Mother Trucker (Crownville Truckers Book 1)

by Moxie Darling

  He also knew he’d tear this entire truck stop apart looking for her if she wasn’t safe in his rig when he got there.

  When he reached the Freight Shaker and didn’t see her outline behind the windshield, his heart skipped a beat. Clenching his jaw, he strode around to the driver’s side and threw open the door, hefting himself onto the step so he could look inside. The cab was empty.

  “Cat,” he called, tossing the Subway bag onto the driver’s seat.

  When the gray tabby didn’t emerge from the sleeper, Clyde knew there was no use in crawling inside to look for it. The cat wasn’t there, and neither was Mae.

  “Dammit,” he growled and hopped back down from the rig, slamming the door. He glared at the surrounding lot. It wasn’t as busy as some he’d seen, but a steady in-and-out of trucks filled the dusty air with gravel crunch and engine rumble. Potbellied drivers ambled here and there, fueling up or checking their rigs. Even with the overhead floodlights, the place was a maze of shadows and trailers. She could be anywhere.

  She could be gone.

  He strode down the length of his trailer. If he couldn’t find her, he’d jump on the CB and track her ass down. Someone was bound to have seen—

  As he rounded the rear of the trailer, he glimpsed a ponytail and long, pale legs.

  A rig drove into his line of vision, and he snarled, but a moment later, the Mack rolled on, opening the way once more.

  And there she was.

  At the edge of the parking lot, separating the property from a soybean field, was a skinny stretch of scraggly grass. Mae walked along it, leading a stiff-tailed Ken on his leash. She was gazing out over the dark field, her face hidden from Clyde, but he could see the way she hugged one arm around herself. She looked uncertain. Vulnerable. Breakable.

  He’d never felt more unqualified in his life.

  Waiting for another rig to roll past, he shoved his hands into his pockets and walked over. The cat noticed him before she did, and it glanced up, vibrating its tail in what Clyde had come to recognize as a greeting. Mae looked over a moment later, sensing the cat’s change in demeanor. When she saw Clyde, he could almost hear her emotional shutters slamming into place.

  “I thought you left,” Clyde said.

  “I did.”

  “Please come back.”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “Mae.”

  She kept walking. “I saw you holding her. I think you’ve made yourself clear.”

  “Saw me …” He shook his head, his voice trailing off as he remembered Lila Jane stumbling … right into his arms. He cursed. “It wasn’t what it looked like.”

  She laughed, and it sounded empty. “It never is.”

  He intercepted her, and she was forced to stop. “Would you just wait a minute?”

  She tried to go around him, but he took Ken’s leash from her before she could stop him.

  Fury flashed in her eyes. “Give it back, Clyde. Now.”

  He tightened his grip on it, the cat too busy sniffing an empty Skoal can in the weeds to notice the change in management. “Not until you hear me out.”

  For a moment, he thought she might lunge at him, but she visibly willed herself to calm down. “Look, it doesn’t matter what happened. We’re not together. You’re a free man.”

  “Dammit, Mae, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said. “Earlier. Before Lila Jane. I just …” Gritting his teeth, he looked over at the parking lot. He wasn’t good at this. “You deserve more.”

  “Boy, she really did a number on you, didn’t she?” she asked, sounding pissed off. Whether at him, Lila Jane, or both, he didn’t know.

  He thought of Lila Jane and all the years he’d spent hating her. “Yeah, she did,” he said. “Which is why I ain’t fit for you.”

  “What makes you think I’m such a prize?” Mae demanded. “I’m homeless. Darn near penniless. And probably wanted for murder.” She shook her head. “I’ve got more baggage than an airport for crying out loud.”

  “And still you’re better than her,” he barked, startling both Mae and Ken. “Better than me. I know what a good woman looks like, Mae. It ain’t got shit to do with the background noise. When I touch you,” he paused, looking at his boots, his jaw flexing as he searched for the right words. “Hell, when I look at you, I feel like I’m getting you dirty.”

