by Sable Hunter
“Do you have a spare?”
“I do. Regrettably, it’s one of those donut jobs, but it’ll do until I can get a better tire. And again, I appreciate this so much.”
“It’s my job,” he muttered as he spied her small car. “Damn, that flat is as flat as a flitter.” He knelt to get a closer look. “Hell, you were right. I’m afraid your…” About that time, his cell phone rang. “Hold on.” He seldom got calls at night, not unless there was a wreck on the interstate. When he saw it was his home number, he felt a prickle of unease. “What’s wrong, Ms. Bernice?”
The slight tone of panic in Jonah’s voice brought Delaney up short. “If you need to go…”
He held his hand up for her to be quiet.
Delaney did so and even over the sound of the rain, there was no missing the voice on the other end of the line.
“I’m leaving, Jonah. I can’t do this anymore.”
“Now, Ms. Bernice, I know I’m late.” He shook his head. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“It’s not just the fact that you’re late. Again. I just can’t handle Mr. Callan any longer. He won’t listen to me. We were in the kitchen tonight and I turned my back and he started throwing dishes again. Even worse, he tried to leave tonight. When I went to stop him, he pushed past me and made me fall. I’m sorry. But this is it. I’m finished.”
“God, Ms. Bernice, don’t say that. I need you. How can I do my job…?”
“That’s not my problem, Jonah. Put him in a home, there’s places for people like him.”
“I can’t.” He didn’t have the money and if he turned his father over to the state, he was afraid they’d lose the house and all of the savings. “The property’s in his name.” No use explaining this to someone who’d already made up their mind.
“Good luck. Are you on your way now?”
“I’ll be there in a half hour.”
“I’ll wait on the porch.”
“Fuck!” He slammed his phone down on his leg. “Now, what am I going to do?”
“I’m sorry.” Delaney felt so bad. “If I hadn’t kept you...”
“Oh, it was bound to happen. It’s not your fault.” He stared at her tire. “I’m sorry. I can’t fix this tonight. It’s not just the tire, your wheel is damaged.”
“Yea, I was afraid of that. Don’t worry. I’ll get it fixed here in the morning.”
He stood and wiped his face. “I’d say I would work on it tomorrow, but I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to do until I find someone to help me with my dad.” Easier said than done. People willing to sit with Alzheimer patients for near minimum wage were few and far between. “Hell…” Jonah didn’t know what to do.
Delaney raised up on her tiptoes, about to do something she swore she’d never do again. “Uh, well…seeing as how we’re both in a tight spot. I have a proposition for you.”
Chapter Two
“You’re propositioning me?”
Bam! Sex.
His mind went straight to sex and his body followed along quite willingly.
“What kind of proposition?” He would’ve fixed her tire for a nominal fee. The offer of her body would fetch an engine overhaul at the very least.
“Well…I’ll be honest.”
“I’d appreciate that, for sure,” he stated in a hoarse voice.
“Since I can’t get on the road, I was going to spend the night in my car and…that makes me nervous.” She didn’t go into detail about the guys who accosted her. He didn’t have time to listen. “So, I need a place to stay for the night. And you need…”
“I’ll take it.” A wild night. A blowjob. A good lay.
“Well, you haven’t heard what I’m offering yet,” she giggled nervously.
“It doesn’t really matter, you need a place to stay, and I’ve got…” An empty bed and an aching Johnson.
Delaney adjusted the hat on her head, so the stream of water didn’t run right down in front of her face. “I have experience taking care of patients like your Dad. I’ll be glad to watch him until you can find someone else.”
Wham!
Jonah was jerked back to earth. Wrong kind of proposition. “Oh. Well.” Hell. “Sure, that would be great.” He slipped on the rain poncho. “Ms. Bernice didn’t stay with us overnight. She would leave when I came home.”
