California Girl Read online

  “Mame, I can’t go without you,” Alys protested her friend’s generosity, although the gleam in Mame’s eye caused her to hesitate. She recognized Mame’s mischief when she saw it, but couldn’t imagine what she was up to. “Maybe we can do it next year. I can cancel the reservations.”

  “Nonsense. I have a copy of the itinerary. I’ll catch up with you. I wouldn’t miss this vacation for the world.” Sitting almost straight up, as if she weren’t attached to half a dozen tubes and wires, Mame waved her thin hand in dismissal.

  “Miss Seagraves, please go on without my aunt,” Elliot said patiently. “I doubt she’ll be able to join you, but there is no reason you shouldn’t go. I’ll see to Mame. She’ll be fine, although that Cadillac has to be a hundred years old,” he warned. “I recommend renting a car.”

  “Beulah has only sixty thousand on her,” Mame protested. “You have the keys, Alys. Go. Enjoy.”

  Gulping, trying to read Mame’s expression, Alys nodded. “I’ll think about it. Mame has my number, Dr . . . ?” Alys stammered, backing toward the door. She knew his name; she just couldn’t seem to grasp anything except “Doc Nice” at the moment.

  “Roth, Elliot Roth,” he finished for her. “I’ll call you if there’s any change. You have a cell phone, don’t you?”

  “I’ll find you!” Mame called cheerfully.

  Watching the fey creature edging toward the door, Elliot recalled reading to his younger brothers from books containing pictures of fairies poised for flight. With her overlong bangs curving into short, dark hair that framed her pointed chin and wide eyes, Alys Seagraves only needed a mushroom to perch on. He had the ridiculous urge to capture her in the palm of his hand and tell her not to go. “You’ll need a cell phone if you’re driving, Miss Seagraves.”

  “Mrs.,” she murmured. “I’ll think about it.”

  She fled. Probably on butterfly wings, Elliot decided.

  “Pretty, isn’t she?” Mame asked with all the innocence of a child with her hand in the cookie jar.

  “Married,” Elliot replied, feeling inexplicably depressed at the thought. It wasn’t as if he had time for a life, much less a wife, so he didn’t know why it mattered. He hadn’t noticed the ring on her finger until her insistence on “Mrs.” had forced him to look.

  “Widowed,” Mame countered with triumph. “Husband died of cancer over a year ago. She’s been grieving too long. She needs this vacation.”

  Widowed? She didn’t look older than Eric, and his youngest brother was still in grad school.

  “She has a thing about doctors and medicines,” Mame continued, waving away his offer of a water glass. “Doesn’t believe in them,” she finished gleefully, watching his reaction.

  Elliot refused to fall for his aunt’s incessant meddling. “Watching the suffering of someone you love can be traumatic,” he said with the dispassion he’d learned to use in med school. “That’s no reason for you to agree with her fears, or to encourage them.”

  “I’m not ill, Elliot,” Mame warned. Her long, thin face resembled his in many ways, but hers could go from laughter to sternness in a blink of an eye, while he’d trained his to composure. “I bet I feel better than you do. Heartburn plaguing you again?”

  “Plaguing” was too mild a word. The burning pain had started with the phone call informing him of Mame’s hospitalization, and her argument now raised the flames to furnace proportions. If he’d been alone, he would have doubled over and groaned. He had regular checkups, so he suspected it was just good old-fashioned stress trying to give birth to an ulcer.

  A good chug of Mylanta would relieve him, but he’d hastily ended his book tour to fly home to St. Louis and broken speed records driving over from the airport rather than hunt down a bottle. “If you’d just behave, I’d be fine,” he gently chided. “Now lie down and rest. I want to talk to your doctor.”

  “Ask the nurse for some Pepto-Bismol,” Mame urged as he lowered the bed. “You ought to carry a bottle.”

  “In my back pocket,” he agreed without cracking a smile.

  She slapped at him the way she always did when he was being smart-mouthed, never hurting but merely warning him that she understood his sarcasm.