  She was quiet for a long time, and when she spoke, her voice had lost its edge. “Clyde.”

  “I want you,” he said. “Wanting you is all I think about. Wanting you and knowing I ain’t good enough for you.”

  “You don’t even know me,” she said quietly.

  “No, but I know me.” He looked at her, wanting her to hear him. “I’ve been on the road since I was eighteen years old, Mae. The only women I’ve touched since Lila Jane have been ones I paid for. Every dime I make goes to Rose. I got no home. I can’t give you babies.” He finally gave Ken’s leash back to her. “I got nothing to offer you. You understand what I’m saying?”

  Her mouth pulled into a pretty frown as she absorbed all he’d said. “Yeah,” she said after a moment. “I think I do. I think you’ve spent your whole life punishing yourself for what happened to Rose and now you refuse to be happy. I think you’ve put me on a pedestal because it’s just another way for you to take your lashings.”

  It was his turn to frown. “That ain’t how it is.”

  “Ain’t it?” she asked. “You spend so much time trying to convince me how unworthy you are that you forget I have a mind of my own. I don’t care about your past any more than you care about mine.”

  He stared at her, his heart inexplicably pounding. “I can’t be what you need.”

  “I’m not asking you to marry me,” she said. “This isn’t an all-or-nothing thing, Clyde.”

  On that account, at least, she was wrong. With her, it would damn sure be all or nothing. He’d known her for two days and he was already out of his mind over her. If they went down this road, she’d be his. End of. “Yeah, it is,” he growled. “You ain’t the kind of woman a man casually fucks.”

  She was the kind of woman a man courted. The kind he built a house for. Settled down with.

  Gave children to.

  All things he could not or would not do.

  Her mouth parted, but she held his gaze defiantly. “And what if I want to be? What if I don’t want anything else from you?”

  He took her by the back of the neck and brought her mouth within a hairsbreadth of his own, making her gasp. “If you want me to fuck you, I will,” he said. “But I’ll be the only one you let between your legs.”

  And there wouldn’t be anything casual about it.

  Her lips trembled, but she said, “You don’t own me.”

  “Not yet,” he agreed.

  And then he kissed her.

  It was a frustrated, angry, so-turned-on-he-couldn’t-think-straight kiss, and it said all the things he couldn’t put into words. She let him kiss her, whimpered into his mouth, and the sound went straight to his balls. God, he loved the way she yielded to him. Loved that he was able to steal the rebellion right off her lips. And he was learning that there was absolutely nothing hotter than firing her up just so he could burn her down.

  “Stay with me,” he said, knowing he had no right to ask it. No right to want it.

  For a moment, her eyes remained closed as if dazed, her thoroughly kissed mouth sweet and damp and parted. He smiled a little and realized his own mouth trembled. When she finally looked at him, she said, “No more pedestal.”

  He gazed at her, marveling at how beautiful she was. “I can’t do that.”

  She sighed, and he punished her with another kiss. Moaning, she strained toward him, her breasts pressing against his chest. He wanted to kiss them, too.

  “Stay with me,” he repeated.

  Doubt lingered in her eyes. “What about Lila Jane?”

  “You saw me catching her,” he explained. “She tripped. That’s all. Trust me when I say if I wanted her,
I could’ve had her.” He ran his thumb over Mae’s bottom lip, loving the softness of it and, like the bastard he was, wondering how it would feel on his cock. “I don’t.”

  She searched his face. “She wants you. I could tell.”

  “She wants someone to take care of her and her kids. That ain’t me.”

  “You didn’t kiss her?”

  “Fuck no,” he said. “I’m too damn worried about kissing you.”

  Her smile was hesitant, but it lit him up inside. “Okay.”

  He closed his eyes, unsettled by how relieved he was. “I don’t know what I’m doing, Mae.”

  “Does anybody?”

  He looked at her. “I don’t want to do wrong by you.”

  “Then don’t,” she said, kissing him this time. Her mouth was gentle, almost shy, but it stole a part of him he didn’t know he still possessed. A part he knew he’d never get back.