“Oh. Hmmm.” She cleared her throat. She wasn’t sure what to say. “I can’t rent a place until I earn some money. So…” Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“No. No. I was just thinking out loud.” He hurriedly amended his stance. This whole situation seemed surreal. “We have room for you…if you don’t think it’s inappropriate. I mean, you’ll be perfectly fine. Safe.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure. I’m not some kind of creep.”
“No. I wasn’t suggesting that.” She felt completely flustered. “I mean, I don’t want to put you out. If you’d rather, I can be on my way as soon as my vehicle is drivable.”
Jonah held up his hands in surrender. “Look, I’m not crazy. You’ll be doing us a favor. We’ll work out the details as we go.”
Sounded good to her. “Great!” Delaney bounced on her heels. “You won’t be sorry. I’m good with old people and kids. And I don’t take up much room.” This would beat the heck out of sleeping in her car and worrying if those guys would return. “Let me get my bags.”
“Bags?” More than one? Despite needing help, Jonah couldn’t help but feel the tiniest bit steamrolled. Things were happening almost too fast for him to process.
“Yea, I’m afraid someone will break in and take them if I just leave everything in my car,” she explained as she pulled two rolling cases from the back seat. “I know it looks like a lot, but this is all the stuff I have in the world.”
“Well, that’s fine. They aren’t very big.” He took them from her to carry to his truck. “You’ll have to hold the cat.”
“Oh, I don’t mind at all.” Delaney waited for him to unlock the door and move some items from the front seat to the back. When she climbed in, she picked up the pasteboard box and shimmied under it. “Hey, Tommy.” She smiled as she stroked the soft kitten. “We’ll need to fix him a sandbox when we get home.”
“Hmmm.” Jonah was noticing all the ‘we’ stuff and calling his place ‘home’. If he hadn’t been so poleaxed by the happenings of the last hour, he might question the mixed feelings storming through his chest. “So, why El Paso?”
“Distance. I wanted to put as many miles as possible between my past and my future.”
“I hear you.” Most people didn’t have that luxury. He sure didn’t. Not anymore.
As he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the interstate, Delaney took one last look at her poor crippled car. “Wow, you never know what a day will bring, do you?” When she pulled into the truck stop a few hours before, she never expected to be going home with a handsome man to take care of his ailing father. The moment the thought entered her head, a sense of panic filled her.
Was she crazy?
After the events of the day, most would think she’d be concerned about putting her faith and trust in a man she didn’t know. As illogical as that might be, she wasn’t worried about her safety with Jonah Callan. “Sleepy kitty,” she murmured as she stroked the tiny creature’s soft fur. Any man who’d be kind and gentle to something so small was no threat to her. No, her trepidation was firmly rooted in the idea of taking on the role of caregiver again. She’d spent literally years of her life tending to people who couldn’t care for themselves. Did she want to do it again? Did she have a choice?
Not at the moment. No.
“Life is definitely full of surprises.” He’d never expected in a million years he’d be taking a woman home with him tonight. A woman to whom he was extremely attracted.
Delaney pretended to watch the road. In actuality, she kept her eyes on Jonah as much as possible. He wa
s magnetic. Bigger than life. “So, is your mom…?”
“She passed away when I was fourteen.” He sighed. “I loved her with all my heart.”
“Did your Dad ever remarry?”
Jonah snorted. “Oh, yea. Claudette was the reason Dad and I fell out. I left home at sixteen and didn’t come back until he got sick.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.” Delaney let the silence hang between them for a moment. “So, tell me about your dad and what to expect.”
With one arm propped on the window ledge, his thick fingers tapping his lips, he shook his head. “Well, my father is only fifty-eight years old. Like I mentioned, he suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s. He was diagnosed by the VA about a year and a half ago. Younger and stronger than most patients with his condition, he’s harder to handle. Circumstances prohibit me from putting him in a home. For one thing, he asked me not to – and second, he’d lose everything if I did. I might be willing to risk that, if I thought there was a chance it would help him.” He sighed loudly. “But I don’t. I’ve read horror stories of how folks like him are treated in those places. My dad loves the land, he would curl up and die if he had to spend twenty-four/seven in some small room with bars. He might as well be in prison, it would be the same thing.”
