The Beauty, The Beast And The Baby

Their affair had lasted more than six months, which was a record for Gus. As a rule, after a few weeks with any woman he began to get that antsy feeling that made him want to move on, but with Lisa…

Not that he’d ever thought he was in love. Hell, at thirty-nine years old, he had long since outgrown all those old adolescent fantasies.

Still, they’d been good together. Especially in bed. So good, in fact, that Gus had actually started thinking in terms of the future. He had even bought her a ring.

As it turned out, Lisa had begun, to think about a future, too, only not with Gus. She had her heart set on one day owning a Ferrari sports car. Gus was satisfied with his 4 x 4 extended cab pickup truck. She liked sushi, salad bars and Streisand. Gus liked barbecue, beer and bluegrass.

Lisa had a weakness for Italian shoes and champagne.

Gus had a weakness for Western boots and anything sweet.

Gus was unabashedly blue-collar. He had calluse s on his hands and a few more on his heart. He’d been around the block a time or two—always with the same kind of woman. His biggest failing was that he was invariably attracted to women who were way the hell out of his league. Long-stemmed, elegant beauties. Classy ladies who were gracious enough to overlook the fact that he was tough as mule hide and a hell of a long way from handsome on anybody’s road map.

Lisa had caught his attention when her hat had blown off during a garden party being held next door to one of Gus’s construction projects. He’d rescued her hat, and they’d gotten along like a house afire right from the first.

About the same time Gus had started thinking in terms of teaming up permanently, Lisa had started playing games. Breaking dates, leaving town without telling him, coming back without letting him know. The sex that had been so good for so long had become less satisfactory, and they’dusually ended up arguing over whose fault it was.

Gus had a temper; he would be the first to admit that. But he tried not to let it get too far out of hand and never with a woman. He’d been taught by a mother, a grandmother, an aunt and a sister that women were to be treated like fine china. And he had always obeyed that rule. Right up to the night when Lisa had told him she had signed a modeling contract and was moving to New York. She was sorry if he was disappointed, but then, they’d never pretended to anything more than a casual relationship.

Casual. Right.

Gus had told her that he was far from disap pointed—a lie. That lately he’d been thinking about moving on—another lie. He’d wished her a lot of luck, but he hadn’t specified which kind.

And then, with the engagement ring he’d bought still in his pocket, he’d gone on a bender—something he hadn’t done in a long time. He’d ended up putting his left fist through a packing crate. That had been strike number two. Number th ree had come when he’d gone to the emergency room for a stitch job. There he’d been coughed on and sneezed at until he’d even tually come away with seven stitches, a tetanus booster and a bug that had laid him out flat for nearly a week. The ring had been missing when he’d gotten around to looking in his pockets. Then he remembered giving it to one of the older barmaids and telling her to buy herself a pair of good sturdy shoes with arch supports.

Jeez, no wonder he couldn’t ’cut it with the ladies. When push came to shove, he was about as romantic as a migraine headache.

Gus lived alone in the first house he’d ever built—an A-frame near a small mountain town in North Caro lina. The house was far from perfect, but he liked it well enough. That is, he’d liked it until he’d been forced to spend a week alone there, sick as a dog, aching in every bone, alternating between chills and fever.

Then had come strike four. The weather. When he’d finally come around, he’d been snowed in right up to his dormers. His truck, which he’d left slewed in the driveway, was buried door-handle deep. The power was out; his house was cold as a tomb; the phone lines were down; and his mobile unit was still out in the truck.

He’d been weak as a kitten. Still was, for that matter. He’d been hungry, too, but what he’d craved even more than a decent meal was sunshine and the sound of another human voice. Not necessarily up close-just close enough to assure himself that he was still among the living. For a man who’d always prided himself on his self-sufficiency, that was pretty damned scary.

So he’d built up his energy by devouring everything in his efficiency kitchen—ice cream, coffee, stale cinnamon buns and Moon Pie marshmallow sandwiches—and then he’d shoveled himself out. Less than an hour after the snowplow had come by, he had locked up and lit out to find himself some sunshine. with his next two building projects still in the permitting stage and miles of environmental red tape yet to be unraveled, he could damn well afford to lie in the. sun and bake his bones until he felt halfway human again.