  “You’re gonna destroy me,” he whispered against her cheek. “I think you already have.”

  “I am an outlaw,” she said. “It’s kind of my thing.”

  Despite his racing heart, he laughed. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  They were halfway across the parking lot by the time he realized he was still holding her hand.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Pilot Travel Center

  Jackson, Ohio

  Though Mae was so hungry she felt like she could chew on a tire, she stopped him when they reached the passenger’s door, handing him Ken’s leash. “I want to look for a payphone before we go.”

  Her earlier search for one had been derailed by the Lila Jane train.

  He frowned. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Maybe not,” she agreed, looking in her satchel for quarters. “But I need to know what happened at Shifty’s. If Jerry is okay.”

  Though Clyde didn’t look happy about it, he nodded as if he understood. “Don’t be long.”

  “I won’t be.”

  He picked up Ken as one might a radioactive watermelon.

  She tried to hide her smile as she handed Clyde a can of cat food. Her last one. “Here. I’ll see if they have more inside.”

  Holding Ken in one arm, Clyde took the can and looked at it. “What do I do with this?”

  Mae paused and stared at him. “It’s not rocket science.”

  His mouth thinned, and he looked so out of his comfort zone that Mae had to laugh. “His bowl is on the floor in the sleeper. I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told him. “You’ll figure it out.”

  Though he looked unconvinced, he nodded.

  Laughing, Mae closed the flap of her satchel and headed toward the travel center.

  She did, indeed, find some cans of 9Lives inside. After buying enough to tide Ken over for a few days, she went in search of a payphone. She only knew one number, and that was Crystal’s. At least, she hoped it was still hers. Like most working girls, Crystal lived paycheck to paycheck, so to speak, and luxuries like cell phones were at the bottom of the priority barrel. There was every possibility that either the number would be disconnected or belong to someone else entirely by now.

  To Mae’s relief, she discovered a lonely payphone next to the drive-up air compressors. Hurrying over, she dropped in her quarters, crossed her mental fingers, and dialed.

  It rang. And rang. And rang. Her hopes sank. She could call the diner, but there was no telling who would ans—

  “Bobby Ray, if this is you again, I’ll cut your goddamned pencil dick off and feed it to you. I told you not—”

  “Crystal,” Mae interrupted with an exasperated chuckle. “It’s me.”

  There was a pause, and then Crystal asked, “Maybelline? That you?”

  Mae let out a breath. “Yeah.”

  Crystal whistled. “Holy shit, girl. I thought you’d done run off for good.”

  The jury was still out on that. Mae gazed at the gas pumps and asked hesitantly, “How are things there?”

  “Oh, you know,” Crystal said, and Mae could almost see her studying her chipped fingernails. “Just a cock-and-balls smorgasbord all the time around here. You’re missing out.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Mae said dryly. She’d missed Crystal and her filterless mouth.

  “So, where are you anyway?” Crystal asked. “Rox said you finally ditched this ass crack of a town after your shift last night.”

  Mae considered the question. Had the authorities instructed the girls to find out Mae’s location should she try to contact them? Or was Crystal’s curiosity innocent? And Mae didn’t know whether it was bad or good that Crystal didn’t seem to immediately connect Mae’s departure to the trucker’s shooting. Did that mean the whole thing had blown over? Or did it mean Jerry had taken the rap so convincingly that nobody thought to suspect Mae had been involved?

  “I decided to visit my grandma in Topeka,” Mae said finally. She didn’t have a grandma in Topeka, but Crystal didn’t know that.

  If she detected the lie in Mae’s voice, she didn’t let on. “Yeah, makes sense.”

  She left out the now that your mom is dead part, but Mae heard it all the same, and her heart constricted. “Yeah,” she agreed. “How is everyone?”

  “Just the same holes, different dicks,” Crystal said. “You know how it is.”

  In other words, business as usual. Mae laughed and shook her head. “Can’t say that I do.”

  Crystal’s grin was almost audible. “You were always such a prude.”