  “I love you, Elliot, but you’re a pain in the ass sometimes.”

  “I love you, too, and you’re a pain all the time,” he said with a smile. He didn’t know where he would be without his aunt. He owed her so much, he couldn’t hope to repay her in a thousand lifetimes. Taking care of her was the least he could do.

  She studied him with a stern look that always meant a lecture. “I’ve had a full life to show for my years. What do you have to show for yours?”

  “Three books and a radio program?” he asked teasingly, attempting to defuse the gloom Mame’s topic cast. They’d had this argument before, mostly when he told her that his research might save people from dying, and that’s why he didn’t have time to come to dinner. Or for a visit.

  “Which shows how very little you know about life,” she complained pertly. “If you would quit running away from it, you might find an existence beyond the material.”

  Stubbornly, Elliot refused to discuss life philosophies. “Close your eyes and rest, Mame, and I’ll be right back.”

  “No, you won’t,” she said with more pride than irritation. “They’ll all want to talk with Doc Nice. Go, enjoy, relax a little. You’re too thin. Eat. Have some nice warm milk.”

  Laughing silently at the idea of his rattlebrained aunt telling her health-conscious nephew how to eat, Elliot tucked her in and headed for the nurses’ station.

  He wasn’t running away from anything. Quite the contrary. He fought death every minute of the day. He jogged regularly, followed his own diet advice, and was far healthier than most thirty-five-year old men.

  His father had died at thirty-five. Of a heart attack. While driving with his entire family in the car.

  The pain in Elliot’s chest burned hotter.

  Chapter Two

  “Mame!” Staring through the early autumn twilight at the empty space in the parking lot where his Range Rover had been, Elliot groaned in dismay. Until a minute ago, he’d been grateful his car had been parked at the airport in St. Louis when he ran off the plane to rush down to Springfield to look after Mame.

  He should never have believed even for an instant that his aunt had defiantly gone to visit friends on another floor as he’d assumed when he’d discovered her absence. As the eldest of three orphaned brothers, he’d been the responsible one, the one who’d had to learn and counteract Mame’s unpredictable, often rebellious habits. He just hadn’t thought she’d ever go so far as to risk her life. What in hell was she up to?

  Mame had not only escaped the hospital—she’d stolen his car.

  Resisting pounding his head against a lamppost, he called himself three kinds of fool. Exhaustion was his only excuse. He knew Mame was knowledgeable enough to pull out all her monitor connections without help. He’d been delusional to think she wouldn’t want to worry him by running away—just as she’d accused him of doing, dammit.

  If Mame didn’t want to be found, even the police would have difficulty tracking her. She might be on the flaky side, but she was wilier than a coyote.

  Remembering Mame’s earlier arguments about her travel plans, he kicked himself for not asking for the sprite’s number. He knew why he hadn’t done that. Asking a woman for her number meant interest, and he didn’t have time to keep up his end of even the most meaningless of relationships.

  But if anyone would have a clue of where to find his aunt, he’d bet Mrs. Alys Seagraves would be the one. He only prayed she hadn’t agreed to any of Mame’s half-baked schemes.

  Using his cell phone, he called the New Age school his aunt worked with. Over the years, “Doc Nice” had built a reputation that opened doors. Most of the time, Elliot merely tolerated the recognition, but at moments like this, he welcomed it. Within minutes, he had the phone number of a yoga student named Alys. Wi
th a “y.”

  No one answered when he dialed the number.

  His car and his aunt were gone. So was Alys. They’d left him no choice.

  He called the police.

  * * *

  Sitting on the low roof of the sixties-era ranch-style duplex that had provided her major source of income these last few years, Alys admired the red and gold of the maple leaves at eye level rather than watch the movers below haul the remains of her old life away. The renters on the other side of the house had already moved out. Now it was her turn.

  The place had been mortgaged to the hilt, and the consignment store wouldn’t pay much for her meager belongings. These last eight years of her life had been a roller coaster of highs and lows. She’d had the breath knocked out of her when she’d hit bottom with that last plummet, but it was time to experience the thrills again. No more self-pity. Full speed ahead, into the future. All she had to do was figure out what that future was.

