Tainted Gold (21 page)

Wincing and pressing his hand to his cracked, taped ribs, Tucker turned away and walked toward the front door. Hope died, Quillen’s heart sank to the soles of her feet, but she followed him, pausing in the archway with her hand on the molding.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to stay,” she said hesitantly. “You took such good care of me yesterday, the least I can do is return the favor.”

“I don’t need favors, Quillen.” He unlocked the door and faced her with his left hand on the knob. He wasn’t smiling or frowning or glaring. He was nothing, just completely nonplussed. “And no, thank you; I don’t want to stay.”

This is no time to be proud, her little voice told her with a sharp, swift kick in her ego to counter the shattering blow Tucker had just landed. Beg, you ninny, grovel—

“Please don’t go,” she pleaded softly. “I’m so sorry—”

“You are now,” he cut her off bluntly, “since I gave you black and white proof—the only thing you understand—that I’m not one of Uncle Des’s henchmen.”

“Is that why you punched him?”

“No, that’s why I went to Sheriff Blackburn. If he’d had the slightest notion or the flimsiest shred of evidence to connect me to the burglary or the blast this afternoon I’d be cooling my heels in the Cassil Springs Jail. You will please note that I am not.” He opened the door and stopped again on the threshold. “Thanks for the lift. If you decide you want me to move, just tear up the lease and leave the pieces outside my door. I’ll get the message.”

“Oh, Tucker,
please
,” she moaned, tears bleeding into her voice as she hurried after him. “I do love you.”

He’d half-closed the door between them but opened it and looked at her, steadily and without malice.

“All my life I’ve wanted to use this line, but the perfect situation never presented itself until now. I am, however, going to paraphrase slightly, so forgive me, Rhett.” He paused, and then said it slowly. “Frankly, my love, I don’t give a damn.”

He shut the door quietly. Faintly, through the thick, ivory-painted wood, Quillen heard his footfalls on the stairs. Demolished emotionally as well as physically, she stumbled backward, bumped into the arm of the love seat, and fell onto the thick, tapestried cushions. Too stunned to think, too numb to cry, she just sat there staring at the stained-glass window.

“But on the other hand—”

The door clicked open and Quillen jumped at the sound and Tucker’s voice. She whirled sideways, gripped the arm of the love seat, and gaped at him as he came through the door, shut it, and leaned against it.

“On the other hand,” he repeated, “it sounds pretty childish and silly, doesn’t it? Besides, I always thought old Rhett needed his head examined. Any man who’d walk out on a pair of gorgeous green eyes is nuts.”

Quillen started to cry then, big, sobless tears that blurred the smile starting on his face.

“Will you make me chicken soup?”

“Would you settle for a can of Campbell’s?”

“Only if you have oyster crackers.”

“I think so.”

“How about a shower? Will you help me take one? I can’t do a damn thing left-handed.”

“Liar,” she said thickly, grinning at him through her tears.

There are certain exceptions.” He rubbed his palm on his side and his smile widened. “Why are you sitting over there? Why aren’t you flying across the room to throw your arms around me?”

“You have cracked ribs.”

“They can’t hurt any worse.”

Wiping her tears with the backs of her wrists, Quillen rose from the love seat and went to him. She slipped her arms gingerly around his waist and laid her cheek against his chest. Her eyes filled again as his arms closed around her, his splinted fingers thumped hollowly between her shoulder blades, and she breathed the dirt, mud, and sweat clinging to his shirtfront.

“Congratulations,” he murmured, his lips brushing her hairline. “We survived our first fight.”

“It wasn’t a fight.” Quillen sniffled. “It was a donnybrook, and, as usual, it was all my fault. I’m so
sor
ry—”

“Love, are you by any chance a Libra?”

“Yes, I—”

“Then that explains your compulsion to apologize for everything.” He lifted his right arm from her shoulders, raised her chin on his index finger, and smiled. “But don’t. It takes two to have a donnybrook. You started it, but I finished it. I’m sorry, too.” He kissed her softly, put his arm around her again, and turned her toward the bathroom. “Come on, let’s clean up and eat, we’ll feel better.”

