“Not until the kids turn eighteen and leave for college,” Harris said, referring to the three kids that Cassidy and Torque had adopted.
“How’s your play coming?” Kelly asked, pushing aside her clipboard and taking the empty sippy cup one of the twins handed her.
“It’s not,” Harris said.
“What?” Kelly and Cassidy froze, staring at Harris.
Cassidy took Harris’s hand across the countertop. “You’ve been setting this up for months. You’ve gotten permission to use the theater, the hospital is planning on you—they even made you your own room.”
“I’m just going to have to find something else to do to raise money. Daddy Warbucks got an off-Broadway offer, and I don’t blame him for not turning it down.”
“Camila was thrilled about playing Annie. Have you told her?” Kelly finished filling the sippy cup up and handed it back to the twin.
“No. I cancelled last week’s practices, but I just couldn’t cancel the whole play. I spent the weekend trying to figure out who could play Daddy Warbucks, I even called a few people...”
Kelly and Cassidy exchanged a look. Both of them knew that Harris hated talking on the phone. So it was a pretty big deal that she’d not only made personal calls, but that she’d been asking for a favor.
“It’s no use. Everyone is too busy or not interested. I don’t blame them for not wanting to get up in front of people. Directing and producing it was more than I could handle anyway. I’m such a dreamer sometimes.” Her back slumped, and she had to refrain from putting her head down on the counter.
“Well, I’d do it for you if I could.” Kelly slipped over and took Harris’s other hand.
“Me too. I could do Daddy Warbucks easily, but you might get tired of all my kids running around the practice.” Cassidy grinned and picked up the twin that was whining at her feet. Nissa, Harris thought. They were hard to tell apart.
“Yeah, I know you guys would help me if you could. You just can’t be men, and right now I need a man.” She grinned a little as she said it, and Turbo’s face popped into her mind.
She’d been thinking about him a lot since they spent Friday evening at the nursing home. She’d always thought he was a big flirt, and he did flirt shamelessly with the ladies in the home, but he’d almost seemed like he wanted to run from the flirty nurse, who was his age and let him know loud and clear that she was available. Harris had found it kind of funny to see him shifting and uncomfortable, but she wasn’t sure she would have noticed if Pap hadn’t said that Turbo usually ran from women, not into them. After she’d thought about it—and she had to admit she’d thought about that almost as much as she’d thought about what to do about her play production—she’d realized that Turbo was happy-go-lucky and always surrounded by girls and boys in high school, but he’d never been with just one girl. Not that she knew of. Not that she’d kept track of him over the last decade or so.
“I’d even say I’d try to get Tough to do it, but our marriage is kind of new to be straining it in that way. Not to mention, he’s not exactly the kind of guy who loves attention. I think you can relate.” Kelly gave Harris a knowing look. Harris had to nod. She, herself, had no desire to get on that stage. But they had all the female parts covered.
“Torque might.” Cassidy gave her daughter a kiss and set her back down on the floor. “I know he wouldn’t want to, but he might do it to help the kids.”
“I could probably get enough donations to get the library started without the money from the play if I pounded the pavement and hit up all the normal donors, but I really wanted to raise awareness of it in the community, to get the community behind it, and a play would do it.” Harris dropped her chin in her hand. “Do you really think Torque might play the part?”
Cassidy smiled, but it wasn’t filled with confidence. “I’ll try.”
TURBO DOWNSHIFTED, feeling the smooth bump as the cogs caught. He depressed the accelerator, the RPMs hiked, and all five hundred horses hit the ground, pulling. The combination of power and torque vibrated through the steering wheel as his rig pulled the steep mountain road on State Route 22. He grinned. The old girl was pulling her guts out.
Checking the temperature, he flipped the fan on manual, feeling the rig slow even more as it pulled power from the engine to run the big blades.
As much as he’d love to admire the crisp blue sky and orange-frosted green leaves, the mill in Gettysburg was out of corn and needed the twenty-eight ton he had in his belt trailer in order to resume production.
