Married in Haste Page 3

  “Tell me,” he commanded.

  She narrowed her eyes like the villain in some old-time Western movie. “You will never tell anyone. Ever.”

  “Absolutely. Never. You have my word.”

  “Nobody else knows. Except Glory, I did tell her. And my mother suspects—I mean, that something bad went on. But I don’t want it all over town. I truly do not.”

  He put up a hand, like a witness swearing an oath. “What happens at this table, stays at this table.” Still, she hesitated. “Angie. Come on.”

  She grumbled, “Mine’s worse than yours….”

  “Impossible.”

  “God. You’ll probably fire me when I tell you. You shouldn’t have someone so stupid working for you. I’m not kidding. I was the pinnacle. The queen. The empress of stupid.”

  “I’m not going to fire you. Talk.”

  “Oh, God…”

  “Talk.”

  “Six months ago, in San Francisco?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I fell and I fell hard for a really, really bad guy—I mean, we say how bad Buck used be. We shake our heads over Bowie. But there was never any doubt that both of them are good men, with good hearts, deep down. You know?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “Oh, Brett. It was pitiful. I was pitiful. His name was Jody Sykes. He had muscles on his muscles and he drove this mean black Harley and when I’d hear the rumble of that big, ol’ engine pulling up outside my apartment…”

  Brett got the picture. “Hot and heavy, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah. Hot and heavy. I would go up in flames every time he got near me. My girlfriends all warned me about him. They could see right through him. They gently reminded me how he was using me, living off me. They patiently pointed out how he’d moved into my apartment, how I paid all the bills and bought all the food, how he didn’t have a job and didn’t look too likely to be getting one anytime soon. A couple of my friends even claimed he’d made passes at them.”

  “And you didn’t believe them?”

  She pressed her lips together, shook her head. “I thought they were just jealous—because Jody was such a prize. I told them they were wrong. That they didn’t understand him. And guess what happened?” She answered her own question. “Well, just what you might think would happen. Three months ago, I came home from pulling a double shift at the hospital to find Jody in my bed—with a very naked blonde.”

  “You kicked him the hell out on the spot, right?”

  “Well, I tried. The blonde, at least, had the consideration to go. She grabbed her clothes and ran. But Jody wouldn’t budge. He sat there, butt-naked in my bed, and called me all kinds of names, said he would leave when he was damn good and ready to go. Things got uglier. I swear, up till then, he’d never hit me. I may be the empress of stupid, but I do have the sense to get out fast if a man raises his hand to me. That was the day I learned that for a guy like Jody, there’s always a first time. I’m not a big shouter, you know that. I was raised with shouters and I always swore I’d never be one. But I did shout that day. I yelled at that S.O.B. to get out of my apartment and out of my life. I yelled—and he hit me. He kept on hitting me.”

  Brett had never been one to settle an issue with his fists. Still, he found himself hoping that someday he might run into Jody Sykes, just for the pleasure of rearranging his face for him. “Sonofa—”

  “Somebody in my building called the cops. Finally they came and took him away. I went down to the police station and pressed assault charges against him. He got bail. And promptly vanished.”

  “Good riddance.”

  “No kidding. I threw all his stuff in the street. I was furious and brokenhearted and black and blue—all at the same time. Worst day of my life. Or so I thought. Until I got that notice from my bank that my checks were bouncing.”

  “The bastard stole your checkbook?”

  “I figure he must have gotten hold of one of my deposit slips. And somehow he’d faked an ID and sent in some woman to pose as me.”

  “Tell me they caught him. Tell me he’s doing some serious hard time.”

  Slowly and sadly, she shook her head. “Not so far.”

  “He took all the money you had?”

  “I had some in savings. He didn’t get that.”

  “Damn it, Angie.” He reached across the table. She put her hand in his. He gave her slender fingers a squeeze. “That’s why you came home?”

