Buch lesen: «The Baby Bargain»

CHAPTER ONE

A YEAR AGO TODAY, St. Patrick’s Day, he and his dad had sat here in this booth, eating bacon cheeseburgers. Guys’ Night Out, his dad had called it, and he’d ordered the jumbo basket of onion rings, then winked at Sean, both of them knowing that if they’d brought Dana along, she would have fussed about too much grease and cholesterol.

That was the last meal they’d ever shared. Sean had slept over in town that night with the Wilsons, though he’d protested that he was old enough to stay by himself out at the Ribbon R for a three-day weekend. “Or you could take me with you,” he’d pleaded, not for the first time. “It’s not like missing one crummy Friday is going to hurt my grades.” He’d been a straight-A student last year in ninth grade, when things like that mattered. Seemed to matter.

If you’d taken me along…He’d never have let it happen. Somehow Sean felt that if he’d been with them, he’d have known not to cross that hillside. Or if it had happened—the avalanche—he’d never have quit—never, ever, never—till he found his dad and dug him free. Not like Dana, who hadn’t dug deep enough, fast enough, long enough. Stupid, gutless Dana, who quit and skiied off for the help that came too late.

Quitter. Anger felt like a lump of smoldering charcoal in his stomach, gray-white dust over a ruby center. He picked up his glass of soda and took a tiny sip—had to make it last—then jumped as Judy, the night waitress at Moe’s Truckstop, loomed up behind him.

“Here, you’re done with that, kiddo.” She reached for his plate, which still held a curl of limp lettuce and a slice of tomato.

“Am not!” He caught hold of it and glared up at her. He didn’t have enough money to order anything else, but he was darned if he’d leave yet. The Ribbon R was nothing but an aching and an emptiness. Nobody but Dana and her loudmouth baby waiting there for him.

“Suit yourself.” Judy shrugged and turned to welcome the group coming through the arch from the front room—the convenience store Moe ran—of the truck stop. “Sit anywhere you like,” she called, and headed toward the counter where she kept the menus.

Kids from school, Sean realized, watching them as they chose the big circular booth on the far side of the café. Seniors. They didn’t spare him a glance. The biggest guy, a football jock, maneuvered his date with a possessive hand at the small of her slender back.

The skin on Sean’s palm tingled as if it slid across silk. He curled his fingers hard around the feeling, making a fist, as the jock’s date smiled up at him and edged into the booth. She wore a long, slinky yellow dress, with a dyed green carnation pinned between her breasts. Sean swallowed with an audible gulp, wondering if she had let the jock pin it on her—the lucky stiff—then jumped as the three boys at the table swung their heads to fix him with cold, unblinking stares.

Caught me looking. Wishing. He turned back to his plate and hunched his shoulders. With the girls’ giggles sounding like sleigh bells behind him, he felt his face grow hot, then hotter. Frantically he grabbed his drink and rubbed the misty glass across his cheek. Oh, no, was the back of his neck turning red?

“California,” one of the guys jeered, not bothering to lower his voice.

Almost a curse word, Sean had learned since he’d moved here from San Diego two years ago. Coloradans thought Californians were buying up every last acre of their lousy state that the Texans hadn’t already grabbed. Though who in his right mind would want it? If I had my way, I’d go back to San Diego in a heartbeat. He would, too, any day now, as soon as his mother felt well enough to take him. A wave of emotion swept through him, like a black hole yawning wide; greasy slopes led down into his own private darkness. He closed his eyes tight and waited for the feeling to pass.

“Sean?” Judy patted his shoulder. “Your mama’s on the phone.” She nodded toward the corridor that led to the rest rooms and the pay phone.

“My—” Hope flew up like a startled bird—then fell as he realized. “My stepmother, you mean.”

“That nice, nice lady named Dana, who your daddy liked enough to marry—yep, that one. She wants you.”

“Tell her I’m not here,” he blurted desperately.

“Ha! I’m not your press secretary, Mr. President. Tell her yourself.”

He kept his eyes on his sneakers as he casually crossed the room, but he stole a glance over his shoulder as he reached the hallway.

