Free California Girl by Patricia Rice Page A

just like Alys when his parents had died. He knew
he owed his aunt far more than he could ever repay for taking in him and his
brothers. He was doing everything within his power to make her life easy now
that he had the opportunity to do so.
    But he’d never really considered that Mame had given up her
life for them. She was intelligent and vivacious and could easily have
remarried. Instead, she’d devoted herself to raising children who weren’t her
own.
    Had it been a case of one love story a lifetime? Or lost
opportunities?
    Rising, he followed Alys to the car, reaching for the wallet
in his pocket to reimburse their friendly neighborhood tire changers. Before he
could pull out a couple of twenties, Alys reached up to hug one grinning young
man and kiss the cheek of the other.
    Something very like jealousy gnawed at the vulnerable place
beneath his ribs.
    When Elliot offered the cash, the young men grinned, shook
their heads, and wandered back to their truck, finishing off the cans of Coke
Alys had handed them.
    “ Can’t buy me lo-o-ve ,”
Alys sang, patting him on the hand holding the money before dancing back to the
driver’s seat.
    Trying not to gnash his teeth or laugh out loud, Elliot
shoved the bills back into his wallet and vowed to find Mame at the very next
stop—before he developed a split personality.
    * * *
    Alys parked in front of the sign welcoming them into
Kansas, so Elliot could take her picture. She didn’t do anything so common as
to stand in front of the sign, but clung to the top and smiled over it, nearly
giving him heart failure when the post swayed.
    She insisted on taking his picture as well. Fascinated with
the digital camera, she held on to it afterward, aiming it at the scenery
before returning to the car.
    “Perhaps I could take up photography and illustrate my
travel columns,” she said with the perpetual enthusiasm that was starting to
wear on him.
    Or perhaps it was worry over Mame that gnawed at him. He
kept a constant watch for his Rover along the side of the road as Alys wove
around tractors and pickups. The incident with the tire had his nerves jumping,
but at least he knew Alys could handle emergencies. Could Mame handle a
blowout? How far behind her could they be?
    “Maybe you’d better look for a real job and use travel writing
as your hobby,” he suggested absently.
    “I could go back to selling real estate, I suppose. I had to
let my license go when Fred got too sick for me to attend continuing education
classes.”
    In a few short hours he’d learned her moods cast light and shadow
with the swiftness of passing clouds. He didn’t hear wistfulness or regret in
her declaration. He glanced over to see her gazing pensively at the old arched
concrete bridge covered in graffiti ahead of them.
    He studied the Route 66 guidebook he’d found in the glove
box. The bridge was apparently another historic monument to the past. If they
stopped, he bet he’d find Mame’s name scribbled on it. He refrained from
telling Alys that. “If you earned the license once, it shouldn’t be difficult
to obtain again. I bet you’d be excellent at real estate sales.”
    She shrugged. “I love houses. Maybe I could be an interior
decorator.” She turned back to him and her eyes were alive again. “Is that what
you did? Full-time doctoring and writing as a hobby?”
    “I earned my degree but never really practiced. I spend a
lot of time in research. So, yeah, maybe the writing was a hobby at first.” Or
maybe his life was a hobby. When he wasn’t researching, or taping his radio
show, he devoted all his free time to writing up his findings and conclusions.
His only other activity in life was sleep.
    He was relieved she didn’t have a crystal ball. She seemed
to see right through him as it was. Fortunately, she didn’t call him on it,
since the sign for Baxter came into view. He glanced through the guidebook’s
description. This might be the only town in the area where Jesse James