Tainted Gold (11 page)

The drape swung shut behind him and Quillen raised a curious eyebrow at Tucker. He picked up her right hand again and hooked his thumb around hers.

“I’m a spelunker, remember?” He smiled. “Noxious fumes accumulate in caves, too, and I always keep a tank in the Jeep. I never know when I’ll find an interesting looking hole to crawl around in.”

“Speaking of lucky,” Sheriff Blackburn put in sternly as he pointed one finger at her. “You’re
damn
lucky that somebody’s refrigerator didn’t cycle or the water heater didn’t kick on while you were in the house. One tiny little spark and that whole place would’ve blown sky high.”

Quillen hadn’t thought of that. An involuntary shiver crawled up her back; she shuddered and Tucker’s hand tightened on hers.

“That’s a foregone conclusion,” he replied shortly, glancing sharply at the sheriff.

A woman in surgical greens and a blue-flowered cap stepped through the curtain. She handed Tucker a white Styrofoam cup, and he fed Quillen ice chips with a clear plastic spoon. It took half a dozen mouthfuls, greedily sucked and crunched, to lubricate her parched, aching throat. At last her voice worked—though she was still hoarse—and the questions came tumbling out.

“
Did
my house blow up? What happened? Where’s Mrs. Sipp?”

“Whoa, young lady, one thing at a time.” Sheriff Blackburn held up one hand. “Your house didn’t blow up, the fire department shut the gas off at the meter. Mrs. Sipp is fine, she wasn’t home when it happened—and the
it
is, somebody burgled your house. All the apartments were messed up pretty good, and the thief apparently broke the safety valve on the furnace which opened the pipe, and there you are—a house full of gas.”

“Why,” Quillen asked faintly, waving away another mouthful of ice, “would a burglar do a thing like that?”

“Who knows?” Sheriff Blackburn shook his head, and his leather holster creaked as he leaned one hand on the butt of his service revolver. “Maybe he thought he heard somebody come in and got scared, or careless, or maybe he just decided today would be a good day to blow up somebody’s house.”

“Don’t you wonder,” Tucker said, frowning, as he dumped the ice back in the cup, “what a burglar was doing in the basement in the first place?”

“I
know
what he was doing,” the sheriff replied impatiently. “That’s how he got in, through an open window. You left one unlocked, Quillen.”

No, I didn’t, she thought; at least I don’t remember. Oh, God. She winced and pressed an unsteady hand to her temple. If only her head would stop throbbing so she could think.

“Wait a minute.” Tucker plunked the cup down on the gurney, leaned his hand on his knee, and frowned up at Sheriff Blackburn. “Are you calling what happened malicious mischief?”

“What else should I call it?” he retorted irritably, then glanced at Quillen. “Do you get many poison-pen letters? Has anybody threatened your life lately?”

“Oh, no, of course—”

In middenial, Quillen’s voice shriveled and her heart began to thump madly between her ribs. She recalled Desmond Cassil’s reply to her declaration that the only way he’d get his hands on her land was over her dead body—“If you continue to be unreasonable, Quillen, that could become a very distinct possibility.” Oh, God, he hadn’t
meant
it, had he? He was just angry.
Wasn’t he?
Sickeningly, the room began to roll end over end. Too late, as her stomach rolled with it, she shut her eyes and clutched at her spinning head.

“Quillen!”

Tucker spoke her name sharply and she felt his fingers grasp her wrists. Her ears began to ring, her throat constricted, and she didn’t dare open her mouth for fear the vertigo would cause her to gag or retch or worse. She heard Sheriff Blackburn murmur, “Oh, lordy,” then the curtain scraped on its rod and his footsteps echoed on the floor as he shouted Carl’s name. As suddenly as it began, the spasm passed like a wave sliding down a beach, and Quillen sighed.

“I’m all right,” she said faintly, easing her death-grip on her temples.

Likewise, Tucker’s grip relaxed, and she felt the slight tremor in his fingers as he loosed her wrists. Experimentally, Quillen cracked one eyelid. The ceiling stayed put. She blinked her eyes wide open and saw Tucker plant his hands on either side of her head and lean over her.