“I understand. My grandmother was diagnosed with dementia. I took care of her for four years. We kept her at home too.”
“Well, you do understand,” he muttered with a bit of relief in his voice. “He takes a few pills every day for memory loss. I’m not sure they help.”
“No problem. You’ll just have to tell me his routine and what you expect. I’ll be glad to take care of him until you make other arrangements.”
“I’ll pay you what I was giving Bernice. It’s not much…”
Delaney held up her hand. “You’re offering me a place to stay. I’m not going to be picky about the money.”
“Well, we’ll reevaluate things as we go along. How’s that?” He stole a glance at the pretty woman who was fast getting under his skin. “I’ll come pick your car up first thing in the morning. No use paying Roy for something I can do.”
Relieved, Delaney thanked him. “Perfect.” She wouldn’t have to spend the last bit of money in her pocketbook.
Jonah angled a glance at her. “Well, we’ll see how perfect it all is. You might just throw up your hands and quit the first rattle out of the box,” he added dryly.
“While I was taking care of my grandmother, I also tended my little brother who is autistic and my mother who suffered from severe anxiety disorder. I doubt there’s anything your dad can do that would surprise me.”
“Wow. Maybe not. Sorry about your trouble.” He could certainly sympathize. “Sounds like you do know what you’re doing. Are you certified…?”
She cut of his question with a wry laugh. “I’m certified as a massage therapist and an elementary educator. I only used my caregiving skills to take care of my family. Although, they do say there’s no substitute for experience, which I have in abundance. Was your current help licensed or whatever?”
“No. I just thought I’d ask.” He chuckled, putting on his blinker to turn south off the interstate. “A massage therapist, huh?” Suddenly, all he could think about was how it would feel for Delaney to put her hands all over his body.
“What? Do you enjoy massages?”
“I don’t know. I never had one.”
“Aww, I’ll give you one sometimes – if you like,” she offered, not minding the thought of getting her hands on his gorgeous body. “Oh!” Grabbing onto the dash, she clutched the kitten’s box tighter as the wrecker swerved a bit.
“Sorry.” Jonah cleared his throat. “Rough spot in the road.” Lie. He’d run off the pavement. Her suggestion about giving him a massage caused his whole body to jerk with joyful anticipation.
“Do we have far to go?”
“Just a few more miles. We’ll turn off 27 onto Center Point River Road.” He drove in silence for a few moments, then ventured to a hard topic. “There is something you should know about my father.”
“Oh, really?”
Jonah let out a long sigh. “He is lucid at times, almost normal. But…sometimes he thinks he’s someone else.”
“He’s schizophrenic?”
“No, I don’t think so. He just seems to assume another identity.”
“Who does he think he is?”
“John Wayne.”
This surprised Delaney. “John Wayne, the actor?”
Letting out a long sigh, he rubbed the palm of his right hand up and down his thigh. “Yea, or one of the characters the actor portrayed. He makes things difficult sometimes. Well…you’ll see.”
“Okay.” Delaney thought this was sad. “The human brain does strange things trying to cope with a reality they can’t deal with. My grandmother’s short-term memory went first, then she began living in her own world. One day she was convinced she’d been arrested, and her bedroom was a jail cell.” She watched the side of the road to see the moon reflecting in water. “We’re passing a stream of some kind. I bet this is pretty.”
“That’s the Guadalupe. Our place is on Turtle Creek which runs into the river not far from here. We’ve got a place on the water where a person can swim or fish, it’s pretty nice.”
“Sounds like it.” She was beginning to get nervous. “I hope your dad likes me.”
Her uncertain tone amused Jonah. “What’s not to like?” Jonah thought she was as cute as a button.
“Ha! You don’t know me very well,” she teased. “I always have to be doing something. I’ve been told I’m exhausting.”
