A Coventry Wedding. Becky Cochrane
won her,” she said, “although fair and square had nothing to do with it. That’s not important right now. You’re the man I’ve been waiting for.”
His eyebrow shot up again, then he grinned and said, “And I thought it was only the dog you were after.”
Chapter 2
As much as she wanted to cut Sam’s ego down to size, she reminded herself that she needed his help. Before she could explain, he held up a hand to silence her. “First things first,” he said. “Dehydration is always a possibility in this kind of heat.”
She’d been sweating buckets, and her throat was parched, but he was crazy if he thought she was going to accept some kind of drink from him. She didn’t need the voice of Prudence to remind her that was a sure way to end up as the victim on a segment of America’s Most Wanted.
She watched while Sam reached inside a cooler in the back of his spotlessly clean extended cab. It was hard to believe this was a mechanic’s vehicle. She’d expected stained rags, empty cigarette packs, and crushed beer cans. Maybe that was just her mechanic, whose nickname was Hog. She’d gotten to know Hog only too well because of her unreliable SUV. She should have sent him a wedding invitation and gotten a little of her hard-earned cash back in the form of a toaster. Actually, if there was any justice in the world, Hog should buy her a commercial-grade range. She wondered if the mechanic would miss her and her frequent checks. She’d probably paid for some little Hog’s braces. Or more likely, Mrs. Hog’s breast augmentation.
The bottle of Ozarka water Sam held looked so cool and clear that she could almost feel the liquid sliding down her throat. There was no reason not to accept it since the seal around the nozzle hadn’t been broken. She’d never wanted water so much in her life as she watched him uncap the bottle and fill a red plastic cup. Then he set it down in front of Sue, who took a couple of indifferent laps before clambering into the truck, looking back as if to say, We all understand whose needs come first here, right?
Sam drank the water that remained in the bottle, tossed the water from Sue’s cup toward a patch of sand, put the bottle and the cup in a plastic bag, and tied the bag. Then he brushed off a miniscule smudge left by Sue on the truck’s seat before he turned back and said, “Sam Revere. What can I do for you?”
The easy and honest response was to say January Halli and let him assume Jandy was her nickname. Instead, she heard herself saying, “Jandy Taylor.”
What was wrong with her? Even though Taylor had been the name on her birth certificate, it hadn’t been her name since she was four and her stepfather adopted her.
She shook off her self-recrimination, gestured toward Grandpa’s pickup, and said, “Something’s wrong with my truck.”
Victim! Pru warned. Don’t let him think there’s no one else you can call to help you. Don’t give him the impression you’re an easy mark. And don’t let him think you’ve got enough money to pay a big repair bill.
There had been a few times in her life when she’d lied to her mother just to avoid a confrontation, but she was usually honest. She hoped the lies she began fabricating along with her fake name were provoked by weariness and thirst. She hated to think that in addition to having a schizophrenic tendency to hear and be controlled by voices inside her head, she was turning into a pathological liar.
“My husband’s been out of work for five months, but he finally got a job in”—she paused momentarily to search her brain for a city, any city—“Dallas. I stayed behind to sell our trailer, and now I’m on my way to join him. I’ve got enough to pay for a tow somewhere. After that, my husband can take care of everything.”
Sam seemed a little amused as he looked across the parking lot at the pickup. “You’ll probably be stuck waiting for parts. Maybe several days. That truck was new when Ford was in the White House. Saturday Night Live still had its original cast. Fleetwood Mac was still an obscure British—”
“I get it,” she interrupted. “That’ll be my problem. I just need you to tow it in.”
“I could look at it,” he offered. “Stay,” he ordered Sue, who was sniffing the inside of the tow truck and paying no attention to either of them. As he walked toward Grandpa’s truck, he paused to toss the plastic bag in a garbage can, noticed that the dog wasn’t the only one who’d stayed, and called, “It’s worth checking out, right? Maybe it’s not as serious as you think.”
She glared at his back. Once again, he assumed she was stupid. She looked at Sue and said, “I hope he continues treating you better than he does other females.”
In answer, Sue shook her ears. A trail of saliva left from her drink of water ran down the seat, leaving a satisfying blemish on Sam’s clean truck.
By the time she got to Grandpa’s pickup, Sam had the hood up. She got in and turned the key. Of course, there was no horrible noise. The stupid truck hummed. Typical. Cars never made the same noises for mechanics—
A sudden clanking broke the silence, and Sam stuck his head around the hood and motioned for her to kill the engine. When she did, he stepped over to the window.
“Yep,” he said, “that’s definitely a problem.”
“What do you think it is?” she asked.
He stared toward the engine with a thoughtful expression and finally said, “Sounds like it could be your rotary beater.”
“My…my what?” she asked.
“I could be wrong, but you definitely shouldn’t be driving—”
“Isn’t a rotary beater a kitchen utensil?”
“Same principle,” Sam said. “Where do you think they got the name?”
She noticed he had a little bit of a drawl. She narrowed her eyes. She’d been willing to go along with his fake coin toss because she could admit—at least to herself—that inexperience would make her an inadequate dog owner. But now he’d gone too far. She’d been in this situation before, with men like Hog who gouged her for hundreds of dollars in car repairs with a don’t-you-worry-your-pretty-little-head-about-what’s-wrong attitude. That was why she’d unloaded the SUV on the man in Palm Springs in the first place. She was sick of being taken advantage of because she was a woman with a bum car. She was sure that no truck part had the same name as something she’d seen Aunt Ruby use to beat eggs. In fact, she’d used a rotary beater herself, although it had been a while. Did this Sam Revere person think she was stupid about cars and kitchens?
“Then again, it could be your defibrillator,” Sam added.
After a stunned moment—defibrillator!?—he must also think she’d never seen an episode of E.R. or Grey’s Anatomy—she looked down at his hands. Just as she’d suspected, the nails were nicely cut and no more stained by grease than his hands or clothes were. He clearly wasn’t a mechanic. But if he only drove the tow truck for Revere Auto, why didn’t he just say so? Why make up fake engine parts? Had her inner pathological liar sought and found its soul mate?
She knew all too much about tow truck drivers from Greer v. Wilkes d/b/a We-Haul-It (Los Angeles County Small Claims Court). Sam was about to discover that he wasn’t dealing with a neophyte in the ways of rip-off artists.
“Actually, if you’re going to Dallas, this is your lucky day,” Sam was saying. He slammed down the hood. “Revere Auto is in Coventry, Texas. That’s where I’m headed. It’s an hour or so west of Dallas. I can practically deliver you into your husband’s arms.”
You had to pick Dallas, Pru chided. And you must need glasses. It’s Coventry, you imbecile, not convent printed on the side of the truck.
The name Coventry seemed familiar to her, but she couldn’t imagine why. She knew next to nothing about Texas.
“I’m not sure my husband would want me riding so far with a man I don’t know,” she said. The lies were almost