So Much for Dreams

  So Much for Dreams

  Vanessa Grant

  Published by Muse Creations Inc at Smashwords

  Copyright 1990, Vanessa Grant

  Copyright 1999, Muse Creations Inc

  Original hardcover edition published in 1990 by Mills & Boon Limited

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  Dedication

  for Joyce and Herm, good companions

  for the long drive down the Baja;

  for Gloria, who kindly let me use both

  her office and her printer;

  and for JoAnn, who didn't get the letter

  until much later

  Chapter One

  Dinah had planned to get to Mexico in three days, but the driving was more tiring than she’d expected, and hotter. It took her four days from Vancouver to the Mexican border crossing at Tijuana.

  By the time she was two hundred kilometers inside Mexico, the warm sun had turned unbearably hot. The country was beautiful, dry desert mountains covered with cacti, funny leafless trees she couldn't identify. The trouble was, she couldn't spare even a glance at them. Her relief at escaping the thick freeway traffic of Southern California was quickly replaced by the tension of trying to drive a big car on a narrow, winding highway. She was getting to the point where she would kill for the chance to pull off into a rest area, but there were no rest areas.

  Just before noon, halfway up a mountain with the sun beating down heavy and hot, she started the air conditioning and rolled up the windows. She was amazed to discover that the cooling system actually worked. She had bought the used Oldsmobile the summer before, had laughed when the salesman said, "It's got cruise control, and air conditioning."

  "You expect me to pay extra for that?" She'd pushed her hands into her jeans pockets and told herself that there were other cars. If the salesman wanted top dollar for the Olds, it wasn't going to be her car.

  He had said, "It's a luxury car."

  "It's a gas guzzler," she'd corrected. "You can't sell these things to anyone these days." She would never have bought a big car herself, except for the girls. For their camping trips she needed room for four people with tents and sleeping bags and pots and pans. A Honda would never do the job!

  The salesman had started to point out the cost of air conditioning in a new car and she'd said briskly, "I need a good heater, not air conditioning, and cruise control's ridiculous to drive three miles through Vancouver traffic to work. I'm a lot more interested in whether you'll replace that windshield and knock five hundred off the price."

  They'd settled on the windshield and three hundred off and she'd had no cause to regret buying the Olds. She’d had a good summer with it. It had been a good summer all around … her last with Leo. She had spent her work days concentrating on the new Madison advertising campaign, enjoying the artwork and feeling a warm glow when she saw her own work spread over the city on a big billboard. She had used her evenings to plan the camping trips and talk to Leo, her weekends to show the girls what the world was like outside the city.

  A worthwhile summer, especially the time spent with the girls. Later, Leo had told her that Ellen had gone back to school and back to her counseling sessions, and she knew herself that Sally was keeping out of trouble.

  Of course, the Olds didn't look as shiny after she had driven it through the bushes and up the mountains, but it was still comfortable and she loved the way it surged along the highway. As the salesman had said, it was a luxury car. Even nine years old and thoroughly battered, it still felt like a luxury car. As for the air conditioning, she had never even turned it on—until today.

  She passed a curve sign. If you could believe the sign, it was a square curve coming up, but in the last five hours of driving in Mexico she had learned three things about the roads. They were narrow, the curves were not banked, and the degree of the curve on the sign had little relation to the real thing. She lifted her foot off the throttle and prepared for anything. The car slowed to a crawl. Beneath the roar of the air conditioning she thought she heard a funny racing sound in the engine.

  "I don't blame you, old lady," she muttered as the curve started. This one was a false alarm, a gentle bend that twisted around a rock bluff. "I'm a little tired of climbing mountains myself. If we find a rest area, let's pull off."

  As the car straightened out, she spotted another sign. Curva peligrosa. In the last few hours she had learned to take these particular signs very seriously. She had a Spanish-English phrase book with her, but she had not needed to look that one up to realize that peligrosa meant dangerous! Those signs were invariably followed by a cliff-hanging corner on the side of a rock face, and once or twice she'd glimpsed a cross on the side of the road. Commemorating someone who had died on the curve? She was a careful driver, but five or six peligrosa signs and one or two crosses were enough to make sure she kept her attention on the narrow road.

  She crawled around the corner, then jerked her car to the right as a big tractor-trailer rig appeared in front of her. She couldn't get any further over without taking a chance on that cliff, so she gritted her teeth and held her ground, muttering, "Keep to your own bloody side of the road, truck."

  The truck gave way and they passed with only inches to spare. She was getting a pretty good sampling of trucks by now, and she'd decided that the shiny rigs stayed on their own side of the road, but the grubby, old ones took all the road they could get. This truck was the grubbiest she had seen all day.

