no humor there. “One redeeming quality, then.”

He puts his other hand on my free shoulder and makes me face him. “Oh, I’ve found a couple more here and there. But you are the tightest wound person I’ve ever met. How about you do us both a favor and let the spring go sprung?”

Before he really gets me under his spell, which is what scares me most about him, I ease away. “How about I hit the sack and get some z’s? Jet lag’s not helping my niceness quotient any.”

He looks about to object—to what, I don’t know. Does he want to keep on holding me? Or is he about to call me on blaming my sniping on jet lag?

Then he shrugs. “If you say so. Let’s go. Everyone’s waiting for us.”

With every step I take, I cry out to the Lord. I can’t stand the emotional seesaw I’ve been on since the day I first met Max. I need help to get my feet back on level ground.

But when I’m almost at the van, I look up and groan. We’re the center of everyone’s attention. Miss Mona and Aunt Weeby look as though it’s their birthday and Valentine’s Day all in one.

I wince. “Sorry about that—them—too.”

He looks embarrassed. “They would have been a hit in small-town America about 110 years or so ago.”

“What makes you think they don’t get away with matchmaking these days?”

Alarm widens his baby blues. “You’re not their only victim? I thought it was because they love you so much.”

I laugh. “Not hardly. And because they know me so well, they really should know better, but I guess they don’t. Let me tell you. There’s a scary number of families they take credit for, and they take their inspiration from their record of success. They see themselves as wise Cupids. I thought they’d drop that side job with the channel’s success, but only God can move mountains.”

He winks. “Then maybe our on-screen routine will help off-screen. To keep them off our backs.”

Huh?
“You think? It hasn’t done a thing so far.”

“Hey, you know them better than I do. Would it disappoint them enough to go on to more likely victims, or would it make them twice as determined?”

I look at the Daunting Duo, both members of which are now busy whispering to each other, smirks on their lips. Double trouble, for sure. “Beats me, but it’s worth a try. Put it this way. It’s better than having them buy china patterns and toaster ovens because we ended the war.”

He gives a dramatic shudder. Then, with another wink, adds, “Since you have such a smart mouth to begin with—”

I plunk my fists on my hips. “And here I thought the truce was on!”

He tips his head Daunting Duo–ward. “Not as far as they’re concerned.”

I slant them a glance, catch their expectant stares, and come to the only possible decision. “You have a point.”

“So you’re ready to beard the wild matchmaking beasts again?”

“As ready as you are.”

We laugh.

“Hey! Put a cork in it!” I add in a whisper. “They’re watching.”

He snorts. “Give it up already, Andi-ana Jones!”

I glare.

He stalks to the van.

Aunt Weeby and Miss Mona join us, together with their living, breathing dismay. We drive away.

The nondescript brown car follows.

Oh well. Have government goons, will travel.

600

We return to the hotel in silence, most of us too tired to do more than fight off the yawns. Once we reach our home away from home, we scatter in seconds, but no one closes their door until chivalrous Max has checked out closets, behind curtains, under beds, and in tubs.

No corpses tonight—
thank you, Lord Jesus!

I don’t forget my earlier offenses; after I remove my minimal makeup, brush my teeth, and don my PJs, I reach for my Bible. I hit God up for wisdom—yeah, yeah, I’m lacking there; guidance—okay, so I tend toward a wee bit of blindness; and his awesome love—I’ll never get enough of that, and he’s got plenty to give.

After a while, I sigh.
Will I ever learn to think—and pray!—
first, then talk, Father? And what’s with my reactions to Max?
I’m seasick here from the up-and-down of it all, Lord!

In the velvety silent night, I turn to the Proverbs, so full of advice for emotionally messy blurters like moi. Once I’ve soaked a good long while in God’s Word, I turn off the bedside lamp and fall into a rock-solid sleep.

It takes us days to get to the Kudi Valley. Let’s just say the Himalayan concept of road doesn’t match mine. Their preferred mode of travel doesn’t, either.

“The fine print never said I’d have to ride a mule,” I mutter as the earthy-smelling animal plods along the narrow lane. Too many days on this critter’s behind has not best friends us made.

Turning in his saddle, Xheng Xhi gives me another of those too-bright looks of his. “You mule like you, Miss Andie.”

Right behind me, Max chuckles. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Andi-ana Jones?”

“Back in Filene’s Basement, where it belongs. I’m an expert hunter of
bargainus extraordinarius
, not a fan of extreme encounters with massively haired mountain goats.”

“Goats?” Aunt Weeby warbles ahead of me. “I haven’t seen a single one a’ them. Unless we call them yak things a kind of goat. Are they goats? Or maybe they’re deer? Elk? Buffalo? Cows?” She falls silent for a moment. “D’ya think we could do like with sheep and angora goats, and shear them yaks? Then . . . I reckon we could get some a’ them ol’ hippies out there in California or Oregon to spin the fur into thread—no, no! It’s yarn, I mean . . .”

Max’s choked-off laugh lets me in on what he thinks of that idea. I’m so glad I can’t see him; right about now I’d be howling too. That, of course, is the kind of fuel that feeds Aunt Weeby’s extreme wackiness.

“Oh, it’s the best idea, Mona!” she says. “We can sell yak sweaters on the S.T.U.D.”

