Loe raamatut: «A Knight In Rusty Armor»

One

Travis Holiday eased off the accelerator as he hit another patch of sand, this one even deeper than the last. He’d hoped to get home before dark. Not that it mattered. He could have stayed away a year and it wouldn’t have mattered. There was a lot to be said for living alone, where a man could go and come with a minimum of hassle.

Waylon and Willie launched into the one about being on the road again, and Trav hummed along, his pleasant baritone only slightly off-key. With his fist, he cleared a circle on the steamy inside of his windshield. It didn’t help much. The outside was clouded with salt and pitted from years of beach driving.

“On the ro-oad again...” Off-key or not, he kept perfect time with the wipers. Waylon and Willie lagged about half a beat behind.

In spite of the worsening weather, the day had gone a lot better than he’d expected. Not that he’d been expecting much, but the cousin he’d never even heard of until a few months ago had turned out to be a pretty decent guy.

Considering the difference in their backgrounds, they’d hit it off surprisingly well. Hell, they even looked alike. Same build. Same general coloring. Same plain, angular features.

Lately, he’d thought a lot about family. About roots. He’d never wasted much time thinking about that sort of thing before. The little he knew about his parents had been more than enough.

But things were different now that he had a son. Once he’d gotten past the shock, he’d started thinking in terms of a heritage. Of what it meant to be a living link between past and future. If his son had children, and those children had children—

“What the bloody—!” He slammed on the brakes, swearing as the pickup slid dangerously close to the edge of the narrow highway and came to a stop. Rolling down the window, he leaned his head out to peer through the mixture of rain, blowing sand and salt spray. Didn’t that damned fool know better than to park in the middle of the road?

But he didn’t yell. Didn’t even hit the horn. If there was one thing twenty years in the Coast Guard taught a man, it was the importance of discipline. Even when some cheese-for-brains idiot parked on the centerline, completely blocking the narrow highway.

He watched for a full minute while a crazy woman launched an all-out attack on the car, a yellow, vinyl-topped clunker. It wasn’t the first time Travis Holiday had seen a tire being kicked. It was, however, the first time he’d seen a car being flogged to death with a ladies’ shoulder bag.

Not that he could blame her, if the thing had conked out on her with no warning in the middle of a storm with night coming on fast.

Pulling his own vehicle as far off the highway as possible, Trav switched off the engine, zipped up his sheepskin-lined leather jacket, battled the wind for possession of the door and climbed out of the high cab. Crazy or not, this was no place for a woman alone Hatteras Island was safer than most places, especially this time of year when there were few strangers around, but even so...

“Ma’am?” Either she didn’t hear him or she chose to ignore him. Squinting against the wet, gale-force winds that screamed in off the Atlantic, he gave it another try.

He was no more than a few yards away when she turned to confront him. He’d seen the look before, having done his share of search-and-rescue missions. Shock, stress, stark terror—he’d seen it all.

What he saw this time was wild, wet hair blowing in the wind, a thin face that was ghost pale except for a pair of big, red-rimmed eyes and a red-tipped nose. She didn’t look too thrilled at being rescued.

“Listen, lady, you can‘t—” She took a tighter grip on her purse. Good God, did she think he was after her money? “Ma’am, nobody’s going to hurt you.” He held up his hands, palms out, to let her knew he wasn’t armed. Hell, she was more dangerous than he was, the way she was swinging that leather sack of hers. “Ma’am, you don’t need to be out here in this mess. You’re getting soaked.”

She was not only soaking wet, she was crying. Either that or she’d got sand in her eyes. She sucked in air and swallowed hard. Trav could actually see her throat working. There was an emergency blanket under the seat of his truck, but he wasn’t too eager to turn his back on her. She might even take a notion to walk off into the ocean. He’d seen crazier reactions from people in a severe state of shock.

She continued to stare at him. He stared right back, trying to infuse the look with reassurance. Trying to look benign, harmless, helpful.

It obviously wasn’t working. “Ma’am? Are you okay?”

Stupid question. Her bottom lip trembled, and he swore under his breath. Lady, don’t do this to me. He retreated a step, then stood his ground, braced in case she hurled herself into his arms. It was a dumb idea, one that came and went in a split second—something about the way she was looking at him.

But she didn’t budge, and neither did he. What with all the crap blowing in the air, he told himself he must have misinterpreted the fleeting look on her face. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d misread a woman’s intentions.

“Ma’am, you shouldn’t stop in the middle of the highway. With dark coming on, you could get rammed.”