  Those slim shoulders drooped. “Yeah. A lot of the reason. San Francisco’s a beautiful city. But Jody kind of ruined it for me. The weeks went by. My bruises healed. I still had some savings, a cute apartment and a real good job with great benefits. But all I could think about was home, you know? About how safe it is here. About how, here in the Flat, something like what Jody did to me would never happen—or if it did, one of my brothers or you or Brand or even Bowie would beat the crap out of that dirty you-know-what before he could get out of town.”

  Brett said, “Beating the crap out of bad guys isn’t really my style—but in this case, I might have to consider making an exception.”

  She made a low sound. “Whatever you did, however you handled it, I know you would have found a way to make it real clear to Jody that he’d better do right by me, or he’d be sorry.”

  “It’s good,” he said. “Good you came home.”

  “Yeah. I know— Oh, Brett, it was terrible.” Shadows stole the light from those soft brown eyes. “He broke my heart, beat me up—and then he ran off with my money. Oh, I’ve learned my lesson. It’s not worth it, to go nuts over some wild man, not even with the great sex thrown in. Like you said. Never again. From now on, I just want a life that’s…”

  He said the word for her. “Normal.”

  She met his eyes. “Normal. Yes. That’s exactly it.”

  Nadine was coming their way. Brett realized he was still holding Angie’s hand across the table. Feeling suddenly sheepish, he let her go.

  “Okay, you two,” Nadine said gruffly. “Closing time.” She gestured at the clock on the wall over the door.

  Damned if wasn’t eleven-thirty. Brett glanced around the dining room. The chairs were up on the tables. All the other customers were gone.

  “Eleven-thirty?” Angie sounded just as surprised as he felt. “It can’t be.”

  Nadine laughed her rough-and-ready laugh. “Well, you two had a lot of years to catch up on.”

  “Yeah, we did.” Angie sent him a conspiratorial glance. “A lot of years…”

  Brett put the money on the table, including a giant-size tip to cover all the hours they’d been sitting there. He helped Angie into her jacket and they went out into the chilly May night.

  Main Street was all but deserted. Across from the Nugget, at the St. Thomas Bar, the lights were still on. Intermittent laughter came to them faintly from behind the bar’s studded double doors. The Victorian-style streetlamps made soft pools of light on the empty street and overhead, the crescent moon seemed to dangle from the brightest star.

  Angie stepped out from under the tin roof that jutted over the sidewalk and into the middle of the deserted street. She tipped her head back to the black, star-thick sky. “Oh, Brett. Look at all those stars. So bright. So thick. You don’t see stars like that in the city.” She put out both arms and she turned in a circle, looking up—at the sky, at the dark shadows of the trees that covered the mountains all around them. When she got back to where she started, facing him again, she sucked in a big breath through her nose. “Mmm. Cedar. And wood smoke. I’ve been missing those smells for years without really even knowing that I did.” She lowered her head and looked at him, white teeth flashing, the shadow of that dimple appearing on her cheek. “Isn’t it funny? How you can miss something and not even realize you do?”

  “Yeah.” He held out his hand to her. “It’s funny how that goes.”

  She hurried back to him. He tucked her fingers into the curve of his elbow and walked her to the intersection of Commerce Lane. From there,
they went their separate ways—Angie to the cottage on the hill behind her mother’s house on Jewel Street, and Brett to his own place, down by the river on Catalpa Way.

  Angie had thought her first day on the job was a busy one.

  The second made the first seem like a walk in the park. It was one thing after another, all day long.

  An old miner who worked a dredge on the river about four miles south of town cut half his foot off chopping wood. His partner brought him in, along with the severed section of foot. Brett patched the old guy up as best he could, put the section of foot on ice and called for the helicopter to get him to the E.R. in Grass Valley.

  Then Alma Sweat up the hill behind the courthouse on Holloway Road had a heart attack. They had to call for the helicopter again.

  Bowie came in, looking like the walking dead, with a gash on his jaw that needed ten stitches. He claimed he’d run into a door.