“What’s the matter, love?” His voice was gentle but taut and threaded with worry. “Did something happen while I was gone?”

“Oh,
no
!” she assured him quickly; too quickly, too adamantly she realized as she watched his left eyebrow and the corner of his mouth quirk dubiously. “Honestly,” she insisted, with all the sincerity she could muster. “It’s just this headache.”

“Never fear, the doctor’s here,” Carl said cheerfully as he swung the curtain out of his way. “What’s this?” he asked, nudging Tucker aside and taking her pulse with Sheriff Blackburn hovering over his shoulder. “Feeling punkier?”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Quillen replied with a plucky smile. “I just got real dizzy there for a minute.”

“Well, vertigo’s to be expected after what you’ve been through. How’s the tummy feel? Want to try some water?”

“No, thanks, I’ll stick with the ice. Could we do the X ray now so I can go home?”

“Sure, you’re fine.” He smiled as he released her wrist and signaled Sheriff Blackburn.

He nipped outside the curtain and reappeared almost instantly pushing a green vinyl wheelchair. Carl and Tucker helped her first to sit up, and then gradually to stand. Except for a second momentary rush of vertigo and a sharp, four-count twinge of pain between her eyes, getting up wasn’t half bad. While Carl took the chair handles from Sheriff Blackburn, Tucker eased her into the seat and knelt beside her.

“I’ll wait in the lobby,” he said. “Then I’ll take you home.”

“Once you and your tenants get up a list of all the stolen items,” Sheriff Blackburn called after her as Carl pushed her toward the X-ray department, “you call me and I’ll send a deputy around to pick it up.”

“I will!” Quillen answered, tossing him a backward wave over her shoulder. “Thank you, sheriff!”

After the X ray, a mercifully few minutes of standing unassisted which left her knees feeling like Silly Putty, the radiology technician returned her to the emergency room where she waited on the gray gurney for Carl. There were no clocks in sight, but it seemed to Quillen that she’d no sooner found a comfortable spot for her sore spine on the hard vinyl surface when he came through the curtain. While he gave her a hypo in the hip (less embarrassing and more painful than she’d imagined), Carl told her to stay in bed the rest of the day, and maybe the next depending on how she felt in the morning, to keep out of drafts, and to avoid chills.

“Though it’s not completely dry yet,” he told her, “the X ray looks clear as a bell. Still, your respiratory system’s weakened and you’ll be susceptible for a while, so watch it.”

“I will,” she promised as he helped her back into the chair.

Sylvia Puckett, a pretty but too-thin brunette nurse and one of Cal’s occasional girlfriends, delivered her to a dressing room. Her clothes were inside, but Quillen declined Sylvia’s offer to help her dress. She regretted it, however, when it took her almost five minutes to overcome the tremble in her fingers and button her blouse, and another five to gather strength enough to pull on and fasten her kelly green slacks. Shaking and furious at the quivering weakness in her limbs, Quillen set her jaw and told herself she didn’t have time for this. She had a commission to paint, an apartment to put to rights, and tenants to soothe and reassure.

Those were the things she fixed her thoughts on as she pushed herself to her feet, determined to walk out of the hospital under her own steam. Steadfastly, Quillen refused to think about the recent, frightening developments—not the least of which was the giddy thrill she’d felt when Tucker had called her love, and the nagging worry in the back of her mind that he hadn’t really meant it, that it was just a casual endearment. She longed to savor it but couldn’t, not in the face of Jason’s
very carefully dropped innuendos—and despite his denial, that’s exactly what she thought they were—deliberate aspersions cast on Tucker’s character.

As for Desmond Cassil, Quillen had nearly convinced herself that the burglary following on the heels of their conversation the day before was nothing but coincidence. An alarming coincidence, but coincidence nonetheless. She’d been angry, he’d been angry; people said all kinds of things they really didn’t mean when they were angry. Furthermore, sane people didn’t do murder over an amusement park. The idea was so ludicrous it was almost funny, and she smiled as she paused in the corridor with her hand on the green-tiled wall to catch her breath. Thank heaven she hadn’t repeated Cassil’s remark to Sheriff Blackburn. He would have laughed and Carl would have whisked her off to the psycho ward. No one in their right mind would believe that Cassil Springs’ most illustrious citizen wanted to kill her so he could build a roller coaster on her land.