She went right on staring at him. Didn’t say a word, didn’t even blink.

“One way or another,” he said, feigning patience, “we’re going to have to get your car off the road. Do you think you can steer if I push?”

Finally, something got through. He let out a gust of relief as she cautiously lowered the purse she’d been holding as if it were part shield, part weapon. “Of course I can steer. Will you use your truck?”

“Probably be the best way,” he said, careful not to sound sarcastic. What did she think he was going to do, break his back trying to shove a ton and a half of junk metal off the road manually? “We’re going to have a problem with the bumpers. I’ll try to go easy, but you might end up with a dent on your rear end.”

As if one more scar on that battered old carcass would make any difference in her blue-book value, which would be about a buck ninety-nine, tops.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Get in, take her out of gear, and once you feel me engage your backside, steer as far over to the right as you can without going off onto the shoulder. You can’t see it now, but there’s about three feet of paved bicycle path underneath the sand. Try your best to stay on it, okay?”

She nodded, but didn’t make a move. Trav shrugged, stepped past her to open the door. Once she got in, he scooped the long, flapping tail of her wet coat out of the way and slammed the door shut.

Cashmere, he thought. He was no expert, but he’d lay odds the coat she was wearing was cashmere. He hoped to hell it was warmer than it looked. The temperature was in the high thirties, but with the rain and the wind-chill factor, it must be somewhere near zilch.

His bumper made contact about halfway up her trunk. It was going to do some damage, but a car coming over the dune at high speed would do considerably more. Even if he got her off the road, there was no guarantee her car would be here by the time a tow truck could get up the beach, what with the wind, the tide and the drifting sand.

Gently he pushed the elderly, banana-colored four-door far enough over to the edge that another vehicle could pass. He waited, and when the woman didn’t climb out again he went and opened her door. “Ma’am, you can’t stay here. Tide’s on the way in. With the wind out of the northeast, I can’t let you risk it. I’ll drive you wherever you’re headed and call the garage for your car.”

Not that he held out much hope of getting a tow truck out before morning, but if he was any judge, the sooner she reached her destination, got out of those wet clothes and into something warm and dry, the better off she’d be, he thought as he helped her into his passenger seat.

Unless he was very much mistaken, she was one sick puppy. She kept swallowing. From the way she winced, Trav figured it was a pretty painful process.

Tooling south along the narrow stretch of beach, he shot her a worried glance from time to time. There wasn’t enough light to take in many details, but he didn’t need to. Having recently retired after a twenty-year career, he had filed his last report. Still, some habits were hard to break, so he mentally filed away a few particulars.

Age? Probably somewhere between thirty-five and forty-five. Eyes, gray. Or possibly a dull shade of blue or green—it was hard to tell in this light. Definitely redrimmed, though. As for her nose, it was short, straight, narrow, red and shiny. Prominent cheekbones, but that might be just the shadowy hollows underneath.

She was thin. Skinny, in fact. He was no expert on the female form, but she reminded him of the way a high-fashion model might look after a weeklong binge of dieting.

He had a feeling there was more to her story than that.

He also had a feeling he didn’t want to hear it.

Trav was Coast Guard. Retirement couldn’t change a lifetime of tradition, not to mention conditioning. If he came across someone who needed rescuing, he did the job. But that didn’t mean he had to take on their personal problems. He had enough of those himself.

“Where’re you headed?” She must be a local. This time of year, tourists were a rare species. Or in this case, an endangered species.

She named a restaurant in Hatteras village on the far end of the island. He’d never eaten there, but he’d heard it was pretty good.

“I’m not sure,” he said cautiously, “but I think it might be shut down for the winter.”

“I’ve been offered a job there.”

A job. Right. He didn’t know who she was, much less what she was doing here, but he did know that waitresses didn’t usually turn up out of season wearing cashmere coats, looking feverish and hungry and lost. “You’re sure about that? Not much business down here this time of year.”

“Just take me there. If it’s not out of the way. Please.”

Oh, hell. If he had good sense he’d drop her off at the doctor’s office—only the island’s doctor was down with the flu, as he’d found out yesterday when he’d driven an elderly neighbor to his office for a routine checkup.

“Who’s your contact at the restaurant?” From the look she gave him, he might as well have been speaking Mandarin. “I mean, who hired you? Are they expecting you? I can give ’em a call.”

She was hoarse. What he’d taken as a soft, sexy drawl sounded painful to him now that he’d had time to size her up better. She had one hell of a cold, if that’s all it was.