  They treated two cases of pneumonia, a couple of kids with strep throat, and the whole Winkle family—Nan and George Winkle and their three kids, who were eleven, seven and five. The Winkles all arrived together, groaning and holding their stomachs. The five-year-old walked in the door and promptly vomited. The seven-year-old followed suit. Mina, the clinic receptionist, was not the least amused.

  Brett examined them, one after the other and delivered his diagnosis: food poisoning. He sent the family home with instructions to drink a lot of fluids and take care to replenish their electrolytes. “And call,” he cautioned, “if your symptoms aren’t significantly improved within forty-eight hours.”

  By then, it was lunchtime. Or it would have been. If one of the Jackson kids hadn’t decided to race his bike down Church Street. He ran right into sweet old Sidney Potter, who was huffing her way up the steep street on foot.

  When the dust settled, the Jackson boy and Sidney each had a broken leg. Fortunately, in both cases, they were simple fractures. Brett and Angie were able to set them right there at the clinic.

  And after that?

  More of the same.

  Every time they dared to hope they might get a break, another minor emergency came lurching in the door. At six, an hour later than usual, they closed for the day.

  Mina, with kids at home, couldn’t wait to get out of there. “See you tomorrow,” she called as she rushed out the door.

  Brett turned to Angie. “Dinner?”

  She’d been hoping he might ask. “As long you let me pick up the check.”

  “Done.”

  At the Nugget, the booth they’d sat in the night before was waiting. Okay, it was kind of dumb, but already Angie thought of it as “their” booth.

  They both ordered the roast chicken and cheesy potatoes and they talked. And talked.

  The subject of love and marriage came up again. Angie listened, rapt, as Brett confided, “The whole love and passion and over-the-moon thing. I just don’t trust it. I’ve got a theory about it. Don’t laugh…”

  “I won’t. I swear.”

  “You know last night, when we were talking about how we both wanted things ‘normal’?”

  “Oh, yes. I remember.”

  “Well, I’m thinking that, when you want things normal, that means you can forget about falling in love—and no, I don’t mean you can’t love the one you marry. Love’s important. But the whole ‘falling in love’ thing. Uh-uh. I’d even go so far as to say that a great love—or whatever you want to call it—a wild, crazy, passionate all-consuming love?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It isn’t normal in the least. It’s a…chemical reaction, an imbalance. A dangerous one. Nature’s way of making sure the species continues. When you’re crazy in love, you’re all out of balance. And maybe, if you want a good life, a rational life, well, you just don’t get a great love. I’m thinking I’m okay with that, for myself. I’ve seen great loves crash and burn. Take my mother.” His mother, Chastity Bravo, owned and ran the Sierra Star, a bed-and-breakfast across the Deely Bridge on Commerce Lane. “My mother loved my psycho father with a passion and a dedication that lasted decades.” The story was something of a legend in the Flat, how Chastity had remained true to Blake Bravo, though he was hardly ever around. “He’d been out of her life for almost twenty years when she learned that he was a murderer and a kidnapper. That he’d ‘married’ a lot of other women all over the country and had kids with them, just like he did with her. She almost died when she found out, did you know that?”

  Angie shook head. “Poor Chastity…”

  “She almost died,” he said it again, as if he still couldn’t believe it. “And not because he’d betrayed her and lied to her and walked out on her and never come back. Uh-uh. She almost died of grief because, when she learned all those awful things about him, she also learned that he’d died in an Oklahoma hospital a few months before. That’s what nearly finished her off, finally knowing for certain he was really gone, that there was no chance she’d ever see him again.”

  “Unbelievable,” said Angie.

  “Yeah. Pitiful. That’s crazy love.” He drank from his water glass. “And then there’s the way that Bowie loves Glory. I mean, I do believe that he loves her. Wildly. To distraction and back again. But look at him. What good is a love like that? It’s killing him.”

  “I see your point. I really do.”

  “So this is how I look at it. It’s a trade-off. A wild, crazy, once-in-a-lifetime love. Or a sane life. I’m taking sanity. Hands down.”

  “Oh, me, too.”