  She couldn’t even plan tomorrow without worrying about Mame.

  Which led directly to thoughts of Mame’s nephew.

  She’d spent these last years in a state of suspended animation. She hadn’t thought any man would ever turn her on again. But Elliot’s obvious concern for Mame stirred more interest than she cared to admit. She wanted to believe Mame’s stories about her nephew’s dedication to healing, but just because a kid doctored hurt birds and dogs didn’t mean he couldn’t be a Type A jerk now.

  The old Alys had an irrational thing for Type A personalities. The person she wanted to be preferred the illusion of Doc Nice. She’d like to think the warm, understanding radio persona would believe his aunt was intelligent enough to make her own decisions. Maybe he would recommend that Mame return to the comfort of her home if all she needed was bed rest and medication. She’d much rather be sitting with Mame at her home right now than sitting up here, wondering what to do next.

  The roof was still warm from the day’s sun, but the fading light had brought an autumn nip to the air. With her toes tucked in the crease between thigh and hip, her palms upturned, she breathed deeply and attempted a meditative trance, but too many images bombarded her, and she lost her center.

  She’d lost her center the day Fred had given up fighting the cancer. She recalled the day with crystal clarity, sitting in the doctor’s waiting room, anxiously awaiting the results of his lab test, praying the drastic radiation and chemo treatment had worked and the cancer was still in remission. She’d just buried her parents. She was still mourning their loss. She couldn’t believe God could be so cruel as to take her husband, too.

  They’d made so many plans for the future, believing the treatment would work. Fred had planned an itinerary for Paris and Rome. He’d wanted to explore the Mayan ruins next, and snorkel in the South Pacific, all the things they hadn’t done because they’d been too busy building careers. They’d even talked of children.

  She desperately wanted him to have all that and more. Sitting in the waiting room, she’d prayed and prayed until tears had run down her cheeks.

  The instant Fred had walked out of the doctor’s office, she’d known her prayers hadn’t been answered.

  “It’s back,” he told her with resignation when she ran to hold his frail hand.

  “We can fight it again,” she assured him. Unable to accept defeat, she whipped out her calendar book to write down the next appointment, even though the days that had once been packed with activities now stretched out without a mark on them. “I heard of a new treatment I can call and find out about.”

  “No.” This time, his voice was flat.

  Fred had been a trial lawyer, with a rich, evocative voice that could sway juries and tempt Satan. She’d heard his voice rage in fury and murmur in love. She’d never heard it go flat.

  “Dr. Thompson has a better suggestion?” she asked hopefully, searching Fred’s beloved face. He had never been a handsome man, but always a compelling one. Today, with his hair thinning from the radiation and his weight down from the chemo, he appeared decades older.

  “No.” Carrying himself as proudly as he could after a year of painful treatments had drained him of every ounce of energy, he walked out without making the next appointment.

  He had never gone back. Rather than repeat the hell he’d been through, he quit, just like that. At first, she had tried to persuade him to travel, in hopes that would improve his frame of mind, but no matter how she tempted him with brochures and plans, he claimed he didn’t have the energy, sank into his pillows, and flipped television channels.

  He’d given up hope. She hadn’t. Where there was love, there was always hope. She understood his reluctance to return to the indignity of the hospital and their painful treatments, but she was incapable of giving up on the man she loved with all her heart. So, she’d searched the Internet for alternatives, combed the library, looked for every available cure that might appeal to him, offering each with such hope in her heart that it should have cured him with the power of her love.

  Fred had humored her by taking herbs and letting her bring in spiritual healers, who promised to open his mind and improve his mood. Books swore that laughter made the best medicine. She would have hired clowns if he’d let her. On the days she made him laugh and he could sit up like his old self, she’d be certain her positive thinking was helping. And then the next day, he’d be back in bed, refusing to go to the hospital.