He’d better hope that’s all it was. He’d put off having a flu shot this year until he figured it was too late to do any good. The last thing he needed now was one more hitch in his plans.

She pulled an address book from her purse and read off a number. He punched it in his cell phone, and they both heard the message on the other end. “Sorry, we’re closed for the season. See you in April.”

“Oh,” she said plaintively, and he resisted the urge to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. These days, a man couldn’t be too careful. She thumbed through her book. “Could you try this number?”

He tried it, only to be rewarded with another recording. An irritatingly cheerful woman’s voice came on with, “Leave a message, hon—I’ll get back to you sooner or later. Surf’s up.”

Yeah, sure it was. God, he hated flippant messages.

By then they’d entered Buxton village and were within a quarter of a mile of his house. The last thing he wanted was to take her home with him. His house wasn’t even finished, much less furnished. He’d been more or less camping out there while he put up paneling in what would be Matthew’s room once he could get his ex-wife to let the boy come east.

The lady was shivering again. He had his heater cranked up to the max. He’d already shed his coat, and sweat was trickling down his throat, but he’d figured she’d be chilled—what with the wet clothes and all. No telling how long she’d been standing out in the rain, beating a dead horse.

Or in this case, a dead sedan.

“Look, I’m going to take you to my house until we can track down your friend, okay? By the way, my name’s Travis Holiday.” She looked at him dully, so he tacked on a few credentials, figuring it might reassure her. “Lieutenant Commander, retired, U.S. Coast Guard. Uh...I could call somebody to stay with you if it would make you feel more comfortable ”

Right His nearest neighbor was Miss Cal, who was arthritic, pushing ninety and had a tongue like a whipsaw. Except for a stone-deaf sheepdog named Skye and a few yard chickens, she lived alone.

He didn’t think either Skye or his mistress were going to be much help in this situation.

“Do you have any aspirin?” the woman croaked.

Aspirin. He had a feeling she needed more than that. Like maybe a full brain transplant. “Yeah, sure—at home. I’ll make you something hot to drink when we get there, and then we’ll try again to contact your friend ”

Ruanna had probably felt worse, but at the moment she couldn’t remember when. She’d been driving since yesterday, feeling sicker with every mile. If she could have afforded a longer stay in the cheap motel where she’d spent last night, she’d have slept until she either recovered—or didn’t. The alternative had been to get to Moselle’s place before she collapsed, only her car had collapsed first.

Once she’d crossed Oregon Inlet, traffic had all but disappeared. Even before that she’d begun to suspect that whatever bug she’d picked up, her car had caught it, too, but by then there was nothing to do but keep going, hoping they’d both last a few more miles.

She’d filled up the tank in Manteo. Not even her old guzzler could guzzle that fast, but when it had started to cough in a way that suggested it wasn’t getting enough fuel, she’d slowed down and watched for a service station. The first two stations she’d passed had been closed, and she’d foolishly gambled on making it to the next village.

And then her car had coughed twice and died, right there in the middle of the highway. With the wind howling and the mixture of rain and sand beating against her, she hadn’t even heard the truck approach. By the time Sir Galahad of the gray hair and the granite jaw had loomed up beside her, it was all she could do not to hurl herself into his arms and bawl her eyes out.

Which was so totally out of character she knew she must be even sicker than she’d thought. Every bone in her body ached, including her head. Her throat was so sore she could hardly swallow, and her legs felt about as sturdy as wet linguini. All that on top of a whole mountain range of stress and desperation, and it was no wonder she was irrational. A rational woman would have given up long ago.

He was taking her home with him. She didn’t know him from Adam, yet she’d meekly crawled up onto his horse and galloped off into the sunset, bound for heaven only knew where. Or what.

Ru, even more than most people, had reason to be wary of strangers. By tomorrow her sense of survival would probably have resurfaced, but at the moment she was simply too tired, too discouraged and too utterly miserable to care.

They turned off the highway and followed a crooked sand road. Headlights picked out moss-hung live oaks and ghostly dead pines and glints of water. The house, when they finally reached it, was no more inspired than the landscaping. Of the shoebox school of architecture, it sat on a row of naked posts along a low ridge. There was no welcoming light in the window, no smoke from a chimney. The place looked bleak and deserted.

Oh, Lordy, what have I got myself into now?

Ru thought fleetingly of the house where she’d spent half her life. Two sprawling stories of whitewashed brick, set off with magnolias, camellias and banks of azaleas. There was a paved circular drive where Colley, the butler, had taught her to rollerskate and nde a bicycle.