A shower and a bowl of chicken noodle soup hardly sounded like magic cure-alls, but Quillen was pleasantly surprised at how refreshed and restored she felt, despite her multitude of bruises, scrapes, and cuts, once she was clean, had shampooed her hair and had filled her stomach with warm food. Three things still bothered her, though, as she sat across the kitchen table from Tucker while he drank a Coors out of the remains of the six-pack Jason had left on Monday night and she sipped a wineglass full of aste spumante: one, the black and blue splotches and raw, skinned patches on Tucker’s body (which far outnumbered hers) and her concern that he wouldn’t be able to move in the morning; two, her almost palpable desire to have him make love to her and her disappointed realization that although his spirit would probably be willing, his flesh wouldn’t be; and three, the gnaw of dread she felt whenever she thought about their close brush with death. When she was a little girl afraid of the dark, her father had told her that talking about her fear would diminish it, so Quillen took a deep breath and did so.

“Something keeps running through my mind,” she said thoughtfully as she drew a happy face in the film of condensation frosting the side of her crystal goblet. “If whoever I saw on the cliff had pushed the plunger while we were in the water we’d be dead. And what I can’t figure out is why he didn’t.”

“Why do you say he?”

“When gender is unknown, you use the masculine pronoun, don’t you?” She looked up at him across the table. “Besides, although I didn’t see much, just a glimpse, really, whoever it was wore something orange—you know, that funny, iridescent shade like they make hunting jackets out of, or those little vests construction workers wear sometimes.”

“We saw the same thing, then.” He sighed and slouched in his chair. His face was gray with fatigue and there were dark smudges under his eyes. “And if we could see him—although I don’t think he intended us to—then he could see us, which points to one very obvious conclusion—he wasn’t trying to kill us. Maybe just scare us or see to it that nobody would pan that creek ever again. Of course, there’s another
less
obvious possibility, and every time I think about it I could kick myself.” He looked down at the beer can in his left hand and frowned. “I may have provoked him when I took that shot at him.”

“Why did you?”

“First, because he was practically standing on top of my seismometer, and second, because when I saw that flash of electric orange—the same color as a hunting jacket, as you said—I thought instantly of a big nasty rifle with a telescopic sight.”

A shiver that had nothing to do with the cool, early evening breeze drifting through the slatted, half-open shutters on the window near the table prickled up Quillen’s back. The happy face she’d drawn began to run, the corners of the upturned mouth tracking like tears down the side of the goblet.

“Oh, Tucker, you idiot.” She breathed deeply. “If you thought he had a gun, why did you stand out there in plain sight on the bank? If he’d
had
one, he could have blown your head off.”

“I didn’t think about that,” he replied with a sheepish smile. “Believe me, if I had, I probably would have broken the three-minute mile getting out of there.”

Quillen didn’t believe him. Now she understood why he’d told her to run, to get the hell out of there.

“Do you think you hit him?”

“No. If I had, he wouldn’t have been able to run that hundred or so yards back to the plunger.” He looked up at her, and his smile twisted ruefully. “Picked a lousy time to miss, didn’t I?”

Another chill shivered across her shoulders, but she let his remark pass without comment. Curling her index finger, Quillen erased the happy face.

“Well, at least Sheriff Blackburn believed us.” She sighed. “He didn’t even try to suggest that it could have been an accident.”

“He’s no dummy, love. If we could see the guy on the cliff, then he could see us. The sheriff knows that, too.”

“But he’s right, Tucker; he doesn’t have any solid proof that Cassil was behind the blast or the burglary. Nothing that would hold up in court, anyway. So why were you so determined to have him arrested? Sheriff Blackburn couldn’t have held him for long, if at all.”

“I know that,” he retorted sharply. “But being hauled in might have convinced Uncle Des to knock off with the terrorist stuff. One of his little accidents could backfire real easily and somebody could end up dead.”