Jonah hid a smile. He could imagine being exhausted by her – in a very good way. “You’re a kind, honest woman. You proved that when you gave me back that five hundred dollars.”
She dismissed his comment with a wave of her hand. “Oh, anybody would’ve done the same thing.”
“I beg to differ.”
“Besides, my motivation might have been to get to know you. After all, you’re a very handsome man.”
“Am I?”
His quick question made her giggle. “I’ll never tell.” Feeling lighthearted, she stroked the kitten again. “You need to remember to cash your ticket in. You should’ve done that tonight. I guess I distracted you.”
True. With her heart-shaped face and curvy body, she was a major distraction. “I don’t buy a ticket but once in a blue moon and the few times I’ve won, I like to hold onto the ticket for a couple of days. Once I cash it in, it’s gone.” He shrugged. “I have bills.”
“Sure. I understand.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “The truck on the back of the wrecker, are you taking it to the junkyard?”
“No, I picked it up in a junkyard.” Jonah chuckled. “Actually, I’ve been asked to restore the old pick-up to its former glory as a birthday present for a local rancher.”
“How neat. You must be very talented.”
Jonah slowed down as he came to a curve in the road. “I’m passable. I want to do a good job on this though, the McCoys are connected.”
“This job could lead to more business, is that it?” The lights from a passing car illuminated his face. Delaney’s heart raced at the sight. Keeping her mind on work and off this man wasn’t going to be easy.
“I’m hoping. I do quite a bit of work for Tebow, that’s the McCoy’s ranch. Machinery maintenance, mostly. My first job for them was restoring a motorcycle for one of the brothers, Isaac. We met a couple of years back on a poker run in a tiny town called Luckenbach.”
“What in the world is a poker run?”
Jonah smiled, thinking he hadn’t talked so much in many a day.
“A motorcycle ride to raise money for a cause. The riders have to stop at five or so checkpoints, drawing a playing card at each stop. The aim is to have the best hand at the end of the run. Of course, winning is purely a matter of chance, it’s not a race. In our case, the c
ause was for a family who’d lost everything in a fire.”
“Worthy cause.” She sat up straighter when she saw him put on the blinker. The rain was dying down to a drizzle. “So, you have a motorcycle.”
“Yep. A Harley. An old one I restored. I used to ride with the Raiders.”
Intriguing. “What’s the Raiders?”
“A motorcycle club, I even lived on their compound out near San Angelo. My role was keeping everybody’s hogs on the road. I only came home because my father got sick.” And because Tressie messed up things between him and Trick.
“Wow. I’m impressed. I’ve never ridden a motorcycle. I bet it would be fun.” She stopped talking as the headlights revealed their destination. The house looked to be an older bungalow with a big front porch. To the right sat a huge oak tree and to the left was another weathered building with a faded sign over a double bay door which read CALLAN AND SON. “We’re here.”
“As you can see, it’s not much.”
“Looks comfortable to me. Doesn’t take a lot to make me happy.” She couldn’t help but feel a bit of anticipation at this new adventure.
“Well, I’m glad of that. Let me get as close as I can so we won’t get soaked making our way into the house.” While Jonah eased the big wrecker as near to the porch as he could, he couldn’t help but have doubts about this whole thing. “You’re going to have your hands full. I hope you realize that.”
“Oh, yea. I do.” She adjusted the rain hat on her head. “I’ll carry Tommy.” Delaney gathered the cat up in her arms and slipped him beneath her coat. “Don’t want to get his little head wet.”
“Tommy, huh. Appropriate name. I’ll get your luggage.” He opened the truck door as the sound of a screen door banging drew Jonah’s attention.
“About time! The rain drove me inside,” Ms. Bernice called, clearly irritated. She held onto the railing of the steps as she moved carefully down the stairs, her large purse hanging off her arm. “He made a mess in there and I didn’t clean it up. You can mail me my check.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am.” Jonah watched the heavy-set woman as she moved past him. “I hope he didn’t hurt you.”