“Madly.”
She liked that. Men sometimes stumbled over that question, as if owning up to their feelings was against some kind of male code, but he’d answered without hesitation. “Was that too nosy?”
“No.”
“How’d you meet?”
He sat back, and the dreamy look that came over his face seemed to match the feelings he’d proclaimed so unashamedly. “Met her at the campus bookstore, and from the moment I met her, I was in love. Did you love your husband?”
“Thought I did until I caught him in my underwear.”
He spit out coffee and began coughing.
“There are napkins in the glove box.”
Continuing to cough, he gave her a sideways look, then wiped his mouth and used another napkin on the drops of coffee dotting the black console. “So that’s what you meant on Saturday when you said you were afraid I’d wind up wearing your underwear. I’ve been thinking about that on and off all week.”
“ Needless to say, I wasn’t happy.”
“How’d he look?”
“Think Cletus in a bikini.”
He was still smiling. “That must’ve been something.”
“Oh, it was. So much something I made Trent drive me to the airport so I could leave town.” She paused as she thought back and said in a soft tone, “Really thought Bob would be the one. Nope.”
Rocky wasn’t sure what telling him all this meant, but if they were going to be embarking on whatever this was they were doing, she wanted him to know the ins and outs of how life had shaped her—good and bad. She turned to see how he was taking all this and met eyes so filled with quiet interest, she had to look away or drive off the road.
“That your only marriage?”
“Yes. I don’t seem to do well in relationships. Either the guy’s crazy or I am. Nothing’s ever worked out.” Maybe because she’d never opened up this way before, and neither had the men.
She had the truck rolling. The cruise control was set at eighty-five mph—just the way she liked it, even though it was an invitation to a ticket. As they blew past a marked cruiser hiding in plain sight on the shoulder, she hoped the patrolman would let her fly on, but in her rearview mirror she saw him swing out and gun after her. “Damn.”
He peered into his mirror. “How fast you going?”
“Eighty-five.”
He stared with so much surprise, she chuckled, “It’s one of the things Tamar and I have in common—a girl’s need for speed.”
Slowing the truck, she pulled onto the shoulder, rolled down her window, and said, “Can you hand me that red envelope out of the glove box, please?”
He complied.
Watching the trooper close the distance between his vehicle and hers, Rocky realized she knew him. The recognition made her relax somewhat. When he reached the window, she said, “Hey, Carl.”
“Rocky?” He swept surprised eyes over her and then Jack.
“How’ve you been?” she asked.
“Been good. You on your way to a fire?”
“Nope. Going to Hays to pick up a bike.”
“Who’s he?”
“A friend.”
The way Carl scrutinized him from beneath the circular brim of his hat made Jack think the cop would say more, but he didn’t, shifting his attention back to Rocky.
“Let me have your license and registration.”
She passed them to him. He gave Jack another glance before walking back to his cruiser to run her info through his onboard computer.
“You two know each other, I take it?”
“Yeah. Dated him for a while a few years back.”
“Ah.” Jack’s brain instantly began asking all the questions the male brain does when confronted with a former boyfriend, but he had enough sense not to say anything out loud.
Carl returned and gave her back her license and registration. “Letting you off with a warning, Rock.”
“Thanks.”
“How long you had this truck?” he asked, checking it out approvingly.
Jack put the registration into the red envelope and closed the glove box.
“About a year.”
“Heard you were back in town.”
“Since you’re looking at me, you heard right.”
“Still a hard-ass wiseass.”
“Always.”
He smiled for the first time. “Okay, go get your bike, and slow down, would you, please? I don’t want to scrape your hard-ass wiseass off the pavement.”
“Thanks, Carl.”
He tossed Jack a farewell nod and departed.
She merged back into the traffic and after a few minutes eased it back up to eighty-five. It didn’t surprise him that she’d paid no attention to the trooper’s parting request. “Why’d you two break up?”
“Found out he was married. I don’t do home wrecking. Do you think Shakespeare’s Kate was really a woman of color?”
The gears in Jack’s brain jumped off the track. Had he missed something?
“Taming of the Shrew. Scene Two. Petrucchio says: Kate, like the hazel-twig is straight and slender, and as brown in hue as hazel-nuts.”
Jack blinked. “Um?”
“Took a Shakespeare class at the community college a few years back. I asked the professor about it, and you’d’ve thought I was playing the dozens with his mother, the way he looked.”
Jack was still trying to get his brain to move. “What did he say?”
“Told me, Don’t be ridiculous. Told him to read the passage, but he refused. I dropped the class.” She glanced over. “So, what do you think?”
He thought he had yet to meet a more fascinating woman. “I think you amaze me, Rocky.”
“Good. Not sure what men like you talk about when you’re off the clock. Don’t want to bore you.”
“No chance of that.”
She nodded as if pleased. Jack was still mulling over his fascination when they exited the highway and drove into Hays.