“There’s a very simple solution if you think about it,” she answered quietly. “I could just sell him the land.”

“What?”
He sat up straight, a little too quickly, and a twinge of pain contorted his mouth. “You wouldn’t! After all that’s happened—”

“No,” she interrupted him with a smile. “I just thought I’d mention it.”

“Why? Is this a test?” His face and his voice went hard. “Are you waiting to see if I’ll whip a contract out from under my towel and ask you to sign it?”

“No, of course not.” Quillen gasped, startled. “I just meant—”

“Oh, Jesus.” He slapped his left hand against his forehead and drew it slowly down his face. “God, I’m sorry. I don’t really think that and I know you didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry, love, I truly am, but this whole business is starting to get on my nerves—”

“Mine, too,” she said softly, reaching across the table and resting her left hand on his right.

Awkwardly he laced his thumb and his two good fingers through hers. “Take me to bed,” he said, his eyes half-closed, “and make love to me.”

“I hardly think you’re up to it,” Quillen answered.

“I’m not now,” he admitted with a lopsided grin, “but I will be by the time we get to the bedroom.”

Much to Quillen’s surprise he was, too, and proved it—slowly and carefully. Afterward, content and sleepy, she snuggled close to him, cradled her pillow on his bent elbow and laid her arm gently across his chest. He cupped his right hand around her elbow, or tried to, cursed the splint on his fingers, and tugged his arm out from under her pillow to peel off the tape which held it.

“Ah, ah, ah.” Quillen lightly slapped the back of his wrist, pushed herself up on her elbow and trapped his hand in hers. “Leave the splint alone, Tucker.”

“It’s cramping my style.”

“Not that I could tell.”

Chuckling, he unlaced his fingers from hers, looped his arm around her shoulders, and tugged her down against him. Gingerly, Quillen nestled close again, mindful of the tape spanning his ribs. Her room was nearly dark, and she sighed and closed her eyes.

“Well, you were wrong, love,” he told her smugly. “It’s nearly eight-thirty and Sheriff Blackburn has yet to come pounding at the door with a warrant for my arrest.”

“Don’t gloat yet; the night is young. Tucker?”

“Hmm?”

“What was Cassil doing out there this afternoon? What did he want?”

His fingers, which had been tracing lazy circles on her shoulder, stopped. Quillen felt him draw a deep breath and raised her head to look at him. His face lay heavily in shadow, but she could see his parted lips.

“God, I’m stupid,” he breathed. “That miserable, son-of-a—”

“What, Tucker?” Quillen sat up beside him, folded her legs, and drew the sheet around her. “Tell me.”

“He was nice enough to begin with, he always is, but he was very interested in what I’d dredged out of the creek and why I was panning in the first place. I said something about ‘when in Rome,’ and then he said he was very sorry about my seismometer and offered to replace it. They’re damn expensive, but he can afford it, believe me. I tried to play dumb but he said Sheriff Blackburn had told him what happened when he’d returned the ball-peen hammer. I said it wasn’t necessary, that I had a spare and that I’d already hooked it up. That frosted him and he repeated his offer—a nice, big fat one—to keep my mouth shut about the fault. I told him what he could do with his money and he blew his stack. He said this was my last chance, and that henceforth heaven had better help me if I did anything to queer the theme park with the EPA, you, or anybody else. He looked at my bow then, smiled, and said it would probably be a good idea to keep it handy from now on. He got in his truck then and flashed the headlights once before he drove away.”

“So?” Quillen asked blankly.

“Remember the Longfellow poem about Paul Revere? ‘One if by land, two if by sea’?”

“Ohhh,” she breathed slowly. “It was a signal. One if he says no, two if he takes the bribe.”

“Exactly, that goddamn—”

“Where was your seismometer, Tucker?”

“On top of the cliff,” he replied tightly, “between a couple of rocks about thirty feet from the edge. Smashing the first one failed to get my attention, so they blew this one to kingdom come.”