The three girls in the booth were all primped up, wearing fancy dresses in bright colors. The St. Patrick’s Day dance was tonight, he remembered. Another reason he’d felt blue today. I wonder if I’ll ever have a date. The few friends he’d made in his first year at the high school he’d lost, because he just couldn’t make himself care. The only girl he really talked to was Zoe, but she was a senior and his boss on the yearbook. The head editor. Nobody a sophomore could ever date.

The receiver of the wall-mounted pay phone dangled at knee level. He sighed and picked it up. “’Lo.”

“Sean?” Dana’s low voice hummed with tension.

“Yeah.” He should have just hung up on her. He sighed again and swung around to slouch against the rough plaster.

“You…didn’t come home.”

Yeah, no fooling, Sherlock. He didn’t say anything.

“Did you miss your bus?”

I gave it a miss, right. If there was one day of the year he couldn’t stand the sight of Dana…that he needed to spend by himself, this was it. Crappy St. Patrick’s Day. “Looks like it, doesn’t it.”

He heard her sigh down the telephone line. “I can’t pick you up, Sean. We have guests tonight—for the whole week—skiers. I’m just about to put supper on the table.”

“Doesn’t matter.” In San Diego he could have taken a cab home, the way his mother always did when she’d partied too much. In Trueheart, Colorado, it’d be easier to catch a coyote and ride it home. Or hitch. “I’ll manage.”

“Judy gets off work at ten. She said she’d be happy to give you a ride.”

No way. He’d rather walk ten miles in the snow and slush than listen to one of Judy’s pull-up-your-socks pep talks. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll manage.”

“Sean, honey, please. Come home. I know what you’re—”

“No. You don’t.” He replaced the receiver on its hook with stony deliberation—it was that or smash it against the phone, then keep on smashing till he held nothing but splinters. No, you don’t. He was standing, staring at his fingers curled around the black plastic, when an icy draft brushed his cheek.

Someone coming through the fire exit at the end of the hallway, he saw from the corner of his eye. She slammed the door behind her and stood panting, one hand pressed to her throat—long, tall Zoe Montana, reminding him of a Christmas tree with her shiny green dress and her carrot-red hair. He felt better already, just looking at her.

“Oh, rats!” she said. Her fine, goldy-red eyebrows drew into a scowl. “You didn’t see me.”

“I didn’t?” She was hard to miss. She was taller than his five foot six-and-a-half inches by several more, though he was all muscle while she was all freckly skin and bones—most of that leg, like one of those big wading birds. A stork on fire, the captain of the football team had called her once in the cafeteria, and everybody had laughed.

She let out a long-suffering sigh, the way she did when one of the airheads on the yearbook staff failed to meet a section deadline, and hooked a thumb at the door to the ladies’. “Is anybody in there?”

“Uh, don’t think so.”

“Thank God.” She slipped around the door and vanished.

Sean crossed his arms, leaned back against the wall and waited. Zoe Montana was maybe the only person in True-heart worth talking to.

She came out a few minutes later, looking less wild eyed. More like the yearbook editor about to give her most junior photographer a shooting assignment. But then, Zoe’s assignments were always interesting. She was the smartest girl—the smartest person—in their whole regional high school, and that probably included the teachers.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. And in a long, silky dress. She always wore slacks or jeans to school, with bulky sweaters and funky lace-up knee boots. Or clunky Steve Maddens, which raised her height to over six feet, when she was in a mood to kick butt. Idly he lifted his fingers, shaping a square to frame her, and wished he had his camera. It was the first time he’d ever realized Zoe was more than funny looking. Snckk. He took a mental photograph.

“Is there anybody out there?” Zoe nodded toward the café. “Anybody from school, I mean?”

“Some jocks and jock-bunnies, eating supper before the dance.” The dance that Zoe must be going to, also, Sean realized with quickening interest. He didn’t know she had a boyfriend. Who would be sharp enough to keep up with her?

“Shoot. I’m dying for a cup of coffee.” She sagged back against the opposite wall.

“Then come have one with me.” He was astonished at his own daring—then his heart sank as he remembered. Crap! He had less than a dollar left.

“Thanks, but…” She shook her head. “I’m not in the mood for company.” Her eyes sharpened on his face. “I mean the kind of company in there.” She crossed her forefingers between them. “No clowns tonight. Not one more.”