They pulled into what appeared to be a salvage yard, by the look of all the rusted cars and farm equipment strewn about. The truck halted in front of an old cinder-block building that had the words “Wellers Cars and Parts” across the front in letters so faded and weathered they were barely discernible. She gave the horn a quick toot. A few seconds later an old man in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved denim shirt came out, leaning on a brown cane. He walked slowly over to her rolled-down window with a smile splitting his whiskered face. “Morning, Ms. Rock. How you?”
“Doing good, Freddy. This is my friend, Jack. Jack—Freddy Wellers.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Wellers.”
The old man peered into the cab. “Same here, Jack. What do you do?”
The abrupt question caught him off guard. “I’m the teacher in Henry Adams.”
Freddy scanned him silently with piercing blue eyes. Jack felt like a sixteen-year-old being scrutinized by his date’s father.
“You treat her nice, you hear?”
“Yes, sir.” He sent a hesitant glance Rocky’s way. Her profile showed Sphinx-like amusement.
But to her credit and his relief, she pulled Weller’s attention away by asking, “My Shadow ready?”
“Yep, and in better shape than I thought. Needs a lot of TLC, though. You sure you don’t want me to do the work for you?”
“Positive. I got this. Jack’s going to help.”
Jack’s lips parted in surprise. In spite of having had a biker roommate, he knew next to nothing about motorcycles. Freddy looked as doubtful as he felt.
“Bike’s around back.”
“Hop in.”
He complied, and once he was settled, warned, “Drive slow, now. Don’t want you running into nothing.”
“Me?”
“Yeah you, Miss Lead Foot.”
“Chicken,” she tossed back teasingly.
“Cluck cluck.”
She shot Jack a smile that made his insides feel like they’d been warmed by the s
un. He was really enjoying being in her company.
The drive around the building took just a few seconds, and the sea of car parts as far as he could see caused his jaw to drop. Piles of tires, fenders, and flattened doors were stacked sky-high. As she made a turn that drove them deeper into the yard, he marveled at a small mountain range of old engines, transmissions, and busted windshields rising next to hundreds of mounded struts and blackened exhaust pipes that would never breathe again. There were tractor parts and ancient refrigerators along with washing machines, banged-up dryers, and stoves with no doors. He now understood why Freddy had cautioned Rocky to drive slow. If any of the stacks fell, it would take first responders years to recover their pancaked bodies.
Freddy must have seen the wonder on his face. “Pretty impressive, huh?” There was pride in his voice, as if he were showing off a field of diamonds.
“Definitely.” What impressed him most was the sheer size of the operation. He felt as if he’d been transported to a hallowed graveyard where old car parts, tractors and discarded appliances went to die. “Is this all for sale?”
“Nah. Sometimes a restorer or a kid needs something for an old wreck they’re working on, but most of it’s scrap I’m saving.”
Jack wanted to know why, but was too busy staring around. They passed another giant pile of truck doors, all green. He couldn’t help but put his earlier thoughts into words. “I feel like I’m in the place where car parts go to die—sorta like the elephant graveyard.”
The old man chuckled. “If there was a place like that, this would be it.”
The truck finally stopped in front of a garage with five open bays. Jack wondered if the building was original property, or if it had been salvaged too. The area around it was yet another graveyard, this time of bicycles. Piles of handlebars, frames, bike tires, and rusted-through fenders were everywhere. Jack was so focused on taking it all in, he realized Rocky and Wellers were getting out of the truck. He hustled to join them.
Rocky was cognizant of only one thing, and that was the bike sitting in the shadows of the garage’s bay. She’d been trying to get her hands on a Vincent for nearly a year, and the sight of it was so moving, she paused, taking in its shape and unique design before approaching it almost reverently. Seeing past its terrible physical condition and filled with awe, she ran a hand over the rusted bars, the torn and rotting leather seat with its stuffing exposed as if it were made of silk. It was in bad shape. Rust and age obscured the fine curved lines and the once-black engine that had given the formerly beautiful piece of high-powered machinery its name. She’d paid an incredible amount of money for the bike, but once it was back on the road, it would be priceless.
“What do you think?” Freddy asked her softly. His voice broke her mood and brought her back to reality. “Lot of work, but she’ll be gorgeous when I’d done.”
“Going to take a while.”
“I know, but I don’t care.” And she didn’t. Even if the restoration took a year, her dream of owning a Vincent had finally come true. What mattered more was that every minute spent working on it would bring back memories of her father and the Vincent he’d owned during her childhood. In her heart she already sensed him smiling down. “Let’s get the paperwork done so I can take her home.”
In the year Jack had known Rocky Dancer, he couldn’t remember ever seeing her so pleased. To him the bike looked like a candidate for one of Mr. Wellers’s graveyards, but she obviously knew more than he did.
In the office, he waited while the two went over the paperwork. Once everything was finalized, she wrote out a check and handed it over.
The scrap dealer’s old eyes twinkled. “First check for fifty grand I ever held.”