The apartment she’d left the day before yesterday consisted of two furnished rooms, complete with mice and cockroaches. Come to think of it, a shoebox perched on a row of naked pilings looked pretty good, even without a lamp in the window and a roaring fire on the hearth. As long as there was a spare bed inside.

“I’ll bring in your suitcase so you can change into dry clothes.”

Her suitcase. She had three more, plus several boxes, a few framed pictures and two file drawers she’d as soon see consigned to the bottom of the ocean. They were all in the trunk of her car.

“Thank you,” she rasped, trying to remember what was in her carry-on bag besides shoes. Nothing of value. She’d become so paranoid she wouldn’t dream of leaving anything valuable where it could be seen and stolen, which was why she’d crammed all but the smallest bag into the trunk of her car. And forgotten it.

“I’ll deal with your car later, but right now we’d better get you into something warm and dry. I’ll make us a pot of coffee—I think I might even have a can or two of soup. Bathroom’s through there. Help yourself to anything you need.”

She nodded. Even that small exertion was too much. Aspirin, a bed and a dozen blankets, that was what she needed. That and a functioning brain.

“I didn’t catch your name.” Her host glanced at her expectantly.

It didn’t matter, Ru told herself. He couldn’t be the one. She’d left all that business behind. Once when Ruanna’s father, an ardent sports fisherman, had wanted to buy a place out here on the Outer Banks, her mother had described it as the ends of the earth.

The ends of the earth had sounded like Heaven. Or at least a haven.

“It’s Ru,” she said, sounding more like a bullfrog than ever.

“Beg pardon?”

“Ru. Short for Ruanna.” She’d been named for her two grandmothers, Ruth and Anna, but the less he knew about her, the safer she would feel.

“Ru. Right. Well, Ru, like I said, the bathroom’s that way, there’s aspirin in the medicine cabinet and plenty of hot water if you want a bath. What I mean is—well, you’re bound to be cold, and a hot bath might be the quickest way to warm you up again. I’ll heat us some soup.”

She didn’t look much better, Trav concluded some twenty minutes later. She was wearing the same clothes, but different shoes. At least her feet and her hair were dry. Her hair, straight, thick and shoulder length, was some smoky color that wasn’t exactly brown and wasn’t exactly blond. At least she was no longer shivering.

“Find the aspirin?”

“Yes, thanks,” she croaked. “Sorry to be such a nuisance.”

“No problem,” he said as he dished up two bowls of vegetable soup and dug out a tube of saltines. “A bad cold’s nothing to sneeze at.”

Trav waited as she stared at him for about six seconds, and then she groaned. Either her health had taken a sudden turn for the worse or she had a low tolerance for bad puns.

Over the light supper he had a chance to study her. She was younger than he’d first thought. He’d been right about her eyes, though. They were gray, with a hint of green, like Spanish moss after a rain.

He had a funny feeling those clear eyes of hers weren’t quite as transparent as they looked, though. He could read her only up to a point. Enough to know she was hurting. Enough to know she was scared. Enough to know she was hiding something, but as to what it was, he didn’t even want to know.

He did know she was wilting fast. Probably used the last of her strength beating the hell out of her old clunker—for all the good it had done.

“By the way, I called the garage. They can’t get to your car until morning. Washout just below Frisco has everything south of here blocked, and there’s a cut just north of where we left her that’s blocking traffic until they can get a road plow in.”

“Her?”

“Your, uh—car?”

“Oh. That her.” She nodded and winced, as if even that small action put a drain on her resources.

“I’m not sure how much you know about the lay of the land, but Frisco’s the village just south of where we are now. Hatteras is the next one down the line,” he explained. “Technically it’s more west than south, but most people think north and south when they picture the Banks.”

She nodded again, but he could tell he wasn’t getting through. In fact she looked just about ready to fall face first into her soup bowl.

“Ma’am—Ru—why not turn in? They say sleep’s the best medicine for a cold. While you’re sacked out I’ll go retrieve whatever else you need from your car. With my four-wheel-drive, I ought to be able to get through.”

While he was at it, he’d clean the thing out in case it didn’t make it through the night. It wouldn’t be the first time a vehicle had disappeared without a trace.

“Keys in my purse,” she said, her voice momentarily improved by the hot soup and coffee. “May I try to call Moselle again?”

“Be my guest.” He didn’t think much of her chances. Even if she made contact, it wasn’t going to do her much good with the road washed out.

