A Coventry Wedding. Becky Cochrane
If it makes you feel any better, I also have a confession.”
She couldn’t see his eyes, but she could tell by the way the eyebrow went up that they probably contained the good humor she’d noticed the day before.
“If you’re about to tell me you don’t have a husband, that’s not exactly news,” he imitated her.
“What do you mean?”
“Your ring. You forgot to turn it around this morning.”
She grunted, frowned at her hand, and said, “Not everybody wears a—Oh, forget it. You’re right. No husband. A fiancé. I didn’t want you to be dazzled by the big diamond and dig too deeply inside my fake Fendi for money for the tow or the truck repair. Mechanics are always making up problems that cost a zillion dollars to fix. Especially when they think they’re dealing with some gullible woman who has no husband to question the repairs or the cost.”
“You won’t have that problem at Revere Auto,” Sam assured her.
“Is your last name even Revere?” she asked.
“Is your last name Taylor?” When she didn’t answer, he smiled again. “Yes. I’m really a Revere. It was my father’s business. Along with the fact that we’ve always prided ourselves on our ethics, it’s now run by my sister. She doesn’t cheat other women out of their money.”
“What do you do for Revere Auto? Troll the roads looking for business?”
“I help her out with an odd job now and then. She did an engine rehaul for a vintage car collector who lives in Phoenix, and I delivered the car to him. I was on my way home when you tried to take Sue away from me.”
“I have just as much right to that dog as you do,” she said. “I’m the one who got food for her. And toys. Don’t forget the toys.”
“It’s too late to buy her love. You need to accept that she adores me. We’ve bonded.”
“I’ve accepted that it’s you and everything you own that’ll be covered in Sue goo,” she said.
“Sue goo?”
“She slobbers. A lot. If you don’t tow cars for a living, what do you do? Are you a botanist?”
“What gave you that idea?”
“You knew the Latin name for black-eyed susans. At least I guess it was Latin. It was Greek to me.”
“Actually, I think it was named in honor of someone in Sweden. But I’m not a botanist, just a repository of completely useless information. My mother gardens. Maybe I learned that from her or one of her books.”
“Not a mechanic. Not a botanist. Not a veterinarian.” When he looked puzzled again, she said, “Stifle? The name of a dog’s knee?”
“That one’s true,” he swore. “My sister works for a vet.”
“She fixes cars and animals? That’s amazing.”
“Different sister. Robin is the mechanic. Swan’s the vet tech. The reason I wouldn’t have bought food for Sue at Target is because Swan will decide what to feed her. Swan believes in a raw diet for dogs.”
“I don’t think I want to know what that is,” Jandy said.
“See? That’s why I’m the right person for Sue. I won’t balk at hacking up turkey necks, chicken gizzards, and beef hearts or pigs’ feet—”
“Seriously, I don’t want to know,” she said, wondering if her face looked as nauseated as her stomach felt. “Don’t tell me any more things you don’t do. Just tell me what you do.”
“I guess you could say I’m between jobs.”
“Oh. You’re in the same profession as me. Unless you won the lottery or inherited a fortune. I haven’t done either of those.”
“I didn’t win the lottery,” he said.
“You inherited a fortune?”
“Not exactly.”
“Okay, one of the jobs I haven’t had? Is being a dentist. Could you stop making me pull teeth?”
“I wrote a book,” he said, making it sound like a shameful admission.
“It was a best seller, you made millions, and now you’re retired.”
“No. The book tanked. I have no idea how few copies it sold because I don’t understand my royalty statements, but trust me. It wasn’t a best seller.”
“What kind of book was it?”
“You know the Dummies books?”
“Like Auto Repair for Dummies?” she asked.
“Yeah, or Latin for Dummies?”
“Uh-huh, or Dogs for Dummies? Why? Did you write one of those?”
“No. I wrote a parody of them called Morality for Morons. Apparently I overestimated the public’s sense of humor.”
“Maybe your next book could be Humor for Half-wits.”
“That’s good,” he said.
“I’m sorry your book tanked.”
“Don’t be. Someone left a copy on a plane, where it fell into the hands of someone who knows someone in Hollywood. It ended up getting optioned. They want to make it into a Will Ferrell comedy. That may never happen. I’ve heard those Hollywood deals often don’t. But I made a boatload of money, and the publisher more than made back the advance, so everybody’s happy. Except my sister, whose misadventures with immoral people I may have exploited in the book.”
“Is this the mechanic or the vet tech?”
“Neither. It’s Dove.”
“Robin. Swan. Dove. Were you raised in an aviary?”
“I haven’t even told you about my fourth sister.”
“Let me guess. Goose. No, Wren. Sparrow!”
“Lark,” he said. “The stay-at-home mom.”
“What’s with the bird names?”
“My mother’s maiden name was Finch. I guess she decided to go with a theme.”
“How did you manage to avoid being named Eagle? Or Hawk?”
“It’s Samuel Finch Revere,” he said.
“I’m sorry. So what does Dove do?”
“No one’s sure. She seems to always have money but no apparent means of support. We don’t ask.”
“I surrender. I totally can’t tell if you’re making all this up.”
“Every word is true,” he insisted. “Now that you know I’m a failed writer and a fake mechanic, you have to tell me something equally bad about you.”
“You already know too much,” she said.
“I know nothing.”
“You call the Beatle Barbies nothing? That’s good stuff.”
“That was when you were a kid. Or did you buy a new batch of Barbies at Target last night?”
“I did not.”
When she didn’t say anything else, he prodded, “There must be something. What would someone who knows you best say about you?”
She thought it over and finally said, “Remember how you said a woman’s purse holds clues about who she is? You could be right. That novel in my purse is good, but I’m sure I’ll never finish it. When I was little, Grandpa used to call me the girl who never finishes anything. He said it because I always left food on my plate—”
“You