“Oh.” He had clowning down to an art form, but he didn’t think she meant him. Still, Sean felt like a bozo, with nothing more to say. “I guess you’re going to the dance?” He threw out the question at random.

“I guess I’m not.”

“But you’re all…” He waved his hand, taking in her finery. She even had boobs, he realized, stealing a peek at the gap between the long lapels of the coat that matched her party dress. Not honkers, but somehow right for Zoe. Her clothes had always disguised them before.

“The creep stood me up—okay?” she said between clenched teeth.

“Or maybe he had car trouble,” Sean suggested, wanting to wipe that look of angry humiliation off her face. She didn’t deserve to be stood up just because she was too tall and too smart for her own good.

“No, I finally called his house. His little brother told me he had a date with Amanda Clayton and that he’d already left.” Zoe stared blankly down at the toes of her green high heels.

Amanda Clayton? A babe, if Sean had ever seen one. Little and brunette and cuddly. And dumb as a post. Her longtime steady had rolled his car after a party last weekend, Sean had heard, and was in the hospital down in Durango with both legs in casts. High school dances were like a game of musical chairs, he’d always thought, and this time poor Zoe was left standing. Stork ablaze. “So why didn’t you just…” Call me? He’d have been happy to help her out.

“Stay home? Right, and tell my dad why? He’d have stomped down to the gym and dragged Bobbie out by his ear. Or maybe shot him. I have enough to live down without that, thank you. So I—” Zoe shrugged and turned toward the fire exit. “I’ve got to go.” She spun back again, tottered on her heels, and braced one long arm out against the wall. “Oh, and Sean, do me a favor? You never saw me.”

She must be just riding around, he realized, killing time till it was safe to go home. “Then how about a favor for a favor?” Her embarrassment made him feel bolder. “Could you give me a ride out to the ranch? There’s no hurry,” he added, as she opened her mouth. “You could drop me at my turnoff out on the highway—any time tonight at all.”

She closed her soft pink lips and cocked her head, studying him. Being Zoe, he knew, she saw more than he wanted to show. He shrugged and held her blue-eyed gaze with an effort.

“Yeah, I could do that,” she said thoughtfully, her eyes turning inward in that look that usually ended in another crazy assignment for him—like the time she’d hidden him in the ceiling above the teachers’ lounge to take candid photos. “I’d be happy to.”

TWO HOURS OF CRUISING around in Zoe’s baby-blue antique Mustang. Sean had held his breath when they drove past the small sign out on the highway that said Ribbon River Dude Ranch, 4 miles, Guests Welcome, but Zoe had given him a sideways smile and had kept on driving. All the way to Cortez, where they bought hamburgers and French fries—Zoe’s treat—at the drive-through window in the McDonald’s. They ate in the parking lot while they punched the buttons on her car radio, ceaselessly scanning the airwaves for anything but country music. Sean preferred hard rock, golden oldies, songs that reminded him of the West Coast; Zoe liked anything with a Latin sound. Her mother had been Hispanic, Sean remembered her telling him once while they developed film in the school darkroom. That was another thing they shared, besides their impatience with small-town life: they’d both lost a parent; though Zoe’s mom had died ages ago, when she was six.

Driving back, they passed the Ribbon R again. “You don’t want to go home yet,” Zoe said, and it wasn’t quite a question. She drove almost halfway to town, then flipped on her blinker as they neared the turnoff to the private airport that lay a few miles to the south. Sean felt his stomach jump, then swarm with butterflies. Surely she couldn’t mean to—

But she did. Zoe chose the left-hand fork in the road, which wound around the back side of the airport, and stopped at the far end of the north-south runway, where the road skirted the edge of a bluff. She parked facing the dropoff, with the far-off lights of Trueheart twinkling in the thin mountain air like diamonds scattered in the snow. Two other cars were parked at discreet intervals along the overlook. Sean stole a glance at the one on his right, but its windows were too steamed up for him to see anything.

“I come here in summer to watch the planes take off,” Zoe said, ignoring their neighbors. “Did you ever do that? They zoom right overhead. It feels like they’re going to snap off your antenna they fly so low—then whoosh—they’re out there beyond you and gone.”