“Come on, baby. Don’t make me drop it in the low side.” He fingered the lever on the shifter. Usually he could crest Chickory Mountain in the high side of the tranny, but today she had her tongue hanging on the ground and still felt sluggish.
He’d just decided he’d need to downshift when a crack like a gunshot split the air. The cab bucked and jumped. The hood of his long nose Pete jerked up. He yanked the wheel to the right, but the motor sputtered and died, and the truck stumbled to a stop.
Turbo swore. He hadn’t had time to get off the road, which might have been a good thing since the berm was barely wide enough for a skinny lady’s shadow, and he had a line of cars behind him longer than Sunday’s sermon. He swore again before yanking the yellow and red brake knobs out and checking for four-wheelers before opening his door and jumping down out of his cab.
He wasn’t a mechanic, had never had the patience it took, but he didn’t need the intelligence of a tree stump to know his motor had just lost her cookies.
Torque could fix it, but he had to get it there. Tough’s tow truck was nowhere near big enough to haul a rig. But first, he needed to set up some safety measures so he didn’t cause an accident.
A four-wheeler went flying around, close enough that its side mirror almost brushed Turbo’s arm. The driver waved with one finger and laid on his horn for good measure. Like Turbo had chosen to have his motor blow up here and actually wanted to be broken down in the middle of the road. He clenched his fist to keep his own fingers from an improper return salute and opened the dog box where he kept his orange cones.
He set the cones up while several kind motorists began directing traffic so the more patient four-wheelers stuck on the hill behind him could continue on with their life.
After calling Triumph Towing, owned by a friend of his from high school, he called Torque as he unlatched the hood and pulled it back. Ouch. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain in his chest to subside. It didn’t, just migrated to his head.
“Yeah?” Torque answered on about the twentieth ring.
“I’m sitting on the upside of Chickory. She threw a rod through the side of the block.”
Torque swore.
“Yeah. Thing’s junk. Actually dented the side of the hood. I’ll need Tough to get on that, too.”
“Bring it in.”
“I’ve got the hook coming. Just wanted to let you know, make sure you’ll have time for it.”
“I’m swamped. But you’re blood, and I’ll make time. Plus, you won’t have any problems tearing it apart. You won’t need me until it’s time to put it back together.”
“Yeah.” Turbo didn’t have the patience it took to put a motor back together with the precision it required. He was always better when he was moving. Active.
“If you’ve got Billy coming, you’d better tear the driveshaft apart. Last truck he towed in here needed a new rear end once I got the motor overhauled.”
“Frig.” Just what he didn’t want to do. Crawl under his truck in the middle of the highway. He wasn’t even sure he had the right tools.
“Better do it yourself. Billy swore up and down he took it apart, but all the gears in the rear were stripped clean.”
“Got it.” He got off the phone with Torque and made one more call to a buddy with a rig who could come and take his trailer and unload it. The Gettysburg mill was still waiting for their feed.
By the time Turbo had the driveshaft undone, the police were ther
e, with their lights flashing to keep the cars alert so his truck didn’t get rear-ended, and so no one ended up hurt out of the deal.
It took another couple of hours to unhook his truck and get his buddy’s rig under his trailer. It was dark when they pulled into Torque’s garage, which was lit up like a high school football field on Friday night. Oddly, both his older brothers, Torque and Tough, stood in front of the big, open garage doors, so Billy stopped the tow truck in front of the right bay. Turbo hopped out.
“Hey, guys. I appreciate this.” He smacked Tough on the shoulder, who didn’t say anything. That wasn’t unusual, since Tough never did say much.
“Well, we’ve got a little problem,” Torque said.
Turbo blinked. Was Torque so busy he wasn’t going to be able to stick a new motor in after all? But, no, looking over their shoulders at the empty bay in the garage, he should have been able to just pull in...
“What’s up?” Turbo decided to play along. They were probably messing with him after all the times he’d goofed off with them.
“Our wives took us aside.”
“Yeah?” Turbo had to admit his brothers, both of them, had loosened up and smiled a lot more often now that they were happily married. He was glad for them. Really.