She stood and gathered up her bowl and cup, looking lost and helpless. Against every grain of common sense he possessed, Trav found himself wanting to take them out of her hands, wanting to take her in his arms and promise her that everything would be all right. He held back, partly because he was in no position to promise her anything, partly because, like every other serviceman, he’d been trained to avoid anything that could possibly be construed as sexual harassment.

But mostly because the temptation to hold her, to reach out to her, was so strong. He didn’t trust his instincts where women were concerned.

He looked her over and reached the conclusion that she was a lot stronger than she looked, despite appearances. There might be shadows under her eyes and a droop to her pale lips, but somewhere underneath that fragile exterior he had a feeling there was a solid core of steel.

“I think you’d better hit the sack, ma’am. I changed the sheets this morning. If you need more covers, look in the locker at the foot of the bed.”

Personally, he liked to sleep with the windows open year round. Under the circumstances that might not be a good idea.

For the next two days Trav found himself playing reluctant host to a stubborn, close-mouthed, suspicious woman in a small, bare house with only one finished bedroom and a few mismatched pieces of furniture. It was not a comfortable situation, but he didn’t see what choice he had. If his guest had a single social grace, she must have left it hidden under the floormat of her car, which by now was probably buried under a few tons of sand and salt water.

At last report, one tow truck was stuck in the washout south of Frisco, another one had been caught on the wrong side of the S-curve, north of Chicamacomico until the road crews could scrape the highway. And that would take a while because a section of the Oregon Inlet bridge, which had been damaged and rebuilt a few years ago after a barge slammed into it in a storm, was showing signs of sinking again. Heavy equipment was being held back until they could get a ferry up and running.

Life on the Outer Banks wasn’t always easy, but of all the places Trav had been stationed in his twenty-year career—Alaska, Hawaii, Connecticut, the U.S. Virgin Islands, not to mention all the places he’d lived as a kid, following his old man—he’d never found one that suited him better.

Mostly the woman, whose full name was Ruanna Roberts according to the registration on her car, slept. It was just as well. Trav had things to do, and he didn’t need any more delays.

He stopped by the exchange and picked up extra milk, extra coffee, a few more cans of soup and a supply of aspirin, just in case. While he was out he bought some groceries for Miss Cal, fed her chickens and walked her dog. After listening to her comments, mostly unflattering, about the government, old bones and cable TV, he loaded her porch with firewood and drove home.

Ru was still sleeping, but the coffeepot he’d left half-full was empty and unplugged. Evidently she hadn’t slept all day. It felt odd, having someone else in the house. Not necessarily bad, just odd.

Get used to it, Holiday. With any luck at all, you’ll be sharing quarters on a permanent basis.

Feeling a familiar tug of emotion, he put through another call, reached Sharon, took a deep, steadying breath and asked to speak to his son.

“Matt’s in school.”

He’d forgotten the time difference. There was a long silence, and then, “How come whenever I call, he’s never available. If it’s not school it’s soccer practice. If it’s not that, he’s sleeping over with a friend. Give me a break, Sharon. He’s my son, dammit.”

“I see you haven’t changed. If you don’t get your way, you resort to swearing. Maybe it’s better if I don’t let you meet him at all. I don’t think you’d be a very good influence.”

“Oh, and I suppose Saint Andrew is a great influence,” he jeered. Trav had never even met the man. For all he knew, Andrew Rollins was an ideal role model, but dammit, Matthew was his son, not Rollins’s. Trav had never even spoken to the boy, much less seen him. He still found it hard to believe that for the past twelve years he’d had a son, and until eleven months ago he hadn’t even known about him.

Damned if he wasn’t tempted to threaten her again with a lawyer, but if he knew Sharon—and he did, having been married to her for a few miserable years a long time ago—that would only get her back up. As she’d been quick to point out the first time he’d mentioned joint custody, the law would side with her. At the time he’d been a bachelor living in rented rooms, and she was able to provide a home and a stable family. “Three guesses which side social services will come down on,” she’d taunted.

Trav had bitten his tongue and reminded himself that she’d been the one to get in touch with him after all this time, to tell him he had a son. She’d hardly have done that if she meant to keep them apart.

Trav had never claimed to be a family man. What he was, was a duty-bound, by-the-books career serviceman. He’d been called a loner. If so, it was only because he didn’t know how to be anything else. He was no better at relationships than his own father had been, as Sharon had pointed out more than a few times. But sixteen years ago, head over heels in lust, if not in love, he’d been willing to learn.