“Wow.” His throat was too dry, and his mind a blank. What did she want from him?

“I’m going to fly away like that one of these days. Soon. I just got admitted to Harvard—early admission. Did I tell you that?”

She hadn’t, but he’d heard. The whole school had been abuzz with the news last week. Nobody from their school had ever been admitted to Harvard. And Zoe Montana was the baby of her class, a year younger than the next youngest senior—not even seventeen yet, since she’d skipped a grade of school back in elementary.

“That’ll be neat.” For her. For him it meant he’d have zero friends next year, instead of one. “I wish I could fly away.” His mother’s last letter from the health spa had said he should be patient, finish the tenth grade in Colorado. But after that, surely she’d agree that he belonged with her. If he belonged anywhere.

“Yeah,” Zoe murmured without conviction, then said it again, louder and brighter. “Yeah! Boston…Harvard…Everything’s going to be different then. Better.”

He glanced at her, surprised. What was wrong with her life now? She had an overdose of brains. A grudging respect in the school, if not popularity. A rich rancher daddy who loved her—he must love her to have given her this wonderful car. And she was escaping Southwest Colorado, going off to the real world where exciting things happened. She was practically grown up, practically free, while he—he was trapped here in Nowhere City. Trapped by his own age—couldn’t drive, couldn’t drink, couldn’t vote, couldn’t hold a real job. Couldn’t choose with whom he wanted to live. His dad had appointed Dana his guardian, and had never once asked Sean what he thought about that.

“Oh, rats, rats, rats!” Zoe started the Mustang, reversed it hastily onto the road, then popped it into forward gear. The tires slipped on an icy rut, then caught, and they zoomed off around the perimeter road.

“Hey, your headlights!” Sean reached for the switch, and she batted his hand aside.

“Uh-uh! Look behind you.”

Sean turned—to see that a car had stopped behind the first car back at the bluff. A spotlight switched on, illuminating the luckless couple twined together in the backseat. “The sheriff!”

“Nosy Noonan. And he’s a friend of my dad’s.” Zoe passed the first hangar and hung a hard right, driving along the far side of the building toward the airfield, then tucked her Mustang in neatly ahead of a pickup truck set up as a snowplow.

The giant curved blade blocked Sean’s view of the road entirely, provided perfect cover. “Whew!” She was clever.

“Get down, get down!” she cried in a giggling frenzy. “If he shines his light…!” She leaned sideways toward him over the gearshift, her frizzy hair brushing his knees. Sean laughed and hunched down over her, his chest pressed against her quivering shoulder. He stayed there that way, in a state of total bliss, long after the sheriff’s car had cruised past. Her shampoo smelled of lemon and a spice Dana used sometimes in her cooking; rosemary, that was it. Something soft was touching his thigh, and he thought—hoped—prayed—it was her breast.

“Is it safe to come out?” she asked finally in a muffled voice.

“I think…” Except he wasn’t. He was absorbed totally in feeling all the wonderful sensations of a warm girl sprawled across his lap. Zoe. Her giggles made her seem younger, more his own age than an impossible two years older.

She jabbed an elbow gently into his ribs, and he had to sit up. Curling one hand around his thigh just above his knee, she pushed herself upright—then slowly turned her head to look at him over her right shoulder. Their lips were only inches apart.

Every muscle in his legs tensed and hardened. Heat pooled in his lap. Oh, Zoe!

She pulled completely away from him and sat, clutching her steering wheel, staring out through the windshield.

He counted his own heartbeats, dizzy from the lack of blood in his head. What do you want from me, Zoe Montana? Anything, anything at all that she wanted, he’d give—and give gladly.

“Want to see a special place?” she said finally, not looking at him, her voice sounding funny. “My special place?”

TEN MINUTES LATER they sat in the cockpit of a wrecked Cessna, which was parked on the far side of the hangar. Zoe had claimed the pilot’s seat, which to Sean seemed only fitting. She could take him anywhere she wanted tonight.

They even had supplies for their journey. Zoe had pulled two down sleeping bags, and a sack that contained water and granola bars, from the trunk of her car—part of a safety kit her father made her carry in winter, in case she ever was caught out in a blizzard.