Just north of Columbia a smoky whipped past, siren screaming, lights flashing, throwing up a muddy spray. Gus swore again. He’d been doing a lot of that lately. He made a quick decision to pull off at the next truck stop and eat something. He was getting down into pecan-pie country. Maybe a slab of pie with ice cream and a pint or so of sweet, black coffee would get him over the hump.

Warily, Mariah eyed the gas gauge on her elderly compact car. It had been known to lie. She should have stopped for gas before now, but she’d been hoping to make it home without spending a night on the road. The trouble was, she hadn’t gotten away until nearly noon. Everything had taken longer than she’d expected. Meeting with the super for her share of the deposit on the apartment she rented with two other models, closing out her bank account, packing, trying to get her car serviced, only to be told she could have an appointment the middle of next week….

And then she’d had to deal with Vic. He’d been livid, and a livid Vic was not a pretty sight. He’d reminded her of the contract she’d signed and of everything he’d done for her since he’d discovered her. Then he’d told her he’d been planning to use her in the St. Croix shoot.

She happened to know he was lying about that because only two models were scheduled to go, and Kaye and Danielle had been gloating all morning over snagging that particular plum.

“That’s life, kiddo,” Kaye had said when she’d tackled her about it. Which summed up Kaye’s philosophy in a nutshell.

“That’s life right back at you, kiddo,” Mariah muttered now under her breath. She’d never gotten the hang of fast, sophisticated repartee. Her mind was still running on Muddy Landing time.

Vic had accused her of not taking modeling seriously, and he’d been right. There had always been an element of make-believe in it. Like playing dress-up, only a lot harder. When it came to make-believe, Mariah would rather choose her own role, and modeling just wasn’t her.

She’d tried that morning to explain about her brother, Basil, and the baby—about how Basil’s wife had run off, leaving behind an eight-month-old daughter, and how his new business was teetering on the brink, and how her family had always depended on her.

Not that Vic had cared. Family? What the devil was family? She was scheduled for fittings! She had runway bookings! Sara Marish Brady, a nobody from a nowhere place in Georgia, was on the verge of becoming the hottest property since Cindy Crawford, and she wanted to walk out on him to take care of a baby?

Well, just maybe, Mariah fumed, reaching forward to smear a circle in the condensation on her wind shield, just maybe she didn’t wantto be the next Cindy Crawford! Until Vic Chin had discovered her perched on a ladder, reaching for a kerosene lantern on a top shelf in Grover Shatley’s Feed, Seed and Hardware Emporium eleven months ago when he’d stopped off in Muddy Landing to ask directions to Sapelo Island, she had never even heard of the woman. She had been perfectly content with her job as assistant manager of the store.

Or, if not precisely content, at least realistic enough to know that it was the best job Muddy Landing had to offer a woman who didn’t own a boat, a set of traps or a business that fronted Highway 17.

And Mariah was nothing if not realistic. As the eldest of five, she’d taken over when her father had walked out, leaving behind an ailing, alcoholic wife and a brood of stairstep children. She’d been a solemn, bookish nine years old at the time, given to daydreams and fairy tales.

Years later, after the last of the siblings had left the nest and she’d had time to think about such things, she had discovered somewhat to her surprise that buried under all those layers of enforced practicality, there still lurked a closet romantic who believed in charming princes and knights in shining armor.

Which might explain why she’d gone along with the fantasy when Vic had promised her the world with a cherry on top. His magicians had worked their magic, turning her into a glamorous stranger who wore exotic clothes and mingled with exotic people who owned yachts and who thought no more of flying over to Paris than she used to think about driving down to Brunswick or over to Waycross. Before she knew it, she’d found herself dreaming again about finding-Well, hardly a prince, but at least a special someone.

It hadn’t happened. It wasn’t going to happen. Mariah knew for a fact that there weren’t any knights or princes waiting at Grover Shatley’s Feed, Seed and Hardware. Muddy Landing didn’t even boast a mayor, much less any royalty. The closest thing to a knight was Moe Chitty, who owned the town’s only garage and had come to her rescue more than once when her car wouldn’t start.