“What do your wives have to do with my truck?” He looked at Tough. Surely Tough’s wife, Kelly, wasn’t still holding that whole kidnapping the pastor at their wedding thing against him? How was Turbo supposed to know the guy was allergic to peanuts? He would have washed his trailer out after hauling that last load of peanut shells if he’d known. Or found a different place to stow the preacher.
Plus, he felt bad, he really did, but come on, it wasn’t like the guy died or anything. Just because their wedding was delayed for a few hours while the ambulance came and, well, okay, he might have popped his head in the dressing room and told Kelly that it was Tough on the back of the ambulance, and yeah, maybe he might have given the AMS driver a hundred-dollar bill to run the lights and the siren while they loaded the preacher. But that was actually more of a favor to Kelly because it kept her guests entertained while they waited.
He adjusted his ball cap and put on his best innocent look, which included flashing his dimples. He pulled his cheeks even deeper when he saw Kelly and Cassidy coming out of the office in the back. Hell hath no fury like a woman... He couldn’t remember the rest of that little saying, but the first part seemed to be the applicable thing in this situation.
“Cassidy and Kelly, my two most favorite sister-in-laws in the whole world. Hey, great to see you!”
Both had their arms crossed over their chest. Neither smiled.
Turbo swallowed and tried again. “Cassidy, I was hoping that you and Torque were going to let me babysit this weekend. I just love spending time with my angelic nieces and nephew.” Okay, he might be laying it on a little thick, because Cassidy’s lips tightened.
“I still haven’t gotten all the peanut butter off the ceiling from the last time,” Cassidy complained.
“And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t coincidence that the rinse hose on the sink was wire tied open,” Torque, the traitor, added.
“My best party dress, dry clean only, got soaked.” Cassidy crossed her arms over her chest. “And I happened to be holding a sleeping twin when I turned the water on to rinse my hands and almost drowned before I got it shut back off.”
Turbo rubbed the back of his neck, which was burning. “Yeah. About that. I think that was your son. I don’t typically have wire ties on me.”
“Jamal said you got them from the drawer in my office.” Torque’s arms remained folded across his chest.
“He also said that you used Velcro on the dining room chairs to keep the twins in their seat.” Cassidy’s eyes were narrowed in a way that made Turbo’s entire insides squirm like worms in a bucket.
“Which, to be fair, Cassidy and I both thought was a brilliant idea and we now have it on every chair...”
Cassidy bumped Torque’s shoulder with her own. “But that’s beside the point.”
Torque wiped every trace of humor off his face. “Right. Completely beside the point.”
“The point is,” Kelly said with a level look, “My wedding was delayed, we were late for our flight, and when we finally got on the plane with thirty seconds to spare, we removed twenty-five pounds of lead from our carry-ons. Each.”
“I can explain...” So, his innocent face was starting to feel like plastic melting in the sun. His dimples were definitely not working on these two women.
“Yeah, I bet.” Kelly’s foot tapped on the cement. He hadn’t thought either of them were angry at him. They’d laughed at the time.
“I’d let you squirm, but Billy wants to be paid so he can drop your truck,” Tough finally spoke.
Great. That sounded like a subject change he could go with. “Yeah, I’ve got my checkbook in my briefcase.”
“But...” Tough smiled. It looked sinister. “Where he unhooks it is up to you.”
“Huh? Oh, well, right in this bay is fine...”
“No.” Cassidy narrowed her eyes. “You’re not getting off that easily. You think it’s hilarious to play your numerous pranks.”
“And they really are funny,” Kelly added. Cassidy elbowed her. It wasn’t hard to tell which one was the lawyer.
“No weakness,” Cassidy whispered.
Kelly nodded sharply and squared her shoulders. “We’re not letting your brothers do one thing to your truck until we get payback.”
“Okay,” he said, a little uncertain. He glanced over at the hose. He didn’t really want to get wet, but that would be an easy one. They could squirt him until they felt better.