  He chuckled, the sound warm and deep. “You’re kidding. You’d rather have sanity than wild, crazy love?”

  “You bet I would. I’m like you, Brett. I’ve seen what a supposed great love can do. There’s Glory and Bowie. And what about my two big sisters? When Trista married Donny, she was so gone on him. She hung on his every word. It was Donny this and Donny that. He was the only man in the world. Now she’s got three girls and Donny’s hardly ever home. They have money problems. Same with Clarice. Her Mike was the great love of her life. Too bad they’re always fighting now.” Angie paused for a bite of cheesy potatoes. “And, well, look at me.” She set her fork down and gestured, both hands out. “I always knew I wouldn’t be like that, like my two big sisters, that I wouldn’t go wild for some hopeless loser. But then along comes Jody with his Harley and his muscles and his bad attitude. And I went wilder than Tris and Risi put together.”

  Brett looked pleased. “You really do get it. You’re with me on this.”

  She squared her shoulders and picked up her fork again. “You bet I am. I’m not going there again. After what happened with Jody, I just want to settle down—if I can find the right guy, I mean. Someone I can count on, someone I’ll be proud to have count on me.”

  Brett said. “Yeah. That’s it. That’s what I want, too.”

  That night ended like the night before—with Nadine shooing them out at closing time. Brett walked Angie to the corner and she went home to the tiny cottage behind her mother’s house, where she slept deep and dreamlessly, feeling safe and truly at home, as she hadn’t since that awful day that Jody Sykes broke her heart and beat her black and blue.

  The next night, it was the same. They closed up the clinic and headed for the Nugget where they talked and talked.

  By Thursday night, it was getting to be a routine.

  Brett said, “I have to tell you. It’s the high point of the day for me. Us. Right here in our booth at the Nugget.”

  She said, “I know exactly what you mean. When we were kids, we never had much to say to each other…”

  “Yeah. I was pretty shy.”

  “Me, too. But now…okay, it’s sappy and I know it. But I feel like I can tell you anything. No subject is off limits. We can hash over whatever needs dealing with at the clinic. I can talk about what I want to do with my life. Whatever. Anything. It’s all wide open, you know?”

  “We can even be quiet together.”

  She nodded, grinning. And they were. Quiet. Neither of th
em said a word for five full minutes. And it was fine. Better than fine. It was comfortable. It was good.

  Friday night, they slid into their usual seats and Nadine ambled over, propped her hip against the end of the booth and kidded, “So, you two, when’s the wedding?”

  It was a moment like the one when Glory’s son was born. Angie looked across at Brett and he looked back at her….

  And she knew they were thinking exactly the same thing.

  He wanted a wife like her; she wanted a husband like him.

  They felt safe with each other; they knew they could count on each other. They were friends from childhood, and over the past week they’d effortlessly become friends again—wait.

  Scratch that.

  They’d become more than friends: they were best friends. They worked together and they liked working together. And after work, well, there they were, sitting across from each other in their favorite booth, talking for hours on end.

  Best of all, what they felt for each other wasn’t in the least wild or crazy or passionate. It was warm and friendly, trusting and good.

  Brett asked her softly, “What do you say? We could go to Reno. Get a license, find a chapel….”

  Angie didn’t have to think twice. “I say yes.”

  He asked, again, carefully, “You’re clear on this? You know what I’m asking you?”

  “I am. And I do.”

  “I’m talking about right now. Tonight.”

  “Yes,” she said once more, feeling strangely calm and utterly sure. “Let’s go for it. Tonight.”

  They rose from the booth in unison.

  “Wait a minute.” Nadine had never sounded quite so stunned. “Is this for real?”

  “Yeah,” said Angie. “It’s for real.”

  “Real as it gets.” Brett got out his wallet and put a twenty on the table.

  “Hey. Thanks.” Nadine grabbed the bill and stuck it in her apron pocket. “And let me be the first to say…congratulations.”

  “We appreciate that.” Brett reached out. Angie twined her fingers with his. Hand-in-hand, they headed for the door.