Blinking against the hypnotic spell of windshield wipers, Mariah shifted her position. Her legs were too long for a compact car, even with an adjustable seat—which hers no longer was. She should have taken a break before now, but the thought of jogging a few rounds at a rest stop in the pouring rain didn’t particularly appeal.

Besides, she had too much on her mind. “Maybe I just won’t go back at all,” she said out loud, voicing a thought that had been more and more in her mind this past month. Who needed New York? who needed Palm Beach? Who needed her face on the cover of the Italian Yogue, anyway? Nobody in Muddy Landing had ever even heard of the rag, much less seen it.

Still, it paid awfully well. According to Kaye, fashion models weren’ t limited these days to walking a runway. One of Vic’s girls had recently landed a small role in a soap opera, another had won an exclusive contract with a cosmetics firm.

It had seemed like a good idea at first, with no one at home depending on her. Seldom a month passed that one of her three sisters didn’t call needing advice or a small loan. Financially, at least, her modeling career had been a godsend. Knowing that her family still depended on her in an emergency, she had saved every penny she could.

The trouble was, no matter how glamorous the life of a model looked from the outside, Mariah had never really gotten used to being treated like a side of beef—being handled, draped, pushed, pulled and spokenof as if she weren’t even present by men who wore more jewelry and perfume than she ever had.

Selling hardware was a lot simpler. Muskrat traps, salt licks, well pumps and fescue seed. It was far from lucrative, but then, living in Muddy Landing didn’t cost an arm and a leg, the way even breathing in Palm Beach or New York did.

Besides, she told herself as she squinted through the mixture of fog and rain for a sign of a service station, Muddy Landing was home. Be it ever so humble. which it was. The glitzy life that had seemed so promising months ago had turned out to be mostly hard work, long hours, nastiness and one-upmanship.

Marian flexed her shoulders, shifted on the rump-sprung bucket seat and glanced at the gas gauge. The needle nudged the empty mark and then bounced a zillionth of an inch. “Oh, Lordy,” she muttered, searching the flat gray horizon for a faint gleam of neon. All she needed now was to run out of gas in the middle of I-95 in a cold, driving rain, with night corning on.

She took the first exit, but by the time she spotted the convenience store, her engine was beginning to cough. She flicked on her turn signal, praying that it still worked, and rolled off the highway onto the apron of the sm all store.

“Whew! Made it,” she said with a sigh of relief.

Because she’d been lucky enough not to be stranded on the highway and because she was worried about Basil and Myrtiss ’and the baby, and was still undecided about her own future, Mariah decided to treat her car to a tankful of high-test, and herself to the biggest cherry drink she could find. And maybe a bag of boiled peanuts.

“And a rest room!” she added, shivering in the damp, chilly air. It had been warm enough when she’d set out, and she’d tossed her vinyl slicker and her white denim car coat into the back seat, then buried them under bags and boxes of cloths, books, curlers and makeup.

The rest rooms were inside, and as she had to pay before the attendant would turn on the gas pump, she made a dash for it, chill bumps covering her skin before she even made it through the door. After freshening up, she got her drink and peanuts and made her way to the counter. There was no one in the store except for the clerk and two grungy-looking men who were studying a girlie magazine rack near the counter. Wedging her way up beside them, she said, “Ten dollars’ worth of gas, please. High-test.”

Reluctantly the clerk turned away from the TV set. There was a basketball game under way. “That’ll be ten for the gas, two-fifty for the peanuts, and with a Giant Freeze that comes to…lemmee see…”

Mariah plopped her purse on the counter beside her purchases, preparing to dig out her billfold. One of the two men abruptly left, letting in a blast of cold, wet air. She shivered. Just as the second man turned to follow, his elbow struck her drink, drenching her with the icy red liquid.

Mariah gasped. Appalled, she stared down at the spreading stain on her yellow linen pants and matching tunic and gingerly plucked the sodden fabric away from her body. Oh, blast! Why hadn’t she taken the time to change into jeans? Now she was either going to have to dig out her suitcase and change clothes in the closet-size ladies’ room, or drive the rest of the way home wet, cold and sticky.

Oh, fine. This was all she needed after rushing around all morning like a. chicken drunk on sour mash, trying to tie up two dozen loose ends.