“So you agree?” Cassidy demanded.
His eyes narrowed. Something wasn’t right. “To what?”
“Tough isn’t going to touch your hood...” Kelly began, in a tone that made the hair on the back of Turbo’s neck stand up.
“And Torque isn’t going to even put your truck in his garage...” Cassidy added in the exact same tone.
They left their sentences dangling. “Yeah?” he prompted.
“Until you agree to play Daddy Warbucks in Harris’s production of Annie.” Cassidy spoke sounding like the lawyer she was.
If a trapdoor had opened under his feet and he’d fallen into a pool of used motor oil, he couldn’t have been more surprised.
“What?”
“You heard us.” Kelly said, her lips twitching, probably at the gobsmacked expression on his face. “We’re not letting your brothers do a thing for you until we’ve gotten payback. And that’s it. Daddy Warbucks, or no deal.”
Turbo called back his dimples and used the sweet, low tone that had always gotten his tough-as-nails grandma to give him anything he wanted. That she could afford. “Girls.”
Their faces hardened.
He held a hand up. “Ladies. Ladies, please. I completely agree with you. You absolutely owe me, and I can take it as well as I give it, but...”
“No buts.”
“Guys,” he appealed to his brothers. “You’re not seriously allowing your wives to rule the roost?”
Tough lifted one eyebrow; the rest of his body didn’t move. “You didn’t have to run across Pittsburgh International Airport at a dead sprint with fifty pounds of lead in your carry-on bags.”
“I’m the one who stayed up all night with my daughter who was wide awake after being sprayed with freezing cold water.” Torque tilted his head. “How’d you get the water to come out of the hose dark blue?”
“Objection. Off the subject,” Cassidy said.
“Later,” Turbo mouthed to Torque.
“Okay, so I’d love to be in this play.” Turbo hesitated, but his nose didn’t grow from the outrageous lie. “But even I know that Daddy Warbucks was old and—” he paused dramatically “—bald.” He lifted his hat. “Not bald. Sorry.”
“I can remedy that. In fact, I’d take sadistic pleasure in pulling your hair out, st
rand by strand.”
“Kelly, really. After all we’ve been through together?”
“The stress of thinking my husband was on his way to the hospital on our wedding day gave me selective amnesia. I can’t remember any good thing you’ve ever done.”
“Your wedding was six months ago. Grudge much?” Turbo slapped his leg. Seriously.
“I think he needs to be in two productions.” Cassidy said, one finger tapping her chin.
Kelly’s eyes brightened. “An opera. Definitely one needs to be an opera.”
Turbo wrapped his hands around the back of his neck and flexed his shoulders, trying to work out the frustration. He hated it when he got stuck in predicaments like this that he couldn’t weasel out of. “You can’t make me do this.”
“Then you’ll have to find someone else to fix your truck.” Cassidy’s tone brooked no argument.
Turbo dropped his arms and kicked the cement. “Fine.”
“Excuse me.” Billy took off his greasy ball cap and nodded to the ladies. “Relevant info here. Every garage in this area is working on a four-week backlog. The economy’s booming, and skilled labor is hard to come by. You’ll be lucky if your rig is back on the road by hunting season.”
Turbo’s stomach sank to the floor. But then his natural optimism took over. Fine. He’d agree to be in the play. Then he’d just cause such a ruckus that Harris would rather hire the devil than have him continue.
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
“If, for any reason, you wuss out of the play, I will personally take a sledgehammer to the exact spot on the hood that I’m going to fix.” Tough’s expression was dead serious, and he never wasted words.
“I will spend an entire night if necessary taking out the motor mounts, so the next time you drive your truck, your motor falls out.” Torque’s dark eyes glowered, reminding Turbo that he had spent ten years in the pen.
Kelly bit her lip, and Turbo felt a faint stirring of hope in his chest. She looked up at her husband. “I forgot it’s a musical. Does Turbo sing?”
Tough lifted a shoulder. “I don’t typically run with twenty-five pounds of lead on my back, but I figured it out.”
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