“I found this last fall.” Zoe stroked the Cessna’s steering yoke. “Some elk hunter flipped it coming in for a landing. He walked away and swore he’d never fly again. Something’s twisted in the frame. Luke, the mechanic here, bought it cheap from the insurance company. Said he’s going to fix it one of these days. But meanwhile she just sits here, all lonely.”

“Cool.” In every sense of the word. Huddled in his ski jacket, Sean was starting to shiver, partly from the cold, partly from excitement.

“I’m going to be a pilot someday,” Zoe said dreamily. “Dad promised he’d pay for my flying lessons when I graduate from college.”

And his dad had promised that when Sean graduated from high school, he’d give Sean a motorcycle, an old Harley he could fix up himself. That they’d ride together all the way up to Alaska, then back again, the summer after his senior year. Dreams…so fragile that a mound of moving snow could crush them. The snowbound runway beyond the windshield shimmered, then blurred, and Sean blinked frantically. “So tell me about college, what that’ll be like.”

“College…” She tipped back her head and stared up at the dented ceiling. “It’s going to be…different. Very, very…different.”

“Different how?”

She turned to fix him with her wide, light eyes, and was quiet so long that he wondered if he’d said something really stupid. “I’m freezing,” she said at last. “Want to get into the bags?”

They zipped themselves into the puffy down bags and sat shoulder to shoulder in the wide, flat space in the rear that once must have held passenger seats.

“Much better,” Zoe murmured, leaning against him. She sighed contentedly. “Mmm…how will college be different? Well, for starters, nobody’s going to call me a brain, or a grind or a teacher’s pet at Harvard. I won’t be a freak. I’ll be normal.”

Just as he had been a normal kid, back in San Diego, before Dana married his dad and lured them off to Colorado. “That’s good.”

“Yeah…and maybe I’ll throw all my clothes away and start over. No more thumbing my nose at the cowgirls and the cheerleaders. I want a whole new image—sleek, elegant, sophisticated. I’m going to scout the campus for a day or two when I get there. Before I check in. See what everybody’s wearing…”

He was so used to Zoe’s rebel tomboy looks that it was hard picturing her dressing to blend in, but Sean knew what she meant. You got tired of fighting, but what else could you do? Once they had you pigeonholed, they’d laugh at you even harder if you tried to change. If he broke down and bought a Stetson and boots like the cow-patty crowd wore, that wouldn’t get him accepted now. They’d brand him as a phony—and a coward.

“And maybe I’ll switch to using my middle name. Elena.” She gave it the Spanish pronunciation, making it sound rich and exotic.

I’d miss “Zoe.” But he nodded gravely. A fresh start; it was what he wanted, too. “Elena—it’s pretty.”

“And…” She tipped her head down to rest it against his shoulder. “Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

“I swear.” He drew a shaky breath and, holding it, put his arm around the soft, puffy expanse of her waist. When she didn’t stiffen, didn’t pull away—actually seemed to settle a little closer against him—he felt as if the Cessna had taken off. He was floating, flying…“I swear I won’t.”

“I’m thinking of dyeing my hair. Black. Or maybe an auburn so dark it’s practically black.”

He loved her crazy red hair, loved the fact that, in her own way, she was a freak like him, a fish in the wrong pond. Even holding her, he felt a wave of loneliness wash over him. She was soaring away, off to somewhere she’d fit in, while he—

“You think that’s crazy?” Zoe demanded in a tiny, dubious voice.

While he—he was her friend. Here to back her up, even when she was crazy—and dyeing her fire-engine-red curls was the worst kind of crazy crime. “No…No, I don’t think so. I think you’d look wonderful with black hair,” he lied. “Or maybe…um…auburn? That might be an even better idea.” At least, less of a crime.

“Good!” she laughed delightedly. “I’m so glad you think so!” Somehow she’d slipped down to half-lie across his lap—the nylon bags were slippery. She squirmed around to rest her head across his thighs, smiling up at him. “And that brings me to one last little thing I mean to change.”

He stared down at her, helplessly, hopelessly enthralled. “W-what?”

“I thought maybe you could help me with this…” She stared up at him, smiling no longer, then reached up to finger the collar of his jacket. “You see…the problem is…I’m still a virgin.”