That’s precisely the point I’d like to make here, her little voice interjected.
No one would believe you
—and
you can bet Cassil knows it.

The thought sent an icy shiver trickling down her spine. Of course no one would believe her. They’d think she was crazy—as crazy as her father.

Panic swelled in her chest and Quillen swept a shaky hand over her forehead. A flash of white in the corner of her eye caught her attention and she looked around at Sylvia, smiling as she came down the corridor pushing the now-familiar green wheelchair.

“Need a lift?” she asked kindly.

“Do I ever.” Quillen sighed as she sank gratefully into the seat and let Sylvia push her toward the lobby.

The clock above the gold vinyl chair where Tucker sat dozing with his arms folded across his chest read three fifteen. Two feet shy of his slumped, lightly snoring form, the left rear wheel of the chair struck something, stuck and squeaked. He jerked wide awake at the loud, rubbery squeal, leaped to his feet, and stumbled a little as he swung toward the chair. Bleary-eyed, he half-yawned, half-smiled, and stretched his arms over his head.

“Hi, love,” he said, his voice thick with sleep.

That’s twice, her little voice told her; I’m keeping score.

Tears prickled behind Quillen’s eyelids: She so desperately wanted to trust this man, so desperately wanted to lean on him—so desperately wanted to love him.

“Dr. Ross said,” Sylvia told him, relinquishing the grips to Tucker as he stepped behind the chair, “that she’s to stay in bed.”

“Tell him not to worry,” he replied blithely. “I’ll see to it personally.”

Bowing her head, Quillen clenched her fists in her lap and tried to quell the fresh surge of panic welling up inside her as Tucker pushed her through the automatic doors. She didn’t trust him—she
couldn’t
trust him—but she did love him. Was such a thing possible? Oh, God, she sighed wearily. Maybe she
was
crazy.

At the end of the covered walkway the Jeep sat parked at the curb of the circular drive. Bracing her hands on the arms of the wheelchair, Quillen pushed herself to her feet and yelped as Tucker swooped her up in his arms and lifted her onto the high seat.

Smiling at her through the rolled-up window, Tucker closed the door with a solid click that shouted, “Trapped!” at Quillen. It echoed inside her head with another dizzying spiral of vertigo that made her wince and clutch her temples again. She heard his key turn in the lock, heard the driver’s door open, and quickly, but not quickly enough, dropped her hands to her lap.

“Oh,
no
.” Tucker leaped past the steering wheel and swept his arm around her. “Dizzy again? Sick?”

“I’m all
right
,” she snapped irritably, rolling her shoulder out of his grasp and turning her face away to hide the fact that she was anything but all right.

“Are you really?” he asked, his voice warm and solicitous. “Honest injun? Right as rain?”

“Fit as a fiddle.” She gave him a defiant, tight-lipped glare over her shoulder. “Sound as a dollar.”

“Good.” He gripped her chin in his left hand and kissed her so hard that she felt an imprint of her teeth on the inside of her upper lip and the sting of his whiskers on her lips as he pulled away from her. “That’s for being snippy with me”—his voice was quiet and even, but his eyes were flat and hard as granite—“the man who’s devoting the rest of his afternoon to taking you home, putting you to bed, and making you chicken soup when he’d rather be out looking for the son-of-a-bitch who smashed his seismometer to smithereens with a sledgehammer.”

Releasing her chin, he slid behind the wheel and inserted the key in the ignition. The engine kicked over with a loud roar, then shut down almost instantly. Through hot, guilty tears puddling her eyes, Quillen saw him drape his arms over the steering wheel, then heard his forehead hit the hard plastic circle with a thump.

“Oh, Jesus, Quillen, I’m sorry,” he groaned. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just so damn tired and I’ve been so worried—”

“I asked for it,” she interrupted him, smudging away the tears sliding down her face with her fingertips. “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Tucker, I honestly don’t. I mean, you saved my life—” Her voice broke, then warbled unsteadily, “And I haven’t even said thank you.”

“Oh, please, Quillen, don’t
cry
.” He moved across the seat again and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry, love.”