Huh?
The fur of the shaggy beasties I’ve seen speaks of hedgehogs in need of lawn mowers rather than future warm fuzzies. “Hey, Aunt Weeby! I feel a major itch coming on! We’d have to sell Gold Bond lotion with those woolies you’re talking about.”

“Yaks have two kinds of fur, Andie,” Glory says, her voice faint. Her mule is behind Max’s. “The outside stuff is tough and harsh, but the inside layer is soft and super warm. That’s what the people of the Himalayas have used for winter clothes for centuries.”

Smarty pants!
I make sure my voice comes out nice and pleasant. “How do you know so much about yaks, Glory?”

“I’m not sure. I must have read it somewhere. My memory’s kind of weird. It picks up info and stores it in random bits and pieces. I never know what’s going to pop out when I least expect it.”

Her answer is just a hair away from total airhead. But since no one’s perfect, least of all me, I give her the benefit of the doubt. I do, however, want to thwap her for the wacky idea her answer gives Aunt Weeby.

“Ooooh!” my aunt cries. “I got it! Better’n sweaters too. That
other
channel has some woman selling sweaters with all kinds a’ crazy pictures all over ’em. Let’s sell us some yaks!” Shock makes me clench my knees. Bad idea. In mule-speak, that means STOP, which my mule does. Immediately.

Max yells.

His mount ignores him. They crash into mine—mules aren’t the brightest diamonds in the gem-jar trays. “What do you think you’re doing?” he gripes.

At me! Not the mules. What’s up with that?

“Miss Andie?” Xheng Xhi asks from up ahead past my aunt and my boss. “You fine?”

“Whoa!” Glory yelps from farther behind.

“Hey!” Allison joins the chorus. “What’s going on up there? This is no six-lane highway, you guys.”

I blush. Then, the clatter of metal adds to the commotion.

Nope. It’s not Santa’s reindeer on the roof. “Uh . . . ,” Max says, “I have to pick up some of my things that fell.”

I snicker and turn at the waist. “Aren’t you sorry you dragged all that with you? It’s a lot to lug around on the back of a beast.”

He dismounts, squeezes between the animal and the sheer rock wall, then reaches,
very
respectfully, below the animal’s snout.

Xheng Xhi leads his mule back past Aunt Weeby and Miss Mona to my side, anxiety on his features. “Mister Max hurt you, Miss Andie?”

When Max straightens, he sends us one of his icy blue glares. “If Andie hadn’t just stopped like that, I wouldn’t have dropped my club.” He shakes the dumb thing for emphasis.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. The gemology-challenged co-host has carted his golf club, a little packet of golf balls, and even his football on our trek.

“Sorry, pal,” I say. “You’re not giving me the guilties. No one in his right mind goes trekking the Himalayas with a bunch of sports gear on top of a mule. Maybe you can use the long ride to ponder more important things—like those bugs you’ll soon be selling.”

Xheng Xhi resumes his lead of our ragtag army.

Max grabs the reins in his left hand, puts his right foot in the mule’s stirrup, plops the right fist—clutching the golf club—on the pommel, then pushes up and swings his left leg over the animal’s rump. Gotta give the guy credit; his athleticism has a masculine grace that impresses me every time it shows up.

“. . . And I suppose that serious pondering,” he bites off, “is why you just
had
to lug that designer bag with all the brown
C
s all over it with you.”

I blush—again. What can I say? It’s shallow, but I love my Coach bag. “Ah . . . I just need to keep all my documents in one handy spot, so it makes sense to keep the bag with me.” True. Sorta. In the most basic of ways.

He laughs. I’m so happy I can afford Max so much merriment.

Not.

“Don’t even try, Andie. You love that dumb bag with some chi-chi design company’s name woven into plain old canvas because some style guru has anointed it as the height of fash-ionistas’ desire. Tell me how that figures into the purpose of
your
life.”

That’s my Coach bag on which a jock is casting aspersions. Ahem!

Well . . . okay. So his question has a ton of merit. Not that I’m about to tell him that. It is something for me to ponder— I’m starting to seriously dislike that word—later.

I try to coax my mule to forward motion. “How would you know it’s canvas?”

“Canvas is canvas. It’s what teachers used for art class ‘masterpieces’ back in school, the same stuff on my old Keds sneakers, and it’s the same thing you paid a small fortune for, just for the sake of your goofy
C
s.”

“What are you slowpokes doing back there?” Aunt Weeby hollers from way ahead.

“Not to worry,” Glory yells back. “It’s just the latest battle in the Max and Andie war. We’ll be right there.”

Thank you, Glory, for the serving of humble pie.
After that, I don’t make a peep. We plod on and I pray. I pray for control, for wisdom, for help with my pride, and for the Lord to get us in and out of Kashmir’s mine country without any Muslim guerilla sightings.

Sure, sure. Some, like Aunt Weeby, might see it as a cultural experience. Not me. It doesn’t thrill me that elements of the Taliban and their tribal buddies like to hide out from the good guys—read “our side”—with villagers in the area.

Let’s hope Soomjam, the village nearest the mines
and
the orphanage, isn’t their latest choice for home sweet home. I don’t think they’ll like to see Americans anywhere near their sapphires.

The sooner we get there—and out—the better. With that in mind, I catch up to Aunt Weeby and the Musgroves, and follow in silence for the next three, maybe four hours. Finally, we plod into a valley, striking in its austere, treeless beauty. I’m excited. We’re here . . . almost.