  If she ever made this trip again, she was going to take someone with her to share the driving and the tension. Not Warren. They had been dating for six months, and he had wanted them to take their holidays together and go to Hawaii. Dinah had been close to saying yes. With Leo gone the house was so empty, although sometimes his kids came and with their laughter and their problems it was hard to be lonely. But in the end there were always the nights alone in the house. She had begun to think that maybe Warren was what she wanted. At least he was stable, although she couldn't imagine how a person could want to earn a living doing other people's tax returns. Her own taxes were pretty straightforward, but she was always mailing her return just before midnight on the last day, and one of these years she'd have to pay a penalty for late filing.

  Yes, Warren was stable, but not dependable in the ways that counted. He had been hinting about marriage and Dinah had been avoiding the topic. She knew the Hawaii trip was something he was planning to try to get closer to her. She wasn't sure she wanted to have a physical relationship with him and that alone should have told her that the whole affair was doomed.

  It was when the letter came that Warren became history. A plea from Cathy, one of Leo's kids. The letter had been addressed to Leo. The envelope had been almost unreadable, torn and dingy and marred by tire tracks. Tire tracks? Had some postman gone berserk and dumped a bag of mail on the highway?

  It bore Mexican stamps, Leo's name on the address. The date on the postmark was covered with muddy tire tracks, but on the note inside Cathy had written ‘February 20’. The letter hadn’t arrived until April 28, exactly two months after Leo's death. Dinah had opened it because Leo had left everything to her, his insurance and his house. That last night in the hospital, he had left her h
is kids too.

  "Dinah?" His whisper had been very strong, a contrast to his tired eyes.

  "I'm here." Of course she was there. Hadn't Leo been there for her when she’d needed it most?

  "The kids." The energy in his voice drained away suddenly. "Sometimes one of them calls, or …"

  "I know." She had called once, years ago, and Leo had helped her turn her life into something strong and good. "I'll look after them," she promised as his eyes closed for the last time. "I'll do whatever I can for them."

  Warren had thought she was crazy. Flying off to Mexico would have been bad enough, but with the collapse of one of the major Mexican airlines it wasn't possible to get a flight on short notice. The only way was to drive.

  "Two thousand miles!" He'd come as close to losing his cool as she had ever seen. She didn't suppose it helped that it was two days before the year-end tax deadline, his busiest week of the year. He had taken Dinah out to a quiet restaurant for dinner, his only break that weak. Putting down his fork, he'd pleaded, "Don't you remember, next week you and I are flying to Hawaii!"

  She frowned as she negotiated another curva peligrosa. This road went up and up, was it ever going to come down? Why did the road have to go to the top of the blinking mountain? Why not drive along the valley?

  "You could come with me," she'd suggested to Warren, her dinner forgotten. "You've got a bit of Spanish, don't you? You could help me find her."

  "For heaven's sake, it's not even your business! She's not your sister or your cousin. There's no relationship. If you're worried about her, call Foreign Affairs and tell them the girl's stranded in Mexico. I suppose someone will do something about it."

  She had felt something freezing inside her—the warmth that had been slowly growing for this man. She'd looked away from him, staring at a planter with something green and bushy growing in it. "Foreign Affairs can't help me. What do you suppose they'll do? Contact the Mexican consulate about a girl named Cathy, last name unknown?"

  She had searched Leo's records, had even contacted Sharon, a social worker who had worked with Leo. Sharon had checked the records, but there were too many girls named Cathy and no way to tell which one had skipped off to Mexico. Knowing Leo as Dinah did, she supposed that Cathy might not even have been on his caseload.

  Warren wasn't going to help either. Rationally, she knew it was unfair to resent that. Leo's kids and the girls she worked with in her spare time were her affair. There was no reason Warren should feel responsible for them. But those kids were part of Dinah's life. Any man she became involved with was going to have to accept that.

  She pulled out of the fourth curva peligrosa, wishing she could take time to actually look at those mountains. She thought they might soothe the psyche, and right now she needed soothing. Leo had taught her not to pretend to herself, and looking at the winding road that seemed to go straight up, she admitted that she’d known Warren would fail the test. How often had a man come close enough to touch just before she gave him a test he couldn't pass?

  Warren had frowned at his baked salmon as she told him, "I remember Cathy. She was at the house for a week last year. If she's asking for help right now, she needs it badly. She's not the kind of girl who can land on her feet in a strange country."

  Warren had sneered, "And you are?" destroying the mild affection she had felt for him. "You're going to go into a primitive country where they don't even speak your language and you're going to get by? You're crazy." His jaw had firmed and she'd seen the muscles clenching as if he were grinding his teeth. "I'm not going to let you do it."

  She had put down her coffee cup and stood up. She’d been trembling, but she had not let it show. The woman at the next table had stared at her oddly as Dinah told Warren, "If you think you can stop me, then you don't know anything about me." He had stared at her as if she were from another planet, and she hadn't wasted any more energy on him.

  She'd cancelled her Hawaii flight, had a tune-up done on the car, packed a bag with jeans and T-shirts. Then she'd started driving on Monday morning and now it seemed she would always be alone on this incredible highway. It was beautiful, yet frightening. She was half-nervous and half-excited by the way the road seemed determined to hit the sky. If someone would install a place to pull off the road every hour or so it might be a beautiful trip.

