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Duncan found the plates and flatware and set out places for three while Vin arranged bacon and eggs on serving plates and produced a cast-iron pot from the oven that turned out to be full of fluffy pancakes. The guy had been cooking for a while.
Just as Vin made a face at the clock and headed on his crutches toward the doorway, the front door of the house opened and shut.
“Sorry!” Phoebe called breathlessly. “I’m here!”
Vin turned to Duncan, and his expression changed. The guy was looking at him like he knew something Duncan should know. It made him feel self-conscious—then he realized he was grinning. Apparently the sound of this girl’s voice, a girl he’d met less than a day ago, made him grin like a dork.
And Vin was letting him know he saw exactly that. Smartass.
But then Phoebe came into the room, and Duncan forgot about Vin.
She was even prettier in the daytime. Her hair was pulled back from her face and had a little static halo, probably from taking her beanie off. Her face was rosy with the cold. She wore a thermal top under another well-worn flannel—this one pink and green—and a heavily faded pair of jeans. On her feet were a huge pair of pink bunny slippers.
She beamed pleasure at him when she saw him standing beside the laden table. “Good morning. Sleep okay?”
“I slept great. You couldn’t have gotten much, though.”
She shrugged that off. “I’m aiming for a nap this afternoon to make up the difference.”
As she came into the room, she slapped hands with Vin and went to the sink to fill her kettle. “I’m glad you hung around till I came back in.”
“I have to be at work at one, but I’m not in a big rush to go, if you’re not in a big rush to get rid of me.”
“I am not,” she assured him as she made tea.
There was some awkward quiet around the table as they all sat and filled their plates, but when Duncan put his first forkful in his mouth and flavor exploded through his head, he swallowed and said, “Damn, bruh. You can cook!”
Both Phoebe and Vin laughed.
“Thank you,” Vin replied. “Glad you like it.”
“You see why I keep him around,” Phoebe teased, turning a snarky look on her friend. Vin simply nodded and dug into his plate.
The ice fully broken, they chatted about incidental stuff at first. Vin talked about his way of making eggs and complained lightly about being ‘gimped up’ by an infection in his stump. Usually he wore a prosthetic and got around just about normally. Phoebe described Smoky’s condition this morning and their ranch hand’s enthusiasm for their new rescue. Then Vin asked about last night, and Duncan and Phoebe told the story in turns.
“Well, that was a helluva night,” Vin observed when the story wound to a close.
Phoebe sighed and stabbed at her pancakes.
“You give any thought to what you’ll do about the truck?” Duncan asked, because he had given it some thought.
Phoebe shuddered. “I know I need to, but I get a big black spot in my head when I try to think how to fix that problem, so I’ve been kicking it down the road this morning. But I promise I won’t abandon it at your station.”
“That’s not why I asked. I’m not worried about that. But I had a thought. I didn’t see a lot of damage to the chassis last night. I’ll know better this afternoon, when I can get a look in the daylight, but I think the rod must’ve blown out downward, or jammed up in the engine. There might be a divot in the expressway somewhere, but maybe nothing on your truck but the engine is fucked.”
Without looking up from her plate, Phoebe made a dejected sound that might have been intended as laugh. “The engine is a pretty crucial part of the truck, though, and I’m sure a whole new engine is way above my price range. My price range is right around a tank of gas. Barely.”
“Yeah, but does it need to be a brand-new engine? The truck’s, what, early-mid 2000s? Close to twenty years old?”
She perked up a bit as hope sparked in her hazel eyes. “It’s a 2002. More than twenty years old. How much would a used engine cost?”
“That depends. Refurbished and sold by a used-parts dealer, probably around fifteen hundred to two grand.”
Vin whistled and Phoebe barked a laugh. “Yeah, no. That is somewhat higher than my full-tank price range.”
Duncan was not dissuaded. “I get that. But there’s a pick-and-pay scrapyard not far from the station, and I could probably find you a decent engine in a wreck there and pull it for about five hundred. The owner is a friend of the club, and we buy shit there all the time, so I could probably get him down even lower. I’d install it for you and fix up anything on it that needs work, no charge.”
“The club?” Vin asked before Phoebe could react to Duncan’s offer.