Jack swung to her in surprise and received another Sphinx-like smile. To say he was floored was an understatement. Fifty grand! The inevitable question that followed was: How does the manager of a diner write a check for that much cash? The longer he was around Rocky, the more questions he had.
With the bike loaded and chained down in the bed of the truck, they waved good-bye to Mr. Wellers and drove off.
“So what’s so special about this bike?”
“Other than being the biker Holy Grail, the Shadows were all hand-built by a company called Vincent HRD. The bikes were supposedly inspired by the RAF fighters that flew over the factory during World War II. Less than two thousand were made and they were designed so they could be ridden and maintained by injured soldiers.”
She went on to tell him how the clutch could be operated with only two fingers, and how for its time, the bike sported many breakthrough innovations. “My dad owned one back in the day. Took me for my first ride when I was like four.”
“Four?”
“Yeah. He’d put me behind him on the seat and use a belt to strap me to him until I got big enough to hold on to him on my own. Loved it.”
“Put a four-year-old on a bike these days, and CPS will be at the door.”
“I know. Things were different back then, especially out here.”
“That’s amazing to me. And your mom was okay with it?”
Rocky looked over and wondered how to explain to him about her mother. “My mom committed suicide when I was nine.” She hadn’t meant to begin that way, but the words sort of tumbled out, and now it was too late to take them back.
“Oh, Rock,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged. “Me, too. Are you hungry? I am. How about we stop and get something?” The eyes she looked into were filled with pain and questions, but he didn’t press her for more information, and she appreciated that.
“Sure.”
She swung into the first fast-food place they happened upon, and while they ordered, her admission hung between them like a third person in the cab.
“That’s what you meant the other night when you said growing up out here as a kid was hard.”
“Yes.” She drove the car to the pickup window and took the bags and cups of drinks the kid handed out. She asked him, “Are you in a hurry to get back?”
“I have to meet Trent at four.”
She looked down at her watch. It was nine thirty. “Then how about we park and eat.”
“That’s fine.”
They found a spot in a side lot away from the main door and ate and talked. She told him about her mother, and all the fights she’d gotten into in school because of the illness, and how heartbroken her father became after her mother’s death.
“That had to be hard on you both.”
“It was. Part of the reason why I am the way I am, I guess. Hoping I’m not scaring you off.”
“No, Rock. If anything, it makes me want to hang out with you even more.”
“Really? Why?”
“Because I don’t think you tell every Joe Blow that walks into your life what you just shared with me. That you’d trust me with that—I don’t know. It’s hard to explain, but I want to know everything about you now.”
“I’d like to know a lot more about you, too.”
“Only way to do that is spend more time together. Will you let me take you out?”
“Sure.” She looked over his way. “Happy now?”
“Extremely. How about you?”
“Ditto.”
They stared at each other for a timeless moment, and then Rocky leaned over and they shared a first kiss. When they drew apart, he ran a finger slowly down her cheek. “That was nice.”
“Ditto,” she whispered. “I think we should have our first date right now.”
“And what do you want to do?”
“Let’s go look at trucks.”
He laughed long and hard. “You are something, Rocky Dancer.”
“Yes, I am. Are you game?”
“No man in his right mind would turn down an invitation like that, so yeah, I am. Let’s go.”
Chapter 19
Back in Henry Adams, Bernadine spent the early morning talking with ATF agents and representatives from state and
county law enforcement. The preliminary forensics report left her quietly furious. Her truck had been the flashpoint. Baby had been soaked in gasoline, as had the asphalt directly surrounding it. From there the gas was splashed around in random circles, all the way to the edge of the far lot. Now, standing with Sheriff Dalton in what was left of said lot, he spoke while she listened tensely.
“The perp was apparently waiting in that tall grass over there. When people began leaving the building, he or she lit the tail end of the gas, and the flames worked their way across the asphalt surface until they hit the mother lode.”
“Which was my truck.”
He nodded. “Yours exploded first.”
“So someone was out to kill me.”
“Or screw with you. Not sure. All we know is that your truck was definitely targeted, so we’re assuming the fire was aimed at you—for whatever purpose.”
“Do you think it’s tied to the calls?”
“Possibly. Probably.”
“So your recommendation?”
“I’d get security cameras mounted on every building in town to start, and install a system in your subdivision.”
“Big Brother comes to Henry Adams.”
He didn’t reply, but the grimness in his gaze matched her own. “I want to offer a reward, if it’ll help.”
“Can’t hurt. How much are you thinking?”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
He stiffened.
“If that’s not enough, I’ll throw in another two hundred and fifty thousand. I want this murderer caught, Will.”
“I know—so do we. I’ll get the paperwork started.”
“Anything else I should know? What about the threatening calls I received?”
“They still haven’t gotten to it yet. ATF’s got their canines out in the field, trying to determine if the person left a trail. Other than that, that’s all for right now.”
“Okay. Keep me posted. If you need me for anything, I’ll be at the Dog.”
Tight-lipped, she walked around the yellow crime-scene tape and started up the street to the diner.
A Wish and a Prayer Page 19