  Her hopes swung wildly back and forth with each new treatment the doctors recommended. With the oncologist’s suggestion of a new drug, she’d sold her engagement ring and filled a prescription that made the last of Fred’s hair fall out and his once bronzed skin turn yellow.

  But he’d given up long before that treatment failed. She’d read about it in the books. If he hadn’t quit the radiation, if he’d kept up his spirits, believed in something, anything, he could have lived longer.

  He was a strong-willed man, and he’d decided to die. So he did.

  Leaving her numb and shattered and drifting.

  Tears welled up from that core of grief inside her, and Alys let them spill down her face. She’d spent years holding them back, maintaining a cheerful smile, pretending for Fred’s sake that everything would be better. The tears had frozen inside her, so that when he’d died, she’d simply gone through the motions of grieving.

  They fell easily now. In this past year since his death, she’d slowly let go of her anger and heartache. Mame had been a friend of Fred’s family, and the day Alys had walked through the grocery store with tears streaming down her cheeks, Mame had introduced Alys to the School of Alternative Life Lessons, and gradually brought her back into the world.

  At first, Alys had obliged for lack of anything better to do. She couldn’t sit in the house forever. So she signed up for every class the school offered, and later found others that they hadn’t.

  It had taken time, but she had finally accepted that, no matter how much she hated his choice, Fred had every right to choose death. His decision wasn’t prompted by anything she had done or not done. She couldn’t direct the lives or wishes of others. Gradually, her energy returned, her outlook improved, until now she was ready to make some decisions.

  Her first decision had been to sell the duplex and most of her worldly goods. Fred’s life insurance had paid the bills and bought her a little time, but she would have to return to work soon.

  This little jaunt with Mame was a journey of self-discovery, a road to plan her future. Or would have been, until Mame’s setback. Now she had to decide whether to go on or linger.

  Giving up on meditation, Alys toyed with the Superball she’d found in the gutter. She remembered the day one of the neighbor’s kids had thrown the extra-bouncy ball into the yard. It had been one of Fred’s good days, and he’d enjoyed playing catch with the boy, watching the tiny hard ball bounce higher than the house. Had he lived, Fred would have been a good father.

  Then the ball had landed in the gutter, and he hadn’t had the strength to fet
ch it. He hadn’t gone outside again.

  Memories like that were the reason she had to leave.

  She leaned over to watch more of her furniture being carried into the consignment-store truck. Liberation from the material was an exciting concept. She could feel the freedom already. She wouldn’t miss her furniture, but she did miss her Nissan. She needed a car if she wanted to see the world.

  Alys eyed the enormous pink Cadillac in her driveway. Mame had told her to take it, that she would catch up with her later. If she believed Mame was as healthy as she’d declared, did she dare?

  Except for the buckled bumper, Beulah gleamed with years of loving care. Mame had earned the car decades ago for selling cosmetics, and it was as much a trophy as a means of transportation. Alys didn’t want to imagine how Mame would feel if anything happened to it.

  Of course, if she didn’t take it, she couldn’t set out on her journey. She had no home, no car, and no place to go.

  The police car pulling up behind the Caddy’s tail fins diverted that train of thought, thank goodness.

  She spun the Superball in her palm and watched with interest as Mame’s imposing nephew unfolded from the backseat. From this distance, Elliot Roth appeared cool, collected, and sophisticated—the kind of man who snapped his fingers and the world laid down at his feet.

  The two uniformed police officers stepping out of the front of the car consulted with the good doctor. She’d lived a quiet life. The only child of elderly parents, she’d been a relatively obedient teenager. She’d never had officers of the law in her home. Was Mame’s nephew about to sic them on her? For what? Stealing Beulah? Maybe her journey of self-discovery would start behind bars. She could become a career criminal.

  Unaware he stood in the path of the movers, Doc Nice turned to stare at the SOLD sign on her front lawn. He wasn’t paying any more attention to the movers than they were to him. The burly truck driver backed down the stairs carrying a heavy oak cabinet, and Alys debated watching the play unfold without interference.