  “And my holes thank me for it,” Mae said with a grin of her own. Then, hesitating, she asked, “Is Jerry getting on okay?”

  There was a faint smack as Crystal presumably popped her gum, and then she said, “Still scrubbing toilets and looking like a creeper. Would you believe that crazy sumbitch shot a guy not an hour after you left last night?” She laughed as if unable to believe it. “You missed all the action, girlfriend.”

  Mae’s heart pounded. How wrong Crystal was. “Jerry isn’t in jail?”

  Crystal didn’t seem to pick up on the tremor in Mae’s voice. “Nah. Guess he was protecting one of the girls. Heard he used the guy’s own gun to kill him,” she said. “It was kind of badass. Real hero shit.”

  Tears of overwhelming relief melted in Mae’s eyes. Jerry was okay. He wasn’t in jail. He was free.

  Which meant she was free, too.

  She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d wound herself until that moment. The tension inside her untwisted all at once, and she had to sit down on the edge of the sidewalk as her knees gave out. She held the phone to her ear, the cord stretched tight, and managed, “Only in Crownville, right?”

  “Home sweet home.”

  “Which girl did the guy work over?” Mae asked even though she already knew.

  “Don’t know for sure ’cause her statement was confidential or some shit, but we all think it was Roxy.” There was a pause as someone catcalled in the background and Crystal told them to “Come getcha some, big daddy!” then returned to the line as if nothing had happened. “She denies it, but she was black and blue the next day.”

  “But she’s okay?”

  “Still makin’ the money, honey,” Crystal confirmed, smacking her gum for emphasis.

  “Good,” Mae said, doing her best not to sound too emotionally invested. “That’s good. I’m surprised the law handled it as well as they did. Folks from our side of the tracks usually get the short end.”

  “You ain’t kidding,” Crystal snorted. “But turns out that trucker was wanted in a couple other states on rape and sexual battery charges. Jerry did the world and whores everywhere a favor.”

  Mae’s hands shook. So the bastard had hurt other women. Roxy had probably just been one in a long line that he’d verbally and physically abused. It didn’t make Mae feel better about taking a life, but it did go a long way toward making her feel better about taking his in particular.

  “Tell Jerry I said …” Tell him what, exactly? Thanks? It was a pale comparison f
or what she felt. There were no words to describe her gratitude for what he’d done. Or, more accurately, for what he’d been willing to do. Maybe she would’ve received the same clemency from the police that night, and maybe she wouldn’t have. She’d never know. What she did know was that Jerry had gone above and beyond, and she’d be forever in his debt. But all she said was, “Tell him I said goodbye.”

  “Will do. Look, I gotta go. The lot is crawling, and you know how testy Shifty gets if he sees us slacking.”

  Mae grimaced. “Yeah. Hey, tell Roxy hello for me, would you?”

  “Tell her yourself,” Crystal said. “She just walked up.”

  There was murmuring and rustling as the phone changed hands, and a moment later, Roxy’s drawl came on the line. “Maybelline?”

  “Hey, Roxy,” Mae said with a smile. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

  “You, too, sugar. Hold on.” She paused, and Mae heard the distinct sound of stilettos clacking across concrete as Roxy presumably found somewhere more private to talk. When she spoke again, the background noise was quieter. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Mae said and meant it. “It’s been a crazy couple days, but yeah, I’m okay.”

  Roxy sounded relieved. “I’ve been worried about you, kid. Run off with some trucker you just met. Your mama would have a conniption.”

  Mae smiled. “No, she wouldn’t. She’d think it was romantic.”

  Roxy chuckled, and then drew on her cigarette, blowing the smoke out before saying, “Yeah, she probably would. He decent?”

  “He is.”

  “You coming home?”

  Mae thought about it. When she’d first run off with Clyde, it had been about survival. Now? The road was still calling her. She didn’t know where it would lead, but she wanted to find out. For her ma. For herself. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good. Run like the wind, babe,” she said. “Don’t look back.”