  The steep climb had eased off a bit when she first saw the red light on her dash. ‘Hot’, it said, and the air conditioning seemed to be faltering. And wasn't that steam she could smell? She had to stop, but there was simply no place to pull off the road. She kept on, slowly, crawling up the hill and hoping for at least a wide spot of gravel beside the road. There was nothing. There was room for two cars to pass, just barely, but there was rock on one side and the valley between two mountains on the other.

  The noise in the engine was louder now, the engine pinging wildly when she stepped on the accelerator. She could see steam escaping from under the right front of the hood and knew she had to stop soon or there'd be damage to the engine. She came up on the crest of a hill. There were more hills ahead, but here, on this rise, was room for her to get the car halfway off the road. She hoped it was enough to get out of the way of any other vehicles. If one of those dingy, ill-mannered trucks turned up now her Oldsmobile could be wiped off the face of the map.

  The engine quit as she braked. The only sound left was the roar of the air conditioning, and she turned that off quickly. She didn't need a dead battery out here miles from anywhere. Before she started up the mountains there had been farms and villages, but now there was nothing but the occasional sign announcing a ranch. Ranch? It was hard to believe these cactus mountains could support even one cow.

  She got out on the passenger side, away from the road. The heat hit her like a wall of fire and she slammed the car door in hopes of preserving the little bit of coolness from the air conditioning. She could smell the steam when she got the hood open, steam and smoke rising from everywhere. She stepped back from the explosive sound of the water boiling inside her car.

  "Well, old girl, I know we wanted to stop and look around, but this isn't exactly what I had in mind." She pushed back her hair, feeling the dampness growing from the heat. Around her, the harsh beauty of the mountainous desert flowed everywhere. Majestic. Magic. Hot.

  "You cool off and I'll have lunch," she told the car. She had never had a vehicle overheat before, but the solution seemed obvious. Let it cool off. She would eat and then explore a little, then she'd start the car and go on.

  She pushed aside a craving for a mountain stream with cool running water. She would love a cold drink, but her only option was a tin of warm soda from the car. She unbuttoned her shirt and let the slight breeze try to cool her skin while she wondered whether to take off her jeans or not. If someone drove past, they wouldn't be able to tell that she wasn't wearing brief shorts. On the other hand, if a motorist stopped to offer help she'd be caught in her underpants and shirt.

  She wouldn't have believed denim could feel so stiflingly hot!

  ***

  Joe managed to get everything into the duffel bag. He'd traveled light, knowing he would have to carry the heavy engine parts on the return trip. These days he always traveled light.

  He took the trolley to Tijuana, then crossed the border on foot and hitchhiked to the immigration station south of Ensenada, where he got his new tourist card validated. He had managed to get everything on his list while he was in San Diego. Once the new parts were installed on the engine, he could provision the boat and take off. It was time to get moving again.

  After the immigration station was the police check. Joe opened his pack and watched as a guard with an M-16 pawed through it. He remembered another time, he and Julie flying into Mexico on their honeymoon. A thousand years ago, he thought, shaking the image away.

  "Yate en tránsito," he told the guard. A yacht passing through the country was supposed to be able to receive goods free of customs, but for a minute he thought the man with the M-16
might decide to enact some impromptu customs fee. Mordida, or bribery, wasn't as common in Mexico as it had been but, if a man with a big gun asked, Joe was prepared to hand over anything up to about thirty dollars. More than that and he would turn back and give it another try the next day with another man on duty.

  His plan wasn't put to the test. The gun withdrew and Joe repacked his things. It was going to be a hot day, even hotter than the day he'd left La Paz last week. The heat didn't bother him much any more. He slung the duffel over his shoulder and walked out to the street, thrust his thumb out and scored almost at once.

  A pick-up truck that had seen better days, the pick-up bed replaced with a tall interlocking mess of wood, all painted red a year or so ago. The driver was Mexican, a farmer possibly, and obviously friendly enough to stop and offer a ride.

  "Adónde, americano?"

  "La Paz," Joe answered. The Mexican frowned, his straw hat shading his eyes. Joe said, "Más o menos," because the truck probably wouldn't go all the way to La Paz. He figured it was doubtful if the truck would get a hundred miles without breaking down. That was OK, too. He didn't mind turning to with a wrench to fix the engine and pay for his ride.

  "Guerrero Negro," the Mexican offered, and Joe swung into the truck. If they didn't break down, he'd be half way to La Paz on one ride. He tentatively pushed his schedule ahead a day. Get the engine back together, provision at the military store, then sail out.

  They jerked into gear, rolling along the farmland towards the mountains, the old truck shuddering every time they hit a pothole.

  "Como se llama?" asked the Mexican.

  "Joe." The Mexican frowned and Joe knew he wasn't going to be able to pronounce the English name. "José," he said then, and the Mexican grinned. "Y usted?" Joe